If I Touched the Earth
The Aurora Borealis commonly known as the northern lights is a mesmerizing and captivating sight to behold, so beautiful that I just want to touch it and feel it.
Could it harm me? Your problem won't be the ionized gas, it'll be that the air pressure is close to zero.
Also, aurora are very diffuse, with at most a few glowing molecules per square centimeter. I'm not sure at that density that you could tell you were actually in something. If you're in a spacesuit to survive the lack of oxygen, you might worry about the high-energy electrons that sometimes make it through to those altitudes, but fundamentally your problem is that you won't really be "touching the aurora" because you're in a space-suit and you can't really see that you're in it.
Even the extremely dim light of the aurora is accumulated from massive volumes of air. This means that a small volume of air emits almost no light by itself. If you were in the middle of a filament you might not even know it! Likely it would be visible as increased local skyglow, but would be invisible against the Earth.
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Secondly, the aurora are essentially photon emissions from nitrogen and oxygen molecules, so you can't really touch it as much as you can 'touch' a sunbeam. Even the gas that emits the photons is extremely tenuous. The aurora is emitted between 90 and km in altitude i.
From this document it seems that going to a polar orbit only increases the radiation levels by about 10x compared to a typical medium-inclination orbit, so not enough to be immediately dangerous but you wouldn't want to put your space station in a polar orbit. This is the home of Lowell Observatory, where astronomers first discovered evidence that the universe is expanding; Meteor Crater, where Apollo astronauts trained for the moon; and Native American tribes with their own ancient, rich ways of relating to the cosmos.
With the personal, poetic style of the very best literary nature writing, Don Lago explores how these landscapes have offered humans a deeper sense of connection with the universe. While most nature writing never leaves the ground, Lago is one of the few writers who has applied it to the universe, seeking ties between humans and the astronomical forces that gave us birth. Nowhere else in the world is the link between earth and sky so powerful.
Lago witnesses a solar eclipse over the Grand Canyon, climbs primeval volcanos, and sees the universe in tree rings. Read more Read less. Add both to Cart Add both to List. One of these items ships sooner than the other. Buy the selected items together This item: Where the Sky Touched the Earth: Ships from and sold by Amazon.
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Intimate History of Shooting Stars. University of Nevada Press; 1 edition February 1, Language: Don't have a Kindle?
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Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 1 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. I don't believe this answer is accurate.
If I understand correctly what Wikipedia is telling us about the mass of the star. I think it's like a super-Jupiter Behrens Jun 27 '17 at JamesJenkins OP asked about getting burned; I answered this part. Loren Pechtel 5, 10 Innovine 1, 5 Carbon is also made in stars non super-nova stars , isn't it?
So you're made of star stuff even if you don't have a gold ring. But a ring that was made in a massive exploding star is cool. This answer doesn't address the "without burning" facet of the question, but I think it's a valid perspective to take, and one that OP might not have thought of.
Why the Buddha Touched the Earth
I don't think it deserves downvotes. I think gold is mostly formed in neutron star collisions. Makes my wedding ring extra cool.
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