A procrastination in of itself
Actually just checked the comments, the guys an authorised launch photographer.
I don't know why everyone thinks that Reddit folks are all basement dwellers, the "pic from my workstation" challenge got won by a crewman on the ISS.
edited 12th Jun '16 6:05:09 PM by Silasw
βAnd the Bunny nails it!β ~ Gabrael βIf the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.β ~ Cyran
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Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Jupiterian Local
I assume they meant the ISS "pic from my workstation" entry.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
A procrastination in of itself
That's here[1]
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Oh god, thank you. Of course it's Chris Hadfield.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
So it turns out the Earth kind of has an asteroid orbiting it.
From what I can gather, it's not so much "orbiting the earth" as it is orbiting the sun and having it's path perturbed by the earth in a regular fashion, and it is rather tiny (no more than 91 meters across). So NASA isn't calling it a second moon.
Given it's small size and the fact it's already kind of orbiting earth, I wonder if it would be a prime candidate for an asteroid retrieval mission.
I think I already read about this somewhere
Grr... <3
The earth has lots of these little buggers. They are not real moons.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Aten asteroids is apparently the official category for them.
Never Trust
But are they exploitable, that's the question.
Trump delenda est
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π‘π
Got the nicest look so far at the Perseids this year.Even spotted one that exploded more than usual.
Secret Signature
For some reason it has not been mentioned here: Apparently folks think there is a planet in a habitable distance around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system.
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Well, at ~4 light years you don't need FTL to get there within a semi-reasonable time, so...
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
An orion drive could get there in what 80?
40 at about 0.1c, which is what Wikipedia gives.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
It's amazing that its in the habitable zone, although it does receive about 400% the x-ray radiation we do. On the other hand, its so close to it's star it might be tidally locked, which means that half the planet is permanently protected.
Jupiterian Local
It's definitely tidally locked. It's important to note that "in the habitable zone" doesn't mean "habitable", it just means "not definitely uninhabitable". They don't even know if the thing has an atmosphere at this point.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Wonder if it's large enough to support a moon. Which is an important consideration, seeing as tidal locks don't occur between three bodies.
And of course, at this distance we cannot tell whether tidal locking actually occurs, but if memory serves the mathematics indicate "very likely".
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
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A red dwarf's habitable zone? Almost definitely.
One thing I've always wondered about since, well, I started oohing over red dwarfs is... could life in that situation evolve to deal with that X-ray bombardment and/or magnetic weirdness in the way us lot have learned to with UV? As in "various coping strategies, just don't overdo it". 
According to what I've heard, the answer is surprisingly yes, though it would still have some problems.
Jupiterian Local
As long as it's not overly energetic? Sure. If life on Earth has taught us anything, it's that it turns up basically anywhere there's liquid water and an energy source.
On a tidally locked planet, assuming it has an atmosphere, there would probably be a region on the dark side that never sees direct sunlight (so harmful radiation like high-energy x-rays would be fairly minimal) but is still warmed by convection from the sunward side of the planet so it wouldn't be a complete ice cube like it would be deeper into the permanently-shadowed areas.
edited 27th Aug '16 6:53:30 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
A "ring" world in that the habitable zone (on the planet's surface) is a ring running from pole to pole. It would be interesting to set a story there.
Reading some posts further down, he says that he is a credentialed launch photographer. He's also sixteen.