Now it can be told! Doctor Impossible's scheme for moving the Earth is actual - peer-reviewed, published - science.The culprit is Don Korycansky, IGPP/CODEP Associate Research Planetary Scientist at UC Santa Cruz, and he developed it as a contingency plan for later in the Sun's life cycle, when it expands beyond the Earth's current orbital radius.
The published paper is here, and although it's quite technical it's worth reading for Korycansky's gloriously dry prose: "The sun's gradual brightening will seriously compromise the Earth's biosphere within ~10^9 years." Where "seriously compromise" = "engulf in nuclear fire."
Or:
"The collision of a 100-km diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilize the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria. This danger cannot be overemphasized."
He reconsiders the idea here, including the possibility that the feat will give away our position to extrasolar civilizations.
(googling Don also yields a page marked "Impossible to nudge earth into different orbit!" which sounds exciting until you realize they didn't mean it like that.)
(also: McSweeney's and The Daily Show both had a go at this one.)
(also: Don is my brother-in-law)
4 comments:
Mr. Grossman, I've been wondering if you could conceide free interviews using e-mail or something. I'm working for a famous spanish literary magazine that has included your work in a dossier about literarture and superheroes. The magazine is called Quimera (www.revistaquimera.com).
Anyway, thank you very much.
Nice user name! I'd be very happy to do an interview.
Could you email vintageanchorpublicity@randomhouse.com? They'll forward you contact info &c.
Wow, thank you!!!! !
Hello Austin, thanks for the mention--it's as good a review as any I've gotten!
You might find this to be an appropriate illustration. . .
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