The Mystery of Planet X
I was having a little discussion about the star that Planet X revolves around with Ellie reader Neutrino. It was pointed out to me that I’ve never actually stated which star it is except in some vague clue from time to time. Of course that was an accidental oversight on my part, and it took Neutrino to not only remind me, but also point out exactly which star it happens to be.
Another thing Neutrino reminded me was that Planet X’s parent star is only 200-300 million years old – not enough time for life to evolve. So the fact that there definitely is life there is not only an amazing discovery, it’s also a real mystery. Part of Ellie’s mission is to discover those answers. Anyway, Neutrino inspired me to go down to the archives and dig out this magazine article from the early 70s.
Oh man, that vintage look rocks.
Hobo does it every time. 🙂
Is that really not enough time for life to evolve, or is it just that life on earth is really SLOW? Maybe everywhere else in the universe is much more efficient than we are at evolution and we’re just not very good at it?
Who really knows? All answers we’re looking for.
Wow! A really old issue of “Awesome Science”! This definitely is a collectors item!
And hard to find nowadays!
I love the name Polly Whipple.
She does too. Instead of changing her name when she got married, she hyphenated it to Polly Whipple-Shirtzinger.
I think I have that issue at home!
Hang on to it! Carsten says it’s a real collector’s item.
Jim, you are the king of awesome-sauce bonus content! I bow to you good sir! What I love about all these fun bits is that they’re relevant to the strip, the story, and (such as today) the history of EOPX which when added to the strip really help build the world. Bravo!
All I do is open filing cabinets and pull this stuff out. – Filing cabinets in my HEAD!
How coincidental. I just watched SOLARIS last night and now know what Neutrino means too.
I’ll have to watch it again as I don’t remember . . .
Well, experimental evidence always trumps theory.
Since Ellie _found_ life, my logic must have a flaw somewhere. I concede the point and look forward to her further transmissions. Now I want to learn how Parallel Evolution produced wire coat hangers!
Just be carefull not to back yourself into too specific a corner. Her world is small, but planet-detection methods get better every day.
So long as I pretend I’m in a round room, hopefully the corners won’t be a problem.
It was a great magazine, but back then it had lots of ads for Sea Monkeys!
That was until the Sea Monkeys protested and went back to their underwater kingdom.
Hmm… not enough time to develop life… but Dr. Strang developed time machines. Hmm! 🙂