Envision we got checked out by aliens who came from another star system. Instead, imagine they just came as travelers visiting our Solar System. What should we reveal them as our best traveler attraction?
What Is a Good Tourist Attraction
Every great tourist place has some kind of place of interest or a destination. It is typically something special for this specific location that you cant discover anywhere else. It can be an artificial thing that has some significance, like a cool architectural production or a thing with some historical significance to it.
When it comes to picking a tourist attraction within our Solar System, it has to be something that the visiting aliens dont have at home, whichever planetary system they came from. Something they absolutely didnt see in other places they might have checked out in deep space.
Remove All Ads on Universe Today
Join our Patreon for as low as $3!
Get the ad-free experience for life
Instead, envision they simply came as travelers visiting our Solar System. Saturn with its vibrant rings that can actually be seen from millions of kilometres away is probably the next thing that comes to mind when believing about a specifying function of our Solar System. Far weve been looking at something that our Solar System has, so we can utilize it as a traveler attraction. Heres a terrific paper called The Solar System as an exoplanetary system by Rebecca G. Martin and Mario Livio. It attempts to look at us as if the Earth and the rest of our planetary system were studied as an exoplanetary system and how we would compare to other ones that we know about today.
Obviously, these are just my thoughts on the topic. If you have other suggestions about what we ought to be revealing to travelers from other worlds, let me know about them. I think its an intriguing thing to think about which can give you a great point of view on our true place in deep space.
Like this: Like Loading …
Of course, all of us comprehend that bringing aliens into this is just a bait that makes any story more fascinating by engaging with your imagination. But the genuine concern here is not that funny or theoretical. It really makes a lot of sense and is rather important for Astronomy.
If we eliminate the alien factor, the genuine concern were looking for an answer to is the following:
Exists something really unique in our Solar System? Something that you are not likely to see in any other places of the Universe?
Now, when we have the guidelines of the game developed and all the meanings figured out, lets check out the alternatives that we have.
Biological Life
The first thing that most likely comes to mind is biological life. That is what specifies our place in the vast emptiness of the Cosmos. We do not see any proof that life as we understand it exists anywhere else. That is what the Fermi Paradox is everything about.
If there are alien tourists coming from somewhere else, it instantly suggests that life also exists somewhere else. Meaning that we require to come up with better ideas.
Even if life might exist in other locations of the Universe, there are no guarantees that it would be so abundant for all sorts of types. The number of different lifeforms and the branches that life did evolve to can be a traveler attraction of its own.
As we concurred to play the alien video game here, lets not stop here and look for other choices.
Rings of Saturn
Saturn with its rings as seen by the Cassini spacecraft
Saturn with its vibrant rings that can actually be seen from millions of kilometres away is probably the next thing that comes to mind when believing about a specifying function of our Solar System. Even Earth may have rings at some point in its history. Even taking all that into account, Saturn rings still look outstanding.
It might not impress our alien guests at all. Even amongst this little sample, we know about a planet called J1407b.
Artists impression of Super-Saturn J1407b with rings 200 bigger than Saturns.
This world orbits a reasonably nearby star, only 430 light-years from us. But the most significant disappointment for us is that it is approximated to have a set of rings 200 times larger than Saturns. This suggests that ring systems arent rare among exoplanets and can easily go far more severe than what we have in our Solar System. Hence showing our alien visitors Saturn for its set of rings would resemble showing a three-storied building in a village to people who originated from New York, Dubai or some other place complete of high-rise buildings.
Cool Looking Storms.
Jupiters environment as seen by Juno spacecraft.
How about the Great Red Spot on Jupiter then? Or possibly other actually cool storms on the gas worlds, like the polar hexagon on Saturn, the Great Dark Spot on Neptune or the arrangement of storms on Jupiters poles. They could be a fantastic thing to reveal to going to alien travelers, right?
Hexagonal storm on Saturns North Pole as seen by Cassini.
In truth, they are just weather patterns that ought to undoubtedly emerge on any gas giant. And we know that there are a great deal of gas giants out there that can be much more extreme than Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Significance, that its exactly the very same catch we had with the rings of Saturn. They might look really excellent to us, however they are really typical for anybody who has been to a number of other planetary systems.
Water in the world.
Cyclone on Earth as seen from the ISS.
Maybe we should be looking at Earth then? For sure, there is something unusual that can be discovered here.
Naturally, having water in all three different states on the surface is one of the crucial components for life. It may not be as exceptional of a feature as we believe at. We have evidence that at some point exact same thing happened on Mars and rather possibly Venus. And even now we have Titan, which is another place that has all three states of matter: gas, liquid and strong. Rather of water, its hydrocarbons like methane, however the defining function is there. Indicating that, if its not unique even simply within our Solar System, its certainly not special in the remainder of the Universe.
Maybe Its Something We Lack.
Far weve been looking at something that our Solar System has, so we can utilize it as a traveler attraction. What if we need to believe outside of the box rather? What if its about something we dont have rather than something we have?
Some truly cool research has actually been done on this topic. For example, heres a fantastic paper called The Solar System as an exoplanetary system by Rebecca G. Martin and Mario Livio. It tries to take a look at us as if the Earth and the rest of our planetary system were studied as an exoplanetary system and how we would compare to other ones that we understand about today.
There are some fascinating findings that make our Solar System rather uncommon. Still, it gives us at least something that we can potentially stand out with.
It Was Hiding in Plain Sight.
Far we didnt find any exceptional function that would make our Solar System stand out from the rest of the Universe. I still think that theres one astronomical function that may be unique adequate to make a good tourist destination for any aliens going to.
The Sun, the Earth and the Moon.
Its been hiding in plain sight the whole time. Its something that we are utilized to enough that we dont even think of it as an unusual function.
For a tourist attraction to be unusual, there has to be some sort of lucky coincidence. The one Im describing is the reality that our Moon is almost exactly 400 closer to us than the Sun and at the same time is 400 smaller than the Sun. As an outcome, the angular size of the sky when looking from the surface of Earth is practically identical.
All this leads us to the truth that the overall solar eclipse we are witnessing here on Earth might be the specific phenomenon we were looking for. If its smaller, its just an uninteresting transit that the majority of wont even notice.
The eclipse in the world is various. When the Moon fulfills the Sun in the sky they match so well that you frequently can see the Suns corona. Its tough to not see a total solar eclipse. At the exact same time, we can be quite sure that a coincidence like that doesnt happen that frequently in other planetary systems. Suggesting that an experience like that would be similarly extraordinary for somebody originating from another galaxy, as it would be for an earthling.
Total Solar Eclipse with noticeable corona.
Regrettably, it wont last forever. The Moon is slowly moving away from us. At some time it will end up being smaller in our sky and eventually it will go into a full tidal lock, indicating that it will show up just from one hemisphere of the Earth. So, those alien travelers better come quickly to check out while it still lasts.
More Thoughts Like That.
Originally I did this concept for a video on my channel, so if you like topics like that, think about taking a look at my other things on YouTube.
