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Most electronic circuits are pretty dust and dirt proof by nature. The main threat to these circuits is that they attract dust and dirt and that dust and dirt will coat the circuit board, components etc with a layer of dirt that sticks. This layer then thermally insulates the board and components and may cause some of them to overheat and fail. Most circuit boards can also be taken out and scrubbed in mild soapy water (or scrubbed in situ). So long as the assembly is thoroughly dried out before power is again applied everything will be OK.

bump I would like to get back to this took a break

Thanks! I used \( \sqrt{2K_B T / m} \) with Boltzmann's constant. The ballpark of it certainly checks with me. Your argument seems convincing, and very informative. +1 We sometimes forget the cosmic time scales. We see Saturn in the sky with its beautiful rings and it isn't a static situation. Probably the aftermath of a catastrophe as compared to Solar-system lifetime. Similarly, it's very likely that this giant got sucked into the inner region from a recent event --in terms of the age of that star system. I sometimes fantasize with the possibilities they offer. I don't think it's too far-fetched that a select group of them can seed other systems with life.

I also think that OP severely misunderstands the lab leak hypothesis. The assumption is not that it was some gain-of-function study gone wild. While that thought circulated for a little bit, the utter lack of any evidence has pretty much discredited it. Lab leak actually refers to a scenario where workers in the lab unknowingly got infected by one of the viruses they have been sequencing from wildlife. Leaks from such labs are not unheard of with examples throughout the world (including UK and US) so at least it is possible. The issue is that while it is possible to trace a leak back to a lab, it is quite harder to prove that it in fact did not happen, especially when China is involved and where political factors may play a role. But again, OP is arguing quite a different scenario.

A good article. Would only challenge how he doesn’t really seem to accept that we’re already right now today living through a relatively “hot” cyber war where tens of thousands of attack vectors are being deployed every minute of every day. Those interactions would intensify in the event of escalation, but the consistency with which they’re being used right now makes it hard for me to accept calling the current baseline as “peaceful” or even just “cold.” Totally agree about populace not being prepared for the ramifications of an escalation, though. They are too busy blaming Biden for higher fuel prices and delays in the global supply chain.

It's not the element carbon but dissolved carbon dioxide, CO2, that makes drinks fizzy. And it's not exposure to oxygen that makes them go flat, but the reduction of pressure on exposure to the atmosphere. When you open a bottle of fizzy drink, the pressure above the liquid drops. Since the amount of gas the water can dissolve depends on the pressure of CO2 above it, you then have a supersaturated solution, which is why it fizzes. Any nucleus for bubbles to form on will accelerate the rate at which the CO2 comes out of solution. A classic way is to put in a sugar lump. This has a large surface area with many sharp edges, which promotes the initiation of bubbles. Sand would also do the job, but not so good if you want to drink it later. The reason why you need a nucleus to start the bubbles off is because of the energy needed to pull apart the water molecules. The excess pressure inside a bubble is 2T/r where T is the surface tension of the liquid - a measure of the strength of the intermolecular forces - and r is the radius of the bubble. From this you can see that the smaller the radius, the higher the pressure, so in the limiting case this formula predicts an infinite pressure is needed to blow up a bubble of zero radius i.e. at the start. While this formula is not accurate at very small radii, it gives an idea of the problem. Sharp edges reduce the intermolecular forces in their vicinity, as the water molecules are not entirely surrounded by other water molecules, making it easier for gas molecules to push them apart and start off a bubble.

Stir it vigorously

This is just some background reading on what some foreign policy experts are saying we should be thinking about, in terms of a possible escalation to war with either China or Russia. About a ten minute read. Among other things, it gets into what scenarios are likely if the US actually decided to give military support (direct action) to Taiwan, and how few living Americans have real experience of a world war and the levels of sacrifice and suffering it would involve. https://archive.ph/2022.12.02-155532/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/opinion/america-world-war-iii.html (PW free screenshot)

Rogue planets are fascinating, Especially rocky planets with dense hydrogen atmospheres could actually harbor life with water oceans and dry land. Sara Seager of NASA has proposed this.

Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the rms velocity of water molecules at 900C will be about 1.26km/sec, if I've got my arithmetic right. (v[rms] = √(3RT/m) m being in kg. ) The escape velocity of Saturn, which has about the same mass as this planet, would be 36km/sec. I have not worked out how to do the velocity distribution curve, to see what fraction of the "tail" of the velocity curve will represent molecules with a velocity greater than this, but one can see it could easily be 0.1-1% or so. So one might expect the water to escape over time. Regarding SO2 I'm not sure I follow this, except that one might expect reducing conditions, in which case the presence of SO2 rather than H2S presumably indicates photochemical reactions. They propose photolysis of water, apparently.

Why is it astronomically (excuse me, ASTRONOMICALLY) unlikely? Where do you think other viruses came from before we had research labs? One issue here is your insistence that an event is unlikely, without any justification. Another is the line of reasoning that if you can’t wrap your head around something, it must be wrong. Argument from incredulity is a fallacy.

I think you mean disassemble. To dissemble means to lie. I should think the main risk from ingress of dust will be dirty contacts and hence poor electrical connections at points where subassemblies are joined together.

I loved the dog. I tried reading the scene with the picnic basket aloud to friend once and could not get my voice under control. I just had the most vivid flashback to a German lesson that I did not attend. My mother was in elementary school and they had to translate from their reader. The chubby little girl stood up and declaimed "ich bin eine fette henne" instead of "ich haben eine fette henne". Guess what she was nicknamed the rest of her time in that school? Nope. The language mistress immediately put her foot down and told the class what terrible fate awaited them if she learned that they were teasing that child. There were pockets of civilization, even back in the 1930's.

I was thinking it is light source that passes through an exoplanet atmosphere too - ones that from our angle don't transit their parent star. It was a thought, but I hadn't thought it through - telescopes less good that that will probably be able to detect them and directly observe atmosphere lit by the parent star's light and get relevant chemical information from it.

Sure. It's not that this photochemistry is necessarily related to biological activity. The finding is exciting nonetheless, because it allows planetary scientists to gather information on more varied scenarios of what kind of chemical processes might be going on out there. Here's a YT video on the find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW38rqLZMPg

Jesus will not condemn anyone by looking at a list of bad things done here. We will be accepted or rejected entrance into heaven based on our decision to repent and follow Him. If we were judged by God based on the bad things we do and the bad thoughts that daily cross our minds, no one gets into the paradise of God. We can take that to the bank.