The Oort cloud is thought to extend to 3.2ly. The Alpha Centauri system is 4.3ly away and more massive than our own solar system.

1. Wouldn't this mean parts of the Oort cloud are closer to and more attracted to Alpha Centauri than the sun?
2. Is the Alpha Centauri system thought to have its own Oort cloud, and would that overlap and interact with our own Oort cloud?

AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:38, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, I can see from the first figure in Oort cloud that the answer to the first part of my first question is yes, so what about the second part? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:43, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Stricken due to my failure to spot the log scale.AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:05, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The outer edge of the Oort cloud is not well defined. That value of 3.2 ly is a rather extreme estimate; 50,000 AU (0.8 ly) is more typical. (The first reference in the article says "The Oort Cloud is thought to extend from between 2,000 and 5,000 AU (0.03 and 0.08 ly) to as far as 50,000 AU (0.79 ly) from the Sun, though some estimates place the outer edge as far as 100,000 and 200,000 AU (1.58 and 3.16 ly).") The outer parts are certainly strongly affected by nearby stars and the general tidal field of the Milky Way. As to the second question my (unreferenced) reaction would be "Why shouldn't it?" While exocomets have been detected there's presumably no way to directly detect an Oort cloud around Alpha Cen. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The orbital period of an object at a distance of 3.2 ly from the Sun is about 91 My. If you consider the movement of the Alpha Centauri system, as shown in the gif in the section Alpha Centauri § Kinematics, you'll see that at that time scale the Alpha Centauri system is whizzing by faster than an icy planetesimal can say, "what was that?".

Of course some ice clumps get dislodged from a relatively stable orbit and ejected from the cloud, every now and then, due to gravitational influences of nearby stars, not only the Alpha Centauri system; see Oort cloud § Stellar perturbations and stellar companion hypotheses. The zone of relative stability is given by the Sun's Hill sphere (in which "sphere" is misleading; the shape is irregular, being influenced by all nearby stars). But this does not take account of the fact that perturbing factors may not last long enough to have a major effect.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:14, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything on Wikipedia regarding getting goosebumps related to emotionally pleasant experiences, like listening to good music, talking about an interest you're extremely passionate about, etc? It's happened to me a lot, and I'd like to know more about it. So sorry if this isn't the place. jiraijohnny˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ (KISS ME GOOD-BYE.⋆˚꩜｡) 14:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Goose_bumps#Music is the obvious place to look for the answer, but that is tagged "citation needed", unfortunately. Maybe some of the surrounding sections have related info. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Frisson and ASMR may also help. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:02, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

On topic but trivial: when this happens while listening to Floor Jansen sing, we fans call it a 'Floorgasm'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I once attended a lecture by a specialist in industrial diseases, where he stated that the problem of asbestos was the physical size of the fibre, and its insolubility, and that once lodged in human tissues the body had no mechanism for its safe disposal, unlike most other materials likely to be ingested. During the Q&A period the expert made the assertion that mesothelioma was rare among non-smokers, and that smoking was a greater predictor of that disease than of lung cancer. Apart from a population statistic which seems to support this statement, our article is silent on the subject, but that "Other risk factors include genetics and infection with the simian virus 40." Was he wrong, has later evidence disproved these assertions, or is our article missing something? Doug butler (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The incidence of mesothelioma (newly diagnosed cases) per million people per year in the US is about 6 cases. That of lung cancer, although having dropped sharply, is still more than 600 cases. Smokers form no more than 10% of the US adult population and much less of the total population. For mesothelioma to be the more likely eventual morbidity among smokers, given these data, implies that it is very rare for smokers to develop lung cancer, less likely by a factor of about 10 than for non-smokers. In reality, smokers are at least five times more likely to develop lung cancer. Either you misremember this specialist's claim, or his research was financed by the tobacco industry. A non-conclusive yet informative data point: all three cases of lung cancer among my personal friends and acquaintances were of smokers, while the two cases of mesothelioma were of non-smokers.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:19, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how the lecturer could have been supported by the tobacco industry. My understanding, and I thought I'd made it clear, was that mesothelioma was a much more likely outcome for asbestos workers who were smokers than for those who were not. Doug butler (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It is accepted that tobacco (especially cigarette) smoke and asbestos functionally interact in the causation of lung cancer; however, the type and strength of this interaction have occasionally been the issue if debate. It is our opinion that the effect is synergistic, i.e., the combined effect is greater than the sum of the individual effects. By definition and in biological terms, the difference (the synergistic effect) cannot be apportioned back to each of these individual carcinogens; this issue is explored further in a later section of this review. It is our opinion on the balance of probabilities that asbestosis is not a necessary prerequisite for the attribution of lung cancer to asbestos in an asbestos-exposed smoker.

Asbestos, Smoking and Lung Cancer: An Update (2019) from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Alansplodge (talk) 16:04, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting article on lung cancer, but my informant was referring to mesothelioma, of which asbestos is the primary cause and, as I understood it, much more common among smokers. Doug butler (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right; how about this?

There was no significant association between smoking and deaths due to mesothelioma.

Combined effect of asbestos and smoking on mortality from lung cancer and mesothelioma in factory workers.. Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Or this...

No association between cigarette smoking and mesothelioma was found for either men or women.

Cigarette Smoking, Asbestos Exposure, and Malignant Mesothelioma1 (1991). Alansplodge (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was locked out of the second link but the précis was clear enough. Thanks A.S. Doug butler (talk) 03:07, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My question is about frequencies used by Citizens band radio in the United_States. I have an old handheld transceiver from 1967. (General Electric model 3-5975A, if that matters.) The transmit crystal is 27.125 MHz - ie. CB channel 14. But, the receive frequency is 26.670 MHz. I don't see anything about this frequency, or others listed at CB Radio Frequency Chart, in the wp articles. Were these frequencies commonly used for CB in an earlier era? This looks like a duplex radio repeater, such as the ones we use for amateur radio. Though, I can't figure out what license, if any, would have been needed to transmit on 26.670 when this was new. --mikeu ^talk 21:10, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

27.125 MHz - 26.670 MHz = 455 kHz a common intermediate frequency. See superheterodyne receiver, 26.670 MHz is the local oscillator frequency. fiveby(zero) 02:47, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Can Wikipedia assist in checking the details of this Scientific journal?

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00054033.pdf

I would like to request for a check on what the authors are referring to when they mentioned the "Eastern Hathor Basin" (page 43/ PDF page 9/19). Looking at the map of Ganymede, the maps of the basin, and based on the latitude and longitude given of 69° S, 265° W, I think what they are calling "Eastern Hathor Basin" is actually Hathor Basin itself, and they mislabeled the crater. Therefore, the correct name of the subject should have been called "Eastern Teshub Basin". (see map below)

Thank you so much. IapetusCallistus (talk) 16:03, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The third basin (-69”, 265”) lies east of the Hathor basin (it is named Eastern Hathor in this paper)

The Lunar and Planetary Institute's Ganymede Crater Database, has Hathor (123 km, -70°/267°) and Hathor 'A' (-72°/281°), their imagemap to find by location is awful tho. Would 'basin' and 'crater' imply the same feature? USGS Astropedia has Ganymede Geologic Map of the Hathor Region (which labels Hathor but few others). fiveby(zero) 16:39, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Teshub in the image above labels the same location as Hathor 'A' in the database. Here you can see a combination of the images from the database for Hathor and Hathor 'A'. The left edge of the Hathor image cuts right through the middel of Hathor 'A'.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:13, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think the LPI database -70° latitude is wrong, List of craters on Ganymede has -66.9°S and links to this USGS embeded map which is scrollable and shows coordinates. Maybe an impact basin at -69,265 ??? fiveby(zero) 00:27, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think one problem here might be that the paper and LPI database are pre-Galileo. It's possible the planetary coordinate system for Ganymede has been updated or the Voyager images have been better located. Don't know if we can trust the coordinates in the paper. fiveby(zero) 00:53, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Figure 7 in the paper "Geology of large impact craters on Ganymede" shows a dark and unclear photograph of what the authors have dubbed "the Eastern Hathor basin", taken under an unspecified angle, together with a clarifying line drawing, likewise distorted by perspective, identifying the smooth interior and post-impact craters with hand-drawn ellipses. I rescaled this drawing so that ellipses became more circular (but no scale factor worked uniformly well) and rotated it to make ↑N point upwards, so as to align with the direction of the (rotated) section of a colour photograph of the south polar region shown in the OP. (The original can be found on the USGS's "Controlled Color Photomosaic Map of Ganymede", which can be downloaded from here.) Then I searched the photograph to see if I could spot the pattern of the post-impact craters in that photograph, but no luck. In any case, it does not resemble the direct environment of the Hathor basin in that photograph. The result of rescaling + rotating can be seen here; the post-impact craters are highlighted in yellow. Perhaps others will have more luck.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:52, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for reconstructing the diagram in Figure 7. I can clearly see that it is indeed Hathor crater.

Do you think this is conclusive proof that the subject is really Hathor crater? IapetusCallistus (talk) 15:15, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]