News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientis... by Archelaos on Wednesday February 14, 2024 @09:49AM (#39370373)
"Just parking" between would not be possible without putting really a lot of energy into maintining the position of the shade. Due to orbital speed differences depending on the distance to the sun[1] and the pressure of the light[2] and solar wind[3] on the shade and Earth's gravitational interference. And the shade must be very much larger in diameter than the planet in order to cover it. How large depends on the distance from the planet.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_speed#Planets

[2] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_pressure

[3] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind

Re:What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientis... by tempestn on Wednesday February 14, 2024 @11:10AM (#39371575)
You would want to place it slightly on the sun side of the L1 point, where gravitational and solar wind forces cancel out.