Grass and Sunsets
Posted on April 12, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
Over at By the Way today I wrote about the recent speculation that plants on other planets might not be green at all, but red, or orange or purple; naturally I had to engage in a bit of Photoshoppery on along that line.
The thing is, no matter what color the grass is, the sunsets are still going to look like this:
And I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.
You can see a monster size version of that last picture here.
Your cat looks beautiful in purple grass.
Ohio has changed since I was there last – it’s like a whole different world or something…
Never mind all that grass nonsense. What would Bacon Cat look like on an alien world?
Never mind all that grass nonsense. What would Bacon Cat look like on an alien world?
That last picture is spectacular.
Too much plutonium in your rainwater?
Yay! Rejoice, for today we were blessed with a cat picture!
The last picture looks incredibly beautiful.
I’m afraid to ask what color the sky is in your world, cause you’d probably change it.
Oh, Scalzi, you’re good. Annoying, but good.
A picture of Lopsided Cat soothes for awhile, but nothing is like a picture of the Beauteous Ghlaghghee.
One tiny picture of Ghlaghghee and you could have quieted down (for a few days) her devoted fans.
But no, you have to tease…
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
Nah. Sunsets might be better. If you were on a world in a double-star system!
Did you catch this piece of nonsense at LJ from Dr. Hendrix:
http://community.livejournal.com/sfwa/10039.html?style=mine
Much as though I appreciate the pictures there are days when I think Adobe have a lot to answer for . . .
I see what looks like a corn field across the road in the that 2nd picture, finally, now I know where “Blue Corn Chips” come from. Ohio, who’d have guessed?
The second one looks a bit like central Oklahoma, which reminds me of the pictures of Mars with all the red clay.
There we’ll be, living in a suburban colony on Beta Zeta IV, the ground will be covered with burgandy spiky plants and the noon sky will be a lovely salmon color with vermillion clouds… And still the suburbanites will insist on go out every Saturday and trimming the burgandy spiky ground cover to a height of 4 to 7 cm. (Except on putting surfaces, where it will be trimmed lower.)
Dr. Phil
That third picture looks like your cat is trespassing on the Easter Bunny’s lawn.
If you’re colourblind, that funky coloured grass doesn’t look a whole lot different than regular grass.
I think that the purple grass and the cat is my favorite. I can imagine Athena:
‘These are my vacation pictures; this is me on Viltvodel Six…’
You could have a non-blue sky if…
1) the incoming spectrum was far from white. For the most part, this would only be the case, subjectively speaking, for beings who didn’t evolve there. However, you could have the incoming spectrum changing over time:
1a) in orbit around a gas giant which has a color significantly distinct from the sun
1b) binary system with noticeable secondary of different mass
2) the upper atmosphere contains a significant amount of plasma with emission lines in some other color
Being red/green colourblind I have to say I’d not be surprised to learn grass isn’t red already. The pictures of what I assume is red grass look exactly like normal grass to me. The purple is the only one I can see the difference in.