Is it grabbity?
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Science Memes
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A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"
Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.
Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.
We moderate for vibe, not category. Pruning is light, especially where a post creates interesting discussion. Experimenting is encouraged.
See the pinned paper on Shitposting as Public Pedagogy if you want the academic case for why this works.
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Roy?
No no no that’s what Trump does to minors, you’re thinking gribbety
Oh, that’s the sound a frog makes. You're thinking of Gerry Rafferty
No that's the scottish singer. We're talking about sherbert taffy.
Sherbet that's raspberry?
You must be thinking of Raspberry Pi. I guess what would really be good now would be 3.1415 Pies...
You're thinking of irrational food. They're talking about counting crows
Holy crap ... you took me back a few decades with that phrase ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUj2Sto7T8
Been so lomg since I've seen Garfield and Friends ......
Thank you for culturing me
It's due to Mavity.
Selections from Wikipedia, for others who may find it interesting:
Daphnis's eccentricity causes its distance from Saturn to vary by ~9 km (5.6 mi), and its inclination causes it to move up and down by ~17 km (11 mi).
As it orbits, it creates gravitational ripples on the edges of the Keeler gap as ring particles are attracted toward the moon and then fall back down toward the ring. The waves made by the moon in the inner edge of the gap precede it in orbit, while those on the outer edge lag behind it, due to the differences in relative orbital speed. In a photograph taken on January 18, 2017, a tendril of ring particles can be seen to extend toward the moon; according to JPL, "this may have resulted from a moment when Daphnis drew a packet of material out of the ring, and now that packet is spreading itself out."
Also, it little resembles any moon I have seen. It is more akin to a fat grain of rice.
Well it's tiny! 9.8 × 8.4 × 5.6 km. It doesn't have enough mass to be spherical. I wouldn't be surprised at all if most of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter are weirdly shaped.
Just take a look at the moons of Mars, they are both just big rocks.
Wait does this mean just from gravity, the little moon is eating the rings over time and growing?
Neat!
The rings are, in cosmic terms, exceedingly temporary. We're lucky to have lived at the same time as them.
the moon: nom nom
So gravity plus gyroscopic precession (or pedantically named related effect)
A kid I worked with loved airplanes. When he played, it became a running joke that there would randomly be "turbulence!" and he'd wiggle around.
One day, he was playing with another kid, but he was a rocket ship this time. The other kid, knowing his joke, decided to playfully bump into him and say, "turbulence!"
This little five year old, with his toddler-esque voice, often asks big questions that can be hard to answer. After this, he asked me, "Is there turbulence in space?"
I mean, yes and no? I explained that it's not turbulence like an airplane experiences, since there's not enough air in space to do that, but there are other forces that can act on a rocket that can change how it moves.
Thankfully, he didn't pry any further, because that's the extent of the knowledge I can ELI5 on that topic. 😅
Pretty good resource for that kind of thing if you have another interested kid and access to the internet. There's also this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation
Oooh, thank you! I love adding resources like this to tabs on my work computer. The nature of my job means I'm sometimes with kids with vastly different interests, so the more resources, the better.
Off-topic, but if anyone has/works with a kid who loves dinosaurs and prefers visual information, I also have a neat dinosaur size comparison page bookmarked.
The target human seems a bit small to me, but I am 193 cm. Neat site!
Edit: at first I thought that Archaeopteryx wasn't displaying. Then I switched the Triceratops to a Velociraptor. Had no clue that Archaeopteryx was that tiny! He's an adorable little bird.
the power of love
Isn't that the guy that made a bezos face boat?
Yes, and Fabio's face a goose.
Sheer willpower
Gravy?
Gravy tea
Worst crop job ever.
It’s magnets.
Magnets all the way down.
God and Anime.
whose camera is that
Picture or artistic impression? If picture I want it as wallpaper!
I found the real photos:
2005 Cassini probe - https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/psd/photojournal/pia/pia06/pia06237/PIA06237.jpg
2009 - https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/PIA11653/PIA11653~orig.jpg
Woah, I wonder why the one ripple is going in the one direction and the other is going in a different direction.
From wikipedia:
As it orbits, it creates gravitational ripples on the edges of the Keeler gap as ring particles are attracted toward the moon and then fall back down toward the ring. The waves made by the moon in the inner edge of the gap precede it in orbit, while those on the outer edge lag behind it, due to the differences in relative orbital speed.
Crazy, the universe is amazing.
The distortion in spacetime caused by you momma trying to catch and eat it?
But there's an Air and space museum.
BTW, worst museum ever. It's not even air conditioned just to make sure there is minimal mixing of the exhibits.
Gary?
Its not turbulence, its more akin to a wake
An Irish wake.