The Kuiper Belt (pronounced "KAI-per") is a ring of space debris in the outer reaches of our solar system, a bit past Neptune.
Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets, like Pluto (sorry Pluto). Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, may have originated in the region.
In 1992, minor planet Albion was discovered, the first Kuiper belt object since Pluto (in 1930) and Charon (in 1978). Since its discovery, the number of known KBOs has increased to thousands, and more than 100,000 KBOs over 100 km (62 mi) in diameter are thought to exist. The Kuiper belt was initially thought to be the main repository for periodic comets, those with orbits lasting less than 200 years. Studies since the mid-1990s have shown that the belt is dynamically stable and that comets' true place of origin is the scattered disc, a dynamically active zone created by the outward motion of Neptune 4.5 billion years ago.
The Kuiper belt is distinct from the hypothesized Oort cloud, which is believed to be a thousand times more distant and mostly spherical. The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects :trans-ferret:
"You posted this in !earth@hexbear.net , even though it's literally about not-Earth :very-intelligent: ". c/Earth is your home comm for all things nature related, including fun posts about animals, rocks, etc. Going forward, please consider posting animal related megathreads in this lovely comm.
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Today's struggle session is pride themed:
What is the best sexuality?
Please argue passionately in the comments. This can only go well.
work bad :agony-shivering:
I just started this thing two months ago and at first it was six days a week with Sunday off. Now it's 7 days a week but the workload is unpredictable: some days there might be nothing and I'm sitting at my desk for 8 hours, and some days they make me work 10-12 hours or even ask me to stay up all night to meet a deadline. This is in the academic publishing industry and I get paid by the page, plus I'm a subcontractor (technically I don't even have a contract, just got asked by a colleague to help out and next thing I know I'm working 60 hours a week) so nobody cares what I want or need. I asked about payment for May last week and got a "I'm in touch with the client about payment".
It's wfh and I mostly find the work interesting or at least not that bad, and the pay is acceptable when I actually get it, but the inability to plan anything for my time off (even a fucking dentist appointment) is really wearing on me.
I know I should probably quit but finding full-time work has been so goddamn difficult my whole life because I'm on the spectrum and interview really badly. I feel lucky to have this job, which is probably fucked up.
Okay so it probably doesn't matter, but if they're telling you when you have to be at work and how to do your work you're not a contractor, you're an employee.
I've been thinking the same thing, yeah. Another factor is that as a freelancer I normally invoice the client to get paid and at this job I'm being told "no need for an invoice, we'll track the pages you worked on and pay you", which seems like something an employer would say. Shady shit.