Author notes

030 - Deleted Scene: Cow Grrrl

El Cid

on Aug. 25, 2015

Only this one update for this week, because I'm currently busy working on my Drunk Duck Awards presentation. This is another page from the Deleted Scene. There were five deleted pages in all, and I planned to post probably three of them or so, but I think just these two should be enough. I sort of have to be on eggshells when I post experimental or throwaway material like this and, so far as I'm able to gauge it, the reception hasn't been terribly encouraging (though I do thank those of you who still took the time to offer feedback and critiques). So we'll get back to the “canon” narrative next week. It's going to kill my page buffer, but I may need to trim a page or two from the main version of this scene as well, just to keep it from running overlong.
 
Are you ready for a science blurb? Well, too bad, because I'm doing one anyway.
 

 

 
Here's something I found interesting. The most common type of planet in the galaxy appears to be something called a “mini-Neptune.” These are planets smaller than Uranus or Neptune, but still four to ten times larger than the Earth. Scientists aren't sure what a “mini-Neptune” would look like; they may have a small rocky core surrounded by a dense hydrogen and helium atmosphere, and may be covered by oceans of superdense water or ammonia. They're sort of a cross between a supersize planet Earth and a gas giant. Perhaps as many as 75 percent of all the planets out there may be mini-Neptunes. The weird thing is that, even though these seem to be the most common type of planet, we don't have any of them in our own solar system. So, despite all of our space exploration up to this point, it seems we actually still don't know for certain what a “typical” planet actually looks like.