I’ve never seen one up close before, it’s interesting how much their fins look like feathers, though it shouldn’t be that surprising given their purpose.
People can make dents in the outer shell of human knowledge without having PhDs though. As in to discover something new and revolutionary, plenty of great scientists have and likely many more will continue to.
Well Rotating a rotor on a generator is the most convenient way to make electricity with parts that last a long amount of time. Also doesn’t help that we use AC power while other sources like photovoltaic produce DC power which needs to be converted to be used.
“Planet” in my book is anything that’s too big to just be a large lumpy rock. Something with sufficient gravity to pull itself into the shape of a sphere.
The idea of planets needing to orbit in eliptical orbits on a plane, or clear their own paths is a bias from living in a stable planetary system, but much of the planetary systems and indeed much of the universe doesn’t have the stability that exists in this local area, it’s especially the case in younger planetary systems as well as much older ones.
Also many planets in the universe don’t even have stars, they are rogue, scattered throughout the darkness between the stars.
How can anyone say that an Alien archeologist would make the same minimalist assumptions that humans have made as opposed to making their own assumptions about the muscle and cartilage structures based on the creatures they’re familiar with or current creatures alive on earth at the time.