jespley

I know that making characters for a RPG is part of the fun typically but for gaming groups that are just testing out a game or using it as a one-shot substitution for their normal campaign then having to make full-fledged characters can be an extra bar to entry. For example, I'd love to introduce Numenera to my normal D&D playing group during an off-week but since we only have about 3 hours to play during our session, I feel the need to pre-make characters which adds even more prep work for me as the GM. Would you consider having some pre-made characters (stats and story) to accompany any adventures (e.g. ones in the core book or even stand-alone)?

The solar wind at the distances that sun-grazers pass is likely to be much stronger and much more variable than what we see at 1 AU. Is there anything we could look for to specifically look for this solar wind variability effect? As opposed to general solar variability and heating.

I heard a rumor that the systems engineer for the UC-Berkeley instruments (Dave Curtis) is a team of cloned androids. Is this true?

I'm not Matthew but I do have some expertise on Solar System magnetic fields so I'll chime in. Comets generally won't intrinsically have magnetic fields. Geophysical magnetic fields are generally produced by electrically susceptible material (e.g. liquid iron) moving around in the core of the object. However, as the comet's coma becomes ionized by the solar wind, the cometary ions will start to move and create their own magnetic fields. In this way, comets have what can be called induced magnetospheres (as opposed to the intrinsic magnetosphere that something like the Earth has).