# All Questions

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### Is their any clue where gravitons come from?

Everything which has mass has gravity. Some theories hypothesis that gravitons are responsible for that, but do they have any clue where they come from? Like gluons are interacting between quarks and ...
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### How does an accreting black hole acquire magnetic fields?

There is actually a similar question on this site: Can magnetism escape a black hole?, however the answers do not focus on accretion, which is my main concern, so I start a new one. In Kip Thorne's ...
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### Since the Universe is expanding, is it accurate to say that a galaxy is 5 billion light years away?

Isn't it better to say that the light from the galaxy took 5 billion light years to reach us and it is a very old picture of it? However, if light travelled back to the galaxy at the constant speed ...
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### What happened just before the Big bang? [duplicate]

Does the CMB contain any clues to what caused the Big Bang? Does a mathematical model theorize it?
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### what is gravitational force?

Gravitational force is particle or wave? I know that gravitation depend of the mass and the rotation speed but what is the transmission medium of this wave the same like transmission medium of the ...
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### Is Planet Nine shepherding the Kuiper Belt?

Is it possible Planet Nine is shepherding the Kuiper Belt similar to the way Jupiter shepherds the asteroid belt? I understand that very little is actually known about Planet Nine at this point, but ...
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### How probably is it that galaxies will extinguish?

In the nebulaes of galaxies are stars born, but the gasses and dust they are made of comes from exploded stars (fe supernovas). So it looks like these processes can go on continuesly. But is that ...
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### Is this Universe scenario correct? [closed]

I will try to give you my reasoning behind my scenario. Ok I've researched and found That 95 percent of the galaxy has been formed already, And the other 5 percent is still to come.http://www....
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### Is our supercluster part of a galaxy filament?

It was discovered recently that the Milky Way galaxy lies inside a supercluster named Laniakea Supercluster. On the other hand, wikipedia says that galaxy filaments are "the largest known structures ...
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### Why can we observe the Cosmic Microwave Background no matter the direction we look?

I often read that the CMB was released from everywhere in the Universe, in every direction. If that statement is true, can someone elaborate what "everywhere in the universe, in every direction" ...
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### highspeed black holes or neutron stars on (almost) head-on collision course and kinetic energy

First: I don't think this is a duplicate question. There are related question on mergers of black holes that orbit around each other etc., so please read on. I'm having a hard time picturing what ...
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### Can a drastic change in a stars cycle cause harm or affect a nearby star system?

If Alpha Centauri A our neighboring star happens to shift into a Red Giant or a Planetary Nebula, Will our star system be affected? And if so is there a ripple effect throughout the galaxy causing a ...
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### Have any planets been discovered in Orion constellation?

Orion constellation is a very famous constellation. It can be seen throughout the earth. Orion looks like a warrior with a weapon and skirt. I see this constellation daily and wonder, if there is a ...
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### Does every object in the Universe have gravity? Space has no gravity, why?

My science teacher told me that every object in Universe has gravity but space is a part of Universe too, so, why does the space have no gravity?
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### What was “space” like before big bang?

I have a simple question which I think about often but have no answer. If The Big Bang is true, than if the whole space was just a point 14 billion years ago, then what was around that point, some ...
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### How do we know the current state of the universe by observing it from Earth?

Since light travels at the constant speed and takes more than a billion years to travel from the distant parts of the Universe, how do we know the state of the distant regions? Do those still exist or ...
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### Can “dark matter” be the additional mass from the speed of the Galactic Cluster?

Considering that the Earth orbits the Sun at 100 000 km/h and that the Sun orbits the Milky Way at almost 1 000 000 km/h, could it be possible that the galactic cluster orbits some super cluster at ...
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### What is spacetime 'made' of?

General relativity is often explained as saying spacetime is curved by gravity, what does this mean? How could we perceive a curve in spacetime when there is no external "straight" reference frame for ...
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### Is there sufficient evidence to confirm additional Planet in solar system

I have watched this scishow episode where Hank says that astronomers believe there is another planet in our solar system. Link He says that it's because how asteroids and comments are being pushed ...
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### How can a naked singularity be possible?

How can we have a singularity, without a black hole around it? How would one form? What does it do?
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### Red dwarf variation in Luminosity

I recently saw this video. The creator of the video says that one of the reasons for non-existence of life on planets around red dwarfs might be that these stars can increase luminosity roughly by a ...
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### Why do planets tend to rotate in the same direction although they have formed from tumbling asteroids?

The axial tilts of asteroids seem to vary randomly (let me know if this premise is wrong), while the planets have a strong tendency to rotate in the same way. If planets were formed by colliding ...
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### Compared with similar stars, does the sun itself have properties that make life on Earth possible?

We often hear our solar system has properties for life. For example, it is far away from the center of Galaxy. It has Jupiter far away to protect us from asteroids. It has optimum size of territorial ...
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### Why are stars more metallic closer as you move closer to the galactic bulge?

As I see it, most of the stars in the galactic bulge are Population I stars. However, as one moves farther from the galactic bulge, star metallicity decreases. In fact, halo stars are almost entirely ...
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### Why argon instead of another noble gas?

I noticed that the atmospheres of Earth and Mars have a little bit of argon in them (1% to 2%). I checked Venus, too, which has 0.007% argon, but that's still more than any other noble gas in the ...
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### Where can I find/visualize planets/stars/moons/etc positions?

What resources are available to find the positions of planets, stars, moons, artifical satellites, asteroids, and other heavenly bodies?
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### Is the Earth going to evolve towards Mars' fate or Venus' fate?

Upon reading on this site (and many others), one can think that Mars might have supported life in a distant past (discovery of liquid water, valleys, mountains...). On the other hand, Venus is the ...
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### What accounts into calculating the Hubble constant?

From my understanding, the Hubble constant $H_0$ calculates from observed redshifts $z$ of distant galaxys against their proper distance $D$. The current value appears to be 67.80(77) \$\frac{km}{s}Mpc^...
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### Good textbooks for a descriptive astronomy course

Brief tale of woe My department at a small public university in the US has decided to begin offering a descriptive astronomy general education course for the first time in a couple of decades and we ...
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### Lack of objects between heliopause and Oort cloud?

If we take a look at a logarithmic scale of the Solar System, there appears to be a large gap between the heliopause and the Oort cloud: Why is that? There are some objects in the gap, but why are ...
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### What Would it Look Like Inside Jupiter's Great Red Spot?

From what I've read, Jupiter's 'Great Red Spot' is an unbelievably powerful storm. Do astronomers and scientists have any idea of what that might look like if it were possible to be inside/below it? ...
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### How to calculate when the moon is highest in the sky to the earthbound observer?

Like when is the new moon highest in the sky? Or third quarter? How do I know this for any general moon phase? Thanks.
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### Where is the materials of comet after it crashed into the sun?

If a comet crashes into the sun, where will the substance (eg: water,silicon) be? Will they be inside the sun? Or they will be ejected from sun again?
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### Best planets profile for a tattoo of the solar system [closed]

I want to get a tattoo of the solar system. The gap between the planets should not be preserved and the differences in sizes will only be symbolic. I found the following My question is if all stars ...
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### Is there an objective difference between space expansion and reduction in speed of light

I just read an article about the cosmological model of an inflationary universe. As you probably know it basically states that space itself is subject to an expansion over time. Since there is no ...
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### are modern flat earthers still believe the earth is flat not round? [closed]

I saw a video in youtube and read few articles about how flat earthers believed that earth is actually flat but not round. They even presented facts about how everything which is true right now is ...
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### What is the distance of earth from 7 planets, moon and sun at a point of time?

I wanted to know the distance of the 7 planets(mercury, mars, venus, jupiter,saturn, uranus, neptune) each (or at least 5 planets) from the earth and the angle that it will make with a line connecting ...
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### How to read Babylonians' tablet that were used to track Jupiter's movements?

There is a science news article on how Babylonians used geometry to track Jupiter’s movements. Here is an image of cuneiform tablet which shows Jupiter's movements. From a layman's point of view, ...
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### Is Ceres in the inner solar system or outer solar system?

Do we consider the dwarf planet Ceres to be in the inner solar system or outer solar system (or possibly neither / in between). It is located within the asteroid belt, but is the asteroid belt part ...
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### Why wasn't there any oxygen in the beginning of the earth?

In the total beginning of the earth there was CO2, N2 and H2O. So there was O2 but always in bond with Carbon and hydrogen, but what is the reason for that? Is O2 always reacting with free carbonatoms?...
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### Could Venus or Mercury have a moon that we haven't detected?

Let's consider Mars' two moons for a moment. They're small, not even spherical, and most likely are captured asteroids. They weren't discovered until the late 1800's. Telescopes are much more powerful ...
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### Why don't storms on gas giants move to the poles, like hurricanes on Earth do?

On Earth, hurricanes usually move from the equator to the poles. But if you look at a picture of Jupiter, you'd see that the Great Red Spot isn't anywhere near the poles. So the question is: why don't ...
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### Where's the Prime Meridian of celestial coordinates

...or what's the 'direction of vernal equinox'? For both Ecliptic and Equatorial coordinate system, the Wikipedia article gives "Primary direction (0° longitude)" - "Vernal Equinox", linking to ...
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### Which planets have abundant amounts of photoluminiscent matter?

Which planets have abundant amounts of photoluminiscent matter? Photoluminiscent or chemoluminiscent whatever the glow-in-the-dark stuff it may be. Planets or bodies which have good enough the ...
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### What are the prerequisites for a meteorite to reach the ground?

I'm sure it's a function of atmospheric entry angle, meteorite mass (and possibly composition/density), and its velocity, but what function is it? Above all, how does it depend on velocity? Will the ...
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### Calculating longitude from star culmination

Here is the problem: I need to calculate longitude of observing place. And I know time (in UTC+1) of star culmination (Sirius) and star altitude. I also know RA (right ascension) and Dec (declination) ...
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### Terminology: Is there a name for the points on the surfaces of tidally locked parent/satellite bodies that always face each other?

This is purely a question about terminology, one that has eluded my googling efforts. When a satellite and its parent body are tidally locked to each other, there is (in an ideal case) a single ...
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### What is “emission measure”?

Many papers mention emission measure, and some of them give the expression of EM, BUT there is no clear definition of EM. My question is what EM is on earth? Its unit is supposed to be cm-3. How to ...