All Questions

633 views

How to calculate a planet's current position within the solar system

I'm making an application that needs to calculate a planet's current position within the solar system - I don't want to calculate its position in the sky. For example, what I want to do is exactly ...
131 views

As viewed from Mars, what are Jupiter's and Saturn's maximum brightness in apparent magnitude?

From Earth, Jupiter's maximum brightness is -2.94 and Saturn's is -0.24. But what about from Mars? They should be brighter, but by how much? There are equations at the obvious wiki entry but I'm not ...
29 views

Are there collected data about the direction of rotation of black holes and the direction of the magnetic field?

Is there a relation between the direction of rotation of black holes or neutron stars and the magnetic dipole moment of BH or neutron stars? BTW, are there different directions of this two parameters ...
11k views

Does the Sun belong to a constellation?

Each new star we find is generally considered to be part of the constellation it is nearest to. Our Sun is obviously a star, just much closer. Is our Sun part of any constellation? If so, which ...
22 views

Eclipse in sun-synchronous orbits

I am trying to figure out the eclipse periods of a satellite orbiting the Earth. The satellite is placed on a circular sun-synchronous orbit at 800 km height. The LTAN (local time of ascending node) ...
66 views

Whether the collision of particle will lead to a massive WORMHOLE or if BLACKHOLE is also possible? How much I know is that it's created for einstien's E=mc^2 ,conservation of energy from mass and ...
37 views

Orbital eccentricity variation of the other planets?

On Earth, it's fairly well published, mostly in climate change related articles, that the Earth's orbital eccentricity operates on a 413,000 year cycle with roughly 90,000 - 125,000 year variation ...
118 views

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 ...
70 views

Would a satellite in geosynchronous orbit between the earth and moon track across the sky together?

On Nov. 25 at 2:30a.m. from southern California while viewing the moon with a 70mm D x 400mm F telescope a point of light was seen at about the 7 o'clock position below the moon. As viewed the point ...
25 views

How to see other celestial things using stars for direction?

I have a simple question. I can see orion constellation clearly in the night sky. I read it somewhere on this website that gemini is on the left-hand side of orion constellation. I was able to spot ...
115 views

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....
75 views

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 ...
46 views

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 ...
57 views

Why is it strange that outer stars are travelling with the same speed as inner while the total mass is also increasing?

Astronomers say that it's strange that the outer stars of a gallaxy are travelling with the same speed as the inner stars. Therefor they introduced dark matter to solve this strangeness. The theory ...
33 views

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 ...
10 views

Tools and algorithms for angles-only orbit estimation

I've seen discussion threads where amateur astronomers estimate a satellite's orbital parameters from angles-only telescope observation. Are there any community tools or algorithms to help with this ...
162 views

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 ...
355 views

Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens

Can the Sun be used as a gravitational lens to achieve better telescopic viewing? Can this effect be practically used to view celestial objects?
167 views

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 ...
47 views

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 ...
55 views

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 ...
136 views

What part of the milky way do we see from earth?

When looking up at the night sky, we can sometimes observe a bright band of stars stretching across it. I know this is our galaxy but exactly what are we looking at? Could we look at the centre of ...
448 views

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" ...
44 views

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 ...
103 views

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 ...
108 views

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?
65 views

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 ...
199 views

Does the Sun impose back it's tidal forces onto the Earth (such as the Earth's to the Moon)?

It is known that each year the Moon is moving away from the Earth due to tidal forces. What about the Earth relative to the Sun?
45 views

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.
329 views

How does light affect the universe?

When light is emitted by for example a star, that star loses energy - which causes it to reduce its gravity. Then that energy begins a journey for potentially billions of years, until it reaches some ...
89 views

Is there a photo that shows a iron meteor or asteroid in space in raw form having no layers of fusion crust?

A raw iron meteor or asteroid in outer space should be in its raw form having no signs of fusion crust from the friction of atmospheric entry and should therefore show distinctive signs like the ...
88 views

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 ...
53 views

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) ...
128 views

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 ...
140 views

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 ...
39 views

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 ...
149 views

Could an impact have resurfaced Venus 300 million years ago?

Venus surface isn't older than about 300 million years. The only explanation I've come across is that some kind of global volcanism resurfaced the planet. But couldn't it have been an impact event? A ...
146 views

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 ...
96 views

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 ...
11k views

Did atoms in human body indeed come from stars?

I think I am not alone who saw videos about that we (humans) are made of same atoms which someday were in stars. In other words, some atoms in our bodies are from stars which exploded billions of ...
3k views

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 ...
188 views

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 ...
135 views

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?...