# All Questions

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### What is the term for a star swallowing another star?

A star A goes through the body of another star B, or is swallowed by B. There is no tidal disruption. It sounds like kerzan. Does anybody recognise this pronunciation?
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### Inability of Hubble to clearly resolve nearby celestial objects

The Hubble space telescope performs incredibly detailed and stunning imaging of celestial bodies that are many, many light years away, and yet when it attempts to image objects within our own Solar ...
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### Do telescopes harm while observing sun through them?

I don't know whether we can observe a sun through a telescope. But if we can then will it harm our eyes and if such telescopes exists what is their configuration?
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### Estimates of exoplanets distribution consistent with current data

I am interested in current estimate of distribution of planets of various radii in various distances from their parent star. There is many sources, where one can find database of presently known ...
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### Ocean floors on ocean planets?

I know that models of ocean planets typically have deep liquid water that transitions into exotic forms of ice. What I am wondering is if it makes sense to have an "ocean floor" composed of debris ...
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### How to interpret this old degree notation?

I'm trying to follow the calculations in this paper on page 5 (see image below). The paper is describing traditional methods of calculation for a luni-solar calendar. The math is not hard, but I ...
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### How much larger would a star have to be to cause thermonuclear reactions if it was made out of mostly rock like Earth, instead of gases?

I assume it would have to be considerably larger since rock isn't as flammable as gases are? But it's also more dense to begin with.. Do we know of any suns that are made like this? Is it even ...
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### How to calculate conjunctions of 2 planets

So, the recent conjunction of Jupiter and Venus seems to have spawned lots of excitement over this "rare" event. But what I can't figure out, is exactly how rare it is. And I've seen such conflicting ...
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### Mini black holes, a possible result of the LHC experiment at CERN

A scientist at CERN LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was asked during an interview about the possible results and consequences of operating the LHC at full power of collision in the near future, one of the ...
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### Where does energy at the beginning of a star's lifecycle (before any nuclear reactions) come from?

David Christian's Maps of Time has this to say about the period during which the first stars started to form from the diffuse clouds of hydrogen and helium that then made up the universe: Under ...
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### What is the most oblate astronomical object known?

There are some very vast spinning objects out there. How high can the eccentricity get, or, which I think is easier to understand, how small can the ratio between the polar and equatorial diameter ...
222 views

### How is the universe bordered?

This answer says that some models describes the universe as finite. How do those models describe the universe's border? Does the border (theoretically) exist? Is it a solid border? Do they predict ...
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### Is there light on the surface of Venus?

A simple question: is there light on the surface of Venus?
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### Diameter of any galaxy

I've been trying to figure out how to find the diameter in kpc of any galaxy given that one knows the distance to it in Mpc (d) and also the angular diameter/size (A) in arcsec. I had a formula before ...
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### What is the relative time difference between us and a star system in outer layer of our galaxy?

Just curious to know what will be the time difference between someone living on the outer layer of our galaxy and us, considering the known facts that Time is relative to gravity Our sun goes around ...
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### If the Universe is infinite, why isn't it of infinite density?

If we make the assumption that the Universe is infinite, and has an infinite number of hydrogen atoms, then why is it not of infinite density - because, under Schrodinger's wave equation the ...
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### Triple Stars v/s Ternary Stars

Ternary (or trinary) stars are not the same as triple stars. So, what is the basic ...
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### which or what kind of star has a very stable luminosity?

I mean those kind of stars should be very stable and barely have activity. Their light curves should be very very flat. Our sun, as a G type star, are not so stable. At lest there are lots of ...
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### How would Alpha Centauri A appear from the surface of Alpha Centauri Bb?

I'm trying to imagine what a hypothetical observer on the surface of Alpha Centauri Bb would see in the daytime sky. I know it would vary depending on the orbit of b around B, as well as the position ...
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### Does the Sun have hard radiation?

Does the Sun spread hard radiation waves around the Solar System? If so, why are we safe here (or are we even safe)?
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### Why is Mars considered the outer edge of the “goldilocks zone”?

In both books and documentaries I often see the Goldilocks Zone as described between Venus and Mars with the Earth "just right." This seems sort of ill thought out to me, because it assumes that ...
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### How to measure distances to stars by means of spectroscopic parallaxes?

How to measure distances to stars by means of spectroscopic parallaxes on practice? What is the accuracy of measuring distances using this method compared with distances based on HIPPARCOS ...
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### Do all moons orbit their planets on the ecliptic?

Do all moons orbit their planets on the ecliptic? Do they all follow this same process as the moon that orbits Earth, or is their some random distribution with some even having extreme polar orbits.
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### what is the highest throughput astronomy project in pixels?

I was having a discussing about big scientific projects with colleagues, and I postulated that astronomy is still one of the scientific fields with biggest projects per amount of data dealt with, ...
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### Generalised planets?

There is somewhat of an abstract way of generalising the notion of planets. Standard definition of planets is, obviously: "planets are the objects formed from the residual material surrounding a ...
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### How long does it take to produce a star? Why does it take that long?

I wonder, why stars take a really long time to become stars? Is it because it needs to gain mass? Or heat up? Something like that? And could it be sped up at all?
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### Why does gravity increase in star formation?

When a star ignites ( ie. fusion starts ), the star maintains its form by balancing gravity's inward pressure, and radiation's outward pressure. I get that the fusion of hydrogen atoms releases ...
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### Acceleration in Galaxies Collision

In the far future the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide. As far I know direct collision between large dense objects (black holes, stars, planets, etc.) is unlikely due to the relative "low density" ...
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### If 50 tons or more of debris falls to earth everyday, is Earth getting heavier?

In turn, would that increase our gravitational pull?
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### Can the Sun become a big ball of gold atoms?

The atoms inside the core of sun are continuously fusing and forming other atoms. Can this continuous fusing make gold atoms?
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### How common are exoplanets in distant orbits?

Are there many single transits in the Kepler data, which might be exoplanets with a longer orbital period than the time they have been observed for transits? Can any conclusions be drawn about how ...
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### Can stellar black holes cancel each other?

Hypothetical question: when a pair of identical stellar black holes are very close to one another wouldn't the side facing each other experience lower gravitational force? How is this logic un/sound?
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### Pulsars: How do astronomers measure minute changes in period (~picoseconds per year)?

I've been to some talks that mention how stable the period of a millisecond pulsar is over long periods of time. Recently, it was mentioned that astronomers have calculated the change in period over ...
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### How can we tell how many exoplanets a star has?

Part of this answer (discussing the moving center of mass of our solar system) explains that this movement is one way we know a star has planets: Bonus: We use this phenomenon to find planets ...
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### visualisation of the universe's expansion

in physics we were learning about the universe and the big bang. we were being told that everything came from one point and 'exploded' outwards, and is continuing to expand. I felt that this ...
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### Why are Hubble images “Cut”

Whenever you take a look at a photo that is taken by hubble, Lets say M87 or Eagle Nebula or maybe Ultra Deep space field, The Image is always "Cut" Like this : or this I want to know reason ...
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### How long does it take Dawn to orbit Ceres?

I haven't been able to find the orbit time of Dawn around Ceres. Do you know how long it takes?
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### Why stars are named Gliese?

There are exoplanets called Gliese 581c, Gliese 581d etc. I assume their star is Gliese 581. So where does this Gliese come from?
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### Is Mars expected to go through the tail of Comet Siding?

This question will likely be answered "in retrospect" in about 8 days. So it's a great opportunity to "lay it out there" and then let reality prove you right/wrong. On the 19th of October, Comet ...
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### Why aren't the farthest objects close to each other?

The last years we find some objects like this : MACS0647-JD which are more than 13 billion light-years away from us. This means that the picture we get was created only some million years after the ...
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### Potential Re-Capture of Rogue Planets

Rogue planets can be designated as rogue planets due to one of two possible scenarios: 1) the "rogue planet" formed as a sub-brown dwarf, or 2) the planet was ejected from its home star system. I want ...
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### How can the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) warn of incoming solar storms?

How can the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) warn of incoming solar storms when is is invested with radiation? Discovery.com article Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs states that: ...
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### seasons elongating and shortening

I have heard of years with longer summers and winters and shorter springs and falls and vice versa because of a change in the earths axis. Is this from the procession that causes the season switch ...
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### What is the apparent magnitude limit for the naked eye?

If you only read the question, you will answer: ''That depends on the light pollution''. Yes, it does, but if you are in the darkest night sky (Bortle class 1), what magnitude would have the faintest ...
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### how does redshift prove expansion is accelerating?

My astronomy teachers never would answer this for me... Redshift obviously indicates an object (such as another galaxy) is moving away, but how do we know its acceleration from this? It's my ...
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### Average amount of annual daylight at any place on earth

If this is the wrong group please direct me to the correct one. It seems intuitively obvious that the amount of daylight per annum should be the same for any latitude on earth. For example, 12 hours ...
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### Does Doppler shift affect apparent pulsar frequency?

We know that redshift and blueshift is the result of the frequency of light waves reflected or emitted by an object lengthening or shortening due to the relative velocity of the observer moving away ...
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### What is the orientation of planetary orbits?

I'm working on a planetary motion simulator. I've been working through the equations anomaly, eccentricity, etc. The one thing I'm curious about is if all the ellipses are oriented the exact same way ...