# All Questions

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### Exoplanet naming conventions

I'm looking for any exoplanet nomenclature, official, semi-official, proposed, or just a good idea, beyond what can already be found on Wikipedia at ...
513 views

### Layout of the universe

I've been working on a space game in my spare time, and lately I've been thinking on how to lay out the universe. Though I've searched around and found it hard to get a good view of what the universe ...
169 views

### How would water waves behave in partial gravity?

Would an "indoor" pool of water on the Moon or on Mars behave differently than on Earth? Would the waves caused by a splash be higher or lower? Would they propagate faster or slower? Would boyance be ...
455 views

### What is the minimum mass required so that objects become spherical due to its own gravity?

Is this minimum mass known? or maybe, is it given in terms of density? If so, how much density is the minimum to have an spherical object due to its own gravity?
57 views

### What is meant by Electronic Beam Steering and how is it achieved?

I recently came across an article about the Murchison Wide Field Array which said directivity is achieved by Electronic Beam Steering and not by Mechanical methods. It would be helpful if someone can ...
83 views

### Present distances between planet. How can I find them?

It's "commonly known" how distant are our solar system planets from Sun. But we can't easily say that about planets, which distances can differ greatly, without some observations (or simulations, ...
426 views

### What's the furthest object observable by the naked eye from earth?

From XKCD: Caption: 'The light from those millions of stars you see is probably many thousands of years old' is a rare example of laypeople substantially OVERestimating astronomical numbers. So, ...
140 views

### Can a black hole reach a limit where it can no longer attract more matter?

Can a black hole reach a limit where it can no longer attract more matter? If so, what happens with that black hole? Does the black hole die? Does the black hole decrease its size?
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### Why is every year the same number of days despite the gravity in the solar system?

I was just watching a Geoff Marcy talk on YouTube showing how they infer the presence of planets transiting distant stars. The supposed periodicity wasn't always quite regular from what I could see, ...
122 views

### 3D Positions of Nearby Stars

I have come across a number of star catalogs that list stars by right ascension and declination, along with other data such as magnitude. Is there a star catalog that lists the 3-D position of stars ...
149 views

### What’s the object between the earth and the sun currently showing in Google maps?

If I select satellite imagery in Google maps and zoom out, the earth is shown in space. It shows light/dark regions correctly updated, but there’s an object between the earth and the sun. It looks too ...
218 views

### Build a high quality telescope from scratch [closed]

I am interested in building a high quality portable telescope from scratch in an attempt to better understand how telescopes work. What kind of materials do I need? How would I go about putting the ...
62 views

### What is the connection between moons, rings, and gaps?

I was watching this video and they said that the rock probably has a moon. Is the reason they assume it has a moon is because there is a gap between the rings created by the moon's orbit around the ...
559 views

### Is it possible that all dark matter is made of rogue planets (free-floating planet)?

Is it possible that all dark matter is made of rogue planets (free-floating planet)? (and other stuff like asteroids or meteoroids)
127 views

### Does the holographic principle contradict eternal inflation?

As it is for example explained here, Andrei Linde's chaotic inflation is among the potential winners or survivors of the spring cleaning induced by the potential detection of primoridal gravitational ...
129 views

### How did Bradley arrive at the +/- correct speed of light when he calculated it?

After Bradley discovered stellar aberration and the corresponding constant of aberration he was able to calculate the speed of light, since he knew the speed of the Earth around the Sun. As far as I ...
68 views

### Space objects visible from earth

I recently saw the International Space Station without a telescope. Are there any other man-made space objects that can be seen using bare eyes?
192 views

### How can I calculate what star was above my head when I was born? [closed]

Almost everybody knows the concept of Zodiac. But there are others. And, AFAIK, even Zodiac classification is wrong for nowadays - since the classification of the people's Zodiac Sign was developed ...
106 views

### A curious relationship between lunar periods and the solar year

Earlier today I was exploring the astronomy features on WolframAlpha, when I stumbled upon an intriguing numerical relationship involving the values for the lunar synodic and sidereal months. Using ...
223 views

### How exactly does inflation convert random gravity fluctuations into coherent gravitational waves?

In the course of this very enjoyable press announcement, it is mentioned that inflation can create gravity waves by amplifying gravity fluctuations. I do not properly understand this statement. I ...
109 views

### Why isn't the dark energy getting decreased?

AS the articles on the web suggest, Dark energy is the reason behind the expansion of universe. If so, why isn't it getting used up in doing so. And consequently, the rate of expansion should reduce! ...
105 views

### How do scientists know if an Earth-like planet is really Earth-like?

I'm not sure how scientists determine that a planet is really an Earth-like planet. How do they do it?
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### How would an exoplanet be found from earth if our view of its star system is “from the top”?

When we find an exoplanet by observing the dimming of its parent star, this means that the planet passes in front of the star from our view. What if our view of a star system is from its "top" or ...
133 views

### why are galaxies different in color?

whether its in movies,television,real-life or some planetarium different galaxies are shown in different color. For ex:- Milky way is always seen in Blue where as Andromeda gives out a bit reddish ...
94 views

### Are we moving away or towards each other?

There are numerous theories about the shape of the Universe. I've read somewhere most probably in 'A Brief History of Time' that there is a possibility that the Universe is spherical. So is it ...
75 views

### What must/do astronomers reveal beyond their academic papers?

Academic papers often make claims about observational data and results from computations. The papers only refer to names of data sources (such as an observatory) and of mathematical methods without ...
160 views

### How can we predict a Big Crunch when all galaxies are moving further apart?

I've read that the further away a Galaxy is from us the faster it moves away. By this logic how can scientists predict that there will eventually be a big crunch when every piece of matter is ...
54 views

### Simple life on asteroids

If there were an asteroid orbiting its star within the habitable zone and this asteroid contained liquid water, would it be possible for simple life such as bacteria to form?
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### What are these faint streaks on the moon?

I was poking around this Gigapan image of the moon's north polar region, when I noticed this area: What is the source of these light streaks? For position reference, here's a zoomed-out shot (I ...
153 views

### What is the probability that there is life on other planets?

I would like to know, from a mathematical point of view what is the probability that 1) There is organic life on other planets 2) There are advanced species like us or even greater than us on other ...
208 views

### Is there a fundamental difference between a small galaxy, and a large star cluster?

For instance, If a large globular cluster were somehow ejected from its galaxy, and was observed by astronomers, would they call it a galaxy, or would there be characteristics of the star cluster that ...
136 views

### What is the temperature of outerspace?

I want to know whether the temperature in Outer space is higher than earth's or cold.Is the temperature in outer space vary as it does on earth?
593 views

### Why don't we feel the speed of earth moving

When we move our vehicle, we "feel" the speed of it. However, when stationary, we still are moving,but moving by quiet a speed. We know that earth moves with X ...
569 views

### What mechanism causes oscillations of the solar system's orbit about the galactic plane?

In a recent paper (news release here) Lisa Randall and Matthew Reece propose that a dark matter disk coinciding with the galactic plane together with the solar system's oscillations through the ...
53 views

### Why can primordial tensor perturbations of the CMB be ascribed to gravitational waves?

Why can primordial tensor perturbations of the CMB be ascribed to gravitational waves? Is this attribution unique, or are there other michanisms that could lead to the ecitation of tensor modes? In ...
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### If I have amateur astrophotography image data that might be of scientific value, what should I do?

I have some image data that may be interesting to someone, somewhere, but I don't know who to contact or notify. I would imagine it would depend on the type of data, but maybe there is a central ...
237 views

### Why does time get slow near a black hole? [closed]

Why exactly does time get slow around a black hole? And does it provide a way to go into the future?
58 views

### Is there online data on asteroid axial tilts?

I am hoping to find axial tilts for asteroids and also their spring and fall equinox. Some of the asteroids I'm interested in are: 4 Vesta, 1 Ceres, 24 Themis, 65 Cybele, 153 Hilda, 624 Hektor
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### What causes Earth's gravity? [closed]

Why Earth is like a magnet? how can earth attract any object irrespective of what it is made of? What is the reason behind Celestial Body's gravity? i.e Sun,Jupiter,Moon etc.
237 views

### What exactly does outer space contain?

Does outer space contain any gases? Recently i watched a video on youtube,in which NASA installs a camera on a spacecraft.The footage shows some dust particles or some matter floating over the space ...
218 views

### Why are most planetary orbits nearly circular

In our solar system, with the exception of Pluto all planets follow a relatively circular orbit around the Sun, at the same inclination. They also all rotate in the same direction, none are ...
54 views

### need data-point: actual counts per second with APD (avalanche photodiode) detector

I'm designing a sensor system to perform specialized [astronomy and space-sciences] experiments, and need a "reality check" to support or adjust my theoretical calculations. What I need is the ...
51 views

### local stellar mapping data

I've been playing around with Near Star Map, and I think I kind of want something more sophisticated, so for all stars within 100ly/30pc, is the following known? velocity (it would be nice to have a ...
39 views

### Max. speed that a space probe can communite with the Earth? [closed]

Question: Which is the average or maximum speed of a telematically sent message that a space probe can send? Is as simple as radio waves travel at the speed of light in a vacuum? Context: I have been ...
108 views

### Is there another explanation, apart from the doppler effect, for the redshift observed in distant galaxies?

On episode 10 of the original Cosmos TV series, Carl Sagan mentions that some scientist don't agree that the redshift observed in distant galaxies is evidence of the big bang, stating that probably ...
135 views

### Do the E and B modes of the CMB polarization have anything to do with electric and magnetic fields?

As explained in this article, as the CMB is created from a vaiable (matter?) density $\kappa$ its gradient $\nabla \kappa = \vec{u}$ can be separated into a gradient and curl part, called the $E$ and ...
158 views

### What are the differences between TESS and PLATO exoplanet telescopes?

Within a year now it has been decided to launch TESS in 2017 and PLATO in 2024, space telecopes of NASA and ESA. They seem to have very similar science goals, both searching for transiting Earth sized ...
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### regarding spectral type of a star

consider two stars of the spectral type and subtype, but not necessarily both on the main sequence. Describe whether this information is sufficient to tell you how the stars differ in surface ...