# All Questions

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### Why isn't the star that created the black hole a black hole?

If the mass of a black hole is creating so much gravity that light cannot escape, why isn't the mass of the star that created the black hole (before it went supernova) trapping light as well? By all ...
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### On (minuscule) dark matter production in supernovae

It is believed that dark matter is made of particles, which interact with matter only weakly and gravitationally. One common candidate for dark matter are so called WIMPs. WIMPs, specifically, are ...
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### What is the Fundamental plane for Elliptical Galaxies?

An alternate explanation rather than from wikipedia is preferable.
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### Using Tully Fisher to measure Distance Problem

Can anyone explain by looking at the solution in the pic, how did the cos (i) came about? I guess they are getting this from the major-minor axis info in the question, but I am not sure about the ...
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### What was the greatest spatial extent of the Asteroid Belt prior to the Late Heavy Bombardment?

Reading the article On the asteroid belt’s orbital and size distribution (Gladman et al. 2009), there is an interest point made: asteroids a few kilometers and smaller in size are recent ...
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### Did the Late Heavy Bombardment Period Happen Because of a Stellar System Collision?

I was thinking about the impending collision between M31 and the milky way galaxy, and I've heard that since a galaxy is mostly space most of the contents of both galaxies would be just fine. Could a ...
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### Do meteorites streak across the sky in the same direction?

Once while camping with my family as a child we all watched a meteor shower in the summer (in the month of August). All the meteorites streaked across the sky in the same direction. Obviously, this ...
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### Is the expansion of the universe greater than the speed of light?

If the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing , won't it eventually become greater than c? Also, after inflation, did the rate of expansion slow down and then start to accelerate again?
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### By putting a mirror in space, would we be able to see into the past?

I only ask this because of how fast light travels. The question remains in the title. Why, or why not, would this work?
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### Spotting the International Space Station (ISS)

Recently, I visited the NASA website which provides sighting locations to see the International Space Station (ISS). As we all know, we can even see ISS with the naked eye in a clear sky as a passing ...
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### How long until Earth's core solidifies? [migrated]

How much longer does Earth have until the core turns solid? Does global warming change these estimates at all?
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### Why are (Type II) supernovae so bright?

The vast majority of energy from a supernova is emitted as neutrinos and high-energy radiation, both of which being invisible to the naked eye. Yet a supernova can outshine its galaxy in the visible ...
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### Earth's gravitational pull on ISS

How do they make International space station to orbit the earth beyond earth's gravity acting on it? We all know that ISS is rotating at an altitude of just 350km away.How could ISS escape earth's ...
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### How can light reach us from 14 billion light years away?

One thing that I can't quite wrap my head around is how light is traveling to Earth from 14 billion light years away, aka the beginning of the universe. The way I see it, the universe itself was very ...
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### What is the galaxy M87 doing these days?

The massive elliptical galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster is 53,490,000 light years away. It also contains one of the largest, heaviest supermassive black holes in the known Universe. But it's also my ...
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### Why natural satellites (moons) of all Planets are Solid?

Why the natural satelittes (moons)of all planets including moons of Gas Giants are are Solid or Rocky and not gaseous like them?
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### Are there standard algorithms and procedures for creating unique sky maps based on latitude/longitude/date/time?

I am trying to build an astronomy app that will use the user's latitude and longitude, along with the current date and time, to create a 3D view of the celestial sphere as seen based on that data. ...
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### Requesting book references for a non-expert person with math background or just a non-expert person

I've just finished my masters degree (to be exact previous week ^_^). And I'm completing my collection of applications of my studies. During previous year I started reading about Robotics and Coding ...
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### During an eclipse, does the size of the moon and sun match perfectly?

During a lunar or solar eclipse, from our perspective when we look towards the moon and the sun is behind the moon, does it fit exactly? Has anyone calculated the sizes of each in a relative ...
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### How certain are we about the universe's flatness?

The universe is thought to be flat: $\Omega = 1 \pm 1\%$. As I understand it we can determine this by measuring triangles against the CMB. Yet during inflation dark energy made the universe grew ...
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### Is there matter forming in the inflationary space?

Following the answers and the line of thinking from here Is there enough hydrogen left after a star dies so another star will have enough to light up? I was wondering if is there any possibility to ...
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### Can you explain the pattern of Hill sphere sizes of the objects of the Solar system?

I found this image on calculations of Hill sphere for planets/dwarf planets of the Solar system. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hill_sphere_of_the_planets.png I found it interesting that ...
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### How fast is a comet moving when it crosses Earth's orbit?

Is it about the same as Earth's orbital speed?
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### Did cosmological inflation occur at speeds greater than $c$?

If cosmological inflation occurred at speeds less than $c$, wouldn't we see the CMB right in front of our noses (or not at all) instead of at 13.7 billion light years? And if it happened faster than ...
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### What is the ultimate fate of a cluster of galaxies?

We're fairly aware clusters of galaxies drift apart due to space expansion, which will drive them out of each other's cosmic event horizon eventually, leaving them separate, alone, each a single ...
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### Conundrum involving distance to object, universal expansion, age of universe, etc

I was recently reading about a galaxy or quasar (not sure which, so lets just say quasar) where the estimated distance to this thing was some very significant fraction of the age of the universe. ...
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### Expansion of the Universe [duplicate]

Please forgive my ignorance. I dare say that these questions arise from me trying to understand the nature of the Universe using Newtonian physics. There are a few things that really bother me when ...
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### Milky Way Formation

Is the Milky Way a collection of merged galaxies, or has it only been one galaxy that was created from the interstellar media?
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### Which kind of properties can we get for cosmic ray particles hitting on an optical ccd?

It is very common that we meet cosmic ray particles in optical images recorded by CCDs. You can see the "snowflakes" in the hubble images below: Generally we should remove them in order to get ...
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### Selecting a Telescope for Viewing Planets

I hope to observe planets like Jupiter and Saturn, and moons. I am a novice when it comes to telescopes and I know images in magazines are not taken with at least 12-inch telescope in a middle of ...
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### How can I collimate a dobsonian telescope with a laser collimator?

I've had a dobsonian telescope for a while now, but I've never been able to collimate it. I thought I had it collimated once, but when I looked through it the star didn't look right, it looked kind ...
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### Collimator for Dobsonian, same as Newtonian?

I have been looking on line for Collimator for my Meade Dobsonian. The only Collimators I can find are made for Newtonian Lenses. It's a 8" mirror with a 1.25" lens. Will this work for my telescope?
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### What is the farthest object we've been able to bounce signals off of to date?

I know people bounced lasers off of Venus and Mercury in 1960s in order to test the Shapiro delay. Since then, we've developed higher power lasers and radio transmitters (Bolshakovo transmitter). ...
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### What are the biggest problems about the numerical, finite-element GR models?

As I know, for example the modelling of the collapse of a neutron star (to a black hole) wasn't done correctly until now. Why? Yes, I know, the Einstein Field Equations aren't really easy to solve. ...
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### the metal distribution in our solar system

The sun dominates in our solar system. I wonder whether in every aspect the sun play the most role in our system. For example, all kinds of metals are mainly located in the sun instead of the rest ...
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### How to calculate right ascension of Greenwich? [closed]

If I know specific time, t0, how can I calculate RA of Greenwich?
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### Distance of extra-galactic Classical Cepheids

There have been many questions and answers about finding the distance of a star from the earth. But as I did some research on the net, I found that we have specific approaches for finding the ...
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### How was the Earth-Sun distance originally calculated?

AFAIK it was possible long before the first interplanetary probes. Who did it?
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### How massive can a star be at birth? [duplicate]

We have discovered some incredibly massive stars. R136a1, the most massive known star is estimated to have 265 times mass as our Sun. Yet it has been burning for at least a million years, and must ...
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### Are there stars that don't emit visible light?

Are there stars that do not emit any light in the visible part of the EM spectrum?
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### Determining effect of small variable force on planetary perihelion precession

Is there an analytical technique for determining the effect of a small variable transverse acceleration upon the rate of aspides precession (strictly not a precession but rotation of the line of ...
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### Tools for creating a multiwavelength view of the sky

Not sure that this is the correct place to ask this question, but here goes. I am trying to find tools to accumulate image data (preferably in FITS format) on a given (RA, Dec)-coordinate of sky. ...
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### Conditions on Hot Jupiters

Hot Jupiters are close to their parent star - after all, that's why they're so hot. Their atmospheres are thought to be slowly blown away by the parent star, and they will eventually become chthonian ...
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### How are Galaxy Super Clusters Generated

I have seen pictures of clusters of galaxies, usually used in regards to theories of dark matter and galaxy formations. One of the most famous ones has the perceived shape of a stick-figure. If I am ...
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### Objects entering or leaving the observable universe

Have there been any observations of objects entering or leaving the observable universe? When looking at the physical limit of observing something like this I will to assume that the "object" would ...
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### The Existence of Natural Satellites in Geostationary Orbits

While browsing through Physics SE, I noticed a question about satellites in geostationary orbit (unrelated to the one I'm asking here), and for a moment I interpreted it as referring to natural ...
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### Is a spotting scope or binoculars a better choice for astronomy?

I'm interested in observing the moon and planets, and maybe some nebulae and star clusters. I have a pair of binoculars: Nikon OceanPro 7x50 binoculars (around \\$300) Celestron 20x80 binoculars ...
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### meaning of p-wave charmonia

What exactly does p-wave mean when referring to particles, like charmonia states. For example, see the following reference: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9208254 My doubt is - p wave in scattering ...