# All Questions

128 views

### Where can I find good places to watch stars? [duplicate]

Where can I find good places to watch stars near me? I live in Leicestershire, England and am looking for good places to watch the sky nearby.
239 views

### Orbiting around a black hole

Is it possible (for either a satellite or a planet) to orbit around a black hole? Do they attract everything around themselves into the center? Or they just affect gravitational force just like stars? ...
318 views

### Does gravity slow or speed light up?

The speed of light in a vacuum is presumably the fastest speed possible. if gravity bends the course of light, does this imply that gravity the retards light so it is moving at a slower speed? If ...
235 views

### Will new stars stop forming at some point of time?

New stars keep forming in the universe thanks to all the nebulae. Now, we need Hydrogen to form stars and there would a time when all the hydrogen will get exhausted, and no more star formation will ...
137 views

### Can you identify this telescope in a desert? [closed]

It should be in a desert. 5-15 similar lens cones are binded together,small size(about 30 cm?),same direction. The purpose is to find exoplanet? It is like WASP below. It is in a desert and lower ...
27 views

### In India, what is the best time to view the geminid meteor shower in 2013

As of the time of writing this question, the meteors should have appeared, but so far I haven't seen any. What time would be the best to view them?
327 views

### Emulation of an Orrery

Orrery is a clockwork model of the solar system. I am trying to emulate one in 2D. Now, to emulate, I need to know what goes on inside. Can someone please explain the basic principle behind the ...
200 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 ...
81 views

### Age and relativity [closed]

This is a question, where I start with some assertions: Try to consider the universe as a four-coordinate system, x,y,z,t where t is time and where we view a change in t as a change in position, and ...
67 views

### How can the life time of a multiple star system, such as for example the trinary system PSR J0337+1715 be derived?

As for example explained at the beginning of this blog post, the trinary system consists of a millisecond pulsar ($1.438$ times the mass of the sun) orbited by two white dwarfs. One of the white ...
170 views

### Why are planets spherical?

I am a complete novice when it comes to astronomy, but someone asked me the above question casually. It seems as though planets are all roughly spherical, whereas other celestial bodies aren't ...
42 views

### apparent size of an astronomical body

What's the name of the measure of apparent (visible) size of a body? e.g. the Sun and the Moon appear to be roughly the same size, despite the Sun being vastly bigger - because the Moon is much ...
90 views

### Does gravity propagate?

Gravity is sometimes described as a curvature in space-time. Due to relativity, doesn't this imply that gravity doesn't propagate? A thought experiment. If you are moving toward a black hole, this ...
276 views

### When we say a galaxy is 200 million light years away, does this account for the expansion of space in the time it took it's light to reach us?

When we see a distant galaxy, the light we are watching started it's journey millions of years ago. In all that time, space has been expanding, so if the initial distance was A, right now the distance ...
87 views

### Heavy star and redshift

A heavy star should look redshifted, due to gravitational time dilation. How is that incorporated into the calculations of distances to the stars, or is it negligible? How about an entire region of ...
623 views

### What is the physical, geometric shape of the universe?

I'm not asking about theoretical ball, vs saddle, vs flat surface which is just a metaphor with 2D space. It's hard to say as we see very little of it, and we see them in the past because light ...
51 views

### Are nebulae only visible from a distance?

There's plenty of data about the density of nebulae, and obviously they're pretty thin. This is space, after all, and these things are really, really big. But I'm wondering about the practical ...
117 views

### Do galaxies have a preferred orientation?

This article: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/25/was-the-universe-born-spinning asserts that the universe was "born spinning" and that there is a preferred rotation direction for ...
360 views

### How does angular resolution of a telescope translate to its parallax precision?

We can often read in the scientific and also more casual reader literature and articles about the angular resolution of various telescopes and other optical equipment, be it ground based or onboard ...
110 views

### Is the discovery of Alien or Extra Terrestrial Life a function of the science of Astronomy?

Is the discovery of Alien or Extra Terrestrial Life a function of the science of Astronomy? When i read astronomy articles on the search for new Planets or discussions on Mars a lot of the topic is on ...
116 views

### How can satellites be safe in the atmosphere when there are so many asteroids coming in?

How can artificial satellites be safe in the atmosphere when there are hundreds of tons of dust and asteroids coming into earth's atmosphere everyday? What is an orbit of an artificial satellite? ...
194 views

### Could something temporarily break the Moon's tidal lock?

Would it be possible for something to cause the Moon to start rotating at a different rate, breaking its tidal lock with Earth, without ripping it apart? If so, would the Moon's tidal lock eventually ...
192 views

### How does gravity affect the wavelength of light?

If, hypothetically, me and my rocket powered flashlight were falling straight toward the center of a black hole. The flashlight is a few kilometers behind me in our travels toward the center of the ...
58 views

### Martian Brother [closed]

According to some documentaries History and Discovery, fossils have been found in a meteorite that fell to earth. This meteorite came from Mars. It is possible that the Martians always try to be ...
461 views

### Two species of dark matter?

At this point in time, evidence for the existence of dark matter has accumulated in many ways: it affects galactic rotation curves plays a major role in cosmology, and the evolution of structure in ...
105 views

### The life course for a massive star from birth to death using the HR Diagram

could you explain to me the life course for a massive star (30-40 solar masses) from birth to death using the HR Diagram (by showing key events in its life on the HR Diagram)? thanks
246 views

### If we were to see the Sun with our naked eyes from the Orion belt, would all planets be encompassed inside the star? Is this calculable?

When we see a star it looks much bigger in diameter to us than it really is, this picture (extracted from here) explains what I mean: Notice that the point we see in the skynight, represented by ...
61 views

### What does observational evidence say about the number of protoplanets believed to exist in the early solar system?

Currently, the solar system has 8 major planets, a handful of dwarf planets and a plethora of asteroids, comets and natural debris, and of course, a rather locally dominant star (the Sun). There are ...
117 views

### Black Holes emitting Hawking radiation

I've read that even light cannot escape from black holes. The speed of light is theoretically predicted to be the escape velocity of a black hole. I've also read that the general notion that nothing ...
425 views

### How to calculate the altitude of the Moon?

With the known latitude coordinate of the observing position, how to find the altitude of the moon when it is high, i.e when it crosses the local meridian?
81 views

### How Does Cosmology Constrain the Number of Neutrino Species?

I've asked this question already on the Physics SE, but I felt it would be worth posting here as well. I know that based upon theories of structure formation cosmologists can constrain the sum of the ...
345 views

### How does a telescope measure parallax angle?

I know how stars' distances are measured by using parallax, but I want to know how the actual telescope measures the parallax angle. Any helpful links/ explanations are needed.
45 views

### (Sound) Echo from X takes 5-7 days, [closed]

Hey I want to describe an event A happening roughtly 5-7 after event B. I'd like to describe it as the 'A happened after the sound of B echo'd off X', where X is recognisable space thingy... (I'm ...
97 views

### What does the term alien planet actually refer to?

This article left me wondering what do they mean by the term alien planet? Aren't all planets simply alien by default, or do they mean planets outside our solar system are alien? Do they mean there is ...
84 views

### How do astronomers find interesting events?

I always wondered how those tiny dots representing moving stars or whatever forming an interesting event (supernova explosions, stars being sucked into black holes etc.) get caught in the huge solid ...
362 views

### Latest sunrise/earliest sunset out of phase with solstice?

Everybody knows that the shortest and longest days of the year occur on the solstices. However, examination of sunrise/sunset tables shows that the maxima and minima of sunrise/sunset times are ...
85 views

### What does it mean for a black hole to “evaporate”?

It says in this Wikipedia's article: Entropy, however, implies heat and therefore temperature. The loss of energy also suggests that black holes do not last forever, but rather "evaporate" slowly. ...
68 views

### How close are we to having the technology to measure planetary obliquity for exoplanets?

As far as I can tell, we do not yet have the precision to even put reasonable bounds on an exoplanets obliquity, but wikipedia seems to indicate that this may be possible in the "near future." It ...
903 views

### What is the fastest spinning rotation of a Neutron star?

What is the fastest spinning rotation of a Neutron star? I have heard that Neutron stars have a specially fast spinning rotation. What is the fastest?
78 views

### What is a Barlow lens?

I am looking to buy a Celestron 21023 FirstScope 76 Telescope, which is quite inexpensive, and it has good reviews on Amazon. One thing that many reviewers have said is that the two lenses that it ...
253 views

### Our galaxy, the Milky Way, forms part of a galaxy group called The Local Group. What are the parameters that dictate what a galaxy group is?

Are there different classifications or just the one? How does our galaxy group compare with others?
141 views

### What Is The Great Attractor?

I've heard that there is something called the Great Attractor which seems to have some kind of gravitational influence on objects in the Universe. Is this some kind of theoretical notion posited in ...
131 views

### Why Do Planets Revolve Faster When they Are Closer to Their Parent Star?

According to Kepler's second law: A planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times (A simple definition). This means that if the orbit is somewhat eccentric, the planet will move faster when on the ...
226 views

### What skills would a software developer need to get a job in space research or exploration organization? [closed]

I am in the field of software programming. What skills should I brush up and gear up to get a job in space exploration and the observatory industry? What are various job profiles in terms of software ...
89 views

### Which planet or moon has all resources that can be used to sustain life in a controlled biosphere? [closed]

Now that we are making it to Mars, continuing onward, in an effort for humanity to civilize other planets, not just setting up residential colonies, but to mine minerals and carry on geological and ...
1k views

### What is the Exact time earth takes to revolve around its axis [closed]

I read that our day is not exactly 24 hours long. If it is not then why weather seasons come at the same time (Summer, Winter, Autumn Spring) ? how it is equalized ? Update: Sorry I could not make ...
187 views

### What caused the comet ISON to disintegrate?

So curious to know why comet ISON disintegrated? Well, it went near the Sun but was the Sun the only reason it died? Or is there any other reason for it's fading away?
155 views

### Can Doppler shift make colors of two stars at same distance different?

As you know, Doppler effect can change the wavelength of the light. Suppose there are two stars at same distance and same temperature. If one star is receding and the other star is approaching, their ...