# All Questions

60 views

### Is there a difference between the terms 'elliptical' and 'elongated' for galaxies?

While studying the Solar System, I found that some galaxies are either elliptical or elongated. What's the difference?
158 views

### Interstellar movie: What is the “portal” to the other galaxy?

I recently watched Interstellar with some friends and we didn't come to the same conclusion. In my opinion, the portal they use to go to the other galaxy (to visit the three planets) is not a black ...
98 views

### why does not Australia/Russia have optical telescopes?

Their areas are large. However I only find a 2.3msliding telescope in Australia. As far as I know, there are lots of mountains in Australia and Russia. They may have different reasons because of ...
84 views

### Eternally collapsing objects?

As has been pointed out by some scientists, that black holes aren't stable bodies but are eternally collapsing objects. How does one come to such a conclusion? Is hawking radiation related to this in ...
63 views

### Is mass+energy conserved when a new universe forms inside a black hole?

My understanding is that there are credible theories out there in which the formation of a singularity in a black hole also represents the beginning of a new universe via a big bang. We can't see the ...
116 views

### What kind of things I could “see” with an amateur radio telescope?

There are apparently not many reasonably priced radio telescopes available for the amateur users. I only could find this one, which costs ~10 k€. Reading the page, I don't get a good overview what ...
46 views

### Collapse of a star below the mass of Chandrashekhar Limit

How is Chandrashekhar Limit calculated? What happens to stars below the mass of the Chandrashekhar limit after they collapse?
22 views

### Focusing light through plastic cable to extend telescope viewer

This question will seem out of place here, my explanation is that I want to build a system to view my telescope without being uncomfortable, as of now I have to stand up and bend over to view the eye ...
238 views

### How Much Overlap Will the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way Have When They Collide?

Measurements of Andromeda's blue shift let us conclude that the distance between the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way is decreasing and in a few billion years they will "collide". The blue shift ...
27 views

### How is the cost of JWST distributed on different parts of development and operations?

The James Webb Space Telescope costs nearly 9 billion dollar. What parts of this project cost how much? I suppose that almost every component has to be developed and is not available to buy off the ...
65 views

### Am I using my Celestron 8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope correctly?

I became interested in astronomy a few years ago and started with a Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ refractor telescope. That seemed nice, and I wanted to upgrade to a go-to telescope that was also more ...
71 views

### How well do planetary orbits fit with Johannes Kepler's in- & circumscribed Platonic solids?

In Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) Johannes Kepler proposed that the relative distances between the orbits of the six ancient planets (six because heliocentrism had recently added Earth as one of the ...
84 views

### Capturing Ceres

Would it be possible to slightly change the trajectory of Ceres to make it end up orbiting the Earth without messing up the Solar System? How much energy would be required and how long would the ...
67 views

### Can there be an object with planetary discriminant between Ceres and Neptune?

The planetary discriminant is a measure of how dominant a body is within its region of the solar system. For (true) planets, it is >10000 and for dwarf planets it is <1. See this answer for more ...
14 views

### Do the planetary ring lasts? [duplicate]

Almost all gas giants in our solar system are observed to have a planetary ring comprises of ice, dust and rocks. My question is do these rings obediently sticks around their foster parent until our ...
27 views

### What are the analysis steps in taking raw data from Kepler to a planetary system determination

I wish to get a concise list of the analysis steps required to take raw light data from a Kepler data set of a star through the steps needed to get to an analytical determination of the existence of a ...
54 views

### How much time comet is within the Earth's orbit? [closed]

Comet on the parabola orbit flies by Sun. I would like to know what is comet's full energy? What is its distance from Sun at perihelion?
47 views

### How to calculate full (mechanical) energy on the hyperbolic orbit?

For example, for a comet that travels on the hyperbolic orbit around the sun.
41 views

### Asteroids in langrangian Points 4 & 5

There are Asteroids "trapped" in Jupiters Langrange points 4 and 5 called trojans and greeks. Are there any asteroids in the earths L4 and L5? Have we seen asteroids in Lagrange points of the earth ...
63 views

### Michigan's Pole Star

Unfortunately, I'm not any good at figuring these things out myself so hope for help here. If the (true) north pole were over the Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern Michigan, what would the North Star be; ...
60 views

### How to deal with shifting CCD bias (zero exposure) levels?

The median values of the bias frames coming from our teaching telescope shift up or down with each capture. For example: ...
22 views

### What is the reason for the dispute over the variation of core mass with heavy metal abundance?

In Metal-Poor Stars IV: The Evolution of Red Giants, Rood writes The differences in the results of these papers are large enough to introduce appreciable uncertainties into the study of the ...
23 views

### coordinates in ICRF

The International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) is defined based on distant quasars and the origin is the barycentre of the Solar system. So, how can we measure the coordinates (\alpha, \delta) of ...
61 views

### why are solar telescopes built on lakes? the site differnece between a solar and an optical telescope

According to the wikipedia page big bear, water can cool the observatory. Big bear is in the southern California. It is better to build it on a cold high mountain with stable and clear atmosphere? ...
20 views

### How is the age of a star on the Henyey track calculated?

I was reading Stellar Evolution in Early Phases of Gravitational Contraction, by Chushiro Henyey, where he writes, If $L \propto R^{-\alpha}$ along the path, the age of a star from the time when ...
30 views

### Sunsets: Mars/Earth

I understand why our sky is blue and turns red when the sun sets or rises. I know why the sky on mars is red, but why does it turn blue during sunsets and rises? Shouldn't this actually not work due ...
86 views

### For how many bodies can there be a stable orbit with no very heavy central body?

The question is a bit vague, but let me explain: Take for example 2 bodies of the same mass. They can orbit around their centre of mass/gravity. Is something like this possible with multiple ...
37 views

### Types of Exoplanets

We discover vastly more exoplanets, that are gas giants that orbit their parent star very closely, than small terrestrial planets that are more distant to their sun. Could this be due to the methods ...
23 views

### Probability of finding life-supporting exoplanets

We've found over a thousand exoplanets by now, but how many of them could support life? What percentage of newly found planets are potentially life-harbouring? Or haven't we found any exoplanets that ...
72 views

### Why aren't secondary mirrors offset to get rid of diffraction spikes due to the support vanes?

Some kind of ellipsoidal shape mirror could reflect to a secondary mirror which is not in the way of the infalling light. Two advantages are immediately obvious. The primary mirror would not be partly ...
199 views

### Can the Milky Way be seen with the naked eye? Does this apply to any galaxy? If yes, then how and when?

I have seen different pictures in a different community to showcasing the Milky Way. I can never tell whether it's edited or it's the real picture. Actually, I can never see any galaxy as such by with ...
43 views

### Milky Way stellar number density : is the stated equation in this paper incorrect?

The paper is : http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/ivezic/Publications/tomographyI.pdf The equation is equation #23 in the paper. It's a model for the density of stars in the Milky Way's disk. It ...
102 views

### How can we tell the difference between matter and antimatter by observation in space?

I just was wondering and searching on the internet with little luck in the topic. On Antimatter Wiki they tell the observable universe is built up by matter. I read antimatter can be detected in ...
155 views

### Longest and shortest wavelength

What is the longest and what is the shortest wavelength of light? How fast would a light-emitting object have to recede in order to shift the frequency of light to increase the wavelength from the ...
33 views

### Attraction to barycenter

If an object was a distance from a planet away that equaled the distance from the object to a moon of the said planet, would it be drawn into the direction of the barycenter as it is the common center ...
36 views

### Globular cluster star density as a function of distance from the center

Context: I want to simulate globular clusters in a simple way, just to display the positions of stars. Assuming isotropy, what would be a reasonable model of the stellar number density as a function ...
130 views

### How would the solar system look in a Geocentric model?

If I fix the Earth as the center of the solar system, what would this look like? Are there any good images? How complex is this system?
84 views

### Is radiation from neutron stars delayed by time dilation?

I understand a neutron star to be the densest stuff that can exist without becoming a black hole, the densest thing which directly gives off radiation we can detect. At the event horizon of a black ...
64 views

### The Fermi paradox

Ok so I was reading about the Fermi paradox, assuming life will form and thrive where possible as soon as possible and there is a very probable chance many other earths formed would they have started ...
28 views

### Exoplanets and relativity [duplicate]

Ok, so I have read about how exoplanets are found using all sorts of genius methods. I also understand the further an obect in a telescope is the further into the past I am looking. So given that ...
94 views

### What supernova has created the iron currently found in Earth core?

Iron is generated by stars in a certain part of their life cycle. Earth contains a lot of iron inside, however it is clear that this iron could have not been generated in a star in close proximity. If ...
235 views

### What happens to galaxies when they die?

Stars explode when they die and blast heavy elements into space. Do galaxies do the same thing?
39 views

### Standardized “constellation” regions?

The current system of constellations is historical and has kind of arbitrary boundaries. This has a number of obvious downsides: Difficult to define boundaries need complex tables to express Each ...
23 views

### What is a typical value for core-to-star efficiency?

I was reading Unfolding the Laws of Star Formation: The Density Distribution of Molecular Clouds by Kainulainen et al., which discusses star formation rates and efficiencies. One variable used is ...
22 views

### Occurence of Venusian transits

As transits of Venus come in pairs each seperated by 8 years, wouldn't that imply an accurate ratio between earths and Venus' revolution period? I've found the ratio to be about 0.681. I presume one ...
169 views

### Where might a semi proficient amateur analyst participate in meaningful astronomical efforts

I am a retired engineer that has an ongoing interest in space efforts. In my youth I did work on the Apollo program but on propulsion and vehicle thermal control: not flight dynamics. I have ...
76 views

### Evidence that galaxies are made of billions of stars?

What is the evidence that galaxies are made of billions of stars? Even faint galaxies? Can spectral analysis distinguish galaxies from individual stars?
15 views

### If conjuncting planets are 1/3° apart (geocentric) at 15° elongation how low could the elongation at closest approach be?

Does anyone even have a rough idea? I don't know which pairs of planets can appear close for longer without changing elongation too slow like Mars does when behind the Sun.