# All Questions

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### World line coordinate finiteness

If you trace two particles' world line backwards in time, according to current theory, both objects should converge at big bang. Would both objects arrive there simultaneously? Another way of asking ...
31 views

### Are there stars that don't emit visible light?

Can there be such stars or every star emits some percentage of it's light in visible part of the EM spectrum?
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### Why do (most of) the planets rotate counterclockwise, i.e. the same way the Sun does?

Referring to the mechanisms explaining the solar system formation and to the initial rotation of the gaseous cloud that collapsed, I understand easily why the planets orbit the Sun the same way this ...
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### Can the Gaia telescope detect small temporarily captured asteroids near its Lagrange orbit?

The Gaia space telescope is in a Lissajous orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2. The orbit period is about 180 days and the size of the orbit is 263,000 x 707,000 x 370,000 km. It has been ...
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### Any results from the B-mode CMB polarization measurements?

Why is the relation between primordial gravitational waves of the early universe, and the minor polarization deviations of the cosmical microwave background? AFAIK the CMB is coming from the 300000 ...
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### How was an infrared picture of the entire universe taken?

(click to enlarge) How was this picture of the supposed entire universe taken in infrared? Also, why does it seem as though almost all of the matter is in a line formation over the center? It makes ...
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### Would bagging an asteroid destroy valuable science about it?

NASA has a plan called "Asteroid Redirect Mission option A". It would robotically put an asteroid of a few meters diameter in a bag and push it into reach of astronauts for thorough examination. 44 ...
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### Why do astronomers like green laser pointers? [on hold]

When I've been to Astronomy-nights for the public at the local observatory, they always used green lasers to point things out. Why is there such a preference for green lasers? What's wrong with red ...
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### Time after sunset until star can be seen

Given a star's apparent location and apparent magnitude, how how many degrees below the horizon must the sun be for the star to be visible to the naked eye for an observer on Earth at a specified ...
38 views

### Why do some celestial bodies have atmospheres, and not others?

Question is rather self-explanatory. An answer touching upon how/why atmospheres are formed in the first place would be ideal as well. An example of such astral bodies would be The Earth and it's ...
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### Star System Formation questions

I'm making a game in which I'd like to randomly generate star systems. Which is cool. The trouble I'm having is working out exactly what limits I need to place on the generation. So far, the ...
56 views

### Can we see the Big Bang happen if we look far enough?

The observable universe is constantly expanding as more light from the Big Bang reaches us. This light has been travelling for billions of years, so we are looking at the universe as it was a few ...
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### How many light years away is Earth from the closest outer edge of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way?

How many light years is Earth away from the closest outer edge of the supermassive black hole in Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way? I don't mean the distance to the center of the galaxy, ...
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### Is there a paper on galaxy mergers in clusters of galaxies?

I'm looking for something to cite about galaxy mergers in clusters of galaxies. I need numbers on the frequency of mergers in the outer parts of galaxy clusters vs. the cluster center. In the center ...
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### How do black holes evaporate?

Will black holes evaporate, if they evaporate? When and why do they evaporate? What are the conditions for evaporation? Under what principle do they evaporate?
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### Which spiral arm of the Milky Way is Kepler-62 in?

I am trying to find out which spiral arm of the Milky Way the star Kepler-62 and its planetary system are in. All I can find by Google searching is that it is part of the Lyra constellation, but I ...
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### How did the reionization epoch make the universe “transparent”?

I've been reading about the reionization epoch of the universe, and it isn't entirely clear to me. As I understand it, very shortly after the big bang the universe was ionized, with the electrons ...
68 views

### 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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### 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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### 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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### Why don't planets give off their own light? [closed]

Why don't the planets glow like stars?
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### Will an observer falling into a black hole be able to witness any future events in the universe outside the black hole?

I know someone or something sucked into a black hole could not survive, but is the bending of light so immense that an observer falling into a black hole will be able to witness any future events in ...
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### Can solar luminosity & activity be predicted?

Can a star's luminosity and its activity, solar flares and sunspots, be predicted? If so, with what accuracy & precision?
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### What are possible methods of discerning a starburst AGN composite galaxy?

I'm currently working on an independent project that involves discerning starburst galaxies that are themselves within active galaxies. I would assume radio observations would be best to discern star ...
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### What's an order-of-magnitude main sequence star look like?

I'm looking for a very rough, order-of-magnitude approach to the main sequence. What I mean is, I have a spherically-symmetric hydrogen distribution. I'm looking to get a rough approximation for ...
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### Multiple apparent lunar eclipses last night

I saw something very strange last night that I'm hoping someone can help me explain. I was sitting on my roof with a night-cap at about 3am last night. The moon, about the last quarter, was low in the ...
137 views

### Why aren't there galaxy-sized balls of iron out there?

Since we know that stars burn out, collapse, or blow up when too many of their atoms fuse inti iron, then how come, with all the ancient galaxies we've been observing, there isn't one galaxy whose ...
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### What type of energy is escaping from black-hole's poles?

Following this article, it is stated that: As a star drifts too close to a supermassive black hole, intense tidal stresses rip the star to shreds. As this happens, the shredded material will ...
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### What is star composition after formation

Most descriptions of star ignition go something like... The star reaches a critical mass and ignites, blowing away the surrounding material. The most obvious question would be "Why are stars not all ...
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### Is it possible to extend the life of a star?

Is it true that when a star 'runs out' of its fuel, it hasn't really used up all its hydrogen, it still has hydrogen left, but the hydrogen is not at its center where the fusion happens. If something ...
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### Data for red-shifting

I am looking for basic data regarding red-shifting that comes with reliable measure of distance of the emitting star.
69 views

### Can we find out whether early Venus was Earth-like or not?

It has been speculated that Venus billions of years ago could've had a much different atmosphere with liquid water on its surface and possibly life. Partly thanks to the cooler young Sun. But is it ...
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### The face of the moon at moonset

It appears that the face of the moon "rotates" clockwise from the time the moon rises to the time it sets. Tycho's crater seems more to the left and the "Rabbits head" looks like it's facing down ...
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### the length of second, minute or hour, what defines the time of exo planetary bodies

we measure time based on earth and earth mass\gravity plays a role in the measurement ? so how and what would be time if not earth time on other exo planets since they will be having different ...
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### What is the bluest narrow band filter mounted on ground based telescopes?

If we want to check a QSO's lyman alpha narrow band image, could a ground based telescope do that? I mean under the circumstance that its lyman alpha shifts to 3300A.
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### Is Rosetta changing the theory of comets?

Rosetta is now arriving at Comet 67P. Other comets have been analyzed to some degree (Giotto, Deep Space 1, Deep Impact, etc.) So my question is... where I can study the up-to-date theory of ...
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### Is it possible for a person to not see the new moon at different places on earth?

It is known that theoretically we see the same moon phase everywhere on the earth, but practically I see that people are unable to observe the 0.8% waxing crescent at different places on earth. This ...
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### How to calculate right ascension of Greenwich?

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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### Original Hubble diagram units incorrect?

Figure 1 from Hubble 1929 has velocity with units of km. Is this just a typo or was there a reason the plot is printed this way?
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### Telescope on polluted environment

this one bothering me,to buy a telescope. I live in a city,unfortunately with dust and polluted air, is there any affect in viewing a nice capture of our galaxy? Or i need to buy a special telescope?
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### Starting out in practical astronomy [closed]

I want to start observing the night sky, what advice would you give to get started?
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### Contradiction between Theory of Relativity and Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?

Newton's Law of Universal Gravity states that an object will accelerate constantly as it falls. Let's assume an object falling into a black hole. According to Newton's Law, when it reaches the event ...
454 views

### Finding the solar noon based on longitude and latitude?

Please could someone advise the best method of finding the solar noon based upon location? http://pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/suns-position The stuff on here has been helpful but ...
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### Problem with Python [migrated]

I'm using Python 2.7.3 on my Debian server. Here is the input code: import aplpy import pyfits from numpy import * import matplotlib as plt import montage as montage_wrapper import PIL ...
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### Can we conclude with reasonable certainty that there is/are no Type 3 Civilizations in our galaxy?

As per the Kardashev Scale, type-3 civilizations are defined as "civilization(s) in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy, with energy consumption at ~ 4 x 10^44 erg/sec". Considering ...
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### Infinite universe? How? [duplicate]

So it seems the overall thought is that the universe is infinite. I don't get how. Most depictions I read mention something to the effect of "at 1^-20 seconds the universe was the size of _". ...
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### How is space-time bent by black holes?

I just read When a star becomes a black hole, does its gravitational power become stronger? and it confused me a bit; I always thought black holes are supermassive and that is why they bend ...
I'm looking for the parameters $r_c$, $\rho_0$ and $\beta$ in a $\beta$-profile fit of the Virgo cluster's ICM density. I just can't find a reference for it. Unlike for Coma (Abell 1656) where it's in ...