Questions tagged [solar-system]

Questions regarding the Sun and objects orbiting it.

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How much mass did the Late Heavy Bombardment add to Mars?

How much mass was deposited on a terrestrial planet during the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB)? Is it possible to estimate a reasonable interval, specifically, for Mars? Could the mass addition to Mars ...
Michael_1812's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why did the dust between the planets disappear during the birth of the solar system?

I'm catching up on my childhood mistakes. One of them was the "nuclear flash", the enormous explosion when the sun ignited. Apparently, this did not happen as the ignition of the sun was a ...
Dominique's user avatar
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How to plot right ascension with time of the retrograde motion of mars? [closed]

Measure the right ascension, declination of mars and sun. plot the variation of right ascension with time.
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2 votes
1 answer
365 views

How did the temperature of the solar system evolve?

As a child, I've read that stars ignite during a so-called "nuclear flash". I understood this as a very violent outburst of energy from the sun, causing all dust between the protoplanets to ...
Dominique's user avatar
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0 answers
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Calculating the absolute magnitude of a solar system body

I am trying to calculate the absolute magnitude of a solar system object, given its albedo, and assuming all of its luminosity comes from reflecting light from the sun. Using $L_{sun}$ = solar ...
CuriousCosmos's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
23 views

Solar system datasets for exoplanet analogs?

Are there data from the solar system available, that are about quantities we regularly investigate in exoplanet searches? The only collection I know of comes from this paper: "A Catalog of ...
Helen's user avatar
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-6 votes
0 answers
70 views

Is the largest black hole larger than the Solar System?

Yes. Ton-618 is the largest black hole, and if it was replaced with our solar system, it would reach far after the end of the solar system, which is called the Kuiper Belt. Ton-618 has a mass 66 ...
Astral's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
186 views

The Poynting Robertson Effect

In the Poynting Robertson effect, it says in general, the Poynting Robertson effect is caused by the fact that objects like dust re-emit the light they absorb. Is that correct? Is this effect weak? ...
A Curious Mind 's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
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How is a Planet's Moment of Inertia Measured Remotely?

In the July 2023 issue of Sky & Telescope there is an article titled Sights Set on Uranus. In that article the following statement is made: Since the 1930's we've suspected that Uranus and ...
GrapefruitIsAwesome's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
118 views

Have gas or dust or rock accumulated in our solar system on its 20 orbits around the Milky Way?

Also,does the absence of the accumulation of anything large such as rogue planets by the solar system suggest the Milky Way has been orderly and stable for billions of years?
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12 votes
2 answers
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Does the Oort cloud have any large holes in it and if not does this mean nothing large has entered the solar system for a long time?

Would holes in the Oort cloud be a record of what has passed through it?
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15 votes
1 answer
435 views

What's the reason for the hollow region in Oort cloud?

Can someone please tell what caused the hollow space (pointed by yellow arrow) in the Oort Cloud? I understand that it is called cloud because the cluster of objects does not align with the major ...
Kevv Keka's user avatar
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1 answer
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How was this image of the faculae in the Occator crater obtained?

The picture in question (that I'm asking about) is at the bottom, of this post. Now, did they simply take a picture with reduced light intake? If so how much? 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 or less? Or did they ...
Sven _Andersson's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
510 views

Difference in results between JPL Horizons and cspice (rust-spice)

I am calculating the apparent planetary position of planets using the cspice library (I am specifically using rust-spice, which is a wrapper of cspice in Rust). when I calculate the same values in the ...
AviD1511's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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derivation of reduced magnitude of asteroids

I've noticed that there is this parameter called reduced absolute magnitude $V(\alpha)$ and it is defined as below according to the paper by Mahlke et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2020....
mysterium's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
369 views

Does the Oort Cloud lose mass with time?

Can blocks of ice escape from the Oort cloud and away from the solar system forever?
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2 votes
1 answer
99 views

Motion of solar system around Milky Way

As our solar system performs its +-230 million year lap around the Milky Way, is the orientation of the ecliptic plane preserved independent of the center of our galaxy, or does the plane perserve its ...
DanO's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why is Mercury's orbit so unusual?

Mercury's orbit has the most eccentricity, 0.2, of all the planets. And this orbit is also the most inclined relative to Earth, 7 degrees. Edit: And to the invariable plane, it is inclined 6.35 ...
DrZ214's user avatar
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4 votes
3 answers
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A solar system of solar systems

The moon orbits Earth, earth orbits Sol. It's true that Sol orbits the galactic center, but that's not what this question is about. Is it possible for a solar system like the Sol system, along with at ...
JBH's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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Does the Sun have different unique orbits around barycenters?

After reading this question and seeing its image I thought about this question I'm going to publish. Does the Sun have different unique orbits around the barycenter for its multiple planets? If yes, ...
Snack Exchange's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
142 views

Cooling the early earth

My son had this theory that the icy comets cooled the hot earth during the late heavy bombardment. What do we know about this cooling effect on the early evolution of the earth? He intended his theory ...
user442920's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
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What secondary and tertiary conclusions can be drawn from the temperature characteristics of lunar soil sent by ISRO Chandrayaan 3?

ISRO Chandrayaan 3 released the following data today about the temperature characteristics of lunar soil. What secondary and tertiary conclusions can be drawn it? More specifically, what may be the ...
Ritesh Singh's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

What determines the edge/boundary of a star system?

According to Education.nationalgeographic, "A star system is a group of planets, meteors, or other objects that orbit a large star. While there are many star systems, including at least 200 ...
Hikerguy's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
109 views

Are the rotational axes of Earth and Mars parallel?

So I was stuck on a question involving the transformation of coordinates from geocentric to Mars-centric coordinates. The relative position of Mars and its orbital details are given. I thought that we ...
Aarush Mishra's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
111 views

What is the "structure" of the Solar System while traveling through Space?

On the Image above, the arrows pointing upwards depict Solar System's travel direction. The arrows pointing to the right show its own direction of rotation and the direction of the planets within it ...
Pika-Chu's user avatar
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11 votes
2 answers
5k views

What would happen if Venus and Earth collided?

The first thing we would need to consider is that Earth has already been hit by a protoplanet half its size 4.5 billion years ago, meaning the Earth may have a chance of staying intact after the ...
user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
85 views

Are dust-dust collisions necessary to explain Kordylewski clouds at Earth-Moon L4/5? Aren't the cross-sections, number density timescales too small?

The recent question Can dark matter accumulate at Lagrange points? mentions Kordylewski clouds and that article begins: Kordylewski clouds are large concentrations of dust that exist at the L4 and L5 ...
uhoh's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
170 views

Why does the tropical year have a ~161 years cycle?

Using PyEphem, I calculated the time difference between consecutive summer solstices in the south hemisphere for the last 4000 years, and plotted them in a graph. It seems like random noise around the ...
ordptt's user avatar
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-4 votes
1 answer
71 views

Did liquid helium help the solar system to form by cooling the nebula that collapsed to form it?

Was the gas cloud that collapsed to form the solar system cooled by liquid helium at some point in time? I ask because the Cosmic microwave background had a temperature around 3K when the solar system ...
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3 votes
1 answer
128 views

Where can I get raw photos of planets clicked by HST, Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini for Saturn and Galileo for Jupiter?

I intend to process RAW images of planets clicked by HST,Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini and Gallileo spacecrafts using a few softwares. I am in search of where I can get these raw images from.
Dhruv Nayak's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
89 views

Conditions on Earth when Mars was warmer, wetter & had a thicker atmosphere

To the question, What part of a star's habitable zone has the best chance of developing life?, I made the following comment: It's always intrigued me as to why some people have thought that life in ...
Fred's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
80 views

Why do planets in our solar system have different chemical compositions? [duplicate]

Was this caused by turbulence in the disc that went on to form the solar system or was the disc itself just endowed with an uneven distribution of elements?
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0 votes
0 answers
40 views

Can gravitational waves cause a large asymmetric planet to spin?

As planets orbit Earth it won't be perfectly spherical because of gravity But can gravitational waves make the asymmetrical Earth spin a little?
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1 vote
1 answer
223 views

How to calculate solar ecliptic longitude

I would like to write a small script to calculate solar ecliptic longitude in relation to different locations and dates. For instance UTC + - 1...2 etc.. I know, solar ecliptic longitude is the ...
Robert's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
166 views

How certain is the Sun's classification?

Curious Question here. How do we know the Sun is a G-Type Star? Our sun (Classed as G2V) apparently lies around the 5,780 Kelvin. Yet NASA generalizes it as 6,000 K- and is apparently white even ...
Andyhasaquestion's user avatar
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

Do the inner-Earth planets actually align with the constellations we see?

For example, because the Sun is the center of the solar system; when we think that the Sun is on the constellation of Aries, in actuality, isn't Earth lining up with the constellation opposite Aries: ...
Atlas's user avatar
  • 57
3 votes
1 answer
197 views

Outer Limit of Oort Cloud

In most popular astronomy articles I see the Oort Cloud described as having a radius of about two light years. Is there any firm basis for this or is it merely a guess? If it is that big, and Alpha ...
Mike Stone's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
47 views

Protoplanetary disk luminosity - looking for a sanity check please

I've been told to "consider an Earth-mass of interplanetary grains (roughly spherical with a radius of a few microns) in a protoplanetary disk. Let the particles be in a torus with a cross-...
Chris M's user avatar
  • 31
4 votes
1 answer
71 views

Periodic motions that affect earth axis tilt

It is said that the earth axis changes its tilt with a period of 41 000 years. So used the image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Obliquity_berger_0_to_1000000.png removed the grid ...
user877329's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
104 views

Was the recent blue spiral over Hawaii really a SpaceX rocket dumping fuel?

Is the observed phenomenon really consistent with a SpaceX rocket dumping fuel or decelerating or something? I'm skeptical. There are several things to discuss. The speed of the blue spiral is much ...
Sven _Andersson's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
353 views

Is the solar system barycenter affecting the Earth weather?

I do not have the numbers but I guess the solar system barycenter should move much more than the Earth radius, and if that is correct then it should not be affecting the Earth's temperature. I mean, ...
Enrique's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
197 views

Orbital decay of the sun's orbit around Sgr A*: is it likely?

What are the possibilities of the sun orbiting the black hole Sagittarius A* at a very close distance? Is there anything that could possibly alter the solar system's orbit, bringing it much closer to ...
William's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
122 views

Different results for the same JPL Horizons query

On JPL Horizons website, I'm using the following query to get vector state for Earth: ...
Claudiu's user avatar
  • 73
3 votes
1 answer
246 views

How to get the right ascension of the Moon?

Is there any approximate way to calculate the right ascension of the Moon? I already got declination but still, need the right ascension to calculate the final position of the moon. Thanks for all ...
Misaki's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
65 views

Would the influence of a black hole nearby cause a tilt of 63° of our solar system in relation to our galaxy?

I am trying to understand the influence of black holes and the tilts of solar systems on their axial plane In relation to the plane of their host galaxies.
Ashtaras's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
4k views

Where was the solar system born? Alternatively, how far back in time can we retrodict the location of the solar system?

I have two related questions: Where in the Milky Way did the solar system form? Is there a particular nebula it can be traced to? How far back in time can we track the location of the solar system ...
Tim Campion's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
139 views

What is approximate numerical equation of the apsidal precession of the Earth-Moon barycenter?

What is approximate numerical equation of the apsidal precession of the Earth-Moon barycenter? Or is it only constant 11.45 arcsec/year with unchanged accuracy to 0.01 arcsec/year for a million years?...
Imyaf's user avatar
  • 183
3 votes
1 answer
73 views

Do conjunctions of planets block out the sun and cause measurable cooling of the atmosphere on one of the planets?

Is a significant amount of light energy blocked by one planet such that there is noticeable cooling of the atmosphere of another?
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4 votes
2 answers
202 views

First time mention of coplanarity between Solar Systems planets

When comparing Galileo, Copernicus and Hypathia models to describe the solar system, each of them agree on coplanarity, based on their representations. Anyways, it was not until Kepler and Newton that ...
nuwe's user avatar
  • 605
19 votes
6 answers
6k views

Could we detect the light of cities at night in other solar systems?

Would it be possible to see electric lights on distant planets using current telescopes?
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