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 ...
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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 ...
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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.
CommunityBot
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Has SETI searched the solar system for life?
I know SETI is searching the stars for radio signals emitted by advanced alien civilizations, but has SETI searched inside our solar system - particularly moons, planets, and Lagrange points? I would ...
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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 ...
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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? ...
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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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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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What is the likelihood of the existence of unknown elements in the Solar System?
What's the chance that there might be undiscovered chemical elements in the Solar System - either on planets or around the Sun or on asteroids of the Oort-cloud?
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Oort cloud shape
In the episode of Cosmos dedicated to cometary objects and other things, the Oort cloud was graphically rendered as a spherical distribution of dots.
This surprised me as I thought that it should be ...
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Could the solar system survive in a void?
If the solar system were suddenly placed in the middle of a large void... would everything still function as normal?
Would we even notice any difference here on Earth apart from the night sky?
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Lack of objects between heliopause and Oort cloud?
If we take a look at a logarithmic scale of the Solar System, there appears to be a large gap between the heliopause and the Oort cloud:
Why is that? There are some objects in the gap, but why are ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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....
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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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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 ...
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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 ...
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Mass accumulation rate and orbit-time of earth
According to me following reason of mass accumulation of earth has been completely overlooked so far.
The sunrays that fall on the oceans travel deep into water and finally get converted into mass ...
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What is the current angle of motion of the sun with respect to the Galactic Plane?
I understand that the solar system oscillates in its motion around the Milky Way. However at any given time, there must be a specific angle between the current direction of the solar apex and the ...
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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, ...
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How did the Earth come to be in orbit around the sun?
I'm not sure if this post should be in the physics subject forum, but this seems to fit here too. I have been reading a book about chemistry and how the universe came to be with the theory of stars ...
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Observing the motion of the solar system and galaxy through space?
This is very perplexing.
Conditions:
planets are moving around the sun (solar system)
solar system is moving as part of the galaxy
the galaxy is moving through space on some axis
galaxy is part of a ...
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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 ...
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Moons with synchronous rotation in our solar system
Are all moons in our solar system rotating synchronously around their planet? If not, what are the criteria that some do and some don't?
Many thanks for any insights!
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Is there a name for the star/supernova hypothesized to have been a precursor to the Solar System?
I found an article suggesting a supernova injected debris which helped nudge the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.
I couldn't find a name for this hypothetical star/supernova after ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Can our Sun become a black hole
Does every star become a black hole? Is there any probability that our sun can become a black hole? If yes then is it on its way to become a black hole? what is the current state of sun as per the ...
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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 ...
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Why has there been no moon for 2 nights straight
I have been watching the sky all night for a week now I see flying stars everywhere well things that look like stars, what are they? And the moon has been gone for two nights now? Why?
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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 ...
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Is Pluto still a dwarf planet?
Recent news seem to suggest that astronomers are arguing about whether Pluto should become a planet again.
However, I cannot find an official source for this. Is this actually true?
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RA/Dec of a meteor shower's radiant point based on its associated comet's orbit; simple set of equations? "Classic" early reference to cite?
Below this answer to Why are Delta Aquariids “for the southern hemisphere” while the Perseids are “for the north”? I wrote the comment:
+1 To make this complete, ...
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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 ...
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What is the antonym of "closest approach"?
The distance from Earth to Mars, during their closest approach, is about 55 million kilometers.
At their furthest apart, that distance would be about 401 million kilometers.
Distance
at closest ...
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What is the direction of the movement of the solar system in relation to the galaxy's plane
I got from this answer that the axis of the solar system is tilted of about 63 degrees in relation to that of our galaxy, so I can assume that we move through space (at least locally) roughly in a ...
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Is there a general term for epicycles, deferents, and eccentrics in Ptolemaic astronomy?
According to Ptolemy's (c. 150 CE) account of the motions of planets, planets moved in circular paths ("epicycles") around center points that in turn moved around the center of the earth along a path ...
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Why do the Sun and gas planets rotate faster at equator than at poles?
From this site, it states that:
The Sun spins faster at its equator than at its poles.
I have also read somewhere that the gas giants (gaseous planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) also ...
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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 ...
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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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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.
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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 ...
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