# All Questions

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I search for lightcurve Kepler data: time $t_i$, flux $F_i$ and measurement uncertainties $\sigma_i$ I need processed data (after removing trends, normalized, etc.). Where can I find it?
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### Do pulsar beams interact with the interstellar medium?

Pulsars are rotating objects that emit a beam in a direction that is not aligned with the axis of rotation. Because of this, we see them as a periodic pulse. If the beam isn't towards us, we don't see ...
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### Betelgeuse in false colors, is this common?

First, take the original Betelgeuse image from ALMA and remove red and green channels. Then boost the blue channel luminosity by x10 to x20 and a lot of detail pops out. This is the resulting image ...
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### On the anniversary of Pluto's discovery: the statement that Pluto is a planet [closed]

February 18 marks the 90th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto, the ninth planet from the Sun. For 76 years Pluto counted as the undisputed ninth planet until the International Astronomical Union ...
37 views

### Star and Galaxy Visualization [closed]

Is it possible to visualize star and galaxy at the same time in our minds? Suppose you think of a star, you made a picture of it and then you create a picture of a galaxy in your mind. You must have ...
37 views

### Are Sun-Earth L1 & L2 points generally considered outside the Earth's Hill Sphere?

This image from Wikipedia of the SE Lagrange points and the Hill Spheres suggests that the SEL points are outside the Earth's Hill Sphere. (The Hill spheres are the circular regions surrounding the ...
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### How long could an ocean last in space?

If all of Earth's oceans were suddenly moved into outer space, how long would it take for them to evaporate? My understanding is that water evaporates straight away in space... but what about when it'...
48 views

### Gas Planets composition and gravitational effects

It has been postulated that Gas Giants have a solid core and an obvious gaseous atmosphere. Question: As the gas is a state of matter and gravity draws all matter inward, is the reason the gas is ...
66 views

### In Orion, how close in local distance are the closest of the member stars?

All the members of Orion are within the Milky way, and some of them look pretty close to a neighbor. And could the bow be an effect similar to the Radcliffe Wave?
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### Color index B-V of the dimming Betelgeuse

Using AAVSO light curve generator I have plotted V and B magnitudes of Betelgeuse in the past 150 days to see trend of B-V color index. If dust would be the cause of the recent drop in the star ...
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### How strong are the strongest Ioquakes?

Jupiter's moon Io is the most geologically active celestial body in our system. It has the strongest volcanoes and quakes. Of course in practice these quakes wouldn't be as dangerous as on Earth for ...
65 views

### Are there any IAU members on the astronomy stack exchange? [migrated]

Are there any members of the International Astronomical Union that are active on this astronomy stack exchange?
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### What was the field of view of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory of Wow! signal fame?

This answer to Did comets 266P/Christensen or P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) cause the Wow! signal? points out that the comets in question were nowhere near where the radio telescope was pointed. Wikipedia says ...
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### Did comets 266P/Christensen or P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) cause the Wow! signal?

Continuing my fascination with the Wow! signal, I stumbled upon an article from 2016 titled Famous Wow! signal might have been from comets, not aliens. It describes the hypothesis that the signal ...
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### What coordinate system is at rest relative to the center of the galaxy?

I am given equatorial coordinates and I need to transform them into a coordinate system that is at rest relative to the center of the galaxy. The closest thing I could find is galactic coordinates ...
63 views

### Are there celestial bodies that are about as far away as the Sun?

Just curious. The Sun is 500 light seconds away from the Earth depending on time of the year. The orbit of Mars is about 50% as far as the Sun, the orbit of Vesta about 150%. Is there / Are there ...
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### Gaia/Hipparcos overlap

Is there any kind of concordance available between the sources in the Hipparcos catalog and the Gaia DR2 catalog? I.e., mapping the Gaia DR2 source_id to the Hipparcos HIP number?
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### Is it plausible to use other stars for the proposed FOCAL mission instead of the Sun?

For some time, the far-reaching and speculative idea of using the Sun as a gravitational lens has been floating around. See this and this. This would require sending a spacecraft about ~550 AU of a ...
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### What are the various imperfections involved in synthesis radio telescope?

Explain in terms of surface accuracy, receiver noise, polarization purity, gain stability, geometric model errors, Atmospheric conditions, Radio Frequency Interference, etc. How these variables ...
86 views

### Create an inhabited black hole

Hello I was watching one of Isaac Arthur's videos about the end of time and i just got a crazy idea Is it theoretically possible to "create" a "solar system" that would look like a supermasive black ...
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### Is the Big Bounce Theory valid? If so does that mean all this have happened before?

IF the universe is just an infinite loop of events from expanding to contracting does that mean all this has happened before? The initial conditions for the next big bang would (or rather could) be ...
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### Effect of shock waves on the chemical evolution

How do the shock waves affect the chemical evolution of interstellar medium or circumstellar medium of evolved stars etc?
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### How fast does a spacecraft have to be to enter a primordial black hole without being torn apart?

If there really is a primordial black hole beyond the Kuiper belt, we can send a probe to the black hole and into it. But how fast must the probe be in order to enter the black hole without being ...
71 views

### Can the WISE telescope detect black holes?

Black holes are hot, aren't they? With its infrared scan, could the WISE telescope also detect a black hole? The hypothetical planet beyond the Kuiper belt could actually be a primordial black hole. ...
27 views

### Various stars moving in a line [duplicate]

I from India saw various stars moving in a line from North-West direction to the South-East direction at 5:27 AM on date 13 february 2020... They all are moving rapidly and can be easily seen from the ...
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### How is the Sun tilted to its orbit around the Milky Way's center?

We know how the Sun is tilted in reference to its planets but how is it tilted to Sagittarius A or its orbit around it? Or isn't it tilted at all?
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### Is the angle of the Earth's orbit on the Galactic plane changing (towards 180 degrees)? [duplicate]

Currently the angle of Earth's orbit is aroun 60 degrees on the Galactic plane. But is this angle changing?
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### Code/Package for multiple planet simulation

I want to do a quick study and some tests on the planet-star dynamics ( including the movement of the star). I'm looking for a code that simulates some planets orbiting a star. I've tried searching ...
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### How can I find the depth of a portion of the Valles Marineris?

How can I find the depth of the low lying part of this image of the western part of Valles Marineris? I'm interested in the area northeast of Noctis Labyrinthus, southwest of Tithonium Chasma, north ...
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### How much rock has Jupiter “swallowed”?

During its formation approximately 4.5 bya, Jupiter passed through what is now the asteroid belt,gravitationally deflecting some spacewards and some sunwards. Logically, Jupiter, due to its massive ...
7k views

### Why is the asteroid belt shaped like a triangle?

So, in this question, the user JollyJoker posted this image depicting the orbits of the asteroids in the asteroid field in the comments: [ In this image, you can see that while the individual ...
74 views

### Who discovered Wolf 359?

I always assumed that Wolf 359's discoverer had been Max Wolf, but I just found out that he simply measured its high proper movement and included it in his star catalog. Since Wolf 359 is a very ...
128 views

### How much more life could the Sun acquire via star lifting?

It has been proposed before that we could use this technique to remove hydrogen from the Sun to lower it's rate of fusion and extend it's life, so it doesn't fry our planet. I am wondering how much ...
67 views

### Precision in the measurement of the distance to the Sun

How precisely can the distance to the Sun be measured? Wikipedia says the distance to the Moon can be measured upto millimeter precision. But Wikipedia article on distance to the Sun says only about ...
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### Absorption line in quasar spectrum

I have quasar spectrum which includes emission and absorption lines. I need to find absorption lines in between 2 wavelength. How can I do it with coding?
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### What book(s) should I read to get started learning about astronomy?

I'm an undergrad software engineer but I also love physics and math. I'm starting to get going in AI/Machine Learning techniques and I'm going to use NASA data-sets to conduct analysis. However, I am ...
116 views

### Could Eris have a permanent atmosphere?

In Wikipedia they write that Eris has an atmosphere when around perihelion (close to the Sun) which collapses when Eris moves away from the Sun. So it behaves similar to a comet's tail. However, they ...
66 views

### What's the first written record of the moon being tidally locked to the earth?

I couldn't find references as to who first noticed (wrote down) that the moon was tidally locked to the Earth. This, to me, doesn't seem obvious from first glance, and looks like something only found ...
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### Have we ever seen the formation of a blackhole?

So I know that the formation of a supernova has been observed and that we have taken images of blackholes, however, has the formation of a blackhole ever been observed. How do we observe it?
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### Estimating Galactic Mass of Andromeda

So I need to estimate the mass of the andromeda galaxy using: $$M = \frac{v^2r}{G}$$ where $v$ is the rotational velocity, $r$ the galaxy's radius and $G$ Netwon's gravitational constant. I'm told ...
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It always seems to be a genuine question that is How can we download data from far away probes in instant. When New Horizons reached Ultima Thule, it took us quite a few months to have a great picture ...
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### If the earth lost 1/81th of its mass how would it orbit change? [closed]

If a planet becomes lighter, then I believe its orbit will change. For example, the moon is 1/81 of the mass of the earth. So, if the moon disappeared, then the earth-moon system would lose 1/81th of ...
85 views

### What would happen if the earth's orbit were slightly perturbed?

Suppose a rogue planet came zipping through the solar system and changed the earth's orbit a little, including the plane of the orbit. I have the idea that, in a complex system, orbits would tend ...
8k views

### Why isn't the asteroid belt affected by Jupiter's gravitational field?

Jupiter's mass is just about a 1000th of the sun's and the asteroid belt is slightly closer to Jupiter than it is to the sun. If the heavier the object, the more curvy space is around it, why isn't ...
2k views

### Space telescope located in outer solar system

I want to pose a question from someone who's astronomy knowledge would fit neatly onto a single piece of paper so please bear this in mind with any comments or answers. I am interested and want to ...
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### Jet streams of black holes emit [duplicate]

The speed of light is the upper limit at which conventional matter can travel. However, jet streams propel "material (...) at a significant fraction of the speed of light" (Wikipedia). Let me ...
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### Supermassive black holes (not) merging / labelling

I am sure this will be an easy one for you out there, I apologize if I do make some mistakes in making my case. If black holes merge, they merge into an intermediate-mass black hole, followed by the ...
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### Force to fix $\sigma_{8}$ or $A_{s}$ for Forecasts

In the context of Forecasts with Fisher's formalism, I make vary cosmological parameters to compute the elements of the Fisher matrix. First, I generate with CAMB code a linear power spectrum. Then, ...