# All Questions

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177 views

### What is the physics of a gas mass subject to gravity in space?

There are many formulas for atmospheric pressure on earth, but how does gas behave in free space? I am thinking about why stars form. I am guessing that the gas density will influence pressure, as ...
793 views

### Is there a flaw with the newer purposes and correlations attributed to the HR diagram? (And would a third axis of mass correct the enclosed flaw?)

When I was younger, I was looking at HR diagrams, and began to experiment with the HR diagram. I was looking at plotting different groups of stars on the HR diagram when I found RV Tauri stars. ...
130 views

### Any cheap (<100 euro) tools for observing the lines in solar spectrum?

I am now reading the book ''The story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics''. I really want to observe the lines (dark or bright) in the solar spectrum. Any easily available tools for an amateur?
79 views

### Singularity in Laplace Method for Orbit Determination

I have a question about Laplace angle-only method for orbit determination where the line of sight vectors are being interpolated. I read somewhere that the method fails (due to a matrix being singular)...
581 views

### What is gravity really?

What is gravity? I want to know more than it being simply the "mysterious force" that attracts things to earth. Is it a particle, a wave, or something else entirely?
95 views

### Formation of stars

How are stars formed? I read somewhere that when dust, gas, rocks etc come close to each other due to gravity, slowly and gradually build up a lot of pressure and form stars. If what I read is right,...
1k views

### Statistically, what would the average distance of the closest black hole be?

The closest confirmed black hole is several thousand light years away from earth. Our galaxy has about 100 billion stars. I didn't find any reliable information on the black hole count of ratio versus ...
483 views

### How many new galaxies enter the observable universe each day/year/decade?

Each day light has more time to reach our eyes from distant galaxies. In one day, light travels 2.59×10^10 km. So our observable universe (assuming my simple math skills apply here and there isn't ...
525 views

### Origin of the magnetic field of neutron stars

It seems a little counter intuitive that neutron stars possess such strong magnetic fields. Its electric charge is presumably zero, so however fast it spins, it shouldn't generate any magnetic field. ...
2k views

### If an object with mass were to somehow go the speed of light, would it destroy the whole universe? [closed]

Would an object with mass traveling the speed of light destroy the whole universe because it would have infinite energy / mass? According to wikipedia and other sources, it takes infinite energy to ...
236 views

### Dark Energy Expansion

The new Cosmos extra features mentions that at about 6,771,500,000 years ago the universe began an accelerated expansion. How do we know this? What evidence do we have for this renewed and accelerated ...
1k views

### Could dark energy be negative gravity?

Main question: Could dark energy (the mysterious accelerating expansion of the universe) be explained by "negative gravity"? "Spin off" questions: Does antimatter have negative gravity? If ...
301 views

### Any cheap (less than 100 euro) telescope for observing Jupiter? [closed]

The moon is not challenging. I would like to observe the big planets and their rings.
87 views

### What record do we have of the length of supernovas?

recently I heard an astronomer on the radio claim that the supernova we have observed in our own galaxy lasted about 6 months, while in distant galaxies they last about 7-8 months, due to relativity ...
630 views

### How does water exist within the frost line of a star?

My supposition is that within the distance of the so called frost line around a star, water in empty space sublimates, evaporates. I further suppose that this means that vaporized water is pushed to ...
216 views

### Stars in star clusters in SMC and LMC

Is there any catalog or any paper published in any journal that lists the stars discovered under whichever star cluster of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) they belong to? There is one for Large ...
1k views

### Sum of the Masses of All Moons in the Solar System

I'm looking for the total mass of the moons in the solar system in Earth Mass this would be include the 67's moons of jupiter, the 62's of saturn, the 27's Uranus and the 14's for Neptune. it's a ...
6k views

### How many stars are visible to naked eyes around Equator area?

In the best sky conditions, we can see about 44,000 stars in the sky. But what if I am located around Equator area? How many stars I can see? From what I know, the number of stars I can see should ...
153 views

### Is Mars visible from naked-eye from Michigan (47N, 88W) these days?

Is Mars visible at night sky of Michigan these days? I was trying to search for Mars from Michigan (at elevation of 30 deg and azimuth of 220 deg) around 11:45 PM with binoculars of 20x60 but didn't ...
159 views

### 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 ...
1k views

### One year on the sun [closed]

This might be a weird question, but I'll ask it anyway. If one year on earth is the time it takes for the earth to orbit around the sun, then (if it were possible for humans to survive on the sun), ...
692 views

### Is it safer to be near a star or a black hole?

If a star or black hole neared the solar system, which would do the least damage? For the sake of a good comparison, lets assume the candidate star is an "average" 5 solar mass star, and the black ...
568 views

### How are black holes doors to other universes?

I'm watching MIT OpenCourseWare lectures on general relativity and not too long into the first lecture the professor stated that the Kerr Black Hole solution allowed for travel between universes. How ...
9k views

### In 2016, the summer solstice will coincide with a full moon. How often does this happen?

I found that the solstices work on a 400 year cycle based on this. I can't find anything similar for the lunar cycle. Is there a formula I can use to calculate the date of the full moon?
7k views

### Where can I find a catalog of all stars in the Milky Way?

Is there a catalog of all known stars or brightest stars in our galaxy? Preferably with some sort of galactic coordinates instead of just night sky coordinates (right ascension, etc.) I'm trying to ...
3k views

### What is the difference between gas and dust in astronomy?

Is there a strict difference between gas and dust? In Earthly environment most things become gaseous if heated enough. The temperature of interstellar medium seems to range mostly between 10 and 10 ...
515 views

### Outside of a Universe and its origin

Per the Big Bang Theory, the universe was formed from a dense singular point which existed 13 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. This suggests that the point should have existed ...
545 views

### How might Thales have predicted a solar eclipse?

Thales of Miletus purportedly predicted a solar eclipse (most likely the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BCE). The historicity of Thales' prediction can't be verified with any certainty given the ...
399 views

### Does the sun have a protective shield

Does the sun have a protective layer that at least diminishes its radiation. I know the earth's atmosphere protects us from harmful rays. But does the sun have a sort of shield as well that if removed ...
242 views

### What do we mean by space is expanding?

I know this question had often been asked on Physics.SE as well as this site but I don't get them. What do mean when we say that space is expanding? I mean that space is no physical entity that can ...
511 views

### Is the expansion accelerating or Decelerating?

According to Hubble's Law, the farther a galaxy is, the farther it is moving away. But do we take into account the fact that we are actually looking in the past? For example, there are two galaxies A ...
58 views

### Coordinates of the Moon [duplicate]

How does one compute the right ascension and declination of the Moon at a given time (or for that matter, the altitude and azimuth)?
821 views

### Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens

Can the Sun be used as a gravitational lens to achieve better telescopic viewing? Can this effect be practically used to view celestial objects?
1k views

### Can the Sun be used as a point source of light to achive better focus?

There's a limit to how well sunlight can be focused by a parabolic reflector or a lens because the Sun is not a point source. I wonder if the sunlight could be engineered to work as if it was (much ...
3k views

### How can the 13.8 billion years old universe have a radius of 46 billion light years? [duplicate]

The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. Assume at the big-bang it starts from a small region and the maximum possible speed according Einstein is the speed of light how can the universe got a ...
1k views

### Which is really larger, Big Dipper or Small Dipper, in 3D

If we take the convex hull of the 3D coordinates of the stars in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor: which hull has larger volume? This is meant semi-humorous but we might also learn some interesting points ...
1k views

### How does the evolution of a solar system not break the second law of thermodynamics?

Please forgive: I am a layman when it comes to physics and cosmology, and have tried finding an answer to this that I can understand, with no luck. As I understand it, the solar system evolved from a ...
712 views

### Connection between Earth, Moon, Theia, and asteroid belt?

Are there other fragments aside from the Moon that resulted from the collision of Earth and "Theia" (as it's called in recent main-stream press stories)? And if not, why not? And what happened to "...
26k views

### Average amount of annual daylight at any place on earth

If this is the wrong group please direct me to the correct one. It seems intuitively obvious that the amount of daylight per annum should be the same for any latitude on earth. For example, 12 hours ...
1k views

### Why can we still see 10 billion year old galaxies?

I've never fully understood why we can still see galaxies that are 10 billion light years away. The age of the universe is calculated to be 13.9 billion years old and we live on a planet that it is ...
377 views

### If Mars orbited the Earth how distant would it have to be to cause the same tides?

If it were possible to replace the Moon with Mars, how distant would it have to be to essentially create the same oceanic tides as the Moon currently does? Mars seems to be roughly 3 times the mass of ...
562 views

### Orbital Elements Transformations

I'm a third year undergrad, and for the project I'm doing this summer, I need to figure out the Earth's position and velocity from the moon's point of view. From the reading I've done, it seems like ...
325 views

### Are there are any photographs online that approximate what the Milky Way looks like to the unaided eye?

I love seeing all the long-exposure photographs of the Milky Way, but I'm going to Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania next month, and I'm wondering if there are any photos that approximate what ...
172 views

### Is it possible to have two objects moving by sum speed of light (c) in the opposite direction? [closed]

I am puzzled by this question, because by the laws between the two object the relative gravitation force should be infinite. Anyways we can take two objects where the sum of speeds are equaling c (...
639 views

### Is the Sun homogeneous?

Does the Sun have the same composition and density everywhee within it? How does it vary in other stars?
789 views

### What is $v_{GSR}$

In this paper ("The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment: First Detection of High Velocity Milky Way Bar Stars") they plot and calculate $v_{GSR}$. $GSR$ stands for Galactic Standard ...
2k views

### How often do stars pass close (~1ly) to the Sun?

Interstellar exchange of massive objects is difficult across several light years. But as the stars orbit the galaxy the distances between them change. I don't find data for neighbor star distances ...
223 views

### What is the optimal escape trajectory from near a black hole?

Consider a space ship that is being drawn closer to a black hole. The crew begins to notice the effects, and discovers that they are nearing the black hole. They then manage to halt their ...