New answers tagged history
3
votes
Planets Named After Roman Gods, Except Earth
There are two primary reasons why the planets were named after Roman Gods.
Language - the early astronomers in Europe wrote in Latin, and Latin was the language of the Roman Empire. So they ended up ...
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29
votes
Accepted
Why did the dust between the planets disappear during the birth of the solar system?
Dust happens in two ways. "Primordial dust" just condenses out of the protostellar material in the disc providing it gets cool enough and dense enough. "Second generation" dust is ...
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2
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Where can I get historical data of tropical longitude of Delta Cancri
Any Planetarium software that simulates precession will tell you this. If you know what to ask it.
Delta cancri has a Right ascension of 8hr 45min (or about 131 degrees). It has an ecliptic longitude ...
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9
votes
Accepted
How did the temperature of the solar system evolve?
There is no "nuclear flash". The approach to a stable, hydrogen-burning star is rather smooth and in fact the Sun was more luminous during its first few million years as a protostar than it ...
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-3
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What was the definition of a planet before August 24, 2006?
( Quotes from Moons are planets: Scientific usefulness versus cultural teleology in the taxonomy of planetary science )
No single definition of planet existed.
Messeri (2010) argued that the polysemy ...
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