Unanswered Questions
925 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
18
votes
0answers
441 views
What are Kepler's laws (as he wrote them)?
There are of course many, many sources that quote Kepler's laws of planetary motion. This is preventing me from finding out what I really want to know: which is - what are Kepler's laws as he wrote ...
14
votes
0answers
236 views
How small can a spiral galaxy be?
The smallest observed spiral galaxies I can find are NGC 2976 and NGC 4605, both with a diameter of 20 kly, but I don't have anything like an exhaustive source to search. I've also found a mention ...
13
votes
0answers
295 views
What was the absolute limit to the possible sizes of the first stars formed from “primordial material with no metals”?
This answer to Why don't or (can't) stars be more than 325 or so times the mass of the sun? What limits their size? includes the following:
...The upper limit you refer to is for compositions similar ...
12
votes
0answers
280 views
How does the gravitation of Jupiter or other big planets affect Kepler's third law?
Does anyone know a good reference for this?
I once read how Jupiter's gravitation can be treated as a perturbation. I think they expanded Jupiter's gravitation as an infinite sum of one of the special ...
12
votes
0answers
497 views
How to determine scalar-to-tensor ratio r from CMB polarization spectrum?
CMB polarization spectrum can tell us about the primordial scalar and tensor perturbation. By analyze B and E mode angular spectrum power spectrum and temperature power spectrum we can determine the ...
10
votes
0answers
69 views
The compatibility of the Grand Tack hypothesis with the “core-warping impact” theory of Jupiter's diffuse core
In recent years, the Juno mission revealed that Jupiter's core was much more diffuse than astronomers had expected.
One theory is that "within a few million years" of its formation, Jupiter ...
10
votes
0answers
223 views
What is the limiting abundances of elements at the end of the stelliferous era?
Is there any reputable published source on expected elemental abundances at the end of the era of stellar fusion? I am here interested in the contents of galaxies; much of intergalactic gas will be ...
10
votes
0answers
214 views
Planning to revisit Arthur Eddington's experiment from 1919
As the fateful day draws closer, the United States will host a celestial event that comes once in three generations. I plan to witness this first hand at the exact center of greatest eclipse.
In the ...
10
votes
0answers
122 views
Estimating the tangential and cross component of the galaxy's shear using Gnomonic projection
I would like to know how I can estimate the tangential and cross component of the galaxy's shear using Gnomonic projection of the right ascension and declination ...
9
votes
0answers
251 views
What fraction of a star's hydrogen store will be fused over its lifespan?
A main sequence star will fuse some of its hydrogen, but not all. In massive stars ($>1.5M_\odot$) the core is convective but the rest of the atmosphere radiative and hence does not mix much: as it ...
8
votes
0answers
80 views
How can maser emission be unpolarized?
I was reading that:
However, unlike Galactic sources such as W3(OH), the emission is unpolarized and the 1667 MHz line is stronger than the 1665 MHz line.
but how is this possible? Does not the ...
8
votes
0answers
201 views
Is the wind's intensity on Mars similar to Earth?
I've read that in Mars' poles, the winds can be as fast as 400 km/h, when the poles are exposed to sunlight because the frozen $CO_2$ sublimes. I know that the Martian atmosphere is much thinner than ...
7
votes
1answer
263 views
problems finding rise set and transit times at high latitudes using Meeus' algorithms
I am implementing Jean Meeus' algorithm from his book "Astronomical Algorithms", 2nd ed. for rise, set and transit times in Swift. It seems to provide very good results (no more than 1 ...
7
votes
0answers
55 views
What are the 4 candidates for Planet Nine reported in 2017?
From Wikipedia Planet Nine#Citizen science:
In April 2017, using data from the SkyMapper telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, citizen scientists on the Zooniverse platform reported four ...
7
votes
0answers
91 views
How are the atomic clocks synchronised between worldwide VLBI telescopes?
I know that VLBI needs precise synchronised atomic clocks to calculate the baseline distance between the radio telescopes at cm level. But i cant´t find any information how the atomic clocks are kept ...
