Astronomy and Cosmology

Has anyone seen this series? Thoughts? Criticisms?

A couple of questions to lively up this board. Is there any evidence for wormholes? and What's the latest news on if there is enough dark matter to cause the Big Crunch, or will we end up in the Big Chill?

can there exist a galaxy out there formered from dark matter? also do physical laws found here exist in all galaxies throughout the universe, or could there be galaxies whose matters was created in manors different than that of ours, and have different physical laws-properties as a resault. strange thoughts mr d

I am curious as to our member's perception of particle physics in comparison to space exploration. From the NASA site http://www.nasa.gov From http://www.linearcollider.org If you could only fund one of these programmes, which one would it be and why?

i often have discussions with my dad about what is and is not possible without the pressence of air. The other day for instance he asked me if it is possible to have wind without air. EX: if i was in space and a comet blew by will i feel wind from the comet's passing? I told him that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so i figured that if i waved a fan (action) there would be a felling of wind (reation). This was just a guess....i dont really know what im talking about. If anyone knows the answer to the question, can there be wind without air, please post and let me know....preferably with an explanation that will prove or dissprove this theory. …

I often hear that deep in space, there are areas with dimensions exceeding our wimpy 3. I've read that there may be up to 26 dimensions. I know the basics of 4 dimensional space (ie. hypercubes), but 26? If this is true, where would these area be, and how would one be able to prove that such dimensions exist?

If I was in orbit of Jupiter right now, looking at it with my own eyes, would the brightness be the same as the photos we see from spacecraft, or are those artifically brightened? I half expect it to be a dim, near black dark orange, considering how far it is from the sun. On the other hand, its very bright when seen from Earth, though the dot of light we see is the entire surface reflecting in a single point. So, in terms of brightness, what would Jupiter look like to the naked eye, from the height of an orbiting probe? Would it be hauntingly dark with the odd mega-burst of lightening? Would electrical discharges be visible from that view point? Would…

Lately, I have become quite interested in how the astronomy field has begun to determine that water can be found almost anywhere. And since it is the second most common molecule in the galaxy, at least here, I became intrigued with how it gets around so easily. This brings me to Dr Louis Frank, from the University of Iowa. Since the late 80s, he and some others have stated that they believe the presence of small comets are continually entering the earth's high atmosphere and seeding our planet with enough water to raise the level of water one inch every 20,000 years. There is quite a bit of information on the internet about this, but strangely, around 2000, the …

If the Great Red Spot on Jupiter has wind speeds of 400 mi/h, then how is it high pressure when low pressure causes fast wind? Please reply.

This finding should help astronauts when they go to Mars. Apparently, there could be ice pockets all over Mars that astronauts can use for drinking and fuel. Here's the article: Glacial deposits near the equator on Mars are remnants of snow on the red planet long ago, scientists said today. Spacecraft observations in recent years have revealed ice-rich landforms and other clues, including boulders strewn about, that appear to have been caused by glaciers as recently as 350,000 years to 4 million years ago. Researchers have puzzled over how ice could form so far from the polar regions. Underground water bubbling to the surface was one proposed scenari…

Hi folks, Did any of you sign up for the project? (Here's a link: Stardust@home) I did, but didn't get a conformation email, and I wonder if I should have received one. Airmid.

As I understand it all we know about planets around other suns is information that we can gather as the planet passes in front of its sun. First of all, does anyone know the name of this (or these) method(s) so I can research it? And secondly, what happens if the planet is far enough off the elliptical plane that the planet never passes in front of the sun (from our point of view)? Granted this would be a highly eccentric orbit, but it could happen.

Let say I am observing a galaxy situated 1 billion light-years from me. At that distance the expansion of the universe is apparent. My question: If was able to live long enought and mesure the distance to that same galaxy in 100 million years, will I mesure the same distance 1 billion light-years ? My questioning come from what I readed in a thread that was going something like that : space expansion is not the addition of space unit but the space unit expanding. In an expanding universe, 1 meter (or a billion light-years) still is 1 meter (or a billion light-years) after the universe expand for a time. The meter is just longueur... I am asking the expert there inter…

Dear Folks: I have been researching alturnative approaches to fusion power and started a correspondance with Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems involving fusion power a few months ago. A new thread has evolved,one of the top lightning researcher in the world, Joe Dwyer at FIT, got his Y-ray and X-ray research published in the may issue of Scientific American, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00032CE5-13B7-1264-8F9683414B7FFE9F Dwyer's paper: http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/PDF/Gammarays.pdf and according to Clint Seward it supports his lightning models and fusion work at EPS, Electron Power Systems http…

what do you think of this? http://bitsofnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3255 how possible is this? a long way off?

Who were the BIGGEST contributors to astronomy (preferably old-timers) and what significant equations did they discover? Its a project for work. We just want to make sure we haven't overlooked anyone. So far the only ones I can be sure of are Newton and Galileo. Thanks

Just an idea: Space is limited without edges like a globe surface in a 2D world. If that is true isn't it possible that this background radiation is just the sum of the light from all the stars... If light is going in any direction and it isn't changed from direction then it should end up at the same place after it traveled a long distance in space. (like a rocket around the earth in a 2D world) long waveslengths and long distances go hand in hand. any reasons why this can't be possible?

Well, the subject is my question... my question specifically alludes to a conjecture which claims that time has no beginning and simply continues backward ad infinitum. Such a universe, to me, seems inconsistent with both the concepts of causality and symmetry. Well, anyway, when it really comes down to it I don't have a clue... is there anything that can be inferred about cosmology at this level? Can spacetime have an origin? Does it need to? Is it possible for it to simply continue "backwards" ad infinitum?

Is the scientific community in agreement about space and time being created with the Big Bang, or is this just one possible scenario that is still being debated? I mean, I read about the evidence for the Big Bang - namely, the observation that the universe is expanding and echoes from the Big Bang (background radiation) - but these only support the theory that there was an enormous exposion 15 billion years ago (give or take a few billion years). Could there have been space and time before this event? If not, what is the irrifutable evidence that space and time were created with the Big Bang?

help my niece needs to know the size of the earth

If you (on Earth) and the other person (in Pluto) are holding one extremely long steel stick. If you move the stick forward, would the person in Pluto be able to feel it right away? If that person can feel the movement right away, it means that your energy is faster than light and it means that Einstein's theory(Light is the fastest) is wrong. What do you think would happen? Just forget about that planets are moving or some other planets are in their way because my point is that they are lightyears apart from each other.

I would like to pose a question about neutron density, such as the neutron desnity that stems from the collapse of a large star. Is the resultant neutron density only there due to gravity, or is it a stable state of neutrons that would continue to exist even without gravity (hypothetically)? In other words, in our normal world, neutrons do not form nuclear bonds with just other neutrons. They need protons. Does this repulsion between neutrons hold true for neutron stars or does the gravity compression decrease the distance between neutrons to a critical distance to where the nuclear repulsion force becomes attractive and the neutron density becomes a stable state of matte…

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week225.html John Baez posted a Christmas Eve issue of his personal journal "This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics" and it had some neat stuff, like a 3D crystal cube model of a typical large chunk of the universe edge of cube is roughly 1/3 of a billion lightyears it is lit from below, and shows galaxies, clusters, superclusters, filaments and free online pictures of same the picture in TWF rotates---at least it did for me once it finished download also a periodic minimal surface discovered by Alan Schoen that divides all of 3D space into two parts. minimal surfaces are those that soapfilm makes on wire frames----s…

1) Is it true that concave mirror with shorter radius to the curvature transmits objective in shorter focal length? because I dont agree to this.... 2) Who discovered that the image we see on telescope is actually an event occured long time ago, since light has to travel with a fixed speed? and how did he make this conclusion with proof? 3) larger primary mirror in a reflecting telescope give further sight to the deeper space, but how does that mean that artronomer can see more "recently" event in the universe? like from 2), the light's speed is fixed... any help on my questions? thanks

A new Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object has caused astronomers a headache. This scattered disk object seems too distant to have a purely resonant orbit with Neptune, but theories used to explain its high angular tilt with respect to the ecliptic run into trouble. This is because its orbit is almost circular, and the available theoretical mechanisms would require its orbit to have become more eccentric. This is anomalous and has led to speculation by Hal Levison that another factor may be at play...perhaps the one-time presence of a binary object orbiting the Sun. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8455 Just what exactly is going on out there???