Astronomy and Cosmology

isn't gravity a distortion in the space-time continuum? I have heard talk about how gravity is one of the weakest forces in the entire universe...but what about black holes? Those are so powerful, they can even affect light. But...if gravity is just a distortion in the space-time continuum, it would be because of planets (normal gravity sources) have such enormous masses, they cause an effect on the space-time continuum. Well..if this is the case, then it may be possible to "fool" the space-time continuum, and generate a source that simulates a lot of mass. This, could create gravity. Also, I think EMP and magnets might play a major role in this too.... :D :zz…

Alright, I've been wondering about this for quite some time now. Milliseconds after the big bang occured, why didn't everything crunch together? All the mass of the universe was in such close proximity creating a gravitational field far stronger than any black hole could produce. Given that not even light can escape a black hole, how could matter, which can't travel faster than light, escape? Seems like everything should have just collapsed almost instantly.

I've heard a lot of debate recently about the validity of using redshift to determine distance of an object. Do any of you know a lot about this subject? Apparently there are some quasars out there that are emitting matter at superluminous speeds which leads some to believe that measuring their distance via redshift is leading to grossly overestimated distances... "Animation of a series of radio images of 3C 345 at 10.7 GHz over the span of 5 years, if the object was really extragalactic at 1700 MegaParsecs as most cosmologists claim, its jets would be exceeding 7 times the speed of light ! (courtesy John Biretta/Space Telecope Science Institute)" http://home.a…

In intergalactic space, is there a temperature? Where would it come from? Just curious. Just aman

There is a really interesting looking article in http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/ could someone with access and interest have a look at it and maybe do a summary? thanks there is also one on titan somewhere too.

Under current assumptions of the universe, __.. q=RR/.R2=(4*pi*kappa*d)/3H2 where H is Hubble's constant, d is the density of the universe, and W is the amount of energy in the universe, we have 3 possible outcomes: k, W = 0, q=1/2... rate of expansion -> 0 | t->:inf: k=-1, W<0, q<1/2... rate > 0 forever. k=1, W>0, q>1/2... big crunch What I wish to discuss is possible ways to measure H, either through observation or equating terms with other equations. Also, I'm not sure why we can get the possible value somewhere within 25 of 75 but not closer, anyone care to enlighten me?

Seriously, black holes are the coolest things out there. Basically, a little background before my question, a black hole is a body of matter that has an escape speed greater than light speed, which means that not even light can escape. And usually these are formed from stars too massive to go nova, and instead collapse on themselves and more and more gravitational force propagates from all of the mass, until it is so massive that a black hole forms. And escape speed is just the speed necessary to completely escape the gravitational pull of a body.. such as Earth, which has an escape velocity of 11km/s. An escape speed is proportional to a body's mass divided by its vo…

I found an on a "mysterious force" slowing down Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Both probes are traveling at 27,000 miles per hour, but scientists have noted that they are slowing by about 6 miles per hour per century. You can find the article here I wonder if they ever resolved the problem, seeing as the article was published in february. Perhaps they found out why.

I was reading an article in a magazine at the dentist's office the other day on how galaxies were formed, but I wasn't able to finish. So, my question is...how are galaxies created?

get ready guys, there will be hundreds of new papers released based on the WMAP findings, finally cosmology might be established as a solid science, instead of pure speculation. question mark?

Is anyone willing to explain who inveted the parsec unit, and why it is used? 3.26163388338 Light Years...why not use light years? I understand it is a valuable unit of measurement for long distances, but I would like to know more about who invented it, and why it was invented.

I have been offered second hand skywatcher 150 with 6"refractor,could anyone let me know if this would be a suitable purchase & how much you would expect to pay for one,there are no extras,up until now i have only dabbled with a £100 tasco so i am very green,any help would be much appreciated.

I do not know if this can happen. But I was thinking and this came to mind: Light travels at ~3x10^8m/s. (thanks faf). Now if we could get a strong enough telescope (or a transponder, if we were to recieve any tv images) far away enough earth. Would it be possible to look into the telescope and view the images from earth from the past? Or is it impossible?

Hi Just thought I would let everyone know that my site NJ Night Sky has been upgraded and has a new url. NJ Night Sky

I find this current situation disgusting. Thousands of newspapers and news services have declared the latest research to be conclusive proof of Einstein's theories. This experiment has NOT been peer reviewed and has NOT been published in a presitigous journal. Furthermore, most news sources also seem to be ignoring the massive amount of criticism from prominent physicists. Wouldn't want to let the possibility of error interfere with your sensationalist reporting of this like it's the greatest physics find of the last century! Science has a process, the mass media and the scienctists who went straight to a conference rather than a journal (hm, wonder why?) to inform peop…

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue."--Winston Churchill. Dr. Hubble reasoned that the "red shift" observed in the spectra of stars, that was more pronounced the greater the distance to that star, meant that the universe was expanding. Okay, I am convinced that if the universe were expanding at the rate calculated, we on Earth would observe that shift in frequency. In other words, I contend that we (Dr. Hubble) observed a phenomenon and built a theory that fits. I am not convinced that that is the only plausible explanation of the shift Any other theories? I would like to build this thread around …

http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/DidTheUniverseHaveABeginning.asp It's a link to a fair article which explains the current theories of the creation/behaviour of the universe. It's worth reading it!

Hello, I am a high school student that is doing a project, along with a group of friends, for my computational science class. Our project has to deal with how the moon affects the tides and how it will affect it way later in the future. We are required to have a mentor for the project and any help would be nice.

Granted it is going to be essential if we are going to exist beyond the earth's magnetic core giving up the ghost and letting the planet get irradiated by the solar wind, but what do you think of planetary colonisation? how should we go about it? Should we try and keep planets as they are until we know more about them, or should we start just trying to hurry up and infect mars and so on with some genetically engineered life forms?

This is fun to watch from large to small. I enjoyed it. tele-microscope Just aman

The Beagle 2, named after Charles Darwin's sea ship HMS Beagle, will hitch a ride with the Mars Express, a European Space Agency craft that will orbit the red planet. "We hope that when it arrives on Mars at the end of next year, we will finally be able to answer the eternal question: Is there, or was there, life on Mars." said Colin Pillinger, a British scientist involved in the Beagle 2 mission: Read the about the Mars lander, here. To me, this is pretty exciting. People have been trying to create a working Mars lander for over 30 years. Hopefully someone can do something right this time, but if you read down the article, it says NASA plans to be doing…

I was just curious if it would be possible to construct solar sails at the moons equater to increase the moons spin to near the moons escape velocity. It would make mining a lot easier. After all the moon is just one big spaceship up there relative to us. Landing at the poles would be simple and mining ores could be moved to the equater and pushed off the surface to waiting nets for transport. No problems launching bulk ores Not that we'd ever do it. I was just wondering if it was feasable.:scratch: Just aman

I read in last month discover magazine about how scientists can only explain the odd orbit of the planet neptune and pluto, is that there is a very large planet out there that distorts them. Now, for some time I have accepted this theory. But in this months, it describes a galaxy on the collapse 50 billion light years away. Now, it makes me wonder. Pluto is no where near 50 billion light years. It's not even a billion, So, if this theroy was to be true, This planet would have to be big enough to attract them. But, if we can see 50 billion light years away, and we havent found this 10th planet, it would have to be hard to fathom the size of this planet.

Hubble's law states that there is a linear relationship between distance and recessional velocity, correct? Following this line of thought, wouldn't there be very distant galaxies that are traveling faster than light? How is this not a violation of special relativity?

Should we be concentrating more on possible Middle Eastern Terrorism, or Astronomical Terrorism?