Astronomy and Cosmology

The Circulating Universe A New Dynamic For Today’s Cosmology There is a concept basic to string theory which holds that after the big bang, most of the eleven or more dimensions involved in it retreated and curled up somewhere leaving the four of space and time to carry on the creation process. The concept of ‘The Circulating Universe" simply stated, is that these "Lost" dimensions are a vital part of the universe's driving engine and function in a specific way that makes the role and mechanics of gravity more comprehensible than they have ever been before. What it postulates is that this central core although it is "central" only in a hyper-dimensional geometry, u…

I have a few questions on some of the particulars of our known universe. 1. What is the largest star we have observed? 2. What is the brighest object in the universe? 3. What is the largest galaxy we have detected? 4. Largest Black Hole? 5. Fastest traveling object? 6. Fastest spining galaxy? I have performed several searches for these topics only to discover several varying answers. If you are aware of any of these answers, please also put them into perspective with a common comparison. Thanks!

Do you think that there are more planets than the known 9??

When i looked at a star in the sky, its colour flickered as did its intensity. why does this happen?

Have scientists near enough gave up on space travel , e.g. traveling at light speed, just becuase Einstein said it wasnt possible? How much work do they do on this now days? (Im not dissing Einstein or anything, correct me if im wrong, i know nothing ).

traveling at the speed of light or faster? IS IT POSSIBLE? well id hate to think its impossible, and it cant be proven impossible until tried , witch could be pretty life threatning... well since i started watching star trek and its really messed with my mind and made me want to fnd out more about light travel and star trek is made up, i want to know the real possibilties about light speed warping what not, i really want to beileve its possible, and i read somewhere that very little work is being done (i understand it may cost alot) , hope more work can be done, and i want to be alive when it is!, but i want some reasonable answers why it could be possible, and who knows,…

If I imagine that the center of a black hole can gobble up even light trying to escape with immense gravitational forces at work, and I see the Einstein visual aid of a heavy ball on a stretched sheet as to the black holes effect on space, I find it needs more for the new kids growing up. I'm an old kid growing up so me included. Start with a two dimensional model of a black hole, a dot at the center of a sheet of paper. Would space be to scale at the edges of the sheet but as you get near the dot, would space be compressed? 1"=10miles 1"=100miles maybe like logarithmically as you approach the dot? If space could be compressed to a certain point, then even at the …

Do you all believe in the Big Bang Theory? I do infact believe in it, along with some of Darwin's principles in the Evolution Theory,

At http://www.astro-metrics.com/ you can get tools like Lunar which shows the phases of the moon, Orrery which shows the positions of the 9 known planets and Jovian which shows the position Jupiter's 4 natural stellites. They are really cool and free!!

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 …