Astronomy and Cosmology

The topic about interstellar travel is scarcely spoken of within the scientific community. Even though, it should be one of the most debated and heated engagements of scientists across the world. This is because eventually mankind will have to seek the stars for support and sustenance for when we empty this planet of ours of resources. I want to know what you all think about this topic, is interstellar travel possible, and how soon would it be possible for mankind to seek other systems to live in?

A little while back on most news channels there were big announcements as regards Gravitational Waves. The team collaboration that was mentioned being called Ligo. The team used a Laser Interferometer to measure these gravitational waves. Obviously to those with an interest in cosmology many questions arise when contemplating gravitational waves such as; Which direction did they come from, what's their source, what frequencies are they, are the waves pure ie no distortive ripples riding on them and the list goes on, but, one question that popped into my imagination when thinking about the waves and has intrigued the most, was - did the gravitational waves pass throu…

I recently watched the new movie 'Passengers', and in the beginning of the movie, the starship has the misfortune of travelling through a cloud of space debris while travelling at approximately 50% of the speed of light. In the movie, the ship had some manner of force field to shield it, but I was wondering what would have happened in the real world if a ship travelling at that speed or greater were to collide with, say, a piece of debris the size of a grain of sand or a small pebble? I know that at those speeds, the impact would have a kinetic energy dwarfing any (possibly even all) weapons we have in our arsenal by several orders of magnitude, but what would actuall…

Hi I was just wondering what types of energy are there in space and if there is any way that we could harness these for use here on Earth? I read that there are electromagnetic waves in outer space and these could provide us with huge amounts of power here on Earth. Sorry if any of this dosn't make sense this is my first time on this site.

Mars, as a place to visit isn't easy or attractive. Not even very survivable. It's at the bottom of a deep gravity well and hasn't got enough atmosphere to cushion or slow landing bodies, but we should by all means go to see if there was or is life there and what it's nature is. Are we cousins, or neighbors. Having done that, should we colonize? Why? It's unpleasant, cold, dusty, dreary, deadly. Phobos could come crashing down onto Mars in a few million years, (busting any city domes we might build); we should make that fact part of our terraforming strategy instead of a reason to not proceed. So build a base on Phobos where human activity will hasten it's co…

If I have a binary system of neutron stars, and they are about to collide and become a black hole. Does anyone know a formula I can use, disconsidering the energy reseased in the collision, to determine how far I have to be from it to survive it's gravitational pull and also the black hole's, and how to use it? Thanks; Arthur

How could it be that S2 orbit deviates from Keplerian ellipse and at what percentage? In the following article it is stated that (It is believed that) it is due to stars, dark stellar...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_(star) "The motion of S2 is also useful for detecting the presence of other objects near to Sagittarius A*. It is believed that there are thousands of stars, as well as dark stellar remnants (stellar black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs) distributed in the volume through which S2 moves. These objects will perturb S2's orbit, causing it to deviate gradually from the Keplerian ellipse that characterizes motion around a single point mass.[9] So f…

I have heard and read a lot about dark matter but it seems they keep searching for actual particles, gas, or something visible or measurable even to help justify their calculations on what they believe the universe should weigh. But i havent seen anything on how you actually weigh the force of magnetism. If you put 2 magnets together and they repell, how do you determine its force and the weight of it? You magnify that to the size of planets, stars, and galaxies, then imagine the force of that, that would be an invisible force unseen and as far as I have heard, unmeasurable. I know supposedly our universe is neutral. But if u look at it as a molecule, within it can be pos…

I have a question, is there any explanation what happens to the energy emitted by the Sun (3,864E + 26W) and all other stars in the Universe, altogether about 2E + 22 suns, giving total power of 7,728E + 39GW (!), constantly pumped into space of the Universe?

Hi there! I would like to share with you my video on how to find exoplanets from home. I won't share the link because the moderators do not allow me to do it, but the video is embedded here: Link removed To those familiar with the project, I suggest you to skip to the minute 2:00[/font][/color] What do you think about it? have you already found an exoplanet?

Hello, A human visit/colony to Mars is arguably a future possibility but aside from the actual travel part, Mars presents a series of obstacles. Would introducing a potential carefully selected strain of microbes/bacteria be a good idea? If certain bacteria could survive in the harsh Mars environment could it improve the atmosphere over a long time period? Create greenhouse gasses? Also what are the potential dangers/cons of such an introduction.

I'm talking about a Moon base powered by sunlight only. The problem is how to store electric energy for the long night! The absence of air makes me think about electrostatic energy storage. E=1/2 C * V^2 It'd need billion Volts(today Vmax is 25 million Volts)...

Since I don't have the background for this, Argent told me to put any of my unscientific speculations in Speculations -- in the form of questions. Big bunches of "Hot Jupiters" have been detected in this new century. (?) My understanding is that they were formed at a great distance from their stars and migrated, um, "down" (starward) because the protoplanetary disk was a drag on them in their orbits. Um, Question. Does the remaining protoplanetary disk bring forth replacement giant planets? Do they migrate back "up" when the protoplanetary disk has dissipated? These are not trick questions. I am an old man and these issues were never brought up in m…

The common view of the Universe does not resolve the paradox of seeing the “Big Bang”, a finite point in time, from further and farther away. Does that stand to reason that since we see the origin of the Universe that all of the matter that we see is essentially static? The amount of it being relatively even from beginning to end? How about the fact that we look at the larger Universe to see it at a “smaller” state? Also, what’s beyond our ability to see? This view of the cosmos seems fraught with paradox that does not settle quite so soundly with me. I would theorize that the Universe is, in fact infinite, and has been since its inception. If we were to reduce th…

Hi there! I would like to share with you my video on how to find exoplanets from home: video link removed by moderator To those familiar with the project, I suggest you to skip to the minute 2:00 What do you think about it? have you already found an exoplanet?

If the supermassive black hole that was knocked out of its galaxy recently was 8 billion light years away then how could it have happened 1-2 billion years ago? This was listed on multiple articles but the main article in reference is: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/helc1706/ The only 2 conclusions that I can come up with are that a)the information was wrong or b)our galaxy is moving directly away from the light coming from the debris outside the event horizon of the supermassive black hole in question.... which i'm no mathmatician but light travels about 670,616,629 mph and our galaxy travels at about 515,000 mph which doesent seem to add up. Could someone pleas…

По последним открытиям и наблюдениям можно заключить,что Большой Взрыв не был виновником происхождения Вселенной,а был всего лишь промежуточным этапом? [By recent discoveries and observations, one can conclude that the Big Bang was not the originator of the origin of the universe, but was just an intermediate stage?] By recent discoveries and observations, one can conclude that the Big Bang was not the originator of the origin of the universe, but was just an intermediate stage?

What causes science to speculate about the possibility we are a holographic universe? All other strange ideas have some reasoning behind them. We suspect dark matter because the universe doesnt act as expected based on visible matter. We suspect dark energy because the universe is expanding , and doing so faster than we can explain. But a holographic universe? What suggests this? Is it just a stab in the dark because other ideas like string theory are not coming through as hoped? Or is there some unexplainable observation that we think might be due to our universe being a holographic one?

Hello all, I apologize in advance if this post is in the wrong section (hopefully not). I'm working on a story which was inspired in part by me wondering as to how could possibly Matthew McConaughey's character in the movie Interstellar be able to survive crossing into a black hole's event horizon without being destroyed far earlier and much further away from the event horizon by the extreme forces and heat present in the vicinity of a black hole (I know it's a movie, but I was given the impression that the filmmakers were trying to stay within the boundaries of science as much as possible). Upon reading Kip Thorne and Leonard Susskind's books on the subject, I learne…

I believe I've made a theory, but I'm still working on it, learning more and more every day. The Big Bang was a black hole, that "sucked" too much mass and couldn't hold it, so it "exploded" making a white hole, that is letting out all of our universe. Black holes are just like a sponge; it can absorb a lot, but after a while it can't hold anymore, and it has to lose the absorbed material. Any thoughts about this?

Hi! I would like to share with you guys my brief analysis on the exoplanet Proxima b (first part is introduction to the main features of the planet and my opinion starts in the minute 1:20) SPAM DELETED What do you think about Proxima b and about my points? I'm sure you know much more about it than me. Cheers!

From what I gather, the early moon was 4 or so radii away from Earth after formation/the big impact (3 being minimum without tearing apart via gravity and 5 being the maximum the debris would have been spread). Now it is 60 Radii, moving at about 1KM per second. I assume it would have been faster after the Earth/Thea impact. Any idea how much? The main reason for the move was tidal friction from Earths ocean "pushing" forward which transferred momentum to the move and therefore out by about 3CM a year. However, there was is also a theory that the Earth's tilt was up to 60 degrees and that also resulted in an early and quick movement outward by the moon early i…

It's to my understanding that the belt holds high-powered protons and such. So how were they able safely get through it for the moon landing? - Tried to find this on Google but mainly got moon landing hoax topics

Accretion disk: http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights/accretion It is stated that: "systematic Doppler shifts record how matter moves at nearly the speed of light in the surrounding disk. " So, we know for sure that the accretion disk has the power to move matters at almost the speed of light. However - that is similar to the activity at CERN CERN https://home.cern/about "At CERN.... The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature." So, also at CERN the particles move at close to the spee…

There is a star at the center of our galaxy called "S2" that is about 15 solar masses and it whips around the Milky Way's supermassive black hole at a speed of over 3,000 miles per second, at closest approach. Do you know of any hyper velocity star moving faster than that? It will be interesting to know what they can tell us about it's closest approach in mid-2018. "The orbit of S2 will give astronomers an opportunity to test for various effects predicted by general relativity and even extra-dimensional effects.These effects reach their maximum at closest approach, which will next occur in mid-2018. Given a recent estimate of 4.3 million solar masses for the mass…