Astronomy and Cosmology

New era for astronomic observation... IceCube has made its first observations, with 28 neutrinos of known direction and energy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22540352 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube two of the first papers are on arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2253 http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.2460

But isn't that idea only valid, in a "Steady State" Universe. In which there's no central "universal" point of origin. And therefore, no central reference point, from which to make "universal" temporal and spatial measurements. That makes good sense in a Steady State Universe, which has always existed, spread out evenly and uniformly, through Time and Space. With no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end. However the currently fashionable Big Bang theory is different. It claims that the Universe started suddenly at a specific point in time, and from a specific central point. Shouldn't this point provide a base, from which to make measurements?

So i'm wondering, if the earth had formed without the presence of the sun. Would it have already cooled down by now or would it still be mostly molten rock like it is now? Found this - http://phys.org/news62952904.html So the sun has little role to play in the earths temperature, is this mostly because of the radioactivity heat or just the time it will take for the amount of molten material to cool down? or something else?

http://www.astronomy.com/News-Observing/News/2013/03/Hubble%20pins%20down%20age%20of%20oldest%20known%20star.aspx?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ASY_News_Sub_130315_Final&utm_content= interseting article in Astronamy magazine.

Hi My name is Kamakshi and I'm a journalism student in New York. As part of a class project I've written a story on the things I tried to learn about Space from down here. I learnt why astronauts love wasabi, what Jupiter sounds like on a radio and why the position of the Sun was important during the moon landing. I'd really appreciate it if you'd check out the story here link removed by mod per rule 7 please share it and let me know what you think. Thanks!

I read somewhere that a tesseract is to a cube what a cube is to a square. What exactly does that mean? Does this thing include a 4th dimension in some way?

Hi This is a simple question but one which I personally can't find an answer to, despite exhaustive trawls through the internet. It is this: can gravity waves physically endanger organisms - in the same way, for instance, that an intense gravitational tidal field is said to 'spaghettify' all matter, including living matter? Could similarly powerful gravity waves have the same effect? Geekay

So I was doing a little research on dark energy and was somewhat startled at what I found, while I new the universe was expanding, it was surprising to know what from. Also I have a big question as I can't figure out what's after that, so what I'm trying to say is that if the universe is expanding doesn't that mean it has to have an end in the first place to even expand? So if their is an end to the universe than whats after that end? And if their isn't, well maybe someone could explain to me why? Hey thanks for your help, and I know I'm new here and also a little young, but I love science!

And exactly why is it you can't change the laws of physics? Is it because someone told you it can't be done? Or perhaps because no one has ever done it? Or at least no one has ever known it to be done? There are Celestial Bodies existing in our Universe that are changing the laws of Physiics right now. Black Holes do it. Quasars snd Pulsars do it. After the Big Bang the movement of particles faster than Light Speed shows it to have been done. Some may say my statements are akin to Magic. Magic is just the use of a High Level of Technology that we have not yet obtained yet. So he said...just about. Arthur C. Clark Split Infinity

This has always puzzled me. I keep hearing that with increasingly powerful telescopes we can see further into the past. I completely get the concept of light years and the fact that we are seeing objects as they were when light started its journey but to see light that started shortly after the big bang wouldn't I have had to travel faster than it to be able to observe it?

I know there will be a good answer but since I don't know it does anyone here? On a Christian website the orbital distance of the moon has been compaired to it's rate of drift away from the earth. They have come up with the result that it must have been at mimum distance some 1.5 billion years ago. How are they wrong? Here's the link; http://creation.com/the-moon-the-light-that-rules-the-night

I'm starting to think that balck holes are really just strong force stars. That during the hyper nova explosion the walls of the atoms beome so dense that they push out any electro magnetic behaviour. Even vacuum energy is blasted away. and that black hole mass is made up of only the strong force and gravity. are there any real theorys like this one ?

Assuming the universe looks the same in every direction it would support uniformity throughout the shape. If explosions are never uniformed and the big bang was an explosion, Why would the universe look uniformed? Should it not end sooner in some parts than others?

The media is filled with news of the discoveries of extra solar planets and especially the rocky planets in habitable zones. The mass of these planets are quoted at multiple masses of the earth. My question is wouldn't moons orbiting these planets be included in the mass quote? I mean the wobble dection method would only view the planets and its moons as a single mass, right? Frank

If something 11 billion light years away blew up such as a supernova, and we are only seeing it now... doesn't that mean the universe was already as big then as it is now? If not, the only way it would make sense is if the universe is expanding twice the speed of light, or us and the "event" have been traveling in direct opposite directions.

What determines the direction of the gravitational field (the direction the "disk" around an object faces) of something other things orbit... such as a solar system or galaxy? For example, if I am in space and am looking forward, one galaxy might look like it's sitting horizontal according to my position, while the one next to it may be verticle. Does it have to do with only gravity? Or does magnetism come into play... like does it have to do with where the magnetic poles are of the center object.

I am extremely perplexed about something. I recently watched a fascinating video on YouTube comparing the sizes of the Earth, Sun, Rigel and VY Canis Majoris: And I was curious what the actual mass of VY Canis Majoris was, and wherever I looked it was listed as only about 30 times as massive as the Sun! If the video is anything to judge by, Canis Majoris dwarfs the Sun the way the Sun dwarfs your average asteroid, so I can't fathom that this is an accurate assessment of the mass of this star. Am I overlooking some elementary factor here?

#1 In M-theory, were the other dimensions, say the 4th, 5th and 6th also created by the big bang? #2 Do the other dimensions share scientific universals with us? #3 Do the other dimensions exist outside of space-time of our dimension? Because I heard in M-theory matter/energy fades in and out of existence between our dimension and other dimensions in quantum vacuum fluctuations, so wouldn't that mean our dimensions are entwined? Someone please answer these questions. It would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I'm wondering if anyone can explain to me how planetary orbits are self-correcting. Years ago, I read about them deviating from their paths, then correcting for these perturbations entirely on their own. Obviously this a natural part of them orbiting in elliptical patterns, but how do they correct for these deviations? Having done many online searches for such information, I've come up with absolutely nothing.

Not at all .... or at least that's what I argued during a a discussion in the pub yesterday. Am I right? The lunar distance varies by about +/- 6.5% between apogee and perigee. It was speculated during the pub discussion that weight should vary because gravitational force is inversely proportional to distance squared. In other words, if the moon were directly overhead one should be lighter, and even more so if the moon were closer. I argued to the contrary that the earth and moon are in orbit about one another and in a state of 'free fall' relative to one another. With respect to the other body we are weightless regardless how near or far it is. Is this right? Or…

Could dark energy be playing a role in the odd behaviour of the chomosphere layer that exists on the sun and a newly discovered star in alpha century A ?

I just finished reading about New radio telescopes that could detect light sources billions of light years away that (it says) were produced at the time of the big bang. Ok...so if everything in the universe/cosmos was produced at the same time as the big bang happened, and expansion meant that we ended up where we are now, how come the light that also happened at the same time is still billions of miles behind us? Phil

I recently saw 'Stephen Hawking special- Did God create the universe? ' , a program in the Discovery channel. The great mind concluded that he believes there's no god, and before the big bang, there was no space or time to begin any creation. And that everything was made from "nothing". So i was thinking, okay, there may not be a God, but what was this "nothing"? If the Big Bang started from an atom sized thing, how did it appear in the first place? If space is not "nothing", then what is it? For those who want to watch the program, search the title in youtube. Thanks in advance

Yet another question from my reading: I read that in inflation, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. I know that there is evidence to support inflation but I was wondering how since I thought nothing could beat the speed of light? Also, if inflation happened and the universe really did expand faster than the speed of light at the near-beginning of time, then does that mean the light is still catching up to the edge of the universe? Or has there been enough time and slowing down of the universe's expansion for light to have already caught up? Thanks in advance!

Hi all! Just read Hawking's A Brief Time in History and starting on The Grand Design. I have to say my mind is blown! I never really understood what my physic's professor was really talking about until now. Anyway, I have a couple questions regarding the matter-antimatter asymmetry/CP violation. I read about how near the event horizon of black holes, one particle of the quark-antiquark pair fall into the black hole while the other particle can escape and as more mass is added to black holes, they can evaporate. I was wondering if there is a possibility that this black hole evaporation can cause matter-antimatter asymmetry if more quarks escape the event horizon as…