Astronomy and Cosmology

I was reading about a massive solar flare that happened in 1859. It got me thinking. Talk is that solar flares can destroy our power grid, and also computers. But would it be able to destroy a disconnected hard drive? A hard drive is essentially in a metal box, which acts as a Faraday's cage? I have a backup of most of my data on a harddrive that I don't need anymore. It's therefore disconnected from everything, and it just lies in a drawer. Is that any guarantee? Or should I really go for optic storage (CDs) to make sure I don't lose anything from a solar flare? Next week: planning to protect my data from an asteroid crash.

it's said that light speed is the fastest possible speed for anything to travel at but why is that couldn't somthing move faster light speed if so what all comments welcome

Imagine an extremely buoyant balloon rises vertically to -say stratosphere- , and stays up there; Could it be called being in a geostationary orbit ? -Ignore winds-

This all started last night and this begining story might fool you but i still think it is credible. So here it goes. Last night me and a few of my friends decided it would be a good idea to smoke marijuana (which i do not do regularly and had not done in 3 years) and watch some of my 50+GB of space documentries from numerous sources. So we did and as we were all watching this in complete silence and coming up with our own meaning of the universe, I think i might have stumbled upon something. okay the documentery was talking about the super massive black hole at the center of the milky way and how in 1999 there was i massive explosion at the galactic center. now i was thi…

I am designing an experiment to collect bacteria from the stratosphere and need some help / advise in constructing a payload capable of collecting some air samples from there. Can anyone please help me out ? With thanks, Christiana.

Please ponder a potentially Habitable Planet, complete w/ Atmosphere & Oceans sufficient to support possible Life. Now, imagine that this planet's orbit is notably Eccentric. Thus, this planet dives down in, near to its parent star, rapidly absorbing copious quantities of energy (surely, a short Summer). Then, the planet pulls back out, far from its parent star, and gradually cools (long Winter). SPECULATION: The parent star's Habitable Zone (HZ) basically comprises that region, wherein that star's observed Energy Flux (Watts per area) is comparable to that of our Sun, at our Earth (~1400 W / m2). But, b/c a potentially habitable planet can absorb energy, i…

I am a layman when it comes deep scientific theory but I have a keen interest in Astronomy and especially Cosmology and have learned much over my 62 years. I was hoping someone might be able to comment or answer questions on my observations. First question ...... With all the latest theories pointing to seemingly outlandish ideas about the nature of our Universe, i.e. The Big Bang, Black hole singularities, String theory (requiring upwards of 12 dimensions), Dark Energy, Dark Matter etc. etc. etc. I can't help but wonder it there is a fundamental problem with one of our thousands of accepted physical laws. Since many of these theories are founded on layer…

So it snowed yesterday in Vancouver, it's March. I know the cause has nothing to do with what I'm about to ask but it did cause me to ask this question(which I searched for and found wobble, not quite!) Anyway, I'm assuming that the axis of the Earth with respect to it's position around the Sun does change over time. Where over x amount of time the Summers in the Northern/Southern Hemispheres become Winters and vice versa. Over what period of time does this occur?

If all heavenly bodies arose from a unit mass after big bang why the planets in our solar system differ in their composition?

Kepler Mission Webcast Video produced by the NASA Direct Studio at Kennedy Space Center. Youtube/KSCVideos has all the NASA Direct content as well as lots of space related subjects created by Kennedy Space Center Public Affairs, all free no ads. Enjoy:-)

I don't know where to post this, but what is the significance of these words that appear after usernames? They must have some kind of hierarchy, from beginner to advanced? What is their order? Or numbers of posts? When do posters get to create their own?

If matter falling into a supermassive black hole (SBH) will form relativistic jets that may be thousands of light-years long, why are quasars point sources of light and EM radiation only a few light weeks or light months across? My guess would be that quasars are the result of a relatively large amount of matter falling into a SBH, so there is more than just relativistic jets, but also unfathomable explosions going off continuously all around the inner edge of the accretion disk. Such explosive reactions require on the order of a solar mass per month.

I've just recently begun to learn about my fascination of astronomy and would like to know of some sources you would recommend me that are good for beginners. I just got a course from The Teaching Company called 'Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition' (http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=1810) which is a series of 96 lectures - so that should keep me busy for some time. I also want to get a telescope later in the year so if you guys could recommend something that is good that would be great. I was looking through some on ebay which were about $300-400 but since I don't know what to look for exactly, I don't want to …

space and time are always somhow linked but what links them and how are they linked

The 2004 story (see below) reported a gravitationally lensed galaxy, behind a cluster called Abell 2218, that has a record-breaking redshift of 7.0. “We are confident it is the most distant known object,” California Institute of Technology astronomer Richard Ellis said of the galaxy, which lies roughly 13 billion light-years from Earth. Put another way, the light traveled for 13 billion years to reach Earth." The error in his report states it IS roughly 13 Billion LY from Earth, but it is really light that left it about 13 Billion years AGO. It is much further away now. Is there a general rule-of-thumb for converting 13 Billion years AGO to a current distance fr…

i read an article a while back that stated that the universe doesnt have enough of anything to make it stop exploding and start inploding, including even speculative things like dark matter and stuff too. is this true? if so, is this a good thing? that means that life could exist even when all the galaxies are so strung apart its unmeasurable. it would have to be intelligent and more advanced life than us right now of course, but if they already had a space ship, and found a way to recycle everything, life could make it yet, right?

I was daydreaming and I thought about time running it's infinite path and then I thought would it be possible that there's anti-time and what would anti time be any ideas All comments welcome

is Dark Energy effect on the curvature of space time ? how?

Hi thaught that it might interess somebody here. On today's (Feb 12th) spaceweather Experts are calling it an "unprecedented event." Two satellites have collided in Earth orbit. Iridium 33 crashed into Kosmos 2251 on Tuesday, Feb. 10th, approximately 800 km over northern Siberia.

I saw that no one has created a plasma thread yet so i did. First on the agenda, "Plasma experiment recreates 'burping' astrophysical jets" Jets of charged particles have been created in successive bursts for the first time in the laboratory. The work could shed light on the behaviour of astrophysical jets from stars and galaxies. Astrophysical jets are among the largest and most energetic objects in the universe. The matter inside them travels at nearly the speed of light from colossal black holes at the centres of galaxies. Smaller jets spew at lower speeds from young stars surrounded by discs of gas and dust. Theorists don't know exactly how jets form, …

Just giving everyone a heads up looks like NatGeo is running a show about The Known Universe on Feb 15 at 8pm Est. Looks pretty interesting. After it airs we can discuss here!

i guess manipulable isnt really a great word for it, more along the lines of controllable. in other words, can you move them? are they waves or particles? im talking any kind of proton. can we do anything with protons with the technology that we have now?

Since day one I can remember as kid, Venus has been at about the same location by 8pm; by west and at the ~same elevation I have seen it along the years. Am I wrong? Isn't Venus a planet and by orbiting the sun it should gradually change its location ?

Suppose we were to run time backward on the Big Bang model, until t<0 (lets say we do this without passing through t=0, to avoid those complications). What would the model give? Would we get points expanding but our coordinate system inverted (ie, x' = -x, y' = -y, z' = -z, t' = -t)? Would we essentially have a universe of antimatter?

Very simple question. Why can't NASA or other space agencies around the world send a Voyager-type space craft straight into a Black Hole to broadcast information right up to the point it is obliterated? Or are there problems associated with this question because it is an experiment that does not seem to have been performed yet?