Astronomy and Cosmology

Im new to this forum, My wife is fed up with me talking science, and has SUGGESTED I join a science forum, so I did a google search and here I am. Hi Everyone. I have a passion for science, but unfortunately I had no such passion when I was at school hence my limited knowledge comes from recent books Iv read and not from an education. With this in mind I hope any experts out there will be gentle and be prepared to answer quite a lot of probably dumb questions I may have on aspects of science I am enjoying learning about. Here comes the first.... If a distant galaxy's red shift is observed to give a speed of 3/4 the speed of light and another galaxy in the opposite dire…

well. the title is kind of my q. and, how does earth stop space radiation? also, hmm, what exactly is space radiation? and how do spacecraft block out that radiation?

we know...Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change form. Energy can become matter it can become different forms of energy.. Where did Big Bang energy come from? also,someone said:it is really pointless to attempt to go back beyond the Big Bang, it is meaningless to ask what came 'before' because there is no 'before'. in short,nothing... but,what is nothing?

i think the only wat they will find it is if nothing exsisted because i think heat is the byproduct of the exsistance of somthing. as long as there is a gluon or nutrino or anything there will be a degree of heat. thought?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128074617.htm A picture of the jets has been made in 870 micron wavelength, call it infrared light if you want. This is a first. AFAIK earlier detection of the jets or polar lobes of a quasar have only been seen by radioastronomy---or at longer wavelengths. I'd like to hear more about this, if anybody has more information. The BH jets are interesting. I don't think the mechanism is entirely understood. Rotating magnetic field makes a long twist of line at either pole. Charged particles follow fieldlines. As stuff spirals in it gets compressed and hot and ionizes and some of the charged particles rather than fal…

blackholes can absorb anything light matter ( possibly even time) what would have the power to do that i mean it's more than just a gravity well so what is it

Why is underwater training such an important aspect of astronaut training? I have heard that NASA astronauts actually train inside a 40-feet deep pool. How does it help when they go on space missions, as there is no such huge water bodies in space.

Is there any direction in the sky where blue shift galaxies are more prevalent. Thanks for any answers.

How is it that subatomic particles which continually pop in and out of existence don't end up blocking photons that journey millions of light years through space? Photons also have to contend with space dust, plasma and whatnot, for that matter.* *pun

if i were to launch a rocket out my backyard when would it have to be if it was to get to the moon. i know it would blast me and my neghborhood to bits:doh: but i just want an equation and an answer. lets say i live in new york. the rocket goes 17,000 mph, straight, no stoping till the moon. it has just enough fuel to reach the moon. it weighed 1.5 tons. (if that matters) please, if you can, i want an equation with the answer so i can play with this for a while. and if im missing anything about the imagenary rocket or setup, just make something up and list it. thanks, if your cool enough to do it.

before the big bang what was there if the big bang started time and space then what was before that because there had to be something to contain the big bang in the first place but what was it

The thought just occurred to me that someone would weigh more on either of the poles than they would on the equator! I wonder what the difference would be?

Posting this for anyone who might not be familiar with the newer observations of this peculiarity. I'm not sure if they even know how it really forms yet. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070327_saturn_hex.html http://www.space.com/common/media/video.php?videoRef=070327Saturn_hexagon The hexagon's mentioned in the following link, where the giant cyclones at each pole were seen last year in higher detail than ever before. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081013-cassini-storms.html One possible explanation for the hexagon was referenced by Norman Albers on a previous thread. Another potential explanation is thought to be a standing waves patt…

Not for along time google earth upgrade their program to sky view ( stars & solar system and galaxies ) . for me this was the best idea as most people like astronomer and enthusiast have a hard time to find stars and galaxies . so is this pictures and the directions are real or fake ?. most of them looks like they are real stars and real galaxies even the directions of it . and sorry if this topic was mentioned before .

do galaxies orbit around a certain point or just float around. and if so what would have the gravitational pull to move a galaxy

How many stars do dwarf galaxies have? Also how many stars does an average or regular galaxy have?

What would happen to the magnetic field of Earth if the planet suddenly freezes?

Black holes suck in enormous amounts of energy; not even light can escape the pull. What happens to the energy once the black hole collapses? Due to the Law of Conservation of Energy, it can't simply disappear, so where does it go?

It isn't obvious to me that we need this example. And it's somewhat mathematical so may actually cause confusion. But just in case it might help, here goes. We'll take an extremely simplified set S to represent space, say a unique copy of the numbers between 0 and 360, including zero but not including 360. [math]0 \leq x < 360[/math] If you want, to convince yourself that this interval is distinct from all other intervals of numbers, pour whisky on it or paint the numbers some color that is not like any other color in the universe. However you do it, think of S as different and not part of anything else. Imagine all existence concentrated in S, no outside.…

If hot jupiters (e.g. 51 Peg b) orbit so close to their parent star why doesn't the heat or radiation or solar wind blast the gas off the hot jupiter?

Enjoy a podcasts about astronomy at http://365daysofastronomy.org/ this is part of the 365 days of Astronomy.And IYA 2009.

like i understand that it's super cool to be able to see life forms potentially living on other planets, but is doing all the research for life on mars really worth the money? how would it benefit our lives knowing there's little bits of living things on mars. Enlighten me to escape my current ignorance.

Does the after image of an object linger after it has been accelerated past the event horizon? If yes, then can u please explain. Does time bend? Does Newton's laws affect any thing and how does the black hole enventually explode. Then where does the matter that has been sucked in go? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOh, theorys are also welcome.

As we all well know, the sun and it's system of planets are all products of some supernova that occurred long ago. But what I'm wondering is, does anyone know where this original star and it's subsequent supernova took place? Looking at a map of the nearest stars within 12 light years and 20 light years, respectively, there are no known pulsars or black holes located, which would indicate the "smoking gun". And, the Centauri system, the closest stars to our own solar system, are much older than the sun (about 6 billion years old or more...) So, does anyone have any idea on where or what type of supernova triggered the birth of our solar system?

does jupiter have a jovian wind equivalent of the solar wind of the sun?