Starship Asterisk*

When I read that a new finding has determined a value of only a fifth of the previous standard value, I ask myself what the group did differently or why all other previous groups were wrong. I am not an astronomer and only quickly skimmed through the arXiv paper. As far as I understand the new findi...

If there were equal parts of matter particles and anti-matter particles way back when, why didn't everything just annihilate leaving no particles at all? The fact that we now find a lot more matter than anti-matter, suggests something separated the remaining particles at some point in time. This is...

That's pretty interesting about the lack of tracks. I never notices that! But surely I would think that there should be a track visible very close to where a wheel just was? Especially if the rover was moving slowly. And it doesn't look like the wheels are even sinking into the regolith very much e...

How should a scientifically literate person conduct a constructive conversation with someone who holds pseudo-scientific beliefs? [...] Some conversations grind to a halt in seemingly unavoidable impasse. Let’s say person A is making arguments based on established scientific principles and person B...

Does anybody have an idea what the green spot at the 7 o'clock position is supposed to be? Some interpretation of a fancy Venusian atmospheric effect at sun set?

Unfortunately, the outer premises of our new apartment have lights that maximize light pollution

(I'm inclined to agree, however, that anything invoking the anthropic principle for scientific explanation might reasonably be called pseudoscience.) A weak anthropic principle (WAP) is excellent Darwinian science, IMO. But that is exactly my point: the multiverse of string theory heavily relies on...

Markus, you might like some of the papers at the link I supplied, too! :D I did. The first paper is about multi versions in software development, the next two are from computer science. From the context of atrogirl808's question, I assumed she is interested in the cosmological multiverse (which pap...

'Multiverses' maybe fun for science fiction, but they are not science! The main reason for that is that they are not testable (hence, they cannot be falsified): you cannot measure something which, by definition, is outside the observable universe.

To me, it looks like a squadron of TIE fighters from Star Wars.

Something I've wondered since those grainy pics on TV, why is the sky so black ? They'd have the best view of the universe in the universe ?? Because the picture was taken during day time (the sun is up) and stars are very faint. If the moon had an atmosphere, the sky would be blue, but without an ...

there appears to be something that looks like a third black hole or sphere in the center between the two black holes, and it is of the same size; wonder if that is an artifact, or part of the simulation result At 30s, the video displays a text that 'this region is not modeled in current simulation'...

... I want to refer to [light] as a Singularity because Singularities cannot be explained by normal laws of science. However I do not see light being refered as a Singularity by scientists. Could I know why? For the simple reason that it can be described by the laws of science :D There are Maxwell'...

warmingwarmingwarming wrote:So matter falls into the BH but not the spacetime that is surrounding the matter?

Correct! Keep in mind that matter does not have to fall into the black hole. A star, or planet could orbit a black hole in the same way as the Earth orbits the Sun or the Moon orbits the Earth.

So, if a Black Hole is collapsed space time .. then the Black Hole must be always eating space time .. otherwise it cannot eat anything, that is, if it's a sealed unit. A black hole is not collapsed spacetime. A black hole forms when matter, usually a star, collapses. When matter collapses its matt...

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity? These questions are actively researched by experts. But no satisfactory answer has been found yet. Maybe it helps to highligh...

Wow, that subject turned bleak quickly! The past year held some great ups and downs for me and I feel the atmosphere of nervous apprehension too. But I will start a new job and my own family in 2017, so I am a bit more optimistic. I found that xkcd nicely sums up the current feelings. And since I ha...

Interesting. Chris, and other smart people here (Rob? alter-ego? Art? Case? Geck? Others?), what do you think about this? There are good reasons to believe that general relativity is not the final theory of gravity because it leads to singularities in some cases (e.g. big bang and center of black h...

Guest wrote:What about the sword?

Credit: xkcd

I'm with Case on this one. I've noted for many years how so much of the astronomical community speak of "dark matter" (what I call "fantasy matter") as though it were some sort of proven theory of gravity. This without it being directly detected, in spite of many years of attemp...

Some people really don't like sexual innuendo of any sort, Mark. This is supposed to be a family friendly site, but I don't personally think you really crossed a line. I got chided a while back for offering the advice, "Don't be a dick." because it had the d-word in it, so I feel your pai...

So an inactive black hole basically 'doing nothing', would not be detectable. Would this be considered dark matter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duoHtJpo4GY You can detect an inactive black hole by its gravitational influence on surrounding visible matter. This video shows the measured orbits of...

The problem for the Greeks was that they had few means to test their hypotheses. And since they couldn't back up their hypotheses with (much) observational evidence, and since the most influential thinkers of their day believed in a geocentric universe created and ruled by gods, the world views of ...

Boomer12k wrote: Even "great" scientists can be wrong....even using "science"...

Linus Pauling wrote: If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.

Guest wrote:How in the hell someone had get a "bright Moon" at August 30, 2016? New moon will be just in 3 days. Seems as fake.

APOD Robot wrote: The featured aurora was imaged last week over Thingvallavatn Lake in Iceland...

(emphasis mine)