Starship Asterisk*

Apart from the jet, I notice that the light from M87 is granulated. The granules are slightly smaller than the individual globular clusters are. Is the granular appearance due to star clusters in M87? That seems strange to me, and indeed, I should think that it would be a great discovery to find th...

snip... Paul Keim, an expert on infectious bacteria at Northern Arizona University, said that work by Dr. Achtman and Dr. Krause had shown that the Black Death “ was really a series of epidemics coming out of China and sweeping across the susceptible ecological situation ” created by the culture of...

Sorry, but Kepler 16b is pretty dull for us very curious non-astronomers. Why not rename it "Tatooine"? You could try suggesting it to the IAU (International Astronomical Union), the governing body for naming celestial objects? They might adopt it, unless it is copyrighted by George Lucas...

I have to agree with you about the Nuclear Power and clean energy. The only real problem with Nuclear power is how the spent fuel rods are stored and cooled. Currently they are placed in spent fuel ponds that are kept cool by continually pumping water through them that is pumped by power produced o...

Similarly, in today's APOD, it could be that the colliding stellar winds create the strong emission nebula between the cluster and the star inside a cavity of gas and dust. Ann Huh? I thought it was the intense ultraviolet light from the massive stars that causes the emission nebula. Stellar wind j...

The article that Art posted gives me an opportunity to ask a question that I have been pondering for some times. It is well known that stars are formed inside gas and dust clouds and planets are formed within the accretion disks around the newly formed stars. However, is it also possible that planet...

This is a moon made of water ice... I am always puzzled how it is possible that there could be such a concentration of some chemical compound, in this case water ice, that would condensed into a large body composing mostly of that chemical compound. I would think that following a supernova, most el...

wonderboy, If Phobos is as cracked up as that (all that it is cracked up to be!), what is holding it together? The tidal forces would still be acting on it, so why hasn't it spread out into a 'string of pearls"? OK, maybe it made a close approach to the Chandresekar limit at one time, and near...

Ergo: in 4 or 5 billion years the barycenter may well be located above the surface of the Earth and The Moon will cease to be " a moon ." Well, in 4 or 5 billion years, the Earth and the Moon will be either vaporized or burned to crisp by the Sun in its red giant stage. So the matter will...

Redbone wrote: ... unlike the billions of dollars wasted on the global warming hoax.

At the risk of starting another round of arguments on global warming, why do you think it is a hoax? Something to do with you not wanting to change your way of life by using less energy derived from fossil fuel?

Gary

Thanks to everyone for all the help. :P http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Rigel_sun_comparision.png Computer generated image of Rigel compared to the Sun (to scale) :?: How was the diameter of Rigel measured at 800 ly distance? Anyway, your computer-generated image makes the Sun lo...

I recall that during the 1950s, when I was a teenager interested in all things astronomical, that astronomers once thought that 30 Doradus was a single massive star.

Gary R

Science gave us abortion, and said it was good, after all we are either all atheists or fools. Now we see the most fervent opposition to abortion comes from those that have experienced it. Sometimes the soul, truth rears its ugly head at the wrong time. You are bringing religion or moralities to th...

Will the stars and other matter in the tidal tails be falling back into the merged galaxy or will they be dispersed into the intergalactic space?

Gary