Starship Asterisk*

Congrats johnnydeep on your 3001 posts. That's quite an odyssey!

Thanks Chris. I expanded my question, but it wasn't necessary.

"Dark energy overtakes gravity." Is this because gravity was universally weak at this stage due to less matter? I am not sure what exactly this statement really implies. What would be the difference between the Universe with no dark energy and the Universe after dark energy "overtook&...

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Sorry, couldn't resist. Have a nice day everyone) Thank you!...

Perusing around today's APOD is something.
Does anyone know what this is? I assumed a star rather than a galaxy, but are the blue areas anything other than light tricks from Webb's camera?

There is a Hubble image of a portion of Pandora's Cluster, and I decided to compare it with the same part of the cluster as imaged by Webb. And to the ~4:30 position of Description #2, there is a quite blue little cluster that is red in Webb. There are lots of tiny blue dots that are red in Webb; s...

This is so beautiful! I couldn't see any of the Northern Lights because of the city lights. In fact, after moving to the city, I rarely see the stars at all. Except here! In at least the last 25 years, any aurora sightings where I am in SE Pa has been "obscured by clouds". It has gone far...

The cluster that the Sun formed in is long since scattered. Open clusters only last for a few tens (or at most hundreds) of millions of years. That said, I believe a few stars have been identified that possibly formed at the same time, and have been traveling nearby along with us. Over nearly 5 bil...

The write-up mentioned that our Sun may have been part of a cluster at one time.
Do we know where our sun was born? Was that theoretical cluster here, or did the Sun migrate to here from 'parts unknown'? Do astronomers have any theories of as to where our cluster was?

Is a black hole the brightest thing in the Universe because it keeps its light? In a black hole, things go to infinity, things go to zero, things go we know not. What does light do? Is there a limit to the number of possible photons, or is brightness theoretically infinite? edit: I did find this, th...

Thanks Chris. Interesting stuff. Black holes are really something. We can visually observe a something in which Relativity no longer holds; looking into a darkness not at all dark, and very undefinable.

Can a black hole cause a star to supernova? Is the tidal force of a black hole more powerful than a supernova, either squelching it or, like Q, not being affected by it at all other than merely sucking it in like anything else? The tidal force of a black hole, because it is so small, is also small....

Can a black hole cause a star to supernova? Is the tidal force of a black hole more powerful than a supernova, either squelching it or, like Q, not being affected by it at all other than merely sucking it in like anything else? What would be a ballpark mass of a black hole to maintain itself if in t...

I find it interesting that the trailing side is slightly hotter than the leading side. That's what I was wondering. If the planet was rocky, I suppose the temp would be similar to it's present state, except that it would take longer to go from sun-side to dark-side? But that is I guess a moot point...

So, something similar will likely be the fate of our own Sun, correct? From the link - I would not say "fate". But this will be a step in the evolution of the Sun into a white dwarf. Ok, agreed. The Sun would be merely senescent, but not yet entirely dead! 😊 Maybe these stars are quite co...

So, I'm too late to get either solar glasses or other eclipse viewing paraphernalia (I'm only in a 95% totality band anyway), but if I was interested in getting something to use with binoculars in the future, what's the best choice? I know there are specialty "solar-only" binoculars with ...

So, I'm too late to get either solar glasses or other eclipse viewing paraphernalia (I'm only in a 95% totality band anyway), but if I was interested in getting something to use with binoculars in the future, what's the best choice? I know there are specialty "solar-only" binoculars with ...

TY Chris and Ann. Ann, that is too many stars to have in our sky for me lol.. I very much like night time, and the night sky. It must be quite an energetic place for so many stars to be so near each other. Talk about turbulence - and the insane math that goes with it... And the next wonderment: so i...

I've asked this before re the Hercules cluster: do astronomers know the approximate distance between the closest stars to each other here? They seem to know the approximate number of stars, and the size and distance of the structure. I'm assuming things are not homogeneous tho: some stars are relati...

It's pretty, but as a sound engineer, I would have rather heard it in a more natural way. I have listened to clips that audio folks have created using interpretation of the frequencies to ear-audible. Not as sonically lilting as this, but having some real relation to whatever is being scanned. I hav...

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

"...the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away..." There are a lot of tiny motes out there getting swept and blown hither and thither. I wonder if there is a 'particle to 3D area' ratio that determines when there is and when there is not a vacuum. Or is a vacuum such an absolute that it ...

Ann said: The elongated spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is truly gigantic, but that is mostly (or only partly?) because its arms have been "unwound" and "stretched out", likely because of tidal interaction with its small satellite galaxy, IC 4970. Even though NGC 6872 is huge, giant elli...

[ Color is amazing. But for us on the Earth, indeed in the Solar system, it all starts the Sun. Which isn't yellow. But never mind. 🌞 Ann I am so fascinated by color. It means so much for all of us. No wonder plants are green; they have to reflect away all that poisonous green light from the Sun! A...