And to a horticultural guy like me, it begs a question I have never ever considered before: Are celestial phenomenon fragrant? :s Well, the seventh planet certainly has a reputation... :P And it's still waiting for that cosmic bidet... I find it illuminating that jets may arise from different astro...
Besides molecular biosignatures , detecting generated light seems an obvious method of finding advanced civilizations. Since we have a giant telescope that detects IR , could it help find heat generation of an alien nature? Probably not campfires of alien neanderthals :no: but ET’s may need to stay ...
Are there any estimates of the mass or average density of the California Nebula, and the average density of its surrounding medium? The mass is probably that of several tens of Suns. The density is that of a very hard vacuum. And no doubt, the density of the surrounding medium is less dense still! ...
The moon is so photogenic. I love to image it this time of year as it rises further north. IMG_6614.JPG A friend was out with his new dog Sadie when he noticed last week's Moon-Venus in conjunction with a photobomber. Moon Venus and Byron.jpeg Unfortunately not all images portray the scene realistic...
Averaging 100 stars per year, Andromeda seems pretty good at star formation . :thumb_up: Prototypical? :wink: Annette Ferguson of Astronomy Magazine wrote: So, on average, we expect that roughly six to seven new stars form in the Milky Way every year. While this might seem small, the star-formation...
So, we live in a universe full of older and newer gravitational waves. Let’s call the idea – POND . :wink: There are little, old splashes and big, new splashes that we can measure . What happens when they run into each other? Constructive and destructive interference? Sounds like a gravity-type mech...
So, about those multiverses Ann mentioned. I have not read all of Tegmark's stuff, but I'm imagining the (or a) Level I multiverse in his hierarchy as a ridiculously large region of "normal" space-time (that is, exactly like the one we exist in) containing an infinite number of smaller re...
Milky Way over Bioluminscent Border. Pay attention, people, because this is a sight that you will not find anywhere else in the Universe. Well, the Milky Way will look very much the same from any nearby exoplanet - hey, Proxima Centauri b and d - But the Bioluminescent Border? Forget it. Oh, I expe...
Two amazing things from this APOD are: 1. From the Wikipedia link: All adult tardigrades of the same species have the same number of cells (see eutely). Some species have as many as 40,000 cells in each adult, while others have far fewer.[22][23] Only 40000 cells (or less), and yet they are still s...
When a viewer on Earth observes a total solar or lunar eclipse, both spheres appear to be exactly the same size. We know that the sun is much larger than the moon but is much, much farther in distance from the Earth than the moon. What are the odds that the positioning of the sun and moon in the sk...
And then there are isochrones - though I can't quite understand why I never see these isochrones plotted ON TOP of the standard H-R diagram. Is it because the metallicity needs to be the same? : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Isochrones_of_several_ages.png That top (blue) isoch...
Personally I doubt that Gamma Musca is 68 million years old. I'd guess it is between 15 and 20 million years old, like Alpha and Beta. Admittedly it is nevertheless possible that Gamma Musca belongs to an earlier generation of stars than Alpha and Beta. Ann You could be right. How are these stellar...