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1500 questions
25
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2 answers

Do these results mean that I have found this exoplanet?

Yesterday I was going through the TESS mission data on mast portal and after applying some filters I found some data. I started analyzing that data using the lightkurve library. plot without using the periodogram script: Running all the scripts I…
Param Kasana
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Why do some supermassive black holes have a * in their name?

Sgr A*, M87*,... Several supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies have a star (*) in their name. But many others do not. Is there a physical difference between the SMBHs that are denoted by a star and those that are not?
usernumber
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How can Io be tidally heated while it is in tidal lock?

According to its Wikipedia page: Rotation period: synchronous Eccentricity: 0.0041 But also ...extreme geologic activity is the result of tidal heating... How is it possible? It should not be heated, if its rotation is synchronous, no tidal…
peterh
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4 answers

How else can a star form, other than gravitational collapse?

I read this paragraph on the Sun's page on Wikipedia: [The Sun] formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the…
John
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Intuitive explanation of the source of energy that cause Jupiter and Saturn to migrate outward in the Grand Tack Hypothesis?

The Grand Tack Hypothesis states that Jupiter first migrate inward, but it was caught up by the faster inward migration of Saturn, and when the two planets reached 3:2 mean-motion resonance they migrated outward together. As a student who only knows…
Cloudy
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25
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3 answers

Why is there a mountain inside the Herschel crater on Mimas?

If the Herschel crater was caused by an impact, why does it have a mountain at its very center, its peak up to 5 mi (8 km) in elevation?
John
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25
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Future of CMB observations: How will our knowledge of the early universe change?

The Planck satellite has been presented and awaited for a long time as the ultimate experiments for measuring temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the full sky. One of the big questions that still need answer and…
Francesco Montesano
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25
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5 answers

Is it possible to do planet observation during the day?

Keep in mind I'm just a newbie. So.... I have a new Newtonian telescope. It has 150mm opening and 1400mm Focal Distance on top of an equatorial mount. I have 25 and 10 mm eyepieces... and a 2x Barlow. I sat down to do observation yesterday and was…
eftshift0
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Shouldn't this cause a fire?

This website shows a telescope projecting the sun onto a blackboard: https://astronomyconnect.com/forums/articles/2-three-ways-to-safely-observe-the-sun.21/ Why isn't the board catching fire? You can easily start a fire on a sunny day by…
Bookaholic
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25
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1 answer

Why is there a matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe?

After the big bang occurred what biased the formation of particles over anti-particles? Why are particles more common than anti-particles?
M.Tarun
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25
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3 answers

Is it possible to completely see the edge of a half moon at night?

Some days ago, about 1 ~ 1.5 hours after the sunset I could see a very bright half moon, and the interesting part is, I think I could see the edge of the dark half of the moon, i.e. a whole circle, but with very little contrast to the surrounding…
bgusach
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25
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3 answers

How does the evolution of a solar system not break the second law of thermodynamics?

Please forgive: I am a layman when it comes to physics and cosmology, and have tried finding an answer to this that I can understand, with no luck. As I understand it, the solar system evolved from a massive molecular cloud. To me, this seems to…
user2346333
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Is Jupiter still an anomaly?

I remember a few years ago hearing that Jupiter was an anomaly in the landscape of exoplanets. Back then, most Jupiter-mass planets discovered were Hot Jupiters, orbiting very close to their host star. In the last few years since I heard this, many…
usernumber
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25
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How fast are we moving relative to the CMB?

The cosmic microwave background radiation should provide kind of a global reference frame, because you can determine your speed relative to it using the redshift. Is it known how fast we are moving in relation to the CMB? If you subtract the various…
cuckoo
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4 answers

What are the differences between a Black Hole and a Supermassive Black Hole

From what I understand, the mass of a black hole should be nearly infinite, how much more massive can something get? Is the name to be literally interpreted such that a Supermassive Black Hole just has more mass? Or rather, is a Supermassive Black…
David Freitag
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