November 11, 2023
Have you ever gazed up at the night sky, marvelling at its vastness and beauty, and wondered if it will always remain this way? The universe is expanding, and this cosmic ballet has profound implications for the starlit canvas we hold dear. In this article, we delve into the heart of this astronomical phenomenon, addressing …
November 11, 2023
Black holes, the universe’s enigmatic giants, have long captivated our imagination, posing questions that seem almost paradoxical in nature. “How does a black hole give off light?” stands out as one of the most intriguing queries. Despite their reputation for devouring everything in their vicinity, black holes are not shrouded in complete darkness. This article …
November 11, 2023
Ever wondered why our galaxy behaves the way it does, with everything from stars to space dust dancing in a cosmic ballet around a central point? You’re not alone. This article dives deep into the heart of our galaxy to explore the supermassive black hole at its core, unravelling the mysteries of its gravitational pull …
November 10, 2023
Diving into the cosmic wonders of the universe, we find ourselves grappling with the enigma of black holes, and the tantalizing possibility of their antimatter counterparts. But how can we distinguish a black hole formed from antimatter from one made of matter? This question not only tickles the curiosity of astronomers and physicists but also …
October 20, 2020
To answer the second part of this question first: black holes do not suck everything in. Some objects can actually orbit black holes just like the earth orbits the sun: safely. This is possible because black holes have their own gravity just like our sun does, or like stars do in general. In fact, stars …
October 18, 2020
This is an example of a question that has been influenced by science fiction literature and movies that seem to warp the truth on things like this for entertainment. But also, the science itself can be confusing. This answer will debunk the incorrect beliefs that we hold and also explain why they are wrong.So, do …
October 18, 2020
To start with, your mass is not affected at all by the speed that you travel at. People tend to believe that objects gain mass as they travel at higher speeds, mainly because old textbooks and teachings have us believe that. But according to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity, this is simply not true.So why …
October 2, 2020
The way dark energy is normally measured is by mapping a large number of galaxies at specific redshifts. At this point, cosmologists have models that point to a specific redshift range where dark-energy started dominating the structure of the universe, so the goal of HETDEX and other dark-energy experiments is to map a large number of galaxies around …
October 2, 2020
What is the “hierarchy” of structures in the Universe? it seems that we have moon, then planet, then planetary system, then Galaxy, then maybe “several missing” in the hierarchy?, then universe. How many “several missing” structures would there be? And would all of them just be considered clusters within clusters? Or is the “galaxy” structure …
October 2, 2020
Are astronomers convinced that dark matter is the answer? Is it likely that there is a simpler alternative theory to help explain why general relativity fails at galactic scales? I will answer the second question first: no. All the simpler alternatives have been tested and they fail to explain all the observations. It is very …
October 2, 2020
In the November/December 2015 edition of StarDate Magazine, I quote Merlin as follows, “Astronomers see the earliest galaxies as they looked about 13 billion years ago. Since the time when those galaxies emitted the light that astronomers now detect, though, space itself has expanded, so the galaxies are now 48 billion light-years away.” If those …
October 2, 2020
Can light travel without a carrier such as a gravitation field? Light does travel via a carrier, in the same way gravity does. If we think about light as a continuous phenomenon, this carrier is the electromagnetic field, just as gravity is “carried” by a gravitational field. If we think about light as a particle, then …
October 2, 2020
Based on the 2001 WMAP results, the Universe is flat with a 0.4% margin of error. But what exactly are the chances of the Universe being finite but unbounded? I know it’s an unanswered question in cosmology, but is there any estimate? The short answer to this question is that the Universe cannot be both flat and …
October 2, 2020
In the November issue of Scientific American, there is an article on the Dark Energy Survey, “Seeing in the Dark.” How is this survey similar to – or different – from HET-DEX (besides being in Chile instead of Ft Davis)? As the Scientific American article states, the five-year Dark Energy Survey (DES) will cover 5000 square degrees …
October 2, 2020
If a clock could survive in a black hole, would time stand still inside the black hole? What would space-time be like? The answer is kind of boring since we do not have physics to describe the inside of black holes, the official answer is “we don’t know”. We can speculate given what happens right …
October 2, 2020
Does the speed of light increase as it nears the event horizon due to the influence of a black hole’s gravitational pull? The short answer is no, the speed of light is always the same. To explore the subtle aspects of this question, we will consider it in the context of Albert Einstein’s general theory of …
October 2, 2020
Does the degenerate matter inside a black hole have a temperature, or is it so compact it’s functionally at absolute zero? Also, if event horizon scales with mass, does matter inside the event horizon have a specifiable density? Thanks for a very intriguing question. The basic answer is that no one knows and that it …
