Unanswered Questions
308 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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How well conserved is etendue in extreme gravitational lensing scenarios?
This excellent answer to Could dark matter exist in the Universe in the form of sufficiently dense objects? includes the following image and description:
Light from the background galaxy circles a ...
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8
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125
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How long would it take to first detect a new object in the night sky given its apparent magnitude?
If an object as bright as the star Polaris (Apparent Magnitude +1.8) showed up in the night sky, it would be detected almost instantly by stargazers. If an object as bright as Pluto (Apparent ...
- 16.3k
7
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How are the aberrations seen in early JWST images corrected?
I found this image on space.com and it can also be found in NASA's JWST blog. This is one step in the process of aligning the 18 mirrors on JWST. A single relatively-isolated star has been selected. ...
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7
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Get the expression of probed volume between 2 redshifts
1) I can't manage to find/justify the relation (1) below, from the common relation (2) of a volume.
2) It seems the variable r is actually the comoving distance and not comoving coordinates (with ...
CommunityBot
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6
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127
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Would it be possible to create a telescope from a hanging reflective cloth?
A chain suspended on two points hanging under gravity forms a curve called a Catenary, which can look pretty similar to a parabola. I'm not sure if this generalizes to the two dimensional case where ...
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6
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69
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What is the reason for the dispute over the variation of core mass with heavy metal abundance?
In Metal-Poor Stars IV: The Evolution of Red Giants, Rood writes
The differences in the results of these papers are large enough to introduce appreciable uncertainties into the study of the ...
- 37.3k
6
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1
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Do narrow lines in the spectra of O- and B- type stars always indicate magnetic fields?
I was reading a paper on the differential emission measures of a set of hot O- and B- type stars. As the authors discuss in Section 3 (page 959), two stars, $\tau$ Sco and $\theta^1$ Ori C, have ...
CommunityBot
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6
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1
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510
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Could non-supernova carbon, oxygen, or silicon flashes be observed?
I was reading about the helium flash, the short but sudden onset of helium fusion in certain red giant stars. As I understand, the upper (nondegenerate) layers of the star absorb the energy as they ...
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6
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1
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293
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Why did the Event Horizon Telescope take so long to take a photo of a black hole?
The Event Horizon Telescope is in the news now because they are about to release the first ever picture of a black hole. They have been working on this since 2006. Why did it take 13 years to produce ...
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5
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70
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Do all the accretion disks around a compact object (black hole or neutron star) emit astrophysical jet outflow?
Do all the accretion disks around a compact object (black hole or neutron star) emit astrophysical jet outflow? I mean is it mandatory for a jet to be emitted from an accretion disk?
If so, then why?
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- 2,169
5
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69
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Type Ia supernova by fallback?
Is it possible for a massive star of more than 1.4 solar masses (probably around 3 or more but below the threshold for type II) to collapse into a white dwarf and a planetary nebula, then go supernova ...
- 6,684
5
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79
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Obtaining the derived period of $\omega$ Canis Majoris
I have read these two papers:
On the nature of the Be phenomenon I. The case of ω Canis Majoris
Stellar and circumstellar activity of the Be star ω CMa
II. Periodic line-profile variability
In the ...
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5
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80
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A new (radio) neutrino telescope in Greenland?
I just stumbled upon ScienceMag news from July 14th, 2021 which says:
By placing hundreds of radio antennas on the ice surface and dozens of meters below it, they hope to trap elusive particles known ...
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70
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What to do in case of concentric circles that are not aligned with the cross after collimation (Picture inside)?
I have been collimating my newly bought first Newtonian telescope for a few days now, but I can't get the center of the circles to align with the intersection point of the spider's reflection. I have ...
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What are some good books/online resources for astronomy problem sets?
I am currently studying for the international olympiad for astronomy and astrophysics (the syllabus can be found here: https://www.ioaastrophysics.org/syllabus/). I am currently using Carroll Ostlie's ...
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