Harboring the answers to your questions
What is the oldest known object in the Universe?
This question seems to be very simple, but in fact is as complex and dangerous as only a cosmological problem can be! First of all it requires a very careful defining of almost every word included: “is”, “the oldest”, “known”, “object” and finally “in the Universe”. Let’s start.
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How many stars can you see at night?
There are billions of stars just in our galaxy and it is estimated that in the visible Universe, there are about 200 – 300 billion large galaxies. It gives a HUGE amount of stars – approximately 10^24. But how many of them can we observe with the naked eye? Of course, directly we can only see the stars of our own galaxy, Milky Way. This is because of the large distance to other galaxies which we only observe as faint clouds in the sky. In fact, only few galaxies are visible to the naked eye in Earth’s sky, including famous Andromeda Galaxy M31 and both Magellanic Clouds. But using the powerful optical telescopes we can separate distant galaxies into individual stars.
Is the Sun going to die?
Yes, it is. The Sun is only one of about 200 billion stars in our galaxy, Milky Way. Apart from holding the planet Earth, Sun is not exceptional and, like other celestial bodies, had a beginning and will have an end. But it will not take place anytime – the Sun still has about 5 billion years of life left.
What are the rogue planets? Thinking about the planets we usually imagine globes orbiting other “suns”, or just other stars located somewhere in our galaxy. At this time (10 March 2014) we know 1771 extrasolar planets owned by about 1100 planetary systems, therefore exoplanets are not uncommon and their existence is obvious. Continue reading “What are the rogue planets?”
Does every galaxy have a black hole at the center? No, not every galaxy hosts a black hole, but the truth is that the vast majority of them actually do.
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Is there a dark side of the Moon?
What it looks like? Why we are not able to see it? Continue reading “Is there a dark side of the Moon?”