Starship Asterisk*

It seems to me any planets that had formed about one of those stars would have long since been jarred out of its orbit and eventually fallen into one of those. Maybe a planet could survive way out around the edges but even that seems chancy. And it always seemed amazing to me that those stars, which...

Yes, Anne, thank you. Nice picture!

And thanks to others here for clearing up my confusion.

I was very surprised to see the moons of Jupiter in that photo. They look visible to the naked eye in that picture, but we've been told Galileo discovered them with his telescope. There have to have been a lot of sharp-eyed people back in those days before tv and computer screens and such; if they a...

1. Any educated guesses how soon two of them will collide? More precisely, how soon we'll become aware of such a collision? 2. One article suggested when Andromeda and tMW collide the center of the galaxies will light up but it didn't indicate we'd have to worry way out here about drastic effects. W...

I apologize if this has been covered. I looked through recent threads and didn't find it. Today's APOD mentions NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center. And http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060415....

So it really hasn't occurred to any of you that this is either Martian poop or just possibly a Martian egg (with Deja Thoris standing, spear in hand, behind Spirit in case of threatening activity)?

First, yes I think we are talking about an event which could already have happened. Of course we'll know about it when the light gets here, ~ 8,000 years after it happen(s?d?). I looked at the FAQ for this group and it led me to a possible answer to my question. It's at http://stupendous.rit.edu/ric...

I learned about the forum when I asked Dr. Nemiroff a question and he referred me here. So I'll ask it here. The discussion of today's APOD didn't mention the distance to A.C. which I see is about 8,000 ly. That's a good distance and, hopefully, safe when the supernova occurs. Is there an accepted d...