## Top new questions this week:

### Do all orbiting bodies eventually collide?

If two celestial bodies are in orbit, will they always eventually collide if not acted upon by outside forces?

orbit

### Pluto- Current theories regarding its geological nature?

The images of New Horizons from Pluto will take more a year to arrive from space, for the moment with have some compressed images as a preview. Nasa has advanced some information regarding the ...

planets pluto dwarf-planets

### why does pluto have a high orbital inclination

Pluto has a high orbital inclination compared to the planets in our solar system. What has caused Pluto to have such a different orbit -- was it always like this, or did something happen to make it ...

pluto inclination
 answered by Florin Andrei 1 vote

### How did New Horizons take such well-lit pictures of Pluto?

The photos of Pluto from New Horizons are truly beautiful. But considering that Pluto is so far away from its nearest start - our Sun - how is it so well lit up? Did the New Horizons have a massive ...

light pluto artificial-satellite

### Why do some artificial satellites decrease and increase in brightness multiple times?

I just observed a satellite almost directly above me travel for a few minutes while constantly dimming and then getting brighter. It did this for about 3 minutes until it faded out. I also observed a ...

earth observation light satellite

### Speed of blast from supernova

How fast does the blast front of a supernova expand at? Is it close to the speed of light or is it less than a quarter of the speed of light?

supernova explosion

### How much more massive would Pluto have to be to clear its neighborhood?

How much more massive would Pluto have to be to clear its neighborhood?

mass pluto tno

## Greatest hits from previous weeks:

### Circular formation around the moon

I have seen a large circular formation of cloud around the full moon sometimes. Have anyone seen the same? What is the reason behind this formation? Due to lunar attraction? Most of the sky is empty ...

moon astrophysics

### How many planets are there in this solar system?

So, in school (that's a long time age) they have been teaching us there are 9 planets in our solar system. Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto But every now and then I ...

solar-system planets dwarf-planets

### Orbits in a binary star system

I know of three sets of stable orbits in a binary star system: orbiting closely around star A, orbiting closely around star B, or orbiting distantly around both stars (and their mutual center of ...

orbit binary-star

### How to read NOAA/NASA GOES satellite data?

I requested satellite image data (GVAR_IMG) for a project that I am working on from the GOES satellite, but I don't know what format it's in or how to read it. When I open it with a text editor it is ...

earth artificial-satellite satellite nasa
I want to calculate the distance between two quasars of which I know the angular position and the red shift. Let $Q_1=(\alpha_1,\delta_1, z_1)$ and $Q_2=(\alpha 2,\delta 2, z_2)$ and suppose \$z_2 > ...