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Are asteroids a threat to life on earth? |
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Asteroids and comets both strike Earth and are capable of great damage locally or, in the case of the large impactors, on a global scale. Impacts by an object more than 10 km across are the largest natural threats we know of, capable of causing a mass extinction. We all know the example of the impac... Click here for more.
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Is it possible that our solar system is in fact a binary system, with our sun and a small brown dwarf type star orbiting eachother in large elipses? It seem to logically explain why the earth has it's 'wobble' |
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About 25 years ago this idea of a brown dwarf companion was suggested as a way to explain an apparent periodicity in mass extinctions, perhaps due to comets perturbed from their normal orbits. A name for this companion was even suggested: Nemesis. However, all-sky infrared surveys have shown that th... Click here for more.
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I am interested in knowing how one would recognize a rock as one that came from another planet. You mention in a recent answer that they are sometimes available for purchase or are offered for sale. How could an average person be sure they were not being conned? |
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You pose a difficult question. Professional meteoriticists can determine the origin by measuring elemental and isotopic abundances, and by using the presence of radioactive elements to determine the age of the rock. This is the only way to be sure. Experienced meteoriticists can also general identif... Click here for more.
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Jupiter is sometimes referred to as failed or unborn star, allthough its mass still needs to be 100 times greater than its present mass to allow for nucleair fusion to occur, as I understand. Apart from the sun, I can not imagine there being enough mass in our solar system to account for the possibility of our solar system ever becoming a dual star system. Yet, I understand that dual star systems are pretty common in our milky way. How come ours isn't one? Is it because there simply is not enough mass available in our solar system? Can a solar system (in theory) gain mass and if so under which circumstances? Thank you for answering my questions. |
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I would never refer to Jupiter as a failed star, since it is (as you note) much too small to come close to supporting nuclear fusion. I also agree that there was never enough mass in our solar system to support formation of two solar-type stars, and there is no way for our solar system, once formed,... Click here for more.
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I recently read an article that said that the Hubble Deep Field photo shows galaxies at an earlier time when they were much closer thus the reason so many are seen so close in the photo. Is this true or is this a typical spread of galaxies in space and can be found in aother areas of space? |
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In astronomy, when we look to great distances, we are looking back in time. The Hubble deep field, which photographs very faint and distant galaxies, therefore is detecting the light that left the most distant galaxies approximately 10 billion years ago. At that time, the galaxies were indeed closer... Click here for more.
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So if you all are watching Eris and it's trajectory, why can't you tell us about how it's going to come between the sun and the earth? Where is the info on your webpage of the true trajectory which will cause the perturbing of all our solar system heavenly bodies? If this is nothing to worry about, then WHY DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT IT'S TRAJECTORY? Your behavior is suspicious and your actions will be discovered soon so I would suggest a full disclosure. |
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I’m quite happy to tell you about the true trajectory of the dwarf planet Eris. There is nothing strange or suspicious about it. There are several answers posted on this website that deal with Eris, which you can look up in the archive. The path of Eris is well known, and it has been regularly obser... Click here for more.
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If the Moon is impacted by a giant asteroid and it changes the orbit dramatically - what would the effects on life on Earth be? |
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Fortunately, there are no giant asteroids (or comets) in our solar system that could impact the Moon and change its orbit dramatically. In fact, the sort of impacts that might be possible today would not alter its orbit in any appreciable way, so no effects on life would be possible. The Moon is muc... Click here for more.
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Hi! I would like to know what would it takes to reverse earth's rotation, and what would be the consequences for life on earth if that happens?
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Nothing can reverse the Earth’s rotation, short of a collision with another planet that would pretty well destroy our planet. There are many processes in nature that can slow down the spin of a planet. The tides on Earth are very gradually slowing our rotation today. But there are no natural process... Click here for more.
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Is Neptune a complete gas ball, or does it have a surface that a person can stand on? Why haven't we sent any spacecraft (besides Voyager 2) to Neptune? |
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Neptune and its near twin, Uranus, are sometimes called ice giant planets. They consist of a core of ice and rock that has about 10-15 times the mass of the Earth, with a thick atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. There is probably no well-defined solid surface; interior models predict... Click here for more.
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Now if the Nibiru topic is a hoax, then what are the infrared images of the alleged Nibiru??? And i also heard that NASA saw it with IRAS and reported it and all that. Why does NASA deny anything about it instead of telling the public so (if Nibiru is in fact a hoax) they dont take durastic measures such as my family was planning on doing.I need more proof that Nibiru is a hoax because the government and NASA are keeping to much from us for us to make full judgement on it.... |
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I really am sorry that you have taken the Nibiru hoax seriously, and that this hoax is causing you and your family distress. This Nibiru stuff is all pure fiction, without any core of fact or truth. Specifically (1) The are no infrared images of Nibiru -- period. (2) IRAS (the Infrared Astronomy Sat... Click here for more.
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