Astronomy Weekly Newsletter - Friday, February 27, 2015

Astronomy newsletter

Top new questions this week: Is gravitational energy released when a body contracts? Kelvin stated that gravitational energy released due to contraction was responsible for the energy radiated in the stars. Although the theory was wrong, was the assumption practically right? If it's ... star   asked by user52076 3 votes answered by Florin Andrei 6 votes Is the SOI a spherical region or a oblate-spheroid-shaped region? The Wikipedia article on Sphere of influence states that: "A sphere of influence (SOI) in astrodynamics and astronomy is the oblate-spheroid-shaped region around a celestial body where the ... gravity   asked by Christo 3 votes answered by David Hammen 2 votes Is there any man-made satellite orbiting our moon? I am just wondering whether any man-made satellites are currently orbiting our Moon. If there is one, would I be able to see it using my telescope? moon artificial-satellite   asked by Sureshkumar Menon 2 votes answered by Wayfaring Stranger 3 votes How bright was Scholz when is passed near the Sun 70,000 years ago? I just read that a star called Scholz passed only 0.8 years-light away from us 70,000 years ago. It is a red dwarf. I don´t know how bright it was in the night sky. Does someone know how bright it ... star solar-system binary-star   asked by Carlos 2 votes answered by Carlos 5 votes Temperature of the Sun's rays What is the temperature of the light that leaves the Sun towards the Earth and does it cool down during it's journey here ? If it doesn't cool down then how come it isn't frying the Earth ? Is it our ... sun   asked by Peter U 1 vote answered by Stan Liou 1 vote Enhanced Star-Gazing with Special Glasses I watched a video yesterday on how telescopes not only magnify images but also increase the amount of light entering into your eye, allowing you to see things not normally visible with naked eye. ... telescope star-gazing optics   asked by NickF 1 vote answered by Wayfaring Stranger 0 votes Fourier Transform of Galaxy Images I'm working on detecting optically overlapping galaxies for future astronomical surveys. I'm looking into feature extraction for HST images and have been computing the fourier transform of images in ... galaxy   asked by alvarezcl 1 vote Greatest hits from previous weeks: How deep and shaped is the depth of a black hole? A common representation of a black hole is a black circle which if I'm correct, indicates its breadth. This representation depicts it as a 'plate', so a really small depth compared to its breadth. ... black-hole   asked by Aybe 6 votes answered by HDE 226868 8 votes Age of the universe and time dilation Given our knowledge and the standard cosmological model, we estimate that the age of the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. How much sense does it make to talk about the age of the ... universe space-time general-relativity special-relativity   asked by toniedzwiedz 10 votes answered by John Davis 8 votes

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