What is the Kessler syndrome? The Kessler syndrome is a situation where there is so much space debris in low Earth orbit that pieces start to collide, breaking them into smaller pieces, and causing the collisions to increase. The Kessler syndrome was named after a study written by Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in 1978 […]
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How does a gravitational slingshot work? A gravitational slingshot works by using the gravity of a planet to get an increase in speed without expending extra energy, and to change direction without losing speed. A gravitational slingshot is technically called a gravity assist because the gravity of the large body is assisting the spaceship. As
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What are gravitational waves? Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime that head through space like ripples on a pond, except in three dimensions. They travel at the speed of light, and they compress space as they pass. They are caused by violent events, such as when two black holes collide. Everything that has mass has
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Why do black holes evaporate? Black holes evaporate because of something called Hawking radiation, which is where they lose energy when particles appear outside their event horizon. Nobody knows how many black holes there are in the universe because they are black, and they are very difficult to see. They can only really be seen
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Where could life in the solar system be? Life in the solar system, if there is any, could be on the moons Europa, Titan, Enceladus, and the surface of Mars. We don’t know what life on other planets would need to survive. All we can say is what life on our planet needs to survive,
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Why is the sun’s corona so hot? The corona of the sun is so much hotter than the surface of the sun because it is probably heated by waves that carry extra energy out from the sun. This is currently the most likely theory. The corona of the sun is the outer edge of the
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Why do stars ignite? Stars ignite when a cloud of gas and dust forms a big enough mass where the gravity creates enough pressure for nuclear fusion to start. Stars form out of masses of gas and dust that are floating around in the universe. These gases and dust slowly bump into each other and
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Why does time slow down as you go faster? Time slows down as we go faster because our perception of time gets distorted. This all comes down to the fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. Light, in a vacuum always travels at C, which is 299,792,458 m/s. The difficulty comes
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Why is the moon covered in dust? The fine layer of dust that the moon is covered with is called lunar regolith and it has been made by meteoroids and the solar wind. If you look at videos of the moon landings, the astronauts jump around, and every time they impact the surface of the
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How many atoms are there in the vacuum of space? Technically, in a true vacuum, there would be zero atoms, but it is impossible to make a completely true vacuum. There will always be some atoms. In intergalactic space, there are 0.3 atoms per cubic meter, on average. Obviously, some areas of space have an
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