I learned this today. The energy from the photons in a laser beam can be used to propel a very light sail into space. A laser powered solar sail could let us look at the planets around the closest star to us. Laser propulsion has been suggested as the best way we have of reaching […]
#258 How can a laser power a solar sail? Read More »
I learned this today. Some planets have rings because they have captured debris, but that debris is too close to the planet to form into a moon. In our solar system, Saturn is obviously the most well-known planet with rings, but it is not the only one. Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus also have ring systems.
#252 Why do some planets have rings? Read More »
I learned this today. Signals from intelligent life are so difficult to hear because of the sheer vastness of space and the fact that we change the technologies we use. It is possible to look at a distant planet and reason that it has intelligent life because of the gases that are coming off the
#239 Why are signals from intelligent life so hard to hear? Read More »
I learned this today. Astronomers believe that there is a black hole at the center of every galaxy. In May of 2022, astronomers released photographs of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which is called Sagittarius A*. It is a supermassive black hole, and it is estimated to be
#227 Is there a black hole at the center of every galaxy? Read More »
I learned this today. Antimatter is matter made up of antiparticles. An antiparticle and a particle have the same mass but opposite electrical charges. A proton, for example, contains three quarks (2 up and 1 down), has a positive charge, and weighs 0.00000000000167262192 picograms. (A picogram is 100 billionth of a gram.) An
#216 What is antimatter? Read More »
I learned this today. Quarks are elementary particles that make up the fundamental constituents of matter. Everything that has matter in the universe is made up of atoms. The screen you are reading this on is made of glass (probably), which is basically silica. Silica has one silicon atom with bonds to four
#214 What is a quark? Read More »
I learned this today. A dwarf galaxy is a galaxy with 1000 to a few billion stars. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has between 200 and 400 billion stars. Dwarf galaxies tend to orbit larger galaxies. There are at least 14 satellite dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way right now. They are the most
#211 What is a dwarf galaxy? Read More »
I learned this today. The sun flips its magnetic field and its north south poles once every 11 years because its inner dynamo reorganizes itself. How does the sun get its magnetic field? The sun is made of hydrogen and helium gas. Inside the sun, the immense pressure turns that gas into a plasma. Plasma
#198 Why do the sun’s poles flip every 11 years? Read More »
I learned this today. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a high-pressure region in the atmosphere that causes the largest anticyclonic storm in the Solar System. An anticyclonic storm is a weather system with very high pressure in the center. The air around the high-pressure center circulates clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the
#197 What is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? Read More »
I learned this today. Nobody actually knows what the core of Jupiter is like. The most predominant theory is that it has a rocky core surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It is 1,321 the volume of Earth and is a gas giant. It is
#190 What is the core of Jupiter like? Read More »
