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I am going to be a freshman in college and I intend to major in astrophysics. This past year I took AP calculus AB, and I got an A and I believe I did well on the AP test (results haven't come back yet though). This morning I took my school's math placement test, and I was placed into...

Homework Statement If you know the acceleration of a car and its initial velocity, you can predict which of the following? A. The direction of the car's initial velocity B. The magnitude of the car's final velocity C. The displacement of the car D. All of the above Homework Equations I said...

Okay! thank you so much for the info sir. It's greatly appreciated. Looks like I need to firm up my understanding of what a black hole even is :) Thanks again!

According to this video, , if a black hole is large enough you could actually travel for some time within the event horizon without dying because the event horizon is so far from the actual singularity. So, assuming that's true, what would you see while you were inside the black hole? Here's...

If they don't merge, would they just explode?

This is so dope

Yeah I have and there isn't very much on two sun-like stars colliding, and i couldn't find anything on how it would effect the Earth of our own Sun was one of the involved stars.

What would happen if the Sun collided with an exact copy of itself? I can't find any information online about this exact scenario. So what would happen to the Sun? What would happen to the Earth and the rest of the planets? Any information or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

It was dry, I believe. Here are my numbers: A. Mass of clean dry crucible 22.130 B. Mass of crucible and KClO3 23.887 C. Mass of crucible and contents after the first heating 23.441 D. Mass of crucible and contents after the second heating 23.407 E. Mass of crucible and contents after the third...

Homework Statement I did this lab on percentage of oxygen in potassium chlorate and I got a percent error of about 30%. I now need to find three reasons for error, and human error does not count. I think one could be that the masses used in calculating the theoretical percentage of oxygen were...

Oh haha you mean like neutronium? Why is it unlikely?

So I know that all the elements above 92 on the periodic table do not occur naturally, does that mean that we've discovered all the naturally occurring elements? Is it possible that there can be elements with a higher atomic number than 118 that we just haven't discovered yet in nature?

you don't need a formula for this one

That's awesome! Thank you so much!

Well yeah I know, but most every school has a physics major so that doesn't require very much searching. Thanks for the info!

Hi! So I've begun the process of looking at colleges now and I really would like to go to a school in the US or Canada with an astronomy major, an observatory of its own, and some sort of planetary science program. I've made a list of the schools that I've been able to find with those things...

Homework Statement In a flame test lab, where different unknown substances are heated and the identity of the substance is determined by the color emitted, what can be some sources of error? Homework Equations n/a The Attempt at a Solution I need three sources of error, and so far I have...

Will do! Here's the cloudy nights thread I started too, in case you want to keep up there http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/516660-remote-controlling-truss-dobsonian-telescope/ I'll definitely be updating this thread though too!

Thank you folks so much for the info! I'll be sure to look into all of that, this is really great help I appreciate it

yes sir I am aware of that

Is it possible to rig a Truss Dobsonian telescope like this one so that you can control it remotely from inside of a building while the telescope itself is on the roof of the building? Then is it possible to attach some sort of adapter to the telescope that would allow you to hook up a camera...

In what phase of matter do individual Neutrons/Protons/Electrons exist? They are matter aren't they? So they must exist in some phase, right? Do they change phase? I'm very curious any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm a junior in high school and I'm starting to look into colleges. The one that I'm most drawn to is Wesleyan University in Connecticut. I want to major in astronomy and physics, perhaps with a minor in planetary science. Wesleyan offers all of those courses, but does anyone know if they are...

Ah thank you very much! They only measure within 1%, so the .5% error makes perfect sense! Thank you, thank you

Homework Statement I need to find three potential reasons for my .5% error in a lab where I used the Archimedes Principle to measure the density of Iron. We only used a graduated cylinder full of water and an iron mass. I measured the water level from the meniscus. We used two different...

Why isn't the Oort Cloud shaped like a disk like the asteroid belts and how the planets orbit? Also, why exactly do the planets orbit in that flat disk shape?

Doesn't necessarily have to be Ion Thruster, I just want to know about using solar sails along with any other, more "traditional", propulsion method on a spacecraft .

I've heard a lot of people talk about solar sails versus things like Ion thrusters, and it seems that both have their advantages and disadvantages. So I was wondering whether or not it's possible to use both on a single spacecraft ? That way you could get the speed of an ion thruster along with...

Is a warp drive actually possible to create? If so, how long until we can develop one? Is it at all possible that they could be developed during our lifetimes? I'm asking because of this article...

I think it does, as long as it does so in a believable fashion. I think that even if the technology isn't too realistic, but the implications of the technology and how people react to it could still make it hard sci fi. But that's just me.

Homework Statement As your hand moves back and forth to generate longitudinal pulses in a spiral spring, your hand completes 2.88 back-and-forth cycles every 6.98 s. The velocity of the pulse in the spring is 0.581 cm/s. What is the wavelength? Answer in units of m. Homework Equations v=λf...

How would I do that? Gmm/d^2 - Gmm/d^2 = 0? I used - because as you said if it were addition it could not add to zero, but am I setting that up right at all? Wouldn't the gravity of the two objects on the smaller one have to end up being equal to zero? Here's my reasoning behind the x + .385...

Homework Statement PART 1: Objects with masses of 125 kg and 548 kg are separated by 0.385 m. A 63.5 kg mass is placed midway between them. Find the magnitude of the net gravitational force exerted by the two larger masses on the 63.5 kg mass. The value of the universal gravitational constant...

It does seem strange, but I remember seeing an article titled "super bowl of astronomy" or something like that awhile back, and I didn't read the article but I assumed it was some sort of competition. Those are all good ideas, I could present those to my supervisor and see what he says. Also...

That looks interesting, I'll look into it. Thanks for pointing it out! I haven't spoken to my supervisor yet, but I will first chance I get EDIT: I meant for this to be a reply to Greg Bernhardt by the way

Okay I was making a joke, but if you watch the video that NASA put out you'll see what I mean, I put a link to it in my post

Couldn't we use a method like the one in this video http://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission/ ? Basically send a probe out there, wrap it in a bag, and bring it somewhere else? (I know Apophis is no longer a threat, but for other, future asteroids)

I run an astronomy club at my school, and I recently discovered that the robotics club gets $2000 from the school every year to build a robot. They then go on to compete in tournaments with that robot, so that justifies the $2000. It would be great if I could get the school to give us $2000 to...

Speaking of Asimov, I just recently read Asimov on astronomy. It's great. Some of the info is a bit dated, and it's not exactly sci fi, but I'd say it counts because it's astronomy with a sci fi bend towards. Great read, highly recommended

Oh thank you so much! I just realized what I had to do divide the downward force (656.6N) by the vertical component times 2! Thank you so much for your help it is greatly appreciated. Just out of curiosity, did you know exactly how to do this problem the instant you saw it, or did you have to...

T = vertical component + horizontal component, so the vertical component would = T - the horizontal component?

oh yes I accidently divided by the length of the adjacent rather than the length of the hypotenuse. So cosθ=5/9 and sinθ=0.831. How can I use this information to find the tension in the string?

oh of course I can't believe I missed that. So the length of the normal is the square root of 14/81. Now I'd take that and divide it by (5/18) to get 1.496662955, which is the sine. And I have cosθ=5/9 and sinθ=1.496662955. How can I use this information to find the tension in the string?

Sine is opposite over hypotenuse, and the hypotenuse is 1/2 L, but I don't know the opposite. The opposite would just be the length of the normal, but I don't know how I would determine that

I got two right triangles each right triangle has a hyoptenuse of 1/2L and one leg is 5/18L I said cosθ =(5/18) / (1/2) = (5/9) so cosθ = 5/9L, then I said cos^-1(5/9) = 56.251, meaning θ = 56.251 Did I do that right?

But how do I do that?

I know that Tsinθ and Tcosθ = 358.3, can I use that to find what theta equals?

But how can I do that without knowing the tension in the string or what θ equals?

Oh okay so the vertical component would Tsinθ and the horizontal component would Tcosθ

Do you mean like T^2=Thorizontal^2+Tvertical^2 ?