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Carbon planets We typically expect a moon's composition to reflect the part of the protoplanetary disk it came from. If it's orbiting a planet close to the star, we'd expect it to be composed largely …

Assuming that the mass of the planet is substantially lower than the mass of the star, then there won't be any change in the system's orbital dynamics (depending on the way the energy from the annihil …

To make a long story short: The inhabitants of this galaxy might be able to determine the age of the universe by observing the cosmic microwave background, which exists throughout all of space. A coup …

I'd be a little surprised if the molecular cloud directly affected the Sun's magnetic field. The Sun's surface field is on the order of 1 Gauss, whereas molecular clouds have magnetic fields of at mos …

Yes, this wouldn't be a problem. The magnetic field at the outside of a planet's core very roughly scales like $$B_{\text{core}}\sim\sqrt{\frac{\rho\Omega}{\sigma}}$$ with $\rho$ the core density, $\O …

No, because only electrons, neutrinos and photons will be around Black holes don't explode; rather, they slowly evaporate - although in the final fractions of a second, they do release substantial amo …

Black body radiation The Sun is, approximately, a black body. That means that the light it emits follows a particular spectrum according to Planck's law, with the shape of the spectrum determined sole …

This scenario is quite problematic for two main reasons: evaporation and peak wavelength. The black hole's lifetime is too short We can make a rough estimate of the properties of the Hawking radiation …

I can see four key problems with the system as you've described it: Giant planets. The major thing that concerns me about the system is the presence of at least two gas giants. It's long been though …

You have two questions to consider here: Can compounds required for blue atmospheres form in significant amounts on this planet, and are the temperatures right for them to condense and form clouds? I …

At least on Earth, astronomical instruments are extremely precise and sensitive compared to the innate biological abilities of an astronomer! Sure, I can look up at the sky and see that Betelgeuse is …

The behavior of strange matter is not well understood - least of all under the conditions we're used to on Earth! Most theoretical treatments focus on places in which strange matter is likely to be pr …

It would be fine if you arrange the orbits properly. This system wouldn't necessarily be problematic if you can maintain stability via particular orbital resonances. We've discovered numerous compact …

An idea that gets tossed around a lot in this sort of scenario is false vacuum decay. Let's say we have a tiny ball on the end of an ideal spring, moving back and forth as a harmonic oscillator. The b …

There are a couple of ways to produce hypervelocity stars. A common one involves an interaction between a supermassive black hole and a binary system, leading to one star being ejected at speeds poten …