Ask the Astronomer – The Top-100 most frequently asked questions at Ask the Astronomer from 1995 to 2015! Over 10 million requests for these FAQs. What is Dark Matter? Will Betelgeuse become a supernova? Can a planet ever explode? And many others!!! ($9.26; 10 tables; 156 pages) Purchase book at Amazon.com
This all-text E-book contains the Top-100 of these FAQs with answers updated to 2023. At a price of only $3.00, you will likely find answers to many of your own questions about astronomy, space exploration and space travel within its 100,000-words. If the response is good for this E-book I will look forward to doing annual updates to it every Fall, so please support this public education effort if you can!
Space Travel
Check out my two books on interstellar and interplanetary travel from an astronomer’s point-of-view! They cover destinations, what we will do when we get there and, of course, ideas about propulsion and hazards along the way.
- How long will it take to get to each of the planets?
- What material is used to make spacecraft?
- How long would it take to get to the nearest star?
- How fast does a rocket have to travel to leave the atmosphere?
- At what speed does the interstellar medium become lethal to high speed flight?
- What happens when a human is exposed to a vacuum?
Earth
- What would happen if a large object hit the Earth?
- Are Earth’s magnetic poles about to flip?
- What is the Earth-Sun distance for each month of the year?
- How many meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere every day?
- How long will Earth remain habitable?
- Why don’t auroras happen near the equator?
Moon
- What are the names of the Full Moons?
- Why does the moon rise 50 minutes later each day?
- Why are there no ocean tides at the equator?
- What causes the Moon’s synchronous rotation?
- When will the Proxigean Tides arrive between 1999-2020??
Sun
- How much energy does the Sun produce in one hour?
- Why doesn’t the Sun blow up?
- Has the loss of mass by the Sun over the last 4 billion years been enough to affect planetary orbits?
Solar System
- Why does Venus rotate backwards?
- How long would a trip to Mars take?
- What is the typical temperature on Mars?
- Why don’t Mercury and Venus have moons?
Stars
- What is a red giant star?
- Can you see stars from the bottom of a well?
- What is the relationship between a star’s color and its temperature?
- How big is Proxima Centauri?
- Why aren’t there any green stars?
- Is there a minimum and a maximum size to stars and black holes?
- What would happen if two stars collide?
Black Holes
The Universe
- Can we see individual stars that are outside our galaxy?
- Exactly how many stars are in the Milky Way ?
Everything Else!
- How do you compute the angular distance between two stars from their coordinates?
- How do astronomers determine the sizes and distances to stars using the parallax method?
- Does time stop at Absolute Zero?
- What are Grand Unification Theories (GUTs)?
- What are some astronomical events that affected history?