Before I start saying anything else I should introduce myself:
I'm a senior at the University of Kansas (KU) majoring in Astronomy and Physics. I do active research pertaining to open cluster NGC 7142 and maintain the blog
The Angry Astronomer.
Emily`s_Gone_Mad
I got to see Saturn the other day and let me tell ya....it was absolutley beautiful! I occasionally take my telescope out on campus for public viewing. People are always amazed by Saturn. I can't even remember how many people now have asked me if that's real, or if I just have a sticker on the telescope.
Emily`s_Gone_Mad
Of course the Geminni being one of them cuz that's my sighn. You do realize that it's not actually your sign. Due to the precession of Earth's orbit, nearly everyone's sign is about a full month off.
Emily`s_Gone_Mad
What magnification do you have? Magnification isn't what's important for telescopes. It's resolution that matters. If you can't resolve something, it will just be a blur no matter how much you blow it up.
Ang Yi
There was a book fair in my university not long ago. I bought a book that tells me wat constelation will be on the sky depending where ever I am (any hemisphere), date and time. It also gives me information about different comets that will be visible in x year. What else? Oh, it shows me when the next lunar and solar eclipses will be and from where they will be visible.
Why buy a book? There's
Free online programs that can show you the view of the sky at any time from anywhere in the world!
`Zeke
I have to go for now, be back later.
That's cheating.
wink Celestia Whitesword
I was just thinking of talking/asking of black holes here.
Aren't they collapsed stars at the end of their lives?
Yes. Only the most massive stars become black holes though.
In all stars, there is a constant battle between the inwards force of gravity and something keeping it up. In stars that are still undergoing fusion in their cores, the radiation (photons) provide this pressure. When a star dies, gravity starts to win. If the star isn't too massive, the atoms just bump up against one another and that holds them up (as electron degeneracy pressure for lighter stars, and neutron degeneracy pressure for the more massive ones)
But if the star is extremely massive (ie, core mass exceeding 1.4 times the mass of the sun, known as the Chandrasekhar limit), gravity overpowers this and no known force in the universe can stop gravity from collapsing it infinately.
As far as being a time portal, not really. While space and time does get highly distorted, you can't go through one. The tidal forces would get so strong, you'd be ripped apart and killed.
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