So I was wondering what to different for my blog and it hit me. This one. I am going to pick 5 astronomy related questions from Quora and answer them! Serious ones and sometimes funny ones. (Maybe in the future I will take questions from the public and answer five out of them.)
And it doesn’t end there. Q&A is going to happen twice in a month. One week about Astronomy and one week about Life Advices/Interesting Facts.
So this week’s picked up questions:
- What would happen to your naked arm in the vacuum of outer space?
Answer:
Arms or any part of the body, you are going to bloooaaatt! Yeah, you are going to blow out like a balloon. Why? Its because of the zero gravity and because of that there’s zero pressure that results in your body losing its cohesion. But not immediately though. I can tell you, you may experience slow death – however, not that slow.
So here it what happens once your skin loses its ability to protect you. Due to lack of oxygen, your bodily fluids starts to “boil” as there will be no pressure to hold them in their liquid state. This phenomena is called an Ebullism.
Although, this may not be the only way you you die. You may also get hit by solar wind or debris. Hmmmm…
- If Voyager 1 is so far away from the sun, then how does it make energy to transmit information to earth?
Answer:
Two words: Radio Signals. Old time communication. The probe has two antenna that’s pointed towards the Earth. They send and receive radio waves through the three Deep Space Network stations on the Earth. Here are some certain technical details – it transmits Deep Space Network Channel 18 using frequency of either 2.3GHz or 8.4 GHz while signals from Earth to Voyager are broadcast at 2.1 GHz.
If Voyager 1 is unable to communicate to Earth, it actually stores the data in a digital tape recorder up to 64 KB and transmits later. It takes up to 19 hours for the signals to reach Earth!
- Is it true that Jupiter is so large that it does not orbit around the sun?
Answer:
Oh yeah, Jupiter is one badass giant gas planet. Although, It does revolve around the Sun. It’s one revolution takes upto 12 (approx) years on Earth – in an elliptical orbit.
- What is the coldest thing in the universe?
Answer:
So far, It’s the Boomerang Nebula. It’s located 5000 light years from Earth in the Centaurus constellation. It is also known as Bow Tie Nebula. Its temperature is at 1K (-275.15 C; -457.87 F) which makes it naturally the coolest place currently known in the universe.
- Why did NASA crash the spacecraft into Saturn? Why not just leave it alone and allow it to wander the heavens?
Answer:
As already listed in one of my blog post. Here is why:
- It has spent 13 years studying Saturn and its surroundings, it’s running out of juice. If its not attended, it might crash with anything on its path – which possibly could be Enceladus and Titan that’s said to have a potential habitable environment – or at least, as NASA calls it “prebiotic” environments.
- To avoid such disastrous/unfortunate end, NASA chose to dispose the spacecraft assuring that Cassini will not contaminate future studies of the moons.
Source: Wiki, NASA, Space.com
