Space & Astronomy
Exploring "Why" questions about Space & Astronomy
480 articles
Why is the sun orange at dusk and yellow during the day?
First of all, if you look directly at the sun during the day (*don't* try that), you'll see it's white, or very pale yellow, but not the yellow of a child's drawing. Gases and dust particles in the at
Why can’t these algae towers be used to oxinigate terrestrial planets like Mars?
Production of an oxygen molecule via photosynthesis requires a water molecule. Algae farms like this probably will play a crucial role in making Mars habitable, but first we need to get the temperatur
Why is it that during the weekday, I have a hard time waking up at 6am and want to sleep forever, when on weekends, I am naturally up at 6am and ready to start the day?
because it's your own choice to get up on weekends, not a forced one. you can either sleep longer or get up, and you enjoy that possibility of choice, therefore you feel okay with your decision. durin
Why is it when you see pictures taken from the moon, you don’t see any stars in the sky?
The surface of the moon is very bright compared to the stars. A picture with visible stars would have the surface of the moon completely overexposed and washed out.
Why it’s impossible to cry in space?
You can cry in space, however the tears will not fall off, they will instead just stick to your eyes instead of falling down due to the lack of gravitational forces. _URL_0_
Why is the moon full towards the start of each month?
The moon takes roughly 28 days to orbit the earth, so if the moon is full at the start of one month, it'll be pretty much full when the next month comes around.
Why do all American radio stations names start with a K?
> New broadcasting stations are assigned call signs beginning with K if they are west of the Mississippi River, and beginning with W if they are east of the river. source: _URL_0_ Google is difficu
why newly discovered stars or planets or any celestial bodies were given “code-like” name? For example WISE 1828+2650
They're systematic names and indeed encode information. For example, WISE indicates that the object was found by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a space telescope. The numbers specify coordin
Why does looking at the sun always work when you need to sneeze but can’t?
It's called a Photic Sneeze Reflex. Seems like about 10-35% of the population has it. It doesn't seem like anyone fully knows why, but people theorize that it has to do with a confusion of nerve pathw
Why do they let the Juno probe crash on jupiter after the mission?
There is no possible alignment of the planets that would enable Juno to escape Jupiter's gravity. And if it did return somehow to Earth, it would burn up in the atmosphere. It isn't designed for atmos