Space & Astronomy
Exploring "Why" questions about Space & Astronomy
479 articles
Why is it so important to study Mars?
its the closest planet so its the most similar to earth in terms of year cycle, day/night, and temperature (distance from sun). people think we will be able to live on mars eventually, which is a good
why do downloads start completely over when interrupted?
It's far easier to implement. Essentially, your web browser communicates to websites using a whole set of protocols. One of them is HTTP.
Why Exxon is not punished for choosing to keep a secret like climate change, which has an impact for everyone on the planet.
Because making destroying the earth atmosphere isn't illegal. There's no universal law that says you have to be good to mother nature.
Why does the north star never move but all the other stars do?
The others appear to move because the earth is spinning on its axis. Directly above either of the poles of that axis, a star will appear to barely move at all, but other stars will trace circles aroun
Why can’t we try and make solar powered commercial airplanes?
Solar panels aren't very efficient, yet. Batteries, too, are very inefficient, and very heavy. It would make much more sense to use solar power to produce a non-petroleum liquid/gas fuel that can powe
Why are trans-continental cables needed to transmit data when so much can be done via satellite?
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper used to carry around a length of fiber-optic cable that was 1ns in length that light can travel to explain to other members of government that there is a fixed length that li
Why does the moon appear red in the “Total Lunar Eclipse” instead of being invisible as happening in “Partial Lunar Eclipse”?
When the earth is squarely in front of the sun, from the moon's perspective, you're still seeing sunlight through the edges of the earth's atmosphere. Like a 360-degree horizon. What does the sun look
Why was the moon red? .
The atmosphere will scatter light of lower wavelengths (i.e., blue and purple light), which means that those colors won't pass straight through the atmosphere very well. Red light passes through fine,
Why does the sun have a crisp shape in the sky?
There is a gradient, the sun is just ludicrously large so a 500 km gradient doesn't really stand out And that's how big it is. The Photosphere of the sun(the layer that gives light) is about 500 km th
Why don’t websites allow spaces as characters in usernames and passwords?
Shitty developers is really the only reason. You could argue that if I put in a password of "12345 " ...did I mean it or was the space accidental? If it's accidental and I don't realise I did it, next