Asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes but much smaller than planets, called asteroids or minor planets. This asteroid belt is also called the main asteroid belt or main … Continue reading Asteroid belt
Aurora is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky. Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. These disturbances alter … Continue reading Aurora
Satellite is an object that has been intentionally placed into orbit. These objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earth's Moon. The satellite's functional versatility is embedded within its technical components and its operations characteristics. Looking at the "anatomy" of a typical satellite, one discovers two modules. The first … Continue reading Satellite
Circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ) is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure. The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of … Continue reading Circumstellar habitable zone
Quasi-star is a hypothetical type of extremely massive and luminous star that may have existed early in the history of the Universe. Unlike modern stars, which are powered by nuclear fusion in their cores, a quasi-star's energy would come from material falling into a black hole at its core. A quasi-star would result from the … Continue reading Quasi-star
Dark flow is a theoretical non-random component of the peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters. The actual measured velocity is the sum of the velocity predicted by Hubble's Law plus a possible small and unexplained (or dark) velocity flowing in a common direction. According to standard cosmological models, the motion of galaxy clusters with respect to … Continue reading Dark Flow
Gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a location in spacetime where the density and gravitational field of a celestial body is predicted to become infinite by general relativity in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. The quantities used to measure gravitational field strength are the scalar invariant curvatures of … Continue reading Gravitational singularity
Carbon planet is a theoretical type of planet that contains more carbon than oxygen. Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Planets around brown dwarfs are likely to be carbon planets depleted of water. Such a planet would probably have an iron- or steel-rich core like the known terrestrial planets. Surrounding that would be molten silicon … Continue reading Carbon Planet
Hypergiant (luminosity class 0 or Ia+) is a very rare type of star that has an extremely high luminosity, mass, size and mass loss because of its extreme stellar winds. The term hypergiant is defined as luminosity class 0 (zero) in the MKK system. However, this is rarely seen in the literature or in published … Continue reading Hypergiant
Dark fluid is an alternative theory to both dark matter and dark energy and attempts to explain both phenomena in a single framework. The theory proposes that dark matter and dark energy are not separate physical phenomena, nor do they have separate origins, but that they are strongly linked together and can be considered as … Continue reading Dark fluid
Scientific WorldWide Comunity 