The Astronomy Thread

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Araysar

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Brad2770_sl said:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...orth_pole.html

744808main_pia14944-full_full.jpg
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Looks like goatse
 
iannis

iannis

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I looked for the black hole but all I saw was a brown dwarf.

Maybe it depends on when you look.
 
Pancreas

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Shit jokes aside, I think it's interesting that the only thing separating gas giants from stars is mass. Add enough mass and the gas giant will exert enough pressure on its core to start fusing hydrogen with neutrons producing deuterium. This results in a brown dwarf and they are around 13 times as massive as Jupiter. Add some more mass and now there is enough pressure to create helium. This is where our sun sits in scale of things.

Keep adding more and more mass and a bunch of layers can form within the star where denser and denser elements are forged. These complex elements get dispersed upon the stars death and the whole process has the potential to start over again except this time those rarer elements clump together to form their own entities. This is where earth and other rocky type bodies come in.

So there really isn't as large of a difference between planets and stars as you might think. They are both pieces of the same cycle.

It's weird though, that the intrinsic properties found in a single Hydrogen Atom are essentially a blueprint for the visible universe. Just get enough of them together and watch em go.
 
Abefroman

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Pancreas_sl said:
Shit jokes aside, I think it's interesting that the only thing separating gas giants from stars is mass. Add enough mass and the gas giant will exert enough pressure on its core to start fusing hydrogen with neutrons producing deuterium. This results in a brown dwarf and they are around 13 times as massive as Jupiter. Add some more mass and now there is enough pressure to create helium. This is where our sun sits in scale of things.

Keep adding more and more mass and a bunch of layers can form within the star where denser and denser elements are forged. These complex elements get dispersed upon the stars death and the whole process has the potential to start over again except this time those rarer elements clump together to form their own entities. This is where earth and other rocky type bodies come in.

So there really isn't as large of a difference between planets and stars as you might think. They are both pieces of the same cycle.

It's weird though, that the intrinsic properties found in a single Hydrogen Atom are essentially a blueprint for the visible universe. Just get enough of them together and watch em go.
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I really hate your post lol. It starts me thinking of where the hell did all that energy come from that started the universe. How does something come from nothing. I just can't comprehend it and never will. It's one of the major reasons why religion doesn't make sense to me. Then again the big bang confuses me also. Just not as much.
 
Szlia

Szlia

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I wonder what's up with the hexagon shaped turbulence they saw before being able to see the pole... an hexagon seems like a very weird shape for something involving fluids.
 
Eomer

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An article I read said it was a naturally emerging pattern, and to be expected.
 
Lenas

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As far as I know that hexagon current is a persistant thing. It was originally seen by Voyager in the 80's. It rotates at the same speed as the radio emissions from Saturn's interior, so they're likely tied somehow.
 
Pancreas

Pancreas

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Thisarticle details an experiment that gives a pretty convincing result and explanation.

The hexagon is a result of the polar vortex spinning much faster than the surrounding atmosphere. This not only creates a jet stream circling the vortex, but also creates powerful eddies outside of the jet stream that push back and flatten the jet stream's path into a polygon. How many sides the polygon has is a function of the difference in speeds between the slowly rotating atmosphere and the faster vortex. The greater the difference the fewer the sides.

Why there is a polar vortex/hurricane on Saturn is another thing however. It might be reflecting some internal structure, (like the planet's deeper layers rotating faster than the external ones) or possibly a manifestation of the planet's magnetic field.
 
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