The Science of Black Holes

At first glance, the answer seems simple. ‘ Inter ’ means between . ‘ Stellar ’ refers to stars . “Easy!” you think, “Interstellar space is the part of space that exists between stars.” Not so fast! For interstellar space to be something different, then there must be some defined boundary between the space near a star and the space in between stars. But what is that boundary? Look to the solar wind! Scientists define the beginning of interstellar space as the place where the sun’s constant flow of material and magnetic field stop affecting its surroundings. This place is called the heliopause . It marks the end of a region created by our sun that is called the heliosphere. The sun creates this heliosphere by sending a constant flow of particles and a magnetic field out into space at over 670,000 miles per hour. This stream is called the ‘ solarwind .’ Like Earth wind, this wind pushes against the stuff around it. Wh...

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was a universe very much like our own. It had dogs, and cats, and people (some of whom preferred the dogs and some of whom preferred the calls), and Trigon Cephalopodic Gnocchi, and other things of which you've never heard because we haven't encountered them yet.

Yes of course , easily and often. The ISS orbits at an inclination of 51.6 degrees, so anyone that lives within the region marked red in the below world map, can see the ISS fly over them at night.  India is near in the region marked red and thus gets some of the best views of the ISS. There are numerous smartphone apps to tell you when the ISS will be visible from your location.  There is also NASA's  Spot The Station  website.  Visit that site and select your city to see when the next opportunity to see the ISS will be. The ISS will look like either a very bright star or an airplane.  It will move quite quickly across the sky.

Stephen Hawking's ideas also took him to the edge of the universe and back to where it all started. Along with scientist James Hartle, Hawking put forth an idea of what happened before the Big Bang. Because the universe is constantly expanding, scientists have suggested that the orgins of the universe can be traced by thinking about the process in reverse. While backtracking, Hawking and Hartle realized the universe becomes smaller until you reach the extremely dense and high-energy ball necessary for the Big Bang to violently set the beginnings of the universe in place. Yet as you get smaller and smaller, you start seeing the origins of the universe at the subatomic level. Here's where things get a bit complicated. The duo theorized that once you get to such a tiny, detailed level -- where particles spontaneously pop up and disappear, space becomes separated from time. In essence, time loses the meaning we traditionally assign to it. As a result, it's impossible to mea...

It is difficult enough to imagine a time, roughly 13.7 billion years ago, when the entire universe existed as a  singularity . According to the  big bang theory , one of the main contenders vying to explain how the universe came to be, all the matter in the cosmos -- all of space itself -- existed in a form smaller than a subatomic particle. Once you think about that, an even more difficult question arises: What existed just before the big bang occurred? The question itself predates modern cosmology by at least 1,600 years. Fourth-century theologian St. Augustine wrestled with the nature of God before the creation of the universe. His answer?  Time  was part of God's creation, and there simply was no "before" that a deity could call home. Armed with the best physics of the 20th century, Albert Einstein came to very similar conclusions with his theory of relativity. Just consider the effect of mass on time. A planet's hefty mass warps time -- making time run a tiny...