How much would a cubic inch of a neutron star weigh? What would happen if it suddenly appeared on earth?
Neutron stars are made of neutronium which is neutrons packed shoulder to shoulder by intense gravity and has a density in the neighborhood of 10^17 Kg/m^3 which is…
Why can’t they use seawater for fires?
Ocean water is sometimes used when close enough for helicopter dip tanks or scooping airplanes. However it is rarely used. Ocean water is salt water. While during a…
Can pure oxygen be a solid?
If you get it cold enough, yes. Under normal pressure, oxygen freezes at -218.4 C and boils at -183 C. If you’re insane enough or suicidal enough to…
If the Earth were a grain of sand, then how big would the rest of the universe be in comparison?
Let’s make earth be a largish grain of sand, about 1.27 mm in diameter. This gives us a scale of 10^10 or ten billion to one. Fairly easy…
Does the very first star to have formed in the Universe still exist? Do we know of it?
Say hello to the Methuselah Star, sometimes known by its catalog name, HD 140283. Right in the neighborhood; it’s about 190 light years away in the constellation Libra. It wasn’t…
If I drained all of the world’s oceans and walked to the bottom of Mariana Trench, would there still be pressure? Would it be dark and cold? What would it be like at the bottom?
The Marianas Trench is something like 37,000 feet deep, so removing all the water would make it the location of the highest air pressure on Earth. I will…
Why is New York called that? Was there just a York before?
Yes, there was an ancient city in northern England called York, still is—The English needed to mark their territory in 1664 when they grabbed—New Amsterdam from the Dutch—King…
What is the most remote monument on the planet?
Elephant island, in the Antarctic Ocean, has this one To the Chilean naval officer who rescued the survivors of a British 1914 Antarctic expedition. It is about 500km,…
Is Steven Seagal really a martial arts expert?
Let’s start out by saying that Steven Seagal is extremely cocky, extremely overweight and has been proven to tell lies. I won’t go into all of them, but…
When people fire guns into the air to celebrate New Year’s eve, is there a risk or danger from the bullets coming back down? Or not so much anymore because of the speed and gravity as well as velocity compared to when first fired?
Yea pretty stupid idea. People who do this don’t understand physics—Let me tell you why it’ll kill you—just as dead as a direct shot. A bullet fired straight…