Large and complex software projects use various coding standards and guidelines. These guidelines establish the ground rules that must be followed while writing software. Usually, they determine: a) How should the code be structured? b) Which...
The brightness of a stellar object, or any astronomical object in space, is measured by its apparent magnitude from earth. The apparent magnitude of an object is determined by its distance from the earth, inherent luminosity, and any possible...
Since the establishment of space travel, only three countries have been able to launch humans into space. The first person to travel into space was a Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, who orbited the earth in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Only...
How the Universe we know came into existence? And how do we explain its origin? Undoubtedly, every other piece of evidence and data collected over the years by cosmologists point towards the possibility that it all might have started with a...
The moon, being our closest celestial neighbor, has been subject to critical observation or scrutiny over the years. It was formed some 4.5 million years ago, about 60 million years after the solar system itself. It is the only natural satellite...
The largest type of black holes — called supermassive black holes — have masses of the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of the Sun. The mass of our Sun is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, approximately 333,000 times...
Planet X is a hypothetical planet that is located about 400 astronomical units (AU) away. It may take up to 20,000 Earth years to complete one full orbit around our Sun. The planet has not yet been observed, but mathematical calculations suggest...
What exactly is a galaxy? In simple words, a galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, and other celestial objects, bound together by gravitational force. Galaxies can differ in shape, size and each revolve around their center of mass. Our...
The world’s first human-made satellite, Sputnik-1, was launched by the Soviets in 1957. Since then, more than almost 9,000 satellites have been launched into space by nearly 40 different nations. For decades, government and private space...
To gain new insight, astronomers plan to observe a spiral galaxy that hosts a supermassive black hole at its center. They will gather the data through NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to be launched in 2021. By evaluating...
