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13 votes
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Green, pink and purple: astronomers reveal the surprising true colours of white dwarf stars
15 votes -
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Unveiling hidden exoplanets at the cosmic edge
14 votes -
European Space Agency and JAXA's BepiColombo Orbiter is on final approach to Mercury
14 votes -
NASA’s attempt to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope has failed
25 votes -
The Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory, is ready to launch Aug 30
28 votes -
Evidence for a giant companion orbiting Tabby’s star (KIC 8462852)
7 votes -
My free open source sky atlas app is now available on Google Play
31 votes -
UNC-Chapel Hill researchers developing the world’s largest sky-survey telescope
8 votes -
How Telescope Rancher became the hot new job in Texas
12 votes -
James Webb Space Telescope discovers one of the universe's first galaxies
20 votes -
Astronomers find the edge of the Milky Way
26 votes -
Early data from Rubin Observatory reveals over 11,000 new asteroids
12 votes -
NASA’s Hubble detects first-ever spin reversal of tiny comet
15 votes -
Graphite Galaxy - astronomy sketches
9 votes -
Revisiting a 1958 map of space mysteries
15 votes -
Eighty million galaxies: gigantic astronomical catalog viewable online
18 votes -
Galileo’s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text
15 votes -
Curious George shows us the stars
11 votes -
Gravitational wave detectors affected by daylight savings time
20 votes -
The 'Little red dots' observed by James Webb Space Telescope were direct-collapse black holes
30 votes -
China have a new sixty-centimeter dome Terahertz telescope in Antarctica, a two week trek from their station
21 votes -
New way you can discover asteroids
13 votes -
Giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight at night? No thank you, astronomers say.
27 votes -
Study suggests that the Universe's expansion 'is now slowing, not speeding up'
51 votes -
Shouting at stars: A history of interstellar messages
12 votes -
Influence of the planets may subdue solar activity
11 votes -
Asteroid discovered only two days ago will fly by Earth closer than the moon today
43 votes -
An interstellar comet flew past Mars, and spacecraft took pictures
15 votes -
Face to face with the scale of the cosmos
25 votes -
James Webb Space Telescope detects possible atmosphere around Earth-like exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e, forty light years away from Earth
21 votes -
Early universe’s ‘little red dots’ may be black hole stars
17 votes -
Digital astrolabe — an interactive website explaining how the ancient astronomical device works
16 votes -
About Starfront Observatories
7 votes -
South Pole Telescope releases most precise small-scale CMB data to date — consistent with standard model
11 votes -
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will discover billions of dynamic objects while building up a deep map of the universe
13 votes -
Astronomers find ‘missing’ matter
22 votes -
Cosmic Dawn: The untold story of the James Webb Space Telescope (Full NASA+ documentary)
7 votes -
COSMOS-Web unveils largest look ever into the deep universe with public data release
8 votes -
Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken twenty-three years apart
36 votes -
Astronomers detect a possible signature of life on a distant planet
33 votes -
The disappearance of Gaia -- European Space Agency spacecraft will be turned off on 27 March 2025
13 votes -
Cheomseongdae: the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in East Asia
8 votes -
A room full of stars: The world's oldest (and most beautiful) planetarium
15 votes -
The comet panic of 1910, revisited
8 votes -
I need some help with the sciency bit of my short story
I am writing this short story. It is part of the overall book that I am writing, but it is also a story that can be enjoyed completely on its own. In that story, a planet-sized ship approaches our...
I am writing this short story. It is part of the overall book that I am writing, but it is also a story that can be enjoyed completely on its own. In that story, a planet-sized ship approaches our Solar System, and,
ultimatelymaybe, Earth. For dimensions, let's say it is equal to 1.5 of Earth's diameter. According to Google, that's25,51219,134 kilometers. The Planet-Ship is probably less dense than Earth, as it is largely occupied by biomass and weird alien electronics. You may think of it as a round Borg cube, from Star Trek.My "Round Borg Cube" is completely black and spherical, with a smooth surface without any visible features.
What I wanna know is...
- Assuming that the object is on a very slow path towards Earth, at what proximity will its effects be known?
- At which point will scientists observe its effects, view it, or detect it with instruments?
- If that is at all possible, what would be a threshold in which the "Round Borgs" would have to interrupt their movement in order to remain undetected?
- At which distance will it be visible to the naked eye (if at all)?
- And if they chose to get dangerously close to Earth, what would be the impact on our environment?
I understand that is a lot to ask, but I just can't trust GPT for that kind of stuff, even if their answers sound plausible. Perhaps someone with astronomical knowledge as well as an interest in science fiction will find my questions enticing. I don't expect precise answers because I am not providing precise information. So feel free to speculate on that scenario. In any case, I am grateful for any answer I can get.
Thanks!
22 votes -
Moon
10 votes -
Astronomers take the first close-up picture of a star outside our galaxy
9 votes -
James Webb Space Telescope finds stunning evidence for alternate theory of gravity
48 votes -
What are Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope looking at right this minute?
27 votes