Please point me to perspectives or points of view that estimate the likelihood of a black hole, asteroid or some other cosmic calamity turning out our lights.
128983
in fact! our galaxy will be completely destroyed and unshaped.this will happen in some 10 million years.our galaxy will be destroyed by another galaxy; Andromeda's galaxy.this galaxy is moving towards us at about 500000km/h\nthe effect that it will have on our galaxy will be terrible.the two galaxies will "mix" together and form a new one,but all the things inside of them will be destroyed i.e;planets,comets asteroids.this is because there will be collision between the matter of the milky way and Andromeda.if you need more details please email me on xholme@yahoo.com
411902
Anyplace not cloudy and that does not have too many bright lights will do. Just look anywhere in the sky. The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. Look after midnight though, because the radiant won't rise until then. The later at night you look, the better. 4:00 AM would be the best time to look.\n\nThe predictions are not that good this year. A few years ago I saw 50 bright ones per hour. This year they are predicting 10 or 15 per hour, and maybe not bright ones either. Also, the peak time is before the radiant rises in the US, so Europe will see the best show. If the predictions are correct.
118077
When we discover what happens in a singularity (the center of a black hole) we'll be a step closer to a grand unified \ntheory.
261104
The truth is ...\nAn asteroid discovered just weeks ago has become the most threatening object yet detected in space. \nA preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 is on an impact course with Earth and could strike the planet on 1 February, 2019 - although the uncertainties are large. \n\nAstronomers have given the object a rating on the so-called Palermo technical scale of threat of 0.06, making NT7 the first object to be given a positive value. \n\nFrom its brightness, astronomers estimate it is about two kilometres wide, large enough to cause continent-wide devastation on Earth.
101967
Technically, this is correct. \n\nHowever, we can gain confidence in future predictions based on past success. For example, if the sun rises in the east for 100,000,000 consecutive days, and nothing that would prevent this from occuring on the 100,000,001th day, we can be very confident that the sun will in fact rise in the east, not the west, on the 100,000,001th day. \n\nSure, we might be wrong, but, by repeated trials, observations, and attempts at falsification, we can decrease the probability of that being the case to such a small probability that witholding provisional acceptance would be perverse. That, in a nutshell, is science.
261030
The scientist in charge of this project were taking extra care with picture preparation. Go to the site and you will see that around May 17th I think we can start looking for the particles from space.\nSee link below for Stardust at Home
38048
No. But there will be one that comes pretty damn close. If you use a search engine like Yahoo! you can find out about the near miss that happend not too long ago (I think around November 1998). It was never on the news for good reason.  But we had a close call that could have wiped us all out. Check it out. Its very interesting. The site even give you a scale to show the asteroids proximity to earth, its course and what day it will pass by again. Hope that helps.
330654
Telescopes!  When we can see various forms of light energy coming from stars and figure out how far away based on redshift and spectra, we can get an idea of how far away stars "can" be and how they are moving away from each other.  From that we determine the topology of the universe.
316728
There will be no tsunamis, firestorms or mass extinctions to spoil your Memorial Day weekend. \n\nAlthough the Internet is rife with speculation that a fragment of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 will strike the Earth on May 25, neither the main comet nor any of its more than 40 fragments pose a danger to Earth. \n\n"We are very well acquainted with the trajectory of Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3," said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. "There is absolutely no danger to people on the ground or the inhabitants of the International Space Station, as the main body of the object and any pieces from the breakup will pass many millions of miles beyond the Earth."\n\nImage above: Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys took images of the disintegration of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3's fragment B. Click to EnlargeCredit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL/JHU), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)\nMovie: Zoom to Fragment B close-up: + 544 Kb QuickTime | + Windows Media \n\nHowever, you can see the comet falling apart right before our eyes, thanks to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. \n\nRecent Hubble images have uncovered many more fragments than have been reported by ground-based observers. These observations provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the demise of a comet nucleus. \n\nNone of the comet's fragments will come closer than 5.5 million miles to Earth during its closest approaches May 12 - 28. That's more than 20 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.\n\nThe main fragment, designated fragment C, will pass closest to Earth on May 12 at a distance of approximately 7.3 million miles. It will be visible to small telescopes during the morning hours in the constellation Vulpecula. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will observe the comet in May. \n\nAstronomers have been observing the comet for more than 75 years. The trajectory of this comet has been monitored and refined over time, and its path around the sun is well understood. Amateur and professional astronomers around the world have been tracking its spectacular disintegration for years. \n\nThe comet is currently comprised of a chain of fragments, named alphabetically, stretching across several degrees on the sky. (The sun and moon each have an apparent diameter of about 1/2 of a degree.) Ground-based observers have noted dramatic brightening events associated with some of the fragments (as seen in the image below) indicating that they are continuing to break-up and that some may disappear altogether.\n\n Image above: Ground based view of fragments B and G, R, and N on April 8, 2006. Credit: M. Jäger and G. Rhemann \n\nHubble caught two of the fragments, B and G, shortly after large outbursts in activity. Hubble also photographed fragment C , which at the time was less active. The resulting images reveal that a hierarchical destruction process is taking place, in which fragments are continuing to break into smaller chunks. Several dozen "mini-fragments" are found trailing behind each main fragment, probably associated with the ejection of house-sized chunks of surface material that can only be detected in these very sensitive and high- resolution Hubble images.\n\nSequential Hubble images of the B fragment, taken a few days apart, suggest that the chunks are pushed down the tail by outgassing from the icy, sunward-facing surfaces of the chunks, much like space-walking astronauts are propelled by their jetpacks. The smaller chunks have the lowest mass, and so are accelerated away from the parent nucleus faster than the larger chunks. Some of the chunks seem to dissipate completely over the course of several days.\n\nDeep-freeze relics of the early solar system, cometary nuclei are porous and fragile mixes of dust and ices. They can be broken apart by gravitational tidal forces when they pass near large bodies. For example, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was torn to pieces when it skirted ne
393887
Sorry, but there is no reliable evidence for earthquake lights or any other type of prediction tool.  This is what Dr. Jackson of UCLA told me, a leading geophysist:\n\nEarthquakes follow NO predictable pattern. People have tried and tried, with no luck. They may have accidentally predicted one, but they can not predict anything consistantly.\n\nEarthquakes fall into 3 categories. Some do behave well, they have foreshocks, they show subtle signs, and have aftershocks very nicely. They are still not predictable, but they are closer to being predicted. Some have no warning at all and never show any signs of going. The third group follow no pattern at all, they go seemingly randomly, and they can not even be estimated. It is very hard to tell which fault will be in which group, and this is why prediction is still several breakthroughs away.
236516
Well let me explain it.\n\nYes there is probability. But it is very small. Theoreticians\nhave predicted a particle that on anhiliation can create a small black hole. This black hole can grow by eating nearby matter. This way, it's gravitaional pull will increase.\n\nHole ---> eats matter ----> becomes bigger  ----> eats more matter.\n\nThis way, it will eat up the whole of the universe !!\n\nBut as I said, chances are rare !!!
392510
The US Naval Observatory has this information. Each eclipse in the table has a map you can click on to see where on Earth it could be seen.
519024
Something involving atomic spectra.  For example see\nhttp://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scdiroff/lds/QuantumRelativity/StreetLampSpectra/StreetLampSpectra.html
565880
I would like to to add a few words to a great input other people have already provided.\n\nIn Astronomy, as in all sciences, one can detect an object in one of two ways: either by observing it directly, or observing the effect that it has on other, more easily observed, objects. \nIt's always been known that there was matter in the night sky that we couldn't really directly see. When astronomers use telescopes, or even radio telescopes, they can only see objects which emit light or radio waves. Not all of the matter in the Universe does this - for instance, we wouldn't be able to see planets like our own, because they would be too dim to see. \nAll the mass of of all the planets in our solar system, though, is significantly less than one percent of the Sun's mass. So worrying about matter that didn't shine - non-luminous matter - wasn't of great concern. \nThe first evidence: Clusters of Galaxies The first evidence that there was a significant amount of matter that we couldn't readily see was in investigating clusters of galaxies, which are simply aggregates of a few hundred to a few thousand clusters otherwise isolated in space.\nWhat is Dark matter? This still is an open question.  There are many possibilities, and nobody really knows much about this yet.  Here are a few of the many published suggestions, which are being currently hunted for by experimentalists all over the world.  Remember, you need at least one baryonic candidate and one non-baryonic candidate to make everything work out, so there may be more than one correct choice among the possibilities given here.\nThe baryons are a family of subatomic particles including the proton and the neutron (collectively called nucleons), as well as a number of unstable, heavier particles (called hyperons). The term "baryon" is derived from the Greek barys, meaning "heavy," as they are heavier than the other main groups of particles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon \n•Normal matter which has so far eluded our gaze, such as: \n dark galaxies \n brown dwarfs \n planetary material (rock, dust, etc.) \n•Massive Standard Model neutrinos.  If any of the neutrinos are massive, then this could be the missing mass.  On the other hand, if they are too heavy, as the purported 17 keV neutrino would have been, massive neutrinos create almost as many problems as they solve in this regard. \n•Exotica (See the Particle Zoo FAQ entry for some details. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/particle_zoo.html) \n\nHere are a wew references \nWhat is the Universe Made Of? http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101matter.html \nCosmic Hide and Seek http://www.eclipse.net/~cmmiller/DM/ \n\nDark Matter, Cosmology, and Large-Scale Structure of the Universe http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/dm1.html \n\nExperiment\nExperiment with simulation of cluster of galaxies  http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/cluster-sim.html \n\nWhat is dark matter? http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/dark_matter.html
569688
It might be Seti@Home...\nIt's to look for extra terrestrials...\nhttp://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
511686
ahhh more swamp gas refracting off venus with a strange cloud formation, is what they'll have you believe.\nfollow it up at http://www.ufoevidence.org/ \nGood luck
608358
Yep, check out the Meade Telescope site.  Great new stuff in astronomy.