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Posts by
Editors of EarthSky
What gives flames their tongue-like shapes?
Flames get their "tongue-like" shapes from the way burning gases move and interact under earthly gravity.
September 23, 2009
What makes hair curly?
Certain kinds of chemical bonds may change the shape of individual hair molecules, folding them back for an overall curly effect.
September 23, 2009
How sensitive is are ants sense of smell?
The kind of ants you see in your kitchen probably have a few thousand of these "smell cells," and the cells are tuned to different classes of odors.
September 23, 2009
Is my car’s fuel made of dead dinosaurs?
Fossil fuels consist mainly of dead plants - coal from trees, and natural gas and oil from algae, a kind of water plant, not dead dinosaurs.
September 23, 2009
Is there a pulsar at the center of our galaxy?
There appears to be a pulsar - a rapidly spinning dead star - located about a light-year from the black-hole center of our galaxy.
September 23, 2009
GD 50, a runaway star, maybe from Pleiades
GD 50 was born in the Pleiades star cluster, then was flung out, possibly after passing too close to another star.
September 17, 2009
Do plants grow as well under artificial light?
There are some differences between sunlight and artificial light - most artificial light doesn't emit as much energy in the red and blue region of the light spectrum as sunlight does.
September 17, 2009
What are the birthstones for each month?
Birthstones are special stones associated with each month of the year. They have a place in history, mythology and science. Check out the special story of your birthstone.
September 16, 2009
Copper, where does it come from?
Astronomers use computers to study stars in the Milky Way and in a star cluster called Omega Centauri to learn more about the origin of copper.
September 16, 2009
Did small galaxies come together to make big galaxies?
Astronomers believe that it's from humble "building blocks" that mighty galaxies like our own Milky Way grew into giants.
September 16, 2009
