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Is there a 10th planet?

Since the discovery of the outermost planet Pluto, in 1930, astronomers have wondered whether another planet might exist unseen in the outer darkness. They have looked, but nothing has been found. Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto, photographed the entire sky in search of extra planets. He concluded that if any other planets existed they must either be very …

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Is the universe expanding?

In 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the galaxies are moving apart from each other at high speed. The Universe is expanding like a balloon being inflated. The further apart the galaxies are, the faster they move. For instance, a galaxy 10 million light years away gets 300 km (187 miles) further from us every second. A galaxy …

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Is it possible to conduct electricity without wires?

Wireless electric power transfer is theoretically possible and it’s in the R&D phase of many leading research labs in the world. Nasa hopes to power its Mars Rover wirelessly in future missions. The basic technology is simple: rectify the received microwave signal using a microwave low-pass filter and a diode. This structure is called rectenna (rectifier + antenna). Many Radio …

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Is it possible for all planets in our solar system to align in a straight line?

Theoretically, no, as the plane of orbit of each planet is tilted slightly in relation to other planets. However, if we ignore the intra-orbital plane tilt, then the chance of all planets (eight now excluding Pluto) to be at the right ascension with respect to sun at same time would be once in 180 trillion years. For an exact alignment, …

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