Frequently Asked Questions
- Why can't you answer every question?
- Are there questions from children that you cannot or will not answer?
- Are there questions from the general public you cannot or will not answer?
- Why didn't you answer my question?
- How do you select which questions to answer?
- Who are you, and why do you provide this service?
- What are your privacy policies?
- Why can't you answer every question?
We would honestly like to answer every question that we receive
with a personal email. The number of questions we receive has been
steadily growing with time, and we no longer have the time to respond
to each question. So, we made a difficult decision. We would
continue to answer every email we receive from children, and we would
answer select questions from the general public (See questions 4 & 5).
- Are there questions from children that you cannot or will not
answer?
Yes, a few. We won't answer questions that are too broad or
detailed to be answered in an email. We will not answer homework
questions (college students are notorious for sending us
thinly-disguised homework questions). We cannot answer requests for
interviews about our jobs -- this is an increasingly common project
for high school students, and we receive far too many requests to
answer them all. Also, we will not answer questions which are
answered by links on our main page, because those web sites contain
far more information than we could ever email!
Here are some examples of questions we cannot answer ("Not Cool"),
and re-written examples that we would answer
("Cool").
- Not Cool: Please tell me everything you know about
Saturn. (too broad; answered by link on main page)
- Cool: Where do Saturn's rings come from?
- Not Cool: I am doing a science fair project. Can you give me
some ideas? (too broad)
- Cool: I am doing a science fair project on comets. Why
does the tail of a comet always point away from the sun?
- Not Cool: Here's one to stump you: Suppose you are an astronaut
on the asteroid Ceres. Ceres has a radius of 100 kilometers and an
average density of 5 grams per cubic centimeter. How fast would you
have to jump to leave Ceres and never come back? (Homework
question)
- Cool: My physics teacher talked about "escape velocity,"
but I don't understand what she meant. Can you please try and explain
it to me?
- Not Cool: I am doing a project for school about a job I would
like to have. Can you please answer each of the following questions
in detail? [Followed by long list of questions.](interview request)
- Cool: Well, we can't answer interview requests. If you
have this project, we'd suggest calling an astronomy department at a
college near you and ask if there is somebody you could interview
either over the phone or by email. This spreads the interviews
around, and it makes it more likely that you will get the answers you
need. Also, the vast majority of astronomers are willing to talk to
students interested in astronomy!
- Are there questions from the general public you cannot or will not
answer?
In addition to the questions above, there are other questions
that we tend to receive from the general
public that we cannot answer:
- Questions about amateur telescopes: Believe it or not,
professional astronomers are, in general, a bad
source of information about amateur
and backyard telescopes. If you are
interested in buying a first
telescope, one good resource is a
selection of articles from Sky &
Telescope magazine. If you are have
more detailed questions, or if the
articles don't help you much, please
contact a nearby amateur astronomy
club. These people are far,
far more knowledgeable about
telescopes than us!
- Questions from professional astronomers: If you are a
professional astronomer looking for
detailed help, please don't contact
us. We are not an appropriate
resource. Examples of questions we
have received that we cannot answer
include details about instruments on
our telescopes, help in designing
instruments or telescopes, and
topics covered in astrophysical
journals.
-
Why didn't you answer my question?
If you are a child and
we did not answer your question, you may
not have included your age or
grade. Questions without an age or grade
are considered "general public"
questions, and may not get a response.
If you asked a "general public"
question, it can take up to 3 weeks
for a response to be included in the
answer updates. Also, we answer only
a few of the questions submitted. You
may feel free to re-submit a question
or ask a different question, but
resubmission does not necessarily
increase the likelihood that we will
answer your question. And just
because we do not answer a particular
question does not mean it is a "bad"
question. We may have received a lot
of questions in a short time span, or
any of a number of reasons.
- How do you select which questions to answer?
We select
questions to answer based on a
number of fairly arbitrary and inane
factors. These include our personal
opinion on which questions we feel
may be of interest to the largest
number of people, a desire to
include questions covering numerous
topics and numerous degrees of
depth, and also a desire to answer
questions that we personally find
interesting or challenging. So feel
free to ask any question at all --
we may well answer it in our next
round of answers!
- Who are you, and why do you provide this service?
We are graduate students in astronomy at
the University of California,
Santa Cruz. We enjoy sharing the
many fascinating facets of
astronomy with students and with
the public at large. We are not
paid for our work on this service;
it is a labor of love.
- What are your privacy policies?
In short, we will not
disseminate any information about you to anybody else.
Ready to ask us a question? Click
here to return to our main page!