"If astronomers can't travel to the stars yet, how do they know anything about them?"
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Ask an Astrobiologist has received more than 2500 questions about Nibiru and 2012, with more than 200 answers posted. Please read a summary of the answers that have already been posted, view a video on these topics, use the search feature and read the FAQ’s before submitting questions on these topics.
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Question
Can people talk in space without the aid of communication devices?
No, sound needs a media to propagate. Sound can not travel in the vacuum of space. Sound waves, unlike light, are essentially compression waves, needing molecules to compress and decompress against in order to move. In a vacuum, there are no molecules. However, the confines of the shuttle, the space station, and other artificial environments possess a medium like air that sound is able to propagate through and hence people are able to communicate in normally. In the emptiness of space, however, sound waves are unable to travel, and no natural speech communication is possible.
February 22, 2002
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