askscience

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What would happen if a macroscopic quantity (in kg or more) of an extremely unstable element (one with a half life normally in 10^-big seconds) were created? Would it explode or just decay almost instantly before our eyes?	6
If the Earth's gravity has caused most of the iron on earth to "sink" to the core of the Earth because of its mass, would that also mean most of our supply of precious metals like gold, platinum, and uranium are also in the core?	5
I have a really simple, small question that I can't find an answer to on google: can you have an atmosphere (artificial obviously) of 100% ammonia gas at SATP, or will some of the ammonia self dissociate into N2 and H2?	5
Why did π end up getting defined as the ratio of the diameter of a circle to it's circumference and not its radius? Isn't it needlessly complicating to have to use 2π all the time rather than just one?	5
Obviously the moon has no atmosphere, but given that the surface does have a higher gravity than the rest of space, is there a slightly higher quantity of gas than ordinary space?	4
How would a high volume of a boiled metal (vapor/gas?) behave? Like any other gas? Or would a metal behave strangely compared to more common gases?	3
I don't know if this is specifically a science question, but why does NASA seem to assign such short missions to probes that can apparently operate for much (even decades) longer than that mission?	3
Why is the hydrogen anion so much rarer than the hydrogen cation?	3
When the metre was redefined to be the distance travelled by light in exactly 1/299,792,458 seconds, was it very slightly changed to make that a whole number?	2
Humans are using resources at an alarmingly increasing rate. We all hear about oil and the like, but if we continue mining and using resources like copper and other metals at the rate we do, will we ever "run out?" Or is the earth's resource supply essentially unlimited?	2

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