Jan 31, 2012 Some so-called “neutron star pulsars” are said to create nebulae as they spin. The standard model of stellar evolution proposes that pulsars are neutron stars rotating at incredible speed. For example, PSR J1748-2446ad, in the globular cluster … Continue reading →

  Jan 30, 2012 The Sun is predicted to “hibernate” during its next cycle in 2020. A recent press release states that the Sun’s activity will slow to an unprecedented decline in the next ten years. The prediction is based … Continue reading →

Jan 27, 2012 It is common knowledge that electric charge must flow in a circuit in order for a magnetic field to be created. On May 30, 1908, Nobel laureate Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was born in Norrköping, Sweden. His … Continue reading →

Jan 26, 2012 Water vapor in the gas giant’s clouds comes from a local source. According to a recent press release the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory has detected a torus of water vapor around Saturn. The newly discovered … Continue reading →

Jan 25, 2012 El Gordo is so called because it is the biggest, brightest, and hottest pair of colliding galaxy clusters known to astronomers. Astronomers “know” that El Gordo is over 7 billion light-years from Earth. This knowledge derives from … Continue reading →

Jan 24, 2012 In the consensus view, all valleys are caused by water erosion and solitary peaks must be volcanoes. The various peaks in the Glasshouse Mountains are supposed to be remnants of volcanoes that erupted eons ago, although there … Continue reading →

Jan 23, 2012 Plasma instabilities are a better explanation for the Milky Way’s strangely distorted central ring. According to a recent press release, “…observations from the Herschel Space Observatory show a bizarre, twisted ring of dense gas at the center … Continue reading →

Jan 20, 2012 A recent image of the Helix Nebula in the constellation Aquarius exposes more details of its electrical structure. The new infrared image shows radial Birkeland currents (called “strands” in the press release) crossing the concentric rings and … Continue reading →