August 28, 2012 Mercury reveals the violence of planetary genesis. Mercury’s story is probably a complicated tale of extremes. The planet’s surface is heavily scarred, with steep-walled canyons, scarps that rise up several kilometers, and craters that penetrate the crust for several kilometers below the mean elevation. The difference in…
This little video segment is part of our experimental project development. At times a Skype interview works reasonably well, but sound quality can be unpredictable and video quality even more so. We’ve chosen to move ahead—imperfectly—because communicating information to a growing audience is the logical priority. Put the emphasis on essential…
August 27, 2012 That many a thunderstone earned the sobriquet by virtue of its exposure during a thunderstorm strikes one as correct to a degree. Intellectual lassitude perfuses the attempts of those who blamed the conception of the thunderstone on sheer stupidity or, one notch up, a rebarbative belief that…
August 24, 2012 The thunderstone is familiar from the folklore of virtually every culture, but plays no ‘roll’ in the serious sciences. In the eyes of most, the proposition that thunderbolts deposit rocks is an asinine artefact of superstitious belief – an antiquated theme that epitomises an infant stage in…
August 23, 2012 Heliophysicists acknowledge the role of plasma in solar eruptions but miss important aspects of its behavior. In Bengal to move at all Is seldom, if ever, done, But mad dogs and Englishmen Go out in the midday sun. — Noël Coward According to a recent press release, the…
August 22, 2012 Astronomers continue to ignore electricity in space, opting for outdated ideas about gravity and heat. Recently, astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced that our own Milky Way galaxy is expelling enormous jets of gamma rays from a putative supermassive black hole residing in its nucleus….
August 21, 2012 The Dawn spacecraft will arrive at Ceres in August of 2015 Ceres is the largest asteroid in the Solar System. The most recent measurement from the Hubble Space Telescope puts it at approximately 975 kilometers in mean diameter. It is so large that it is roughly spherical,…
Aug 20, 2012 It twists like a Birkeland Current; it’s stringy like a Birkeland Current; it’s dense like a Birkeland Current; but Everyone Knows (if they want to pursue a career in astronomy) that There is No Such Thing as Electricity in Space. The press release for this new…
Aug 17, 2012 Brian Schmidt et al. authored the paper Formation of the Black Hole in Nova Scorpii, The Astrophysical Journal, 567:491-502, 2002 March 1. Editor’s note: Many Picture of the Day articles have been written about the problems with so-called ‘black holes.’ This paper by Stephen J. Crothers addresses the…
EU Conference Scholarship Program From humble beginnings over the past two years, the conference scholarship program for college and graduate students has produced exceptional results. Former conference scholarship recipients have included Cameron Mercer, Alireza Moayed and David Kuhness. Now the program is being expanded to reach middle school and high…
