Aug 16, 2012 Recent X-class solar flares have ignited the polar lights. An electrically active magnetotail (or plasma tail) extends for millions of kilometers from Earth. Charged particles from the Sun, otherwise known as the solar wind, together with ions generated by the Earth, gather in a plasma sheet inside the…
Aug 15, 2012 Even the lonely monuments left behind have a story to tell. Chavín de Huantar, in the Peruvian Andes, is one of many civilisations to have preceded the mighty Inca empire. The occupants of the ruins have no name; lacking a script, their cultural identity is…
Aug 14, 2012 Why are animals used so widely in coats of arms? The familiar red dragon of Wales and the double-headed eagle of the House of Habsburg exemplify a widespread and familiar practice to embed animal figures in heraldic devices, both in the Old and New Worlds, but…
August 13, 2012 Is it gravity and heat that cause landslides on Iapetus? Recently, the science journal Nature Geoscience described giant, icy landslides that are supposedly taking place on the Saturnian moon Iapetus. According to the report, it is frictional heating that overcomes resistance, causing the moon’s crust to…
August 10, 2012 What causes the rapid changes observed in Orion Nebula “protostars”? Using a combination of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the ESA Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers found that so-called “young stars” are changing in brightness much faster than they thought possible. Instead of taking several years for material…
August 09, 2012 A star becomes a diamond? A recent press release announced the “discovery” of a planet in orbit around a pulsar that is thought to have once been a star, but is now a planetary body composed of something similar to compressed carbon, or diamond. The reason for…
August 08, 2012 The significance of life on other planets leaves many unanswered questions. Note: 32 years ago the managing editor’s father speculated about the possibility and significance of extraterrestrial life. The universal feeling that man is unique has been challenged by the final photographs sent by Mariner IV…
August 07, 2012 Astronomers continue to cling to outmoded theories of star formation The European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Planck telescope platform on May 19, 2009 into an orbit around Lagrange point L2. Planck is designed to analyze the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) with greater precision than its predecessors. Foreground radiation…
August 06, 2012 The Mars rover Curiosity is on schedule for touchdown at 12:31 AM CDT on August 6, 2012. Curiosity is five times heavier than the Mars Exploration Rovers “Opportunity” and “Spirit,” with upgraded instrumentation, including a high definition stereo video camera. Additionally, a tunable laser spectrometer can identify…
August 03, 2012 A new theory states that dark matter might prevent stars from aging normally and preserve them for billions of years. According to astronomers, the Universe is almost 14 billion years old. It started out with a bang – an explosion occurred and all of existence came into…
