Apr 06, 2012 A sky-high column of glowing plasma has influenced countless religious ideas. The mediaeval scholar-monk Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) was a renowned computist – expert in the calculation of the correct date of Easter in the Christian calendar. His Tractatus de Sphaera (c. 1230) contained…
Apr 05, 2012 Lunar colonization awaits a benefit that exceeds the cost. A recent Picture of the Day article discussed the new GRAIL mission to the Moon. Two satellites will orbit the Moon together, with a range-finding system that will detect gravity variations on the lunar surface. On September 14, 2007, the…
Apr 04, 2012 A European Southern Observatory study claims there are billions of rocky planets in the Milky Way. Human beings have wondered about other planets for centuries. “Are we alone?” is probably one of the earliest questions after “where do we come from?” According to a recent publication from…
[Guest contributor Jeremy Dunning-Davies offers a new perspective on the recent Voyager 1 data and the latest all-sky survey.] Thoughts Occasioned by Two Recent Announcements Jeremy Dunning-Davies Department of Physics, University of Hull, England. Abstract Fairly recently, two announcements concerning astrophysical observations appeared. The first from NASA mentioned the fact that the…
Apr 3, 2012 The Milky Way is connected to the rest of the Universe. According to a recent press release, astronomers have found “…evidence for the cosmic thread that connects us to the vast expanse of the Universe.” By examining the positions of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters around our…
Apr 02, 2012 Is Cassiopeia A (Cas A) dying or just changing her fashion? Bio 1: In the beginning was an artist’s illustration of the consensus theory of stellar evolution. Thermonuclear fusion reactions at the center of the star transformed hydrogen into helium. After a time, the growing core of…
April 1, 2012 Recent research in volcanology has concentrated on improving the predictability of major eruption events with the primary aim of providing sufficient warning to enable evacuation of personnel from the danger zone. A breakthrough in understanding the underlying mechanism of eruption events has recently emerged from research teams…
11.1 Light Visible light ranges from red through yellow and green to blue and violet. Newton was the first to discover that white light is a mixture of all the colors. White light can be split into its component colors by diffraction through a prism, which ‘bends’ each color by…
Mar 30, 2012 Astrophysicists are beginning to acknowledge the role that electricity plays in space. The Cassini-Huygens mission (now called Cassini-Equinox) was launched from Cape Canaveral on October 15, 1997. Its primary mission is the exploration of the Saturnian system, including Saturn’s atmosphere, its rings, its magnetosphere and a number…
Mar 29, 2012 What drives star formation in various nebulae? Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum compiled an extensive catalog of nebulae before his death in 1960. A Study of Diffuse Southern H-alpha Nebulae comprises 85 images that reveal intense activity within a variety of objects and structures embedded in them: extreme ultraviolet and X-ray…
