Oct 16, 2014 Can the Universe be weighed in the balance? What causes the formation of compact galactic clumps and filaments? One proposal is that gravitational “tidal forces” pull stars and gas out of other galaxies as they pass by each other. Another suggestion is based on the movement of…
Oct 15, 2014 Radio bursts from intergalactic space. Several Picture of the Day articles address the problems with Gamma Ray Bursters (GRB). GRBs are said to be incredibly powerful electromagnetic emissions generated by neutron star collisions, supernova explosions, or black hole “birth pangs”. The first few GRBs detected by the…
In November of this year, movie theaters around the world will begin showing perhaps the year’s most anticipated film, the science-fiction blockbuster, “Interstellar.” The plot of the film features scientists on Earth devising a plan to send human beings through a wormhole, in a desperate effort to find a new,…
Oct 14, 2014 Venus is a young, electrically active planet. “Venus was described as a ‘hairy star,’ a ‘star that smoked’ and as ‘a stupendous prodigy in the sky.’ So it is significant that one of the earliest space-age discoveries about Venus was its ‘cometary magnetotail’, in the form of…
Oct 13, 2014 Galaxies are electrically active. The image at the top of the page is a composite. It is made up of optical data from the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and one from the Hubble Space Telescope. The highlighted red features are areas that are thought…
Oct 10, 2014 Was the innermost planet once wracked by explosive vulcanism? The MESSENGER spacecraft has been a satellite of Mercury for a little more than three years. Its arrival on March 18, 2011 marked one of the longest voyages to cover the shortest distance of any mission. MESSENGER flew…
What is a human being? It is the ultimate question, to which institutional science offers surprising answers. The materialistic paradigm, which has dominated institutional science for well over a century, states that the essence of consciousness can be reduced to the physical components of the brain. However, does an alternative…
Oct 08, 2014 What caused the mass concentrations on the Moon? Consensus scientific theories postulate that the Moon experienced extreme selenological activity early in its history. Cataclysmic devastation occurred at some time in the past. Giant craters, wide and deep valleys, and multi-kilometer long rilles crisscross its surface. The tacit…
Oct 07, 2014 Ionic rain from Saturn’s rings. Saturn’s plasmasphere is an electrical environment, causing everything from dark-mode plasma discharges to lightning bolts that flash across the ring plane. When Cassini entered orbit around the giant planet, mission specialists were shocked to discover lightning of immense power, up to a million times more powerful than anything…
Oct 06, 2014 The largest galaxy cluster is said to contain a majority of dark matter. “One can show the following: given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘necessary’ for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite.” —…
