Jul 14, 2016 Galaxy addition or subtraction? According to a recent press release, NGC 5291 in the constellation Centaurus, was involved in a “collision” with another galaxy billions of years ago, causing a ring to form. The ring then evolved into star-forming regions, as well as dwarf galaxies like NGC…
Jul 13, 2016 The conventional Universe is a mirage. In the days before space shuttles, before the Hubble Space Telescope, and before modern satellite technology, electricity in space was not considered. Because the first teams of space scientists were “steely-eyed missile men” with backgrounds in aeronautics and chemical fuel…
Jul 12, 2016 Dark matter galaxies? Solving a particular puzzle can be clouded by a layer of presumptions. Such is the case, according to a recent press release announcing the creation of a computer model to predict the existence of satellite galaxies. Researchers with the Dark Energy Survey at the…
Jul 11, 2016 “Space tsunamis” interact with Earth’s electromagnetic fields. Earth’s ionosphere is connected to the Sun by filaments of electric charge, otherwise known as Birkeland currents, so the upper levels of the atmosphere experience its direct impact. Earth possesses a plasmasphere, so it is electrically active, coupled to…
Jul 8, 2016 Various celestial phenomena are associated with the Crab Nebula. In 1054, ancient Chinese astrologers first saw a “guest star” in the constellation Taurus. They noted that it was bright enough to see during daylight hours. About a year later it faded out. John Bevis observed a…
Jun 7, 2016 Did volcanically induced acid fog partially erode Mars? A recent conference about the possibility of water on Mars shifted the focus, somewhat. Rather than concentrating on open water or deposits of ice in the remote past, researchers now think that water vapor might have eroded some…
Building on the past year of experimentation and analysis, the SAFIRE Project is moving into Phase 2, which takes the lessons from the Phase 1 Proof of Concept Prototype into a much larger chamber. Phase 1 ended on a cliff-hanger with indications of fusion and transient million-fold CME-like eruptions. Monty…
Jul 6, 2016 Electricity manifest in many ways. According to a recent press release, scientists from the University of Colorado think that they know why there is a faint glow on the lunar limb: static electricity. Laboratory experiments confirmed that dust particles, no more than a few microns across,…
Jul 5, 2016 Galactic dust is often filamentary. Plasma is electrically ionized. By definition, electrons are stripped from atomic nuclei in plasma, since electron orbital dynamics can be overcome by thermal and other energy sources. When regions in plasma develop excess charge, due to gravity or other influences,…
Jul 4, 2016 Juno enters Jupiter space. The latest mission to Jupiter began on August 5, 2011 when NASA launched the Juno spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. After flying past the orbit of Mars, the spacecraft returned for a gravity assist from Earth on October 9, 2013 and then…
