The Hubble Bubble

  Apr 22, 2016 Planetary nebulae are electrical in nature. Contemporary opinions about nebulae involve “winds” of gas and dust created by shockwaves from exploding stars “blowing” through them. They are often described as “star forming” because intense X-ray radiation and extreme ultraviolet light suggest that nuclear fusion reactions are…

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The Ties that Bind

  Apr 21, 2016 Earth and the Sun are joined together. The four Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellites (MMS) were launched March 12, 2015 on a mission to study the magnetic field around Earth, especially what scientists like to call “magnetic reconnection” events. According to the theory, when magnetic field lines cross and…

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Petrified Thoughts

  Apr 19, 2016 Earth should not be used to explain the Solar System. Previous Pictures of the Day discuss dune-like formations in various locales, except they are seen on other celestial bodies, such as Saturn’s planet-sized moon, Titan. Along with the extraterrestrial example, Australia’s Simpson desert contains 1240 parallel, unmoving…

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Reflections

  Apr 15, 2016 Boundary layers in the heliosphere. Space is a vacuum, it is said. As written elsewhere, material in space is far more diffuse than any vacuum that can be created on Earth, but matter does exist there. The best vacuums created on Earth reach a 0.1 millimeter…

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