May 4, 2017 Regions of space more than 500 million light-years in diameter are said to reveal dark energy influences. “I have always believed that astrophysics should be the extrapolation of laboratory physics, that we must begin from the present Universe and work our way backward to progressively more…
May 3, 2017 Rapid fluctuations in nebular “protostars”. Young stars in the Orion Nebula are changing in brightness faster than previously thought possible. Instead of it requiring years for gaseous envelopes surrounding so-called “proto-planetary disks” to heat up and cool down, it is happening in weeks. The information was provided…
Revision 2: May 3, 2017
New scientific reports may provide insights into catastrophic events that once occurred on the planet Mars. Scientists at an observatory in Northern Ireland have conducted an analysis of nine asteroids that orbit Mars, called Trojans, and they have come to the conclusion that the asteroids are the remains of a…
May 2, 2017 Don’t stop looking. The Finder’s Fallacy is the downside of the “Eureka!” of discovery. Searching for a needle of explanation in the haystack of data is exhausting, frustrating, often disappointing. Finally to have found a needle, a theory that “works”, is cause for celebration. But the…
May 1, 2017 A new Mars rover. Sometime in late July or early August 2020 NASA will launch the next Mars lander, based on the design of the Mars Science Laboratory, otherwise known as Curiosity. The Mars 2020 rover includes a new drill design that can collect, sort, and set…
Dr. Franklin Anariba returns to offer his analysis on the Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2. In recent years, Dr. Anariba has developed concepts of electrochemical processes on comets which may account for much comet activity, including the production of comet water molecules. Recently, scientists have reported findings that may affirm these…
Apr 28, 2017 Enceladus exhibits electrical scarring. A previous Picture of the Day reported that the Cassini Saturn orbiter flew through one of the plumes of vapor that erupt from the southern plains of 494-kilometer-wide Enceladus, a small moon, so cold no chemical reactions can occur. It was assumed…
April 27, 2017 Do crustal blocks slide around? According to planetary scientists, plate tectonic activity on Mars is similar to what happens on Earth. Studies undertaken by the University of California Los Angeles suggest that: “Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse…
Apr 26, 2017 Have you ever seen a carpenter try to cut a 2×4 with a hammer? Probably not. Carpenters usually carry a saw as well as a hammer in their toolboxes, and they know to use the proper tool for the task at hand. If they didn’t have…
