Sep 24, 2018 Five surface instruments are scheduled for Ryugu. The Hyabusa 2 spacecraft is orbiting asteroid 162173 Ryugu, where, on September 21, 2018 it released two landers. Known as MINERVA-II, they “hop” from place-to-place on the surface. Since Ryugu’s gravity field exerts a mere .00012 m/s² acceleration (80,000 times…
The famous hexagon at Saturn’s north pole has perplexed scientists since its discovery since the form is not seen in any other planetary atmosphere. In recent years, simple fluidic experiments on Earth have succeeded in producing a hexagonal structure, providing an explanation that planetary scientists have heretofore favored. However, recent…
Sep 21, 2018 Jupiter generates its own power. On August 5, 2011 NASA launched the Juno mission to Jupiter. It is currently analyzing Jupiter’s massive plasmasphere, along with its electromagnetic field. Jupiter radiates more energy in the infrared than it receives from the Sun, so astronomers think that it is…
Sep 20, 2018 Reflective mineral deposits on Ceres. NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft on September 27, 2007. After its observations of the asteroid, Vesta ended on September 5, 2012 Dawn headed toward Ceres. Dawn encountered the largest known asteroid in the Solar System on March 6, 2015. The mission officially ended…
Since 1908 when Kristian Birkeland proposed that Earth’s “Northern and Southern Lights” (aurorae Borealis and Australis) are powered by electric currents coming from the Sun, scientists have wondered what exact shape these currents have and whether there are any other examples of these kinds of electrical currents in our universe….
Sep 19, 2018 The mission is winding down. On September 27, 2007 NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft. After observing the asteroid Vesta, Dawn headed toward Ceres. Dawn encountered the largest known asteroid on March 6, 2015, where it remains in orbit. The mission officially ended in June of 2016, but was…
Sep 18, 2018 Black holes are said to “warp space”. Consensus theories state that inside of a black hole matter occupies no volume, yet retains its gravitational forces. Those forces are so great that no light can escape, so they are called “black” holes, because they are undetectable with…
Sep 17, 2018 Cold and dark. On October 15, 1997 NASA launched the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. The six ton payload was the largest space mission ever deployed at the time, arriving at Saturn on June 30, 2004. Its name was changed twice during the mission: the Cassini Equinox Mission was a…
In this episode, we again explore the remarkable contributions of a new member of the electric universe experimentalist community. In a previous Space News, we introduced the research of Jacob Gable, whose simple demonstrations of electrical discharge in a homemade vacuum chamber have produced extraordinary analogs to the craters commonly…
Sep 14, 2018 Galaxies are alive with lightning flashes. “Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.” — Charles Dickens On Earth, a primary electric discharge channel is called a lighting bolt. In slow-motion, it is easy to see that each flash is a complex series of…
