Jan 15, 2019 Does water ice exist on Mars? “He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.”— Friedrich Nietzsche Mars is mysterious. Although it is the most extensively studied celestial body—from the days of Giovanni Schiaparelli to the Curiosity rover wandering its…
Jan 14, 2019 Gamma-rays from electric particle accelerators in space. Gamma-rays are the highest energy wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum, according to physicists. They are “electromagnetic particles” called photons. Since matter is thought to exist as both waves and particles, and photons are a class of particle called “bosons”, they…
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. Astrophysicists have only one tool in their kit–the…
Jan 11, 2019 Do marsquakes exist? NASA launched the InSight Mars lander from Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 5, 2018. The mission’s primary focus is the detection of marsquakes. In the image at the top of the page, InSight is placing the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure seismometer on…
Jan 10, 2019 Electric fields in space generate cosmic phenomena. Astronomers discovered an energy signature they called a “Fast Radio Burst”, or FRB, almost ten years ago. The event supposedly released more energy in five milliseconds than the Sun puts out in a month. Distance to the source was said…
Jan 9, 2019 Plasma is electrically ionized. In plasmas, thermal and other energy sources strip electrons from atomic nuclei. When excess charge develops in various regions, due to gravity or other influences, electric discharges can take place, forming electromagnetic sheaths along the discharge axes. If there is enough charge flow,…
Jan 8, 2019 No precipitation of any kind was detected on Titan. The Cassini mission to Saturn is over, but planetary scientists continue to analyze its data set. One of the most studied objects around Saturn is its giant moon, Titan. Scientists believe that liquid methane exists on the surface…
Jan 7, 2019 New Horizons recently flew by the most distant object imaged by any spacecraft. The Kuiper Belt theory is the creation of astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth from Ireland and also, separately, by American astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951. The first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was discovered in 1992. Sometimes…
Today, physicist Eugene Bagashov concludes his remarkable three-part analysis of Oumuamua, the mysterious object which is thought to be our solar system’s first interstellar traveler. In previous episodes, Eugene has explored several enigmas, including the puzzle of the object’s mysterious acceleration as it moved away from the Sun. While this…
According to a recent press release, astronomers detected a warped dust ring around a presumed protoplanetary disk in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, located about 450 light years away. A previous Picture of the Day discussed the warped ring of material surrounding the nucleus of Galaxy Centaurus A. Galaxies and stars…
