Nov 24, 2011 Are carbonaceous asteroids the precursors of life or the wreckage of life? NASA plans to launch the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer mission, also known as OSIRIS-REx, in 2016. The spacecraft will orbit the Near Earth Object (NEO) 1999RQ36. After a year in close…
Nov 23, 2011 The Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way, is called a nursery for new stars. The growing awareness of plasma should make it also a nursery for new ideas to explain its features. It features glowing filaments of ionized hydrogen…
Nov 21, 2011 Without a theory of electricity in space, astronomers must explain cosmic lightning with theories of falling gas. To get x-rays from falling gas, the gas must be attracted to a source of gravity with orders-of-magnitude more force than any known density of matter. Nevertheless, with suitable assumptions…
Nov 16, 2011 The key to modern knowledge is the exclusion of disproof and other possibilities. From the press release (emphasis added): Data from [five instruments] were combined to create the most complete spectrum of an asteroid ever assembled. This spectrum of Lutetia was then compared with that of meteorites…
Nov 10, 2011 Victory for one theory should mean defeat for its rival. An ESO (European Southern Observatory) press releaseboasts, “Pulsating Star Mystery Solved.” Cepheid variables are stars whose rates of pulsation vary with their luminosities: the brighter the star the longer it takes to complete a cycle of variability….
Nov 08, 2011 Ev Cochrane’s recent book, On Fossil Gods and Forgotten Worlds, again presents the challenge to explain an undeniable intelligibility in a large and coherent body of data. Petroglyphs, myths, and rituals around the world are composed of the same motifs: the ladder to heaven, the great…
Oct 17, 2011 The problem with astronomy is not that the stars are so far away or that modern instruments are expensive. The problem with astronomy is the human tendency to blink when something unexpected comes at you quickly. For three centuries, Newton was God, Gravity was King, and…
Oct 14, 2011 Redshift measurements of five galaxies verify what astronomers have always believed—if their beliefs are true. The nice thing about math is that it provides results that are absolutely true. Unless you’ve made errors in your addition, you can be sure that your conclusions are without doubt….
Oct 11, 2011 Consensus astronomy proposes that thunder causes lightning. Infrared images of the “clouds” around the Cocoon Nebula reveal “networks of tangled gaseous filaments.” The filaments tend to have constant width and extend for many light-years. They appear to be stellar counterparts of the “stringy things” found in…
Sep 21, 2011 Were the myths and legends of ancient peoples entertaining fantasies comparable with Harry Potter stories? Or were they efforts to make sense of the world, comparable to the Big Bang and evolution? Or were they e) none of the above? If they were entertainment, why were…
