Original Post August 27, 2012 That many a thunderstone earned the sobriquet by virtue of its exposure during a thunderstorm strikes one as correct to a degree. Intellectual lassitude perfuses the attempts of those who blamed the conception of the thunderstone on sheer stupidity or, one notch up, a rebarbative…
Original Post August 24, 2012 The thunderstone is familiar from the folklore of virtually every culture, but plays no ‘roll’ in the serious sciences. In the eyes of most, the proposition that thunderbolts deposit rocks is an asinine artefact of superstitious belief – an antiquated theme that epitomises an infant…
Original Post August 20, 2012 It twists like a Birkeland Current; it’s stringy like a Birkeland Current; it’s dense like a Birkeland Current; but Everyone Knows (if they want to pursue a career in astronomy) that There is No Such Thing as Electricity in Space. The press release for…
The Shocking Truth by Andrew Hall Sonic boom Ears ring, windows rattle, the dog hides under the bed. You’ve heard it before. Thunder from an arc of electric discharge, or from a passing supersonic jet. One doesn’t hear jets much anymore, but in the good old days, I used to,…
Original Post August 17, 2012 Brian Schmidt et al. authored the paper Formation of the Black Hole in Nova Scorpii, The Astrophysical Journal, 567:491-502, 2002 March 1. Editor’s note: Many Picture of the Day articles have been written about the problems with so-called ‘black holes.’ This paper by Stephen J….
Original Post August 14, 2012 Why are animals used so widely in coats of arms? The familiar red dragon of Wales and the double-headed eagle of the House of Habsburg exemplify a widespread and familiar practice to embed animal figures in heraldic devices, both in the Old and New…
Original Post August 9, 2012 A star becomes a diamond? A recent press release announced the “discovery” of a planet in orbit around a pulsar that is thought to have once been a star, but is now a planetary body composed of something similar to compressed carbon, or diamond. The…
Original Post August 6, 2012 As of 12:40 AM CDT August 6, 2012, 4 images from Curiosity have been received. The rover is alive and on Mars. Curiosity is five times heavier than the Mars Exploration Rovers “Opportunity” and “Spirit,” with upgraded instrumentation, including a high definition stereo video camera….
Original Post August 3, 2012 A new theory states that dark matter might prevent stars from aging normally and preserve them for billions of years. According to astronomers, the Universe is almost 14 billion years old. It started out with a bang – an explosion occurred and all of existence…
Original Post August 1, 2012 According to astronomers and their theories about the Solar System, the space beyond Neptune is getting stranger all the time. Near the end of the eighteenth century the nebular hypothesis was born. It grew in popularity for more than 100 years and then appeared to…
