August 17, 2020 Earth’s northern lights are entrancing, but puzzling. In 1621 Pierre Gassendi called the northern curtains of light, “Aurora Borealis” after Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, and Boreas, the Greek name for the north wind. Earth’s magnetic field contains an electrically powered structure called a magnetotail (or…
August 14, 2020 In an Electric Universe, X-rays in galaxies are created by electric fields. If you knewwhat you will knowwhen your candlehas burnt low,it would greatlyease your plightwhile your candlestill burns bright.― Piet Hein Astronomers report “strong winds” of X-rays “blowing” out of the core of Galaxy NGC 5055….
August 13, 2020 Venus is a mysterious planet. We are disappointed if the cold-blooded scientist assures us that Man cannot exist on Mars. … We do resent a restraint on our imagination. We should like to believe in marvelous men on Venus.— Harlow Shapley Over the past 6 decades, 22…
August 12, 2020 A new mission to the Asteroid Belt. It is a commonly held belief that a large object caused the extinction of the dinosaurs when it impacted during the Jurassic Period. Earth has supposedly been hit many times by asteroids and comets, so astronomers are tracking as many…
August 11, 2020 The Universe is a bright beacon. “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity.”— Samuel Morse A previous Picture of the Day discussed the phantom force known…
August 10, 2020 Origins-Spectral-Interpretation-Resource-Identification-Security-Regolith-EXplorer. NASA launched Osiris-Rex on September 8, 2016. It is currently in orbit around 101955 Bennu, preparing to collect a sample of the asteroid’s regolith and then returning it to Earth. Bennu is among 7000 Near Earth Objects (NEO) that orbit the Sun. Astrophysicists plan a manned-mission…
August 7, 2020 Some speculate that it was ice that carved Mars. As written previously, robotic wanderers traveling the surface, as well as satellite telescopes, are providing data for the “search for life” on Mars. Sources of water in the Solar System are considered a necessity if life is to be…
August 6, 2020 Dark energy is a kludge. More than twenty years ago, astronomers found that observations of remote galaxies seemed to indicate the Universe is expanding faster today than it did in the past. The Big Bang theory does not contain that anomalous observation, so a force that exerts…
August 5, 2020 Exoplanets are not well understood. The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.— Isaac Newton According to a recent press release, “…some of the weirdest planets…” yet discovered around other stars are the extremely hot “super-Earths”. These are rocky planets so close to their parent stars…
August 4, 2020 The Sun causes Earth’s magnetosphere to oscillate. Planetary scientists are slowly coming to realize that Earth’s ionosphere is connected to the Sun by “ropes” of electric charge.That idea is a basic tenet of Electric Universe theory. Earth has a plasmasphere, so it is electrically active, coupled to…
