Jan 5, 2016 The Milky Way is more complex than previously thought. Any substance containing charged particles is a plasma: electrons, positive ions, electrically charged dust, neon lights, lightning, planetary magnetospheres, the so-called “solar wind,” stars, and even galaxies are plasma. However, Electric Universe advocates do not consider plasma…
Dec 31, 2015 An X-2 class solar flare recently missed a direct impact with Earth. Heliophysicists classify solar flares according to their brightness in X-ray wavelengths. C-class flares are the smallest on the scale, with X-ray measurements in the 10^-6 watts per square meter range (W/m^2), while X-class flares can…
Dec 30, 2015 Different classes of celestial bodies orbit the Sun. In the deepest regions of the solar system, billions of kilometers from the Sun, are several asteroid-sized icy rocks that are difficult for astronomers to classify. In a previous Picture of the Day article about Kuiper Belt Objects,…
Dec 29, 2015 Why some stars shed their atmospheres is a mystery. For many years, astrophysical models of stellar evolution have relied on mechanical action. The forces that shape the stars are attributed to the collapse of cold gas under gravitational influence. Common viewpoints see stars as whirling vortices of…
Dec 28, 2015 Interpreting observations should include an electrical perspective. According to a recent press release, astronomers discovered a galactic filament extending outward from galaxy CGCG254-021 on a scale never before observed. As the announcement states: “This ribbon, or X-ray tail, is likely due to gas stripped from the…
Dec 25, 2015 Editor’s Note: The Picture of the Day will be enjoying a brief hiatus over the holidays, returning December 28. Lights on a Christmas tree depend on electric power. So do the lights in space. The Christmas Tree cluster contains about 40 stars and lies in…
Dec 23, 2015 Uranus is like the other gas giants. Uranus is 50,724 kilometers in diameter at the equator, although its equator is tilted almost 90 degrees past horizontal when compared to other planets in the Solar System. Most of them are tilted no more than 24 degrees past…
Dec 22, 2015 Something near M82 started sending out powerful radio waves more than five years ago and has been holding steady ever since. Energy emissions in radio wavelengths are shining from somewhere near galaxy M82, otherwise known as the Cigar Galaxy. The fact that nothing like them had ever…
Dec 21, 2015 New images reveal a celestial body similar to the Solar System’s other rocky denizens. The Kuiper Belt theory was developed by Kenneth Edgeworth, an astronomer from Ireland, and also (separately) by American astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951. The first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was discovered in…
Dec 18, 2015 How can superheated gas create a jet almost 1500 light-years long? According to a recent press release, collimated jets are normally considered to result from matter falling into the putative gravity field of a black hole. As stellar matter orbits closer to the black hole, it…
