Jul 24, 2015 Wispy clouds are seen hundreds of kilometers above Mars. Recently, planetary scientists announced the discovery of giant plumes reaching up to 250 kilometers from the Martian surface. Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain wrote in the journal, Nature: “One idea we’ve discussed…
Jul 23, 2015 Consensus black hole theory called into question again. “The largest X-ray flare ever detected from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy” was recently announced by the Chandra X-ray Telescope observation team. According to the report, the extreme energy calls into…
Jul 22, 2015 Elves could be found in gas giant atmospheres. The plasmasphere of Saturn is highly energetic. The Cassini orbiter found lightning up to a million times more powerful than anything on Earth. It is not surprising that the discovery was made, since Saturn emits 2.3 times more energy than it…
Jul 21, 2015 One of the Mars Exploration Rovers is still going strong. Recently, the Opportunity rover on Mars focused its camera on a grand vista from the summit of Cape Tribulation at the highest point of Endeavor crater’s rim—a view extending for more than 40 kilometers. Considering that its…
Jul 17, 2015 Charon and Earth’s Moons bear a striking resemblance. Pluto’s moon, Charon was discovered by astronomer James Christy on June 22, 1978 when he noticed a “bulge” on the disk of Pluto that was subsequently found in telescope images as far back as 1965. Charon is a…
Jul 16, 2015 Evidence for the dust cloud came from a gradual drop on either side of Rhea in the number of electrons detected by two of Cassini’s instruments. Scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California discovered a “debris ring” surrounding Saturn’s frigid moon, Rhea. The Cassini space…
Jul 15, 2015 A recent press release announces the discovery of so-called “dark galaxies” in the Coma Cluster. Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University wrote: “On Coma’s outskirts lurk 47 galaxies similar in size to the Milky Way — but with 1,000 times fewer stars. To survive in crowded…
Jul 13, 2015 What are galaxies? Gal·ax·y /’ɡaləksē/ noun; plural noun: galaxies. A system of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction. Modern astronomers suggest that galaxies are clouds of hydrogen gas and intergalactic dust that were assembled by gravity billions…
Jul 10, 2015 Does gravity power stellar behavior? Modern astronomical models of cosmic evolution rely on the kinetic effects of cold gas collapsing from gravitational forces. Clouds of gas and dust a thousand times less dense than a puff of smoke are said to be compressed into a region…
Jun 09, 2015 Stellar flares are seen in unexpected places. In a September 30, 2014 press release, NASA officials from the Goddard Space Flight Center announced that their SWIFT satellite detected a stellar flare with X-ray emissions larger than anything they expected to witness from DG Canum Venaticorum, a “normal”…
