June 19, 2020 Astronomers believe that solar flares are caused by “magnetic reconnection events”. “We all shine on…like the moon and the stars and the Sun…”― John Lennon A recent press release illustrates another of the more common ideas about the Sun. Using the thermonuclear fusion model of solar activity,…
June 18, 2020 Lightning phenomena vary in magnitude. “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”— Mark Twain Lightning, along with other electrical manifestations, includes a phenomenon called, “transverse electric currents” with the main discharge channel. Slow-motion videos of lightning reveal multiple leader strokes…
June 17, 2020 According to a recent journal publication, “A team of researchers…has found evidence that suggests the bright patches spotted on Titan’s surface 20 years ago are dry lake beds.” The formerly named Cassini-Huygens mission was launched from Cape Canaveral on October 15, 1997. Few now remember the public…
June 16, 2020 Liquid water is thought to be abundant in the Solar System, especially on Mars. NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory, otherwise known as “Curiosity” on November 26, 2011. Curiosity is currently rolling through Gale Crater, located just southwest of Elysium Mons on the edge of the vast…
June 15, 2020 As written many times in the past, stellar evolution is conventionally thought to proceed from compressed clouds of hydrogen and helium, which derive their energetic emissions from thermonuclear processes. NGC 2608 is considered an example of those activities, because astronomers find that the galaxy’s spiral arms exhibit…
June 12, 2020 Vesta contains millions of micro-spherules. “Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so…
June 11, 2020 Inside of a black hole, astronomers believe that matter occupies no volume, yet maintains a gravitational force so great that no light can escape its event horizon. They are “black” holes, because they are undetectable with optical telescopes. The fact that they are impossible to observe directly…
June 10, 2020 The Interstellar Medium is sparse. As written in previous Pictures of the Day, particles in space are far more diffuse than any vacuum on Earth. The best vacuums created on Earth reach a 0.1 millimeter distance between individual atoms. Between stars, however, there is only one atom…
June 9, 2020 Coronal holes are the source of fast solar winds that can produce geomagnetic storms on Earth. The thermonuclear model of the Sun proposes that the temperature in its core is more than 15 million Celsius, with compressive strain greater than 340 billion times Earth’s atmospheric pressure. 700…
June 8, 2020 What generates galactic magnetic fields? What gives them shape and strength? Astrophysicists landed on an assumption that they think answers those basic questions. “Cool gas” falling into galaxies, supernovae explosions, star birth, and rotational energy are what they believe create the fields. However, several factors are missing…
