Nov 14, 2012 The nebular hypothesis is brought out once again to explain how stars are born and age. In 1755, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed that the Sun and the planets of the solar system were originally formed out of a cloud of dust and gas floating…
Nov 13, 2012 One of the largest “active galaxies” is thought to be powered by a supermassive black hole. Electrical energy is a more likely driving force. A recent press release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announces that the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A is ejecting a light-years long jet of…
Nov 12, 2012 Deep cylindrical pits on Mars are not easy to explain. Small-scale plasma discharge experiments could offer some clues to their formation. In previous Thunderbolts Picture of the Day articles about unusual geological structures on Mars, it was argued that craters, canyons, dunes and many other features…
Nov 07, 2012 Phenomena throughout the visible universe exhibit features that are twisted and “stringy”. From plume to prominence it is plasma interactions that we see. In previous Picture of the Day articles, there have been many discussions about formations cut in stone or puffed-out in clouds of ionized gas…
Nov 06, 2012 A galaxy-wide filament connects two galactic clusters. The Herschel Space Observatory possesses the largest mirror ever launched into space: 3.5 meters in diameter. Herschel entered orbit around LaGrange point L2 (behind Earth in relation to the Sun) in July 2009, so that its extremely sensitive, supercooled infrared detectors…
Nov 02, 2012 The Chandra X-ray Telescope has puzzled astronomers with the discovery of abnormally high temperatures at the core of the Milky Way. A news release announcing this image of the center of the Milky Way stated that the X-ray spectrum of the gases is consistent with a…
Nov 01, 2012 Do the features on Europa indicate subsurface lakes? I care not what the sailors say: All those dreadful thunder-stones, All that storm that blots the day Can but show that Heaven yawns; Great Europa played the fool That changed a lover for a bull. — William…
Oct 31, 2012 Scientists working with four of the most sensitive observatories ever built have discovered a galaxy that seems to contradict theories of cosmic evolution. Astronomers from Caltech using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, Japan’s Subaru Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Clark Maxwell Telescope have found…
Oct 30, 2012 Recent analyses suggest that Saturn’s moon Phoebe resembles a planet. Saturn’s moon Phoebe is comparatively small, roughly 220 kilometers in diameter. Its surface gravity is 0.224m/s^2, compared to the 9m/s^2 on Earth. Phoebe is also as black as night, making it one of the darkest objects in the Solar System….
Oct 29, 2012 Could the Amazon rainforest be only a few thousand years old? The Amazon Rainforest is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America. This basin encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), of which five and a half million…
