Tiwanaku

Ruins of Tiwanaku in Bolivia

  Oct 08, 2012 Did this ancient site experience a catastrophic end? Tiwanaku, or Tiahuanaco in Spanish, is a ruined citadel occupying almost 10 square kilometers in the Bolivian Andes at an altitude greater than 3800 meters. Carbon-14 dating methods suggest that the site is no more than 3700 years…

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Two for One

  Oct 04, 2012 The Sombrero galaxy appears to be a giant elliptical galaxy with an embedded disk. One of the most significant contributions to plasma cosmology comes from Dr. Anthony L. Peratt, a plasma physicist and protégé of the Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén. Peratt studied plasma formations in the…

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Focusing on Fusion

Oct 03, 2012 Thermonuclear fusion reactions from deep in the core are said to drive the Sun. Hypothetically, how does the Sun produce heat and light enough to sustain life on Earth at a mean distance of 149,476,000 kilometers? According to spectrographic analysis, the Sun is composed primarily of hydrogen…

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Cosmic Ions

Part of the IceCube neutrino observatory in Antarctica

  Oct 02, 2012 New studies suggest that the origin of the strongest cosmic rays is still mysterious. Cosmic rays are energetic ions from space that arrive in the Sun’s local neighborhood traveling at extremely high velocities. About 90% of all cosmic rays are single protons, or hydrogen nuclei, followed…

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A New Comet

Orbital diagram of comet 2012 S1

Oct 01, 2012 Are comets “dirty snowballs”? Comet 2012 S1, an object approximately three kilometers in diameter, is presently inside the orbit of Jupiter. It is “remarkably bright” according to astronomers, although it is still millions of kilometers from the Sun. Since it is so bright already, it has been…

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Dark and Dead

Dark chocolate

  Sep 27, 2012 (This TPOD first ran on April 20, 2012)  More nails in the dark matter coffin. Dark matter is supposed to be what holds the Universe together. However, modern telescopes are not able to see it because it does not interact with luminous matter, except gravitationally. Since…

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Frost and Brimstone

  Sep 26, 2012 Did sulfurous compounds from ancient volcanoes help warm up Mars and form the now extinct Martian oceans? Speculations about the existence of liquid oceans on Mars have been around for centuries. The Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, is currently seeking evidence for that conjecture. Images…

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Spider Bites

NGC 2070

  Sep 25, 2012 Luminous nebulae confirm Electric Universe theory. 30 Doradus, otherwise known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a large glowing region in one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud. A well-known supernova, 1987a, exploded near the edge of the nebula. The Tarantula Nebula gets…

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