January 3, 2020 In 1966 the U.S. Navy satellite, TRIAD, recorded “disturbances” in Earth’s magnetosphere as it passed over the poles and through the Van Allen Radiation Belts. Vertical electric charges that flow from the Sun into the Earth are known as “field-aligned currents”. In honor of Kristian Birkeland they were…
January 2, 2020 The Chandra X-ray Observatory recently experienced a fault that, were it not resolved, would have meant the end of its life. As many Pictures of the Day demonstrate, Chandra, along with Hubble, Spitzer, and other space telescopes, provides fuel for Electric Universe fires. Modern astronomers measure the…
Dec 31, 2019 Ancient civilizations catastrophically destroyed. Pareidolia: the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. Everyone is familiar with seeing “horsies and duckies” in cloud patterns. Lying back in a field of grass and watching the random interplay of dust and…
Dec 30, 2019 Revealing the underlying structure of galaxies. Electric filaments expand through space. Sometimes they explode, releasing plasma accelerated almost to the speed of light. Galactic jets erupt from the opposite poles of some galaxies, terminating in energetic clouds that emit X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, and extreme ultraviolet…
Dec 27, 2019 Disks around stars indicate electromagnetic induction. A recent press release from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan reports “…a young star surrounded by an astonishing mass of gas.” As usual, astronomers involved with the investigation report that the “…enigmatically large amount of gas requests a reconsideration of…
Most objects in space are invisible to the naked eye. Dec 23, 2019 NASA launched the Spitzer Space Telescope on August 25, 2003. Spitzer’s mission was to scan the sky in infrared wavelengths, using detectors kept at -268 Celsius. That frigid temperature made it possible for the telescope to “see”…
Dec 20, 2019 Astronomers are baffled by galactic morphology and evolution. What generates galactic magnetic fields? What gives those fields their shape and their strength? Using computer simulations, astronomers think they found the answers. “Cool gas falling into galaxies,” supernovae explosions, star formation, and rotational energy are what they believe…
Dec 19, 2019 The Parker Solar Probe is beginning its seven year maneuvering phase. The Parker Solar Probe was launched on August 12, 2018. Its first gravity assisted slow-down took place on October 3, 2018. The probe will conduct several more gravity-assist maneuvers with Venus over the course of the…
Dec 17, 2019 The Universe keeps getting bigger. A recent press release announced that astronomers, combining data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope, found a galaxy they believe is 13.3 billion light-years from Earth, making it the most distant object ever detected. According to the report,…
