Rhea’s Ribbon of Dust

Apr 19, 2019 The first detection of a ring around a moon. The Cassini space probe is no more; it was burned-up in Saturn’s atmosphere on September 17, 2017. Its data set continues to be analyzed, however, since its observations comprised thousands of terabytes. Planetary scientists announced that they discovered…

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Frigid Fires

Apr 18, 2019 Even the coldest dust radiates light. The European Space Agency launched the Herschel Space Observatory on May 14, 2009 with the largest spaceborne mirror ever constructed. Herschel was sent into orbit around LaGrange point L2 in order to protect its helium-cooled infrared detectors. Its coolant system lasted…

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Galactic Cocoon

Apr 17, 2019 Galaxy filaments are also called, Birkeland currents. “Everyday life depends on the structure of the atom. Turn off the electrical charges and everything crumbles to an invisible fine dust, without electrical forces, there would no longer be things in the universe – merely diffuse clouds of electrons, protons,…

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Electromagnetic Bursts

Apr 15, 2019 Unusually intense magnetic fields are said to be caused by merging neutron stars. According to a recent article in the science journal, Nature, astronomers think they saw the formation of a specific class of celestial object called a “magnetar”, or a “magnetic neutron star”. Many Pictures of…

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Methane on Mars

Apr 12, 2019 Did decaying organic material lead to methane emissions? According to a recent press release, measurements taken from orbit correlate to the detection of methane  in the regolith of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity mission. This is the first time an in-situ measurement was confirmed from orbit. Methane is…

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Charge Exchange

April 11, 2019 Earth and the Sun share an electric circuit. “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”— Charles Dudley Warner The Magnetospheric Multiscale satellites were launched March 12, 2015 on a mission to study Earth’s electromagnetic fields. The MMS constellation, as well as the Geospace…

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Black Heart

Apr 10, 2019 Holes in space and time? “We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy. Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It has been renamed science, but science of today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect.”— Hannes Alfvén…

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Electric Lightning

Apr 5, 2019 Astronomical phenomena are better understood using an electrical perspective. Previous Pictures of the Day reported that there are twin lobes of gamma rays extending beyond the Milky Way’s core. The formations are about 65,000 light-years in diameter, and are thought to indicate that Birkeland currents are creating…

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