Jan 18, 2019 The Sun is not a ball of (con)fusion. “In a low density plasma, localized space charge regions may build up large potential drops over distances of the order of some tens of the Debye lengths. Such regions have been called electric double layers. An electric double layer…
Jan 17, 2019 Can strong gravity bend space? Einstein’s theory of General Relativity states that, when light passes close to a massive celestial object it bends in the same way that light is refracted by a glass lens. In consensus circles, that phenomenon is labeled “gravitational lensing”. As the theory…
Jan 16, 2019 What are magnetars? As conventional understanding suggests, neutron stars are created when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycles. Gravity in those stars is said to be is so intense that they cannot resist the collapse, so electrons are squeezed into the nuclei that…
Jan 15, 2019 Does water ice exist on Mars? “He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.”— Friedrich Nietzsche Mars is mysterious. Although it is the most extensively studied celestial body—from the days of Giovanni Schiaparelli to the Curiosity rover wandering its…
Jan 14, 2019 Gamma-rays from electric particle accelerators in space. Gamma-rays are the highest energy wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum, according to physicists. They are “electromagnetic particles” called photons. Since matter is thought to exist as both waves and particles, and photons are a class of particle called “bosons”, they…
Jan 11, 2019 Do marsquakes exist? NASA launched the InSight Mars lander from Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 5, 2018. The mission’s primary focus is the detection of marsquakes. In the image at the top of the page, InSight is placing the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure seismometer on…
Jan 10, 2019 Electric fields in space generate cosmic phenomena. Astronomers discovered an energy signature they called a “Fast Radio Burst”, or FRB, almost ten years ago. The event supposedly released more energy in five milliseconds than the Sun puts out in a month. Distance to the source was said…
Jan 9, 2019 Plasma is electrically ionized. In plasmas, thermal and other energy sources strip electrons from atomic nuclei. When excess charge develops in various regions, due to gravity or other influences, electric discharges can take place, forming electromagnetic sheaths along the discharge axes. If there is enough charge flow,…
Jan 8, 2019 No precipitation of any kind was detected on Titan. The Cassini mission to Saturn is over, but planetary scientists continue to analyze its data set. One of the most studied objects around Saturn is its giant moon, Titan. Scientists believe that liquid methane exists on the surface…
Jan 7, 2019 New Horizons recently flew by the most distant object imaged by any spacecraft. The Kuiper Belt theory is the creation of astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth from Ireland and also, separately, by American astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951. The first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was discovered in 1992. Sometimes…
