According to a recent press release, astronomers detected a warped dust ring around a presumed protoplanetary disk in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, located about 450 light years away. A previous Picture of the Day discussed the warped ring of material surrounding the nucleus of Galaxy Centaurus A. Galaxies and stars…
Jan 3, 2019 All celestial bodies exhibit electrical activity, including Earth. NASA launched the four Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellites on March 12, 2015. Their primary mission includes studying the magnetic field around Earth, especially what mainstream astrophysicists call “magnetic reconnection”. The theory states that electromagnetic fields can break, cross and…
Jan 2, 2019 Jupiter is electrodynamic. Many Pictures of the Day discuss the planet, Jupiter—especially its electromagnetic interaction with its moons and the rest of the Solar System. Jupiter’s magnetosphere extends for almost 650 million kilometers; even beyond Saturn’s orbit. Bands of radiation, similar to the Van Allen radiation belts, except thousands of…
Jan 5, 2018 Shockwaves do not drive stellar evolution and behavior. NASA launched the Kepler mission on March 6, 2009. Its goal was to hunt for planets around nearby stars. Kepler subsequently experienced a failure in its stabilizing mechanism, making it unable to maintain its position accurately enough for planet-hunting, so its systems were…
Dec 31, 2018 Do convection currents and vibrating magnetic field lines create the dynamic phenomena observed on the Sun? According to the thermonuclear fusion model of the Sun, hydrogen in its core is crushed with so much force that it is converting to helium, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. The…
Dec 28, 2018 Neptune is another remote celestial body that exhibits many anomalies. On July 12, 2011 Neptune completed its first orbit around the Sun since it was discovered on September 23, 1846. This means that observations of the giant planet are lacking, since its great distance strains astronomers’ ability…
Dec 27, 2018 Mercury is in the crosshairs. In October 2018, a joint mission to Mercury will be launched. The BepiColombo mission is named after Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920-1984) from the University of Padua, Italy. As the mission highlights page indicates, Colombo was the first to understand that Mercury’s…
Dec 26, 2018 Lateral spin. Uranus is 50,724 kilometers in diameter at the equator, making it the third largest object in the Solar System. A unique aspect of Uranus is that its equator is tilted almost 90 degrees. Most of the other planets are tilted no more than 24 degrees…
Note: The Picture of the Day will be on hiatus until December 26, 2018. In the interim, please enjoy these articles from the archive. Dec 24, 2018 Synchrotron radiation from a galactic core. A recent press release from the Hubble Space Telescope announces that the spiral galaxy LO95 0313-192 is…
Note: The Picture of the Day will be on hiatus until December 26, 2018. In the interim, please enjoy these articles from the archive. Dec 21, 2018 The Sun’s activity remains mysterious. Among heliophysicists it is commonly thought that the Sun accelerates charged particles into space in the same way…
