Mar 10, 2017 Magnetic reconnection is in the news again. On February 17, 2007 NASA launched the The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) on a mission to study Earth’s aurorae. The fleet of five satellites monitored changes in auroral brightness and morphology, in order…
Mar 9, 2017 “Space tsunamis” interact with Earth’s electromagnetic fields. Earth’s ionosphere is connected to the Sun by filaments of electric charge, otherwise known as Birkeland currents, so the upper levels of the atmosphere experience its direct impact. Earth possesses a plasmasphere, so it is electrically active, coupled to…
Mar 8, 2017 Different kinds of objects have long “tails”. From galactic-scale objects such as Centaurus A, to hot-bright stars, to planets, to comets, it seems like everything in space exhibits an energetic jet or trailing emission that is difficult to explain using conventional theories. Every new observation requires a…
Mar 7, 2017 Various celestial phenomena are associated with the Crab Nebula. In 1054, ancient Chinese astrologers first saw a “guest star” in the constellation Taurus. They noted that it was bright enough to see during daylight hours. About a year later it faded out. John Bevis observed a…
Mar 3, 2017 Nebulae are not just clouds of gas and dust. Look up on any dark winter night and you’ll see the constellation Orion, the Hunter. Orion includes two unusual astronomical objects: the red giant star Betelgeuse and the Orion Nebula, faintly visible to the naked eye as the…
Mar 2, 2017 Electricity manifest in many ways. According to a recent press release, scientists from the University of Colorado think that they know why there is a faint glow on the lunar limb: static electricity. Laboratory experiments confirmed that dust particles, no more than a few microns across, leaped…
Mar 1, 2017 Astrophysicists are fixated on dark matter. The scientific press is convinced that dark matter exists. They believe that there are aspects of the theory that can be “known”. While dark matter, by its very definition, is undetectable by any instrument, it is often written that astronomers can…
Feb 28, 2017 Colorful planets are the result of plasma cosmogony. Immanuel Kant’s theorized that the Solar System was born from a dusty cloud of gas, or nebula, floating in space. His idea is now known as the “Nebular Hypothesis.” Kant suggested that the cloud contracted because gravity drew…
Feb 27, 2017 Electricity is a pulling force. Volcanoes on Earth are said to form when tectonic plates move over upwelling magma plumes. Conventional theories state that rising magma naturally erupts from the weakest fractures in the plates, building up lava deposits and creating steep-sided mountains. No hypothetical plate boundaries…
Feb 24, 2017 What is illuminating this gigantic nebula? Astronomers from the University of California, Santa Cruz recently announced the discovery of a massive cloud of gas called an “enormous Lyman-alpha nebula” (ELAN). The “blob” of gas resides in a region of space thought to be 10 billion light-years away,…
