Cluster Wires

  Original Post November 6, 2012 A galaxy-wide filament connects two galactic clusters. The Herschel Space Observatory possesses the largest mirror ever launched into space: 3.5 meters in diameter. Herschel entered orbit around LaGrange point L2 (behind Earth in relation to the Sun) in July 2009, so that its extremely…

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Troubles With Bubbles

  Original Post October 26, 2012 Both nuclear powered stars and electrically powered stars produce bubbles in the plasma surrounding them. From that common observational beginning, the theoretical explanations diverge. Nuclear generated bubbles come in two types: planetary nebulae (PNs) and supernova (SN) remnants. The PNs are bubbles that are…

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Seeing Seagulls

  Original Post October 22, 2012 To talk about something, we have to conceive ideas and words with which to describe the thing. We can’t avoid these pre-conceptions. But will we try to compensate for this prejudice by conceiving more than one? The Seagull Nebula is a splotch of light…

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Red Clusters

  Original Post October 19, 2012 The light from remote globular clusters should be blue according to theory because the further away one looks the further back in time one sees. It seems as if each new observation from the Hubble Space Telescope or the Chandra X-ray Observatory adds fuel…

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Pits and Chains

Original Post October 10, 2012 Rather than volcanic vents, pits in craters could be a sign of electrical activity. On August 3, 2004, NASA launched the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) experiment from the Cape Canaveral facility on a 7-year mission to study the Solar System’s innermost…

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Tiwanaku

Ruins of Tiwanaku in Bolivia

  Original Post October 8, 2012 Did this ancient site experience a catastrophic end? Tiwanaku, or Tiahuanaco in Spanish, is a ruined citadel occupying almost 10 square kilometers in the Bolivian Andes at an altitude greater than 3800 meters. Carbon-14 dating methods suggest that the site is no more than…

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