214 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Anomalous Types Of Stars Blue straggler stars. The stars comprising a star cluster are usually assigned the same age, since it is thought that they were all created at the same time that the cluster was formed. Lurking in many star clusters, however, are brighter, bluer nonconformists called "blue straggler stars." These stars seem to have about twice the mass of the "normal" cluster members, and they appear to be only about one-fifth as old as their compatriots. The motions of the blue stragglers are consistent with those of bona fide cluster members, implying that they are not interlopers or foreground objects. Several explanations have been suggested to explain the presence of blue stragglers. One thought is that they harbor asteroid-size black holes at their cores. So far, all of the profferred explanations have serious flaws. (Fogg, Martyn J.; "Blue Straggler Stars: A Cosmic Anomaly," The Explorer, 6:4 , Spring 1990.) Socket stars. "A picture book hardly seems a likely source of an astronomical discovery, especially in a world where mysteries of the universe usually tumble from sophisticated electronic instruments attached to huge telescopes. Nevertheless, while recently paging through Exploring the Southern Sky , by G. Madsen and R. West, Walter A. Feibelman (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) recognized something that had caught his attention decades before. High-resolution photographs of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Where are the primordial stars?Down the years, astronomers have been able to divide almost all stars into two groups: Population I, made up of young stars enriched by the products of their ancestors; and Population II, those relatively older ancestor stars containing more hydrogen and fewer heavier elements. Population I, according to present thinking, was formed out of the "ashes" of Population-II stars. What is missing from the picture are PopulationIII stars -- stars almost devoid of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, and formed while the Big Bang was still echoing throughout the cosmos. Current astrophysical theory requires "ashes" from Population III to create Population II. Do the astronomers find any primordial Population-III stars kicking around? Hardly a handful; not nearly enough to satisfy the prevailing model of stellar evolution. One explanation is that Population-III stars have been around long enough to collect a camouflaging veneer of metallic debris. Some astronomers surmise that Population-III stars are truly extinct for some unknown reason. (Anonymous; "Where Is Population III?" Sky and Telescope, 64:19, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The star of the star-nosed mole (Left) Tenticle-like rays surrounding one nostril of the star-like mole. (Right) The number of rays around the other nostril give the density of sensory receptors. The star-nosed mole is one of North America's more bizarre mammals. Its nostrils are surrounded by mobile, Medusa-like appendages that are richly suppled with nerves and blood vessels. These tentacle-like structures form the "star," which has long been considered a tactile organ used for feeling for prey. However, behavioral experiments by E. Gould et al indicate that the star may be more than a tactile organ. It seems to sport electrical sensors that detect the minute electrical fields surrounding worms, leeches, insect larvae, and other favorite mole tidbits. This conclusion derives from experiments in which starnosed moles preferentially attacked the parts of worms that are most strongly electrical. Actually, scientists have been puzzled as to how this mole found its prey, for this mammal is semiaquatic and somehow locates its dinner in muddy water even though it has poor eyesight. Although some fish possess electrical sensors, they are uncommon in mammals. Half way around the planet, another strange creature, also classified with the mammals, frequents muddy waters looking for the same sort of prey favored by the star-nosed mole. The Australian platypus also has weak vision and employs search techniques similar to those of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galactic Shell Game Elliptical galaxies are immense assemblages of stars. There may be a trillion stars like our sun in one of these monster galaxies. But it is not the mindboggling number of stars that is anomalous (astronomy dotes on big numbers); rather the anomaly at hand concerns the 11% of the elliptical galaxies that are partly girdled by strange low-luminosity shells. First reported in 1980, these sharply defined shells seem to be composed of still more stars -- vast ellipsoidal sheets of stars emplaced along the long axis of the elliptical galaxy. Some elliptical galaxies have up to twenty partial shells divided between the two ends of the ellipsoid. What is most intriguing is the fact that the shells are systematically arranged. The closest partial shell will be at one end of the ellipsoid, while the second closest will be at the opposite end. The third closest will be just beyond the first closest, and so on. The shells "interleave" or alternate ends as their distances increase. If the alternating partial shells of stars belong to the elliptical galaxy (they seem to, agewise), did the elliptical galaxy shoot the first wave out one end and then expel the second wave out the opposite end? Or did the alternating shells form in situ from the primordial gas and dust that made the galaxy? An-other possibility is that a small galaxy collided with the monster elliptical galaxy, and its constituent stars were ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double-star system defies relativity We all know that chapter from the Bible of Science that tells how Einstein's General Theory of Relativity triumphed over Newtonian celestial mechanics by accounting for the residual advance of Mercury's perihelion. The General Theory should also account for the precessions of double-star orbits, but a serious anomaly has been found. The double star DI Herculis has a Newtonian precession rate of 1.93 degrees per century, with another 2.34 added by relativistic effects. With more than 3,000 well-observed orbits of this star system on the books, astronomers come up with only 0.64 degree per century, instead of the 4.27 predicted by theory. Something is obviously awry; and all searches for errors and other influences on the orbit have been negative. (Anonymous; "Double-Star System Defies Relativity," New Scientist, p. 23, August 29, 1985.) Comment. As a matter of record, Newtonian mechanics can account for Mercury's perihelion advance if the sun is actually an oblate spheroid instead of the mathematically perfect sphere usually assumed. Also, the gravitational theory of J. Moffat seems to explain the motions of both Mercury and DI Herculis. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wrong-way stars in spiral galaxies Spiral galaxies are believed to form when gigantic clouds of gas collapse under the pull of gravity to create spinning discs. Further condensations give rise to the billions of stars that make up these immense rotating stellar wheels. Intuitively, one would expect all of the stars in a given galaxy to rotate around the hub in the same direction, like all of the water molecules in a whirlpool. But galaxy NGC4138, 50-million light years away, defies this common-sense expectation. M. Haynes and colleagues at Cornell have discovered that fully one-fifth of this galaxy's stars are rotating in a direction opposite from the rest. Otherwise, NGC4138 is a well-behaved spiral galaxy, almost a boring one, exhibiting no signs of internal turmoil or past collisions with another galaxy. However, all of the wrong-way stars appear to be youngish. This little clue may lead to some sort of explanation. (Muir, Hazel; "Counter-Revolutionaries Lurk in Spiral Galaxies," New Scientist, p. 18, March 16, 1996.) Comment. If all of NGC4138's counterrotating stars did condense from the original spinning gas disc, their large wrong-sign angular momentum would have had to be compensated for by a speed up of all the "right-way" stars. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Missing Planets In Globular Clusters If you lived on a planet circling a star in a globular cluster, you would see a night sky ablaze with thousands of stars all brighter than the brightest in the earth's sky. This is because globular clusters contain tens of thousands of stars all compressed into 5-25 parsecs -- they are much more tightly packed than those in the Milky Way in general. In fact, though, you would have to observe this blazing sky from a spaceship, because diligent searches have not detected any planets in any of the many globular clusters. In 1999, a team of 24 astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to search for planets in the cluster named 47 Tucanae. Their method was to look for dark planets crossing the bright disks of the cluster's stars. After patiently watching 34,000 stars, they came up empty-handed. For some unknown reason, planets never formed around the stars in 47 Tucanae -- or in any other globular clusters checked so far. Are globular clusters in general different from the rest of the Milky Way? Possibly, see below. (Anonymous; "No Globular Planets?" Astronomy, 28:34, October 2000. Anonymous; "Planets Come Up Missing in a Globular Cluster," Sky & Telescope, 104:23, October 2000.) Answer. Globular clusters are peculiar in several additional ways. For example, the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Real Death Star As reported in SF#31, the geological record seems to show that widespread biological extinctions have occurred about every 26 million years. Coupled with this is Walter Alvarez's recent observation that terrestrial impact craters 10kilometer-diameter and up have been blasted out episodically -- every 28.4 million years on the average. This figure is close enough to 26 million years to impel some astronomers to search for a periodic source of cosmic projectiles. R.A . Muller and M. Davis, at Berkeley, think they have found one. They postulate that the solar system is really a double-star system. Our sun's companion star has only about 0.1 solar mass and is so faintly luminous that we have not found it visually. It does, however, now cruise along its orbit some 2.4 light years away. But it will be back! In fact, it returns every 26 million years to jostle the Oord Cloud of comets that hovers on the fringe of the solar system. This nudging periodically sends a large shower of comets careening around the inner solar system. The earth intercepts one or more of these projectiles each visit and -- bang -- we have new craters and another biological catastrophe. (Anonymous; "A Star Named George," Scientific American, 250:66, April 1984.) Comment, Ho hum! Still another cometary impact scenario ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why do spiral galaxies stay that way? or do they?Sometimes the simplest of observations produces the stickiest of dilemmas. Take, for instance, a well-formed spiral galaxy, of which there are a great many. When astronomers measure the circumferential velocities of the stars, as they circle around the galaxy's hub, they find that all the stars orbit at about the same velocity, regardless of how far out from the hub they are. Their speeds do not drop off with increasing distance, as the velocities of the planets do in the solar system. This observation is anomalous itself, because it seems that the laws of orbital motion have been violated. We will save this anomaly for another day, the one we are after now is called: The Winding Dilemma. N. Comins and L. Marschall elaborate as follows: "Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy don't have as far to go to complete an orbit as stars located farther from the center. Thus, inner stars should orbit more frequently than outer stars, resulting in a spiral that gradually winds up as the galaxy ages. But observations of spiral galaxies at various distances -- and thus at different stages in their evolution -- have shown that this is not the case. Astronomers believe density waves, stochastic star formation, or perhaps a combination of both processes may sustain or regenerate the spiral pattern." Density ...
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... from Comet-Related Showers ACO5 Contraction of Cometary Comas as the Sun is Approached ACO6 Unexplained Abundance of Short-Period Comets ACO7 Persistence of Long-Period Comets Despite Attrition from Molecular Clouds ACO8 Seriality of Cometary Apparitions ACO9 Multiple Tails and Antitails ACO10 Ejection of Spherical Halos ACO11 Correlation of Terrestrial Auroras and the Phenomena of Distant Comets ACO12 Blinking Comets ACO13 The Anomalous Disappearance of Comets ACO14 Anomalous Brightening of Short-Period Comets ACO15 Comet Reflectivities Are Similar to Those of Asteroids ACO16 Some Cometary Light Curves Resemble Those of Asteroids ACO17 New Comets Exhibit Different Brightening Behavior Than Old Comets ACO18 Anomalous Splitting of Comets ACO19 Tail-Wagging Comets ACO20 Cometary Outbursts ACO21 Comet Attrition Rates Imply Youth ACO22 No Ices in Cometary Reflection Spectra ACO23 The Blackness of Cometary Nuclei ACX OCCULTATIONS BY COMETS ACX1 Cometary Tails: Anomalous Occultations of Radio Stars AE ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO BRIGHT ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO1 Bright Objects near the Sun AEO2 Starlike Objects with Anomalous Motions AEO3 Unexplained Nebulous Objects AEX UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS TRANSITING THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS AEX1 Objects Crossing the Face of the Sun AEX2 Objects Crossing the Moon's Disk AEX3 Unidentified Objects Transiting Jupiter AG THE EARTH AGB ANOMALIES IN THE EARTH'S ROTATION AGB1 Variations in Latitude AGL EARTH-SATELLITE PHENOMENA AGL1 Slow Changes in Satellite Inclination AGL2 Sudden Perturbations of Orbital Elements AGL3 Slow, Unexplained Descent of Satellites AGL4 Direct Visual Observations of Natural Earth Satellites AGL5 Radio Propagation and Natural Earth Satellites AGL6 Correlation of Geophysical Events with Perigee Passages of Natural Earth Satellites AGO OBSERVATIONS OF EARTH FROM SPACE AGO1 Periodic Changes in Earth's Brightness AH MERCURY AHB MERCURY'S ORBITAL AND SPIN ANOMALIES AHB1 The Residual Advance ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Archeometeorology (Top) Even with hazy viewing, the six brightest Pleiads are usually visible. (Bottom) With good seeing more of the stars come into view. Ancient farmers the world over counted off the seasons and fixed planting times by watching the stars and the sun. But the stars can also help forecast the weather, even though they have no influence over it. We'll call this unique sort of archeoastronomy: "archeometeorology." Farmer-astronomers in the drought-prone regions of the Andes learned how, after what must have been centuries of sky-watching, to wring rainfall predictions from observations of the Pleiades. This information allowed them to better time the planting of potatoes -- their most important crop. The astronomical phenomenon they employed is far from obvious. The Pleiades are a cluster of bright stars in the constellation Taurus. The visibility of these stars varies slightly depending upon the amount of subvisual cirrus. If the Pleiades were dull in the month of June, the Andean farmers knew from experience that an El Nino was on the way. This betokened reduced rainfall and told them to postpone the planting of their potatoes by 4-6 weeks for best yields. The critical observations were made between June 13 and 24, when the Pleiades shine brightly just before dawn over the northeastern horizon. At this low angle, the presence of the subvisual cirrus has an obvious effect on the brightness of the stars ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Where have all the black holes gone?Like the Big Bang, black holes are an astronomical staple. Most scientists and laymen assume that black holes are proven, well-observed denizens of the cosmos. Certainly the media entertains no doubts! Let us take a skeptical look. Does theory require black holes? In 1939, R. Oppenheimer and H. Snyder showed on paper that a massive star could collapse and create a black hole, assuming the correctness of stellar theories and General Relativity. Initially, scientists were skeptical about black holes because of their bizarre properties: They emit no light and inhale unwary starships. Black holes are also singularities, and singularities make scientists nervous. In the black-hole singularity, thousands of stars are swallowed and compressed into an infinitesimally small volume. (Ref. 1) This grates against common sense. The philosophical uneasiness about black holes is worsened by the discovery that they: ". .. threaten the universe with an irreversible loss of information, which seems to contradict other laws of physics." (Ref. 2) Adding to these problems are nagging doubts about General Relativity, which underpins black-hole theory. Recently, some theorists have shown that General Relativity requires that two bodies of approximately equal size not attract one another! (Ref. 2) Despite all these qualms, black holes have become a fixture of astronomy because they promise to explain the incredibly powerful energy sources ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 3: April 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Radio Signals From The Stars Curious signals have been picked up from 12 stars by the 300-foot radio telescope at Green Bank, WV. The signals took the form of strong bursts at a wavelength of 21 cm, one of the wave-lengths characteristic of the hydrogen molecule. Unfortunately, the signals were so short that their information content, if any, could not be recorded. Since the bursts were not repeated (except for a second burst from Barnard's Star), some natural phenomenon may be at work rather than intelligent communicators, who would presumably be more persistent. The peculiar signals, which have never been recorded before, were discovered as part of Project Ozma II, in which radio astronomers have been listening to 21-cm radio waves from hundreds of nearby stars. (Anonymous; "Possible Messages from Space Reported," Baltimore Sun, January 29, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #3 , April 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How can some stars be older than the universe itself?The answer is, of course, if the astronomers' clocks keep bad time. On one hand, stellar age theory assures us that stars in the globular clusters that pervade the universe were born about 15 billion years ago. On the other hand, new measurements of the distance to the Virgo cluster of galaxies are equally adamant that these objects are much closer than thought -- so close that, assuming the standard Big Bang model and the resultant expanding universe, the age of the universe may be as small as 8 billion years! In other words, the universe is younger than some of the stars in it; an obvious and painful dilemma for astronomy. How will this conflict between the two dominant astronomical paradigms play out? Many are betting that the Big Bang theory will require a major over-haul. Or more, as suggested in the next item. (Jacoby, George H.; "The Universe in Crisis," Nature, 371:741, 1994. Travis, John; "Hubble War Moves to High Ground," Science, 266:539, 1994.) Comment. A clever resolution of the above age problem would be for the ancient globular cluster stars to be left-overs or interlopers from an older universe. The globular clusters are anomalous in several other ways. See: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Ordering information here ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Our Lucky Star About every 5 years our sun spits a giant blob of ionized gases in the earth's direction. These "coronal mass ejections" or flares interfere with terrestrial communications and knock out power grids. But we are lucky it isn't worse. Studies of stars in our galaxy similar to the sun find that they emit super-flares about once every century. If our sun sent such a super-flare our way, the atmosphere would glow like a neon tube, our fleet of satellites would be fried, and half the protective ozone layer would disappear in a flash. Earth life would survive -- at least for a while. Our sun, it seems, is favored with anomalous stability, but no one knows why. We are simply lucky! (Seife, Charles; "Thank Our Lucky Star," New Scientist, p. 15, January 9, 1999.) Comment. We also live in a "lucky" galaxy. (See NOW WE KNOW WHY...later in this issue.) The universe is anthropic (i .e ., favoring humans) at all levels! From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Invisible Suns And Maybe See-through Planets, Too Astronomers have been baffled lately by the discovery of planets wandering aimlessly through outer space apparently without the guidance of a central sun. (Ref. 1) Planets, you see, are supposed to have been formed in the discs of dense dust orbiting newly created stars. They have no business wandering through the void unattended. No problem, says R. Frost of the University of Melbourne, "They could be in orbit around Invisible Stars! (Ref. 2) If we can have Missing Matter, we suppose that Invisible Stars are not as ridiculous as they sound. It is postulated that Invisible Stars are composed of Mirror Matter, a new construct of astronomers who are desperately trying to explain their burgeoning files of celestial anomalies. Mirror Matter is strange "stuff." It interacts with Ordinary Matter only through gravity, it doesn't emit light. It is palpable but invisible. (This sounds weird, but no weirder than quantum mechanics!) Foot also pointed out that stars composed of Ordinary Matter may be orbited by Mirror-Matter planets. Expanding along these lines, whole star systems could be 100% Mirror Matter, and we'd never see them at all. How about Mirror-Matter asteroids and meteors zipping around our solar system -- invisible but palpable and threatening? As a matter of fact, it has been speculated that the still- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Big Bang As An Illusion That the universe began with the Big Bang is now so ingrained in our thinking that we almost never search for plausible alternatives. Perhaps the Big Bang is just a facade that diverts us from theories that better explain the observed characteristics of the universe. A trio of American and British astron omers (B .J . Carr, J.R . Bond, W.D . Arnett) are exploring the possibility that the cosmos began with a generation of very massive stars rather than the debris of the Big Bang. These huge stars would have had masses 100 or so times that of the sun. By virtue of the much higher pressures and temperatures at their cores, they would have burnt up their fuel inventories much faster than sun-sized stars. Thus they would have burnt themselves out long ago, probably surviving as black holes. Such an ancient generation of massive stars can explain four puzzling features of the universe: (1 ) The amount and character of the background microwave radiation. (2 ) The identity of the "missing mass" needed to hold the universe together (i .e ., the relict black holes). (3 ) The primordial abundance of helium. (4 ) The near-absence of heavy elements in the universe. Although the success of this hypothesis is far from total, it might help wean us away from the Big Bang. (Maddox, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do black holes exist?Can we believe our eyes? Dare anyone suggest that black holes do not lurk out in the cosmos sucking in stars and unwary spaceships? It's all true; an arti cle bearing the above title appeared in the January 1988 number of Sky and Telescope. Doubts do surface once in a while, despite all the TV documentaries, all the textbooks, and all the newspaper jottings, where black holes are described in the hushed tones used only with profound truths of nature. To set the stage, we quote a paragraph from said article: "There is, however, a serious problem with black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Enormous Stellar Shell Raises Theoretical Questions "Stars tend to lose material to the space that surrounds them. Some of this loss is gradual and continuous -- the so-called stellar winds. Some is abrupt -- the sudden blowing off of a surface layer that then forms a shell around the star. A group of astronomers now reports in the Nov. 15 Astrophysical Journal the discovery of an especially large, cool shell around the star R Coronae Borealis. How this shell was formed and what makes it glow are both mysteries for which current theory does not seem to have answers." The newly discovered shell is 26 light-years across, roughly 20 times larger than previously discovered shells. If our sun were in the center, the shell would encompass the nearest 50 stars! The usual stellar shells glow as they absorb and reemit radiation from their parent stars, but the R Coronae Borealis shell, given its distance from its star, cannot be explained in this way. (Thomsen, D.E .; "Enormous Stellar Shell Raises Theoretical Questions," Science News, 130:333, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Star Sludge All of a sudden it seem that astronomers are finding dark -- even "charcoal-black" -- materials in unlikely places in the solar system. Three "sludgy" sites have been high-lighted in the recent literature. (1 ) Comets. "Black" comets certainly defy our expectations. Are all those pictures of white, flaming apparitions wrong? Not really. The comets approaching the sun are made visible by sunlight reflected from the gases and dust in the coma and tail, plus some direct emission. However, the heart of the comet, its nucleus, has long been considered a "dirty snowball"; that is, a mixture of dirt and ices. Now it appears that comets are more like "icy dirtballs"! And some of that dirt is pitch black. New measurments of the bare nuclei of comets, using a visual-infrared technique, find that the nuclei reflect as little as 2% of the incident sunlight. They are indeed charcoal black. Comet nuclei, according to W. Hartmann and his colleagues, are colored by a brownishblack primordial organic sludge, and have the appearance of "a very dark Hershey bar." The use of the adjective "organic" may be premature, but in light of the next item, maybe not. (2 ) Carbonaceous chondrites . This well-known class of meteorites sometimes appears tarry and is characterized by carbon contents ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Cosmological Atlantis Current cosmological theory states that immediately after the Big Bang, the only elements existing in any significant quantities were hydrogen and helium. Yet, we observe stars today with various amounts of the heavier elements. How did the present stars, which are divided into Populations I and II, ever acquire their heavier elements? By thermonuclear synthesis, of course. The primordial hydrogen and helium condensed into primitive stars, now labelled Population III, where the first heavier elements were synthesized. The "ashes" of the Population-III stars provided the makings of the later stars with their heavier elements. However, no matter how hard astronomers have looked, no Population-III stars seem to be left anywhere -- not even far out in the universe, which we see in terms of light billions of years old. A vital "transititional form" is missing in astronomy's fossil record! (Maran, Stephen P.; "Stellar Old- Timers," Natural History, 96:80, February 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon, the stars, and human behavior We humans have an inherited penchant for observing the heavens and wondering if the stars can affect our daily lives. Secular humanists hate astrology with a passion because, like Cassius in Julius Caesar, they believe we are masters of our own destinies. Nevertheless, astrol-ogy columns are still prominent in most newspapers. In the scientific press, however, we have to score a big plus for the anti-astrologers. First, Nature has just published a detailed analysis of the predictive power of astrology, and astrology has come up very short. The Nature study is by S. Carlson, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley. At the end of seven data-packed pages Carlson concludes: "We are now in a position to argue a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology as practised by reputable astrologers. Great pains were taken to insure that the experiment was unbiased and to make sure that astrology was given every reasonable chance to succeed. It failed. Despite the fact that we worked with some of the best astrologers in the country, recommended by the advising astrologers for their expertise in astrology and their ability to use CPI (California Personality Inventory), despite the fact that every reasonable suggestion made by the advising astrologers was worked into the experiment, despite the fact that the astrologers approved the design and predicted 50 per cent as the 'minimum' effect they would ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Thou canst not stir a flower, without troubling of a star This poetic title from Francis Thompson tries to express the unity of nature from the smallest to the largest realms. One characteristic of the realms even smaller than that of the flower is the quantization typical of the subatomic world -- that is, microscopic nature. At the human locus in the dimensional scheme of things, quantization is difficult to detect outside the physics laboratory. Daniel M. Greenberger, perhaps with the above title in mind, asked whether quantization might not also exist in astronomy and cosmology -- that is, macroscopic nature. He has applied the principles of quantum mechanics to nature in-the-large where gravitational forces are dominant. (Gravitational forces are negligible in the subatomic world.) His math cannot be reproduced here. Suffice it to say that Greenberger has applied his findings to the absorption lines of quasars and the elliptical rings surrounding normal galaxies. Now, quasars and galaxies are far from atomic nuclei, being vast assemblages of diverse matter. Somewhat surprisingly, his equations are successful in predicting some features of these two macroscopic entities. (Greenberger, Daniel M.; "Quantization in the Large," Foundations of Physics, 13:903, 1983.) Comment. At the very least it is mindstretching to find that complex systems with millions of stars may exhibit quantum effects. With some relief, we note that like microscopic quantization effects ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Age Paradox "Cosmologists say the universe may be 8 to 15 billion years old. Stellar astronomers disagree. They say the oldest stars are much older, perhaps 16 to 19 billion years old. Because the oldest stars can't be older than the universe in which they lie, this age paradox presents a thorny problem for astronomers." At least two solutions to the paradox are possible: (1 ) The cosmological distance scale used to determine the age of the universe is incorrect; and/or (2 ) Our theories about how stars work and evolve are in error. Something has to give. (Jayawardhana, Ray; "The Age Paradox," Astronomy, 21:39, June 1993.) Comment. Also pertinent here are H. Arp's collection of red-shift anomalies, which also call into question the cosmological distance scale; and those missing solar neutrinos, which cast doubt on our ideas about how stars work. H. Arp's redshift anomalies are cataloged in AQB and AWB in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. To order, see: here . From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supernova Problems Everyone has been talking and writing about the new supernova, 1987A, so we might as well, too. In fact, we really must, because 1987A is more than usually anomalous. The newspapers have oohed and aahed about this rare opportunity scientists have to study a nearby supernova. However, instead of getting closer to a final understanding of supernovas, 1987A seems to be confounding the theorists. No one can determine which star, if any, blew up. The 12th magnitude star Sanduleak -69 202 was first fingered, for it is located in the proper spot. But it is still there, apparently unchanged, as is a still fainter companion. The problem is that if 1987A really originated with an even fainter star, such a star would not have enough mass to go supernova. Part of 1987A's spectrum, its luminosity evolution, and precursory neutrino burst all indicate a Type-II supernova. Unfortunately, its ultraviolet spectrum is that of a Type-I supernova. Also anomalous are its high rate of evolution and low luminosity (only magnitude 4.5 instead of the predicted 2 +. Japanese apparatus located in a deep mine near Kamioka detected a burst of neutrinos about 22 hours before 1987A flared into the visible spectrum. This fits Type-II supernova theory, but the Mont Blanc equipment detected a neutrino burst just 4.6 hours before the flare-up. Which detector is correct ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The fault, dear reader, is not in our stars but our pigs!Fred Hoyle, in his usual maverick style, has hypothesized that some human flu epidemics are caused by new viruses in jected into the biosphere from outer space. (See his book Diseases from Space .) In yet another book, Evolution from Space , he goes further, stating that the evolution of terrestrial life can also be affected by the extraterrestrial inoculation of genetic material. But, just maybe, influenza pandemics are due to pigs! Every 10-20 years, new flu viruses seem to crop up against which humans have little resistance. The latest theory is that there exists a human-duck-pig connection. It seems that human flu viruses can multiply in ducks, but are not transmitted among ducks. It is also likely that duck viruses multiply in humans, but are not transmitted from one person to another. But enter the pigs: "There is firm evidence that pigs can become infected by and may transmit both human and avian influenza viruses not only amongst other pigs but also back to the original hosts. Therefore, pigs seem to be 'mixing vessels' where two separate reservoirs meet and where reassortment between avian and human influenza A viruses occurs, giving rise to the antigenic shift by creating new human pandemic influenza strains with new surface antigens." The article stimulating this discussion worries about new aquaculture practices, especially in Asia ( ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supernova Confusion And Mysteries Just a few weeks ago, IN SF#51, we reported some of the anomalies surrounding supernova 1987A, the first nearby super nova since 1604 AD. 1987A's nearness has given astronomers the opportunity to identify just which star exploded. (Other supernovas have been much too far away.) The prime suspect was the star Sanduleak -69 202. But then it was claimed that old -69 202 was still alive and well. This presented a quandry because no other star in the area was large enough to go supernova. But now it seems there was a mistake, and it was Sanduleak -69 202 all along that detonated. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "Supernova 1987A: Notes from All Over," Science, 236:522, 1987.) Comment. Naturally all of astronomy heaved a sigh of relief over this. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived, and a second dose of antacid now seems required! Just a few days after the above, researchers reported in the New York Times some discomforting news: "According to Dr. Robert W. Noyes of Harvard-Smithsonian (Center for Astrophysics), the observations gathered by an extraordinarily sensitive camera show that the bright exploding star, or supernova, is actually two points of light, very close together, one about 10 times brighter than its companion. Since neither was present before the explosion, astronomers ...
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... Dark Days, Ice falls, Firestorms and Related Weather Anomalies (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe (Astronomy) 1978: Ancient Man (Archeology) 1977: Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenonema Sourcebook Series 1978: Strange Planet E2 1977: Strange Universe A1 1976: Strange Artifact M2 1976: Strange Minds P1 1976: Strange Life B1 1975: Strange Planet E1 1975: Strange Universe A1 1974: Strange Artifact M1 1974: Strange ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An 11-minute binary 4U1820-30 is an X-ray binary star located in the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6624. Its claim to fame is a very short period of rotation -- only 685 seconds. In just a shade over 11 minutes, a neutron star orbits a white dwarf, according to present thinking. The orbit diameter is only 1/7 the radius of our sun, which implies the stars themselves are also small. 4U1820-30 is the shortest-period binary ever found -- so short that astronomers are looking for other explanations. Another curious fact mentioned in this item is that X-ray binaries are much more common in globular clusters than elsewhere in the universe. What is so different about globular clusters? (King, A.R ., and Watson, M.G .; "The Shortest Period Binary Star," Nature, 323:105, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stone Alignments In Subsaharan Africa Megalithic sites are found everywhere; many were apparently used for calendar reckoning. Although numerous megalithic circles and other arrangements are known in Africa, particularly Ethiopia, astronomy does not seem to have been a primary objective of African sites. Now, however, a stone alignment in northwestern Kenya called Namoratunga has been found with unmistakable astronomical overtones. At Namoratunga, 19 large basalt pillars are arranged in rows forming a suggestive pattern. Since the site is dated at approximately 300 B.C ., archeologists have taken sightings on seven prominent stars as they would have appeared during this period. (The azimuths of some of these stars had changed by as much as 12 in 2,200 years.) The stars chosen are those employed by Eastern Cushites, the present inhabitants of the region, in calculating their rather sophisticated calendar. Pairs and frequently triads of these pillars line up very accurately (to less than 1 ) with the seven key stars. The people occupying this part of Kenya about 300 B.C ., therefore, probably possessed detailed astronomical information. (Lynch, B.M ., and Robbins, L.H .; "Namoratunga: The First Archaeoastronomical Evidence in Sub-Saharan Africa," Science, 200:766, 1978.) Comment. This astronomical sophistication is consistent with the celestial knowledge of the Dogon tribe mentioned in the controversial book: The Sirius Mystery. For more on African ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ghost Galaxies "Small ghost galaxies, devoid of stars but harboring dense clumps of invisible matter, may outnumber the entire population of luminous galaxies in the universe." If ghost galaxies contain no stars at all, how do we know they are there? By extrapolation! In recent years, astronomers have been able to detect dwarf galaxies lit by just a few luminous stars. These faint, miniscule galaxies are kept from flying apart by the gravitational pull of invisible dark matter. In fact, the density of dark matter in dwarf galaxies is a hundred times that in our bright, normal-size Milky Way. Further, the more dwarfish and dimmer a galaxy, the denser its dark matter and the more of them there are in the universe. Now for the promised extrapolation. J. Kormendy and K.C . Freeman take things one step further, concluding that the universe is flooded with sub-dwarf galaxies that are thick with dark matter, and without enough luminous stars for us to see them in our telescopes. These ghost galaxies are only 1/10,000 as massive as the bright galaxies like the Milky Way but much more common. (Cowen, R.; "Tiny Galaxies Have Hearts of Darkness," Science News, 155:38, 1999.) Comments. If the universe if awash in ghost galaxies, why don't we bump into them occasionally? Maybe we have! Another ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Asteroids with moons?Several recent observations made of asteroids as they occult stars suggest that some asteroids are circled by moonlets. The observational technique used resembles that employed in the discovery of the now-famous rings of Uranus. Briefly, the star being observed blinks out not once in a clean-cut fashion but in a complex scenario that may indicate the presence of a second body. To illustrate, during the 1975 occultation of a star by the asteroid Eros "all sorts of people saw things," meaning secondary events or extra dimmings. Another kind of supporting evidence comes from the light curve of 44 Nysa, which closely resembles that of an eclipsing binary star. (Anonymous; "Asteroids with Moons?" Science News, 114:36, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Globular Clusters Upset Theory Of Galaxy Formation A spherical cloud of globular clusters surrounds the Milky Way galaxy. Each cluster is itself a spherical groups of stars. Through the telescope, globular clusters are beautiful spherical aggregations of bright stars that seem to get ever denser toward the cluster's center. Globular clusters harbor many anomalies (AOB4 and AOB17 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos); here, we mention two involving spatial distribution and age. Many spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, spin ponderously in the center of a spherical cloud of scores, even hundreds, of globular clusters (see sketch). Not only do the globular clusters surrounding us display a different spatial distribution (spherical rather than flat-spiral), but their individual ages undercut galaxy theory. All of the Milky Way's globular clusters were supposed to have been formed when our galaxy was created. Yet, the ages of these clusters vary by as much as 5 billion years. (Dayton, Leigh; "Globular Clusters Upset Theory of Galaxy," New Scientist, p. 34, May 13, 1989.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning still another cluster anomaly: The globular clusters do not participate in the galaxy's general rotation. Where did these oddballs come from? Reference. The catalog volume: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, mentioned above, is described here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Monster Star Lurks Nearby Astrophysicists have long believed that the upper limit for stellar masses was 100 times that of the sun. This rule seems to be violated right on our doorstep -- in the Large Cloud of Magellan. The nonconforming object is designated R136; and it resides in the southern constellation Doradus. The central part of R136 radiates about a million times more visible light than our sun, and 50 million times more if the ultraviolet wavelengths are included. If R136 is a single object, its mass may be 1,000 times that of the sun. (Mathis, John S., et al; "A Superluminous Object in the Large Cloud of Magellan," Scientific American, 251:52, August 1984.) From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Great pyramid entrance tunnel not astronomically aligned Early in the Nineteenth Century, astronomer John Herschel speculated that the ancient Egyptians had constructed the Great Pyramid so that the downwardly slanting entrance would be aligned precisely with the pole star, Thuban (Alpha Draconis), when the star was at its lowest culmination. Over 70 years ago Percival Lowell ran through the calculations and found that Thuban was not near the tunnel's line of sight when the pyramid was constructed (about 2800 BC). No one seems to have listened to Lowell, even though he was quite correct. Most books on the Great Pyramid still insist on the fancied pole star alignment. If the entrance tunnel wasn't pointing at the pole star, what other esoteric reason did the pyramid builders have for the 26 .523 angle? (It seems that everyone expects all dimensions of the Great Pyramid to have special significance.) R.L . Walker, of the Naval Observatory, has come to the rescue. He observes that the tangent of 26 .523 is almost exactly (actually 0.4991). Although there may be some occult significance to , this fraction also signals to us that 26 .523 is also the angle created when two cubical blocks are laid horizontally for every one installed vertically, as in the sketch. It seems that 26 .523 is simply the natural consequence of the internal pyramid construction process. (Anonymous; "End of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is a singularity worse than a spinning cosmos?Whence the untold billions of stars and galaxies that brighten our night skies? From a "singularity," that's where -- from an infinitely small point in space. The Big Bang hypothesis requires this abandonment of common sense. Both mathematicians and cosmologists instinctively hate singularities. The latter have been trying to exorcise theirs for years. Recently, S. Carneiro, a Brazilian physicist, proposed a way to get rid of this natal singularity but retain the expanding universe. First, he assumes that the universe has been around for an indefinitely (infinitely?) long time, thereby eliminating the problem of origin. Furthermore, this universe was rotating. About 11 billion years ago this spinning universe was transformed into the expanding universe we see today via that clever cosmologists' ploy called a "vacuum phase transition." Carneiro shows how the rotation of the universe-as-a -whole was converted into overall expansion in a paper submitted to the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity . But even if all of Carneiro's equations check out, angular momentum still had to be conserved somehow during the phase transition. Simple! The angular momentum of the universe-as-a -whole was transferred to the spins of all the individual planets, stars, and galaxies. In fact, the angular momentum of each astronomical entity, according to Carneiro, is proportional to its (mass ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oklo: An Unappreciated Cosmic Phenomenon In 1972, French scientists discovered that several natural concentrations of uranium ore had become critical and flared up some 2 billion years ago at Oklo, Gabon. The concentration and configuration of the natural uranium and surrounding materials at that time had been just right to sustain fission. In fact, the analysis of the nuclear waste in the burned rocks demonstrated that plutonium had also been created. This implies that natural breeder reactors are also possible, raising the possibility of hitherto unappreciated, long-lived heat sources deep in the earth, in the other planets, and inside some of the stars. Don't worry that the Oklo phenomenon might occur today on the earth's surface. The concentration of fissionable U-235 has fallen considerably in the last 2 billion years due to its radioactive decay. But, deep inside the earth and other astronomical bodies, nuclear criticality might still be possible due to different pressures, densities, etc. In a stimulating and generally overlooked paper in Eos, J.M . Herndon proffers four important natural phenomena that may involve natural fission reactors. Geomagnetic reversals . In the deep earth, where pressures and densities are high, natural nuclear reactors may generate intermittent bursts of heat -- just as they did at Oklo -- and thereby cause the earth's dynamo to falter and reverse. Planetary heating . Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune emit much more energy than ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Incroyable?" Incredible?" Yes, if what paleoastronoer C. Jegues-Wolkiewiez claims is borne out by further study. The venue here is the Lascaux Cave in France where, some 17,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon artists drew incredibly expressive portraits of animals in the glare of torches. Its is in this cave's dark recesses that Jegues-Wolkiewiez sees two phenomena that could overturn our view of the Cro-Magnon culture. First, he claims that some of the animal paintings are really based upon star configurations. In effect, humans 17,000 years ago were constructing a zodiac of sorts. This was about 10,000 years be-for the ancient Babylonians laid out their first zodiacs. For example, Jegues-Wolkiewiez asserts that the painting of a bull in Lascaux is drawn and positioned such that it mirrors a group of stars in the constellation Scorpio. He identifies several other like "congruences." Cro-Magnons, it seems, were astute observers of the heavens and attempted to make some sense out of the star configurations they saw. Cro-Magnon artist painting a zodiac figure on cave ceiling. His assistant holds a star map to guide him. The second claim of Jegues-Wolkiewiez notes that on the summer solstice the last rays of the setting sun penetrate the cave and illuminate a bison painted in red. He believes this is no accident, and that, 17, ...
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... avenues were solstice markers. R.D . Purrington, in the first of a pair of papers in American Antiquity, maintains that the Poverty Point ridges have been so badly eroded over the last 3,000 years that sight lines cannot be determined with any accuracy. In fact, the precise center of the octagonal figure is a matter of judgment. Purrington's reconstruction of sight lines along the avenues, using his assumed center, does not support the idea that the avenues were solstice markers. Brecher and Haag responded in the second paper that their viewing center is 100 meters from Purrington's . With this change. they claim good fits for two of the avenues as solstice markers. One of the two remaining avenues turn out to mark the setting of Canopus, the second brighest star in the sky. Even the unassigned last avenue has astronomical significance; it marks the setting of Gamma Draconis, a second-magnitude star, which the ancients employed as a nocturnal hour hand as it swung around the pole star. (Purrington, Robert D.; "Supposed Solar Alignments at Poverty Point," American Antiquity, 48:157, 1983. Brecher, Kenneth, and Haag, William G.; "Astronomical Alignments at Poverty Point," American Antiquity, 48:161, 1983.) Comment. It seems that just a difference of 100 meters in the viewing center makes the difference between a people who merely liked to build huge geometrically shaped ridges (Purrington's idea) and a race trying -- Stonehenge fashion -- to reflect the motions of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Way Of Looking At The Solar System The current scientific consensus has the sun and its planets forming during the same process of accretion/condensation. In this view, the inner terrestrial planets differ from the outer giant planets only because their volatile elements were driven off by the sun's heat. This scenario has many problems, as recorded in our catalog volume The Moon and the Planets. G.H .A . Cole thinks that astronomers might have more success in explaining the origin of the solar system if they considered it a system of five large bodies of star stuff (light elements), each surrounded by its own retinue of high density satellites (the sun's four satellites would be the inner planets). In effect, then, we would have a quintuple star system in which only one member (the sun) collected enough star stuff to make it to incandescence. The four, large, outer planets would be merely failed stars. The advantages of this change of perspective are threefold: (1 ) All five central bodies are now compositionally similar as a class, (2 ) In each of the five systems, the angular momentum of the central body is greater than that of its satellites, whereas in the unitary solar system the angular momentum of the nine planets is much greater than that of the sun -- an embarrassing anomaly. (3 ) A final "bonus" appears when ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Space Spume The celestial pot seems to have boiled over "in the beginning." New surveys of the galaxies suggest that they are mostly located on the surfaces of bubbles, not as we thought for so long distributed uniformly throughout the cosmos, the expanding debris of the Big Bang. If further surveys confirm a bubbly universe, the "conventional explanations for the evolution of large-scale structure in which gravity played a dominant role may have to be modified or abandoned." To explain the bubbles, a new scenario has Big Bang #1 creating a population of uniformly distributed, extremely massive stars, which eventually burned out and exploded in a crescendo of supernovas. One stellar detonation stimulating adjacent giant stars to explode in a chain reaction. The bubble-like shock waves expanding outward from these explosions stimulated the condensations of the stars we now see in the heavens. Naturally, these stars and galaxies are concentrated on the surfaces of the shock wave bubbles. (Anonymous; "New 3-D Map Shows the Cosmos with a 'Bubble Bath' Appearance," Baltimore Sun, January 5, 1986.) Comment. The space bubbles are mapped using redshifts as measurements of distance. As all-too-frequently asserted in this book, some redshifts may not be distance yardsticks, in which case these theoretical bubbles would burst. As the structures of the cosmos and the subatomic worlds become more and more foreign to everyday experience ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Planets As Fragments Of An Ancient Companion Of The Sun J. Webb has called attention to a fascinating feature of the solar system. "If one calculates the total energy and the total angular momentum of the planets, the numbers turn out to be very nearly the same as those of a single planet having a mass essentially the same as the total mass of all the planets, and orbiting the sun in an orbit which is near the present-day center of mass of all the planets. The possibility that the solar system was once a binary star (or is in the process of becoming one) needs to be examined more closely." (Webb, Jerry; "The Solar System and a Binary Star: Is There a Connection?" American Journal of Physics, 53:938, 1985.) Cross reference. See SF#42 for speculations about the solar system once being a quintuple star system. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Bright Arcs May Be The Largest Objects In The Universe Several brilliant bluish arcs, some 300,000 light years long, were unexpectedly discovered during a survey of galactic clusters. R. Lynds, of Kitt Peak National Observatory, estimates that the arcs are as luminous as 100 billion suns. The nice circularity of the arcs is perplexing; and it is stated that nothing like them has been reported before. The arcs might be incandescent gas, but many astronomers opt instead for swaths of bright young stars. Spectroscopic tests will decide this point. It has been difficult to conceive of an origin for the arcs. Are they blast waves or the results of tidal action between galaxies? No one knows, for all suggestions seem flawed. Something out there not only manipulates stupendous amounts of mass and energy but also does it with a draftsman's compass. (Anderson, Ian; "Astronomers Spot the Biggest Objects in the Universe," New Scientist, p. 23, January 15, 1987.) Comment. In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that some superclusters of galaxies are larger than the arcs. Also, some similar phenomena are described in our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, viz., the stacked, interleaved arcs of stars around elliptical galaxies (AWO5) and ring galaxies without significant nuclei (AWO6). To order the catalog volume just mentioned, visit: here . A ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Little big bangs!The photographic enhancement of plates taken by the UK Schmidt and Anglo-Australian telescopes has revealed that several normal elliptical galaxies are surrounded by shell-like structures. D.F . Malin and D. Carter report that these envelopes are vast -- up to 180 kiloparsecs in diameter. Furthermore, some galaxies are wrapped in a series of thin shells. Malin and Carter believe that the colossal shells are really thin layers of stars either created by a powerful shock wave during galaxy formation or comprised of a debris layer of old stars blown out of the galaxy during some cataclysmic event. (Malin, David F., and Carter, David; "Giant Shells around Normal Elliptical Galaxies," Nature, 285:643, 1980.) Comment. This article typifies the emergence of "catastrophic astronomy" which contrasts sharply with the older vision of a leisurely evolution of stars and galaxies. From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects First you don't see it; then you don't don't see it Astronomers are always claiming that they have observational proof that other stars have planets circling them and that black holes truly exist. These claims always fade away or are refuted. Recently, the papers were full of still another claim that a black hole had been found. This time there was no doubt; this was it; a bona fide, undeniable black hole. The search was finally over! Later, though, this claim was muted to: "the best evidence yet for a black hole." [Remember that no light escapes a black hole; you cannot see it directly. It is detected only through its effects on nearby observable matter.] Despite what the theorists fervently believe, black holes may not be lurking out there in space, unseen, but still able to gobble up matter and unwary alien spacecraft. For example, consider the following iconoclastic tidbit: "A gigantic, exceptionally bright star that scientists thought could become a black hole is actually shedding mass at such an astonishing rate that it eventually will disappear, a discovery that casts doubt on theories of stellar evolution, a researcher reports. "' If such massive stars are losing mass at such a prodigious rate, they will not form black holes but will peel off to virtually nothing,' Sally Heap, a NASA astronomer, said yesterday at a national ...
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... life on earth might not after all be terminated catastrophically, as in the impact of a large asteroid (today's popular doomsday machine). Rather, we might depart slowly, quietly, and mournfully. Of course, Eliot was not thinking of asteroids -- no one foresaw impact havoc in his day. But, his use of the word "whimper" can be attached to another, much slower astronomical agent of planetary death: cosmic dust and gas. Here's the current situation: "For the most part of the past five million years, the Solar System has been moving through a rather empty region of interstellar space between the spiral arms of the Milky Way. But a few thousand years ago, it entered a diffuse shell of material expanding outward from an active star-forming region called the Scorpius-Centaurus Association. Such 'super-bubble' shells of gas and dust result from the formation of massive stars, or the explosion of those stars as they become supernovas, and contain gas and dust clouds of varying densities." The density of matter in this solarsystem-engulfing shell could well shroud our planetary system with dust and gas a million times more dense than that we now encounter. If this happens, the sun's rays would slowly dim and life forms dependent on photosynthesis would expire. P. Frisk, a University of Chicago astronomer, forecasts a "bumpy ride" for earth dwellers during the next 50,000 years; but we think Eliot's "whimper" is more expressive of what might happen. (Jayawardhana ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Neptune's incomplete ring When the star SAO 186001 had a "close" encounter with Neptune on July 22, 1984, a number of astronomers were watching it carefully to see its light was diminished by an encircling, Saturn-like ring of particles surrounding Neptune. The ring system of Uranus was discovered by studies of similar stellar occultations. Sure enough, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory, in Chile, and the Cerro Tololo Observatory, also in Chile 90 kilometers away, detected a 1-second, 35% reduction in the star's light at the same instant. These data indicate the presence of an object 10-20 kilometers wide -- hardly an undicovered satellite, but possibly a ring. But given the geometry shown, there should have been two occultations, but only the one on the right was registered. Speculation is now rife that Neptune has a partial ring or a grotesquely twisted one. (Eberhart, J.; "Signs of a Puzzling Ring around Neptune," Science News, 127:37, 1985.) Comment. Of course the geometry of the ring could have been such that the star was tangent at one point. It should also be noted that modern astronomers have always laughed off the 1846-1847 observations of a Neptunian ring by W. Lassell and J. Challis! From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysteries Around Uranus August 15, 1980. European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile. Using the 3.6 -meter reflector and a photoelectric detector, astronomers recorded the occultation of a star by Uranus. The currently recognized rings of Uranus were duly noted as they dimmed the star's light, but so did seven other "objects." Observers at Las Campanas and Cerro Tololo, who were also monitoring the occultations, did see the seven extra occultations of the star. Clouds and faulty equipment have been ruled out. No one knows what caused the anomalies, (Anonymous; "More Mysteries of Uranus' Rings," Solar System Today, 3:56, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Beautiful objects, beautiful theories Imagine a million brilliant stars densely packed in a tight sphere by gravity. In the telescope these globular clusters are spectacular objects: a million points of light in disciplined motion around a center so closely packed with stars that they cannot all be resolved. Surely such an orderly assemblage of matter should be easy to model, given the laws of celestial mechanics and high-speed computers. No so! Both theory and computer models predict that a few stars may escape a globular cluster during its lifetime of several billion years, but that most will be drawn inevitably inward as the cluster collapses. However, observation, the final arbiter, reveals that globular clusters do not follow this scenario. Indeed, some clusters seem to have collapsed already and are again evolving in a sort of "reincarnated" state that our best theories refuse to predict. (Lightman, Alan; "Misty Patches in the Sky," Science 83, 4:24, June 1983.) From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a little goo was saved and was being studied at the state's Department of Environmental Quality Engineering. Preliminary results showed that they were not toxic." (Anonymous; "Vanishing Goo," Fortean Times, no. 43, p. 23, Spring 1985. Extracted from USA Today of December 22, 1983.) Comment. These disappearing blobs represent a typically Fortean phenomenon with a history going back before the first aircraft. The reports are generally ridiculed and quickly written off. Given their historical persistence, perhaps we should pay more attention to them, trivial though they seem. Speaking of falling goo, a detailed historical study of pwdre ser in folklore and science has just appeared. Pwdre ser, as readers of our Handbooks and Catalogs will know, is the Welsh name for star jelly. That jelly-like lumps of materials have been found in the fields after the fall of a shooting star is an integral part of European folklore. Here is a typical poetic mention by Donne: "As he that sees a starre fall, runs apace, And findes a gellie in the place..." (Belcher, Hilary, and Swale, Erica; "Catch a Falling Star," Folklore, 95: 210, 1984.) Reference. Pwdre ser and similar fallen substances are cataloged in GWF7 in: Tornados, Dark Days. For more information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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