Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book, and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books.


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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 A Larger Sun During The Maunder Minimum Europe's so-called "Little Ice Age" (1645-1715) coincided with the Maunder Minimum -- a period during which sunspots were exceedingly rare. How was the sun different during the Maunder Minimum? This subject of solar variability (in both diameter and period of rotation) has been long debated. Some early measurements of solar diameter, begun at Greenwich in 1830, seemed to some to show a steadily shrinking sun, but others found cyclic patterns. E. Ribes et al have just presented some data on solar diameter actually taken during the Maunder Minimum. "By analysing a unique 53-year record of regular observations of the solar diameter and sunspot positions during the seventeenth century, we have shown for the first time that the angular diameter was larger and rotation slower during the Maunder Minimum." A larger sun might be cooler, providing less heat, thus accounting for climate changes. (Ribes, E., et al; "Evidence for a Larger Sun with a Slower Rotation during the Seventeenth Century," Nature, 326: 52, 1987.) Comment. Just why the sun expands and contracts over a period measured in hundreds of years is a major astro physical conundrum. Variation in solar diameter, 1860-1940. Arrows indicate sunspot maxima. (From ASO-X6 in The Sun and Solar System Debris). From Science Frontiers #51 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wimps in the sun?For over two decades now, physicists have been measuring the neutrino flux emitted by the sun -- and despite all attempts this flux is much too low. It just doesn't jibe with what theorists say should be happening in the thermonuclear powerhouse in the sun's interior. J. Faulkner and R. Gilliland have conceived a solution to this dilemma. They postulate a large population of WIMPS (Weakly Interactive Massive Particles) orbiting the sun's core, but still well beneath the sun's visible surface. The WIMPS help convey heat out of the core, thereby cooling it to temperatures significantly less than those predicted by the astrophysicists. A cooler core emits fewer neutrinos, bringing theory into line with reality. And just what are these WIMPS? One suggestion is that they are photinos, a particle suggested (but not proved) by recent experiments at CERN (SF#37) (Thomsen, D.E .; "Weak Sun Blamed on WIMPS," Science News, 128:23, 1985.) Comment. WIMPS represent just the kind of particle that Dewey Larson railed against in his book: The Universe of Motion. He maintains that astronomers have to engage in such ridiculous theoretical gymnastics and invention only because they have picked the wrong energy-generating mechanism for stars and refuse to give it up! Larson's theory, on the other hand, solves this ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flattened Sun Means Trouble For Einstein Recent measurements of the sun's diameter by P. Goode and H. Hill show: (1 ) The sun is "ringing like a bell" due to constant sunquakes; and (2 ) The sun is flattened enough at itse poles to signifcantly affect the precession of Mercury's orbit. The gravitational influence of the sun's bulge is so large that it, in effect, competes with relativistic effects as an explanation of Mercury's precession. Goode, in fact, has suggested that the Theory of Relativity must be in error. (Anonymous; "Reputed Mistake Found in Einstein's Theory of Relativity," Baltimore Sun, April 6, 1982. An Associated Press item.) From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Signals From the Sun And, Eventually (? ), Other Entities It is rather amazing that we can detect neutrinos at all. Carrying no electric charge and possibly massless, most zip right through the entire earth as if it were not there. A very, very few, however, are captured in huge, fluidfilled tanks built by physicists. These trapped ghostly particles tell tales we do not yet fathom. We have mentioned the solar-neutrino problem before (SF#46/84, for example). It is one of science's more perplexing and enduring mysteries. Even the most modern, sophisticated neutrino detectors count only about one-third the number of neutrinos that the sun "should" be sending in our direction -- according to our best theories on the nuclear reactions simmering away in the solar core. To this classical neutrino problem has been added the discovery that the solar neutrino flux varies in ways difficult to explain. P. Sturrock and G. Walther, at Stanford University, scrutinized 20 years of data from a detector deep in the Homestead Mine in South Dakota and find that the neutrino flux seems to peak every 21.3 days, varying as much as 30% to 100%. It may be that the sun's fusion "engine," long thought to run steadily and smoothly, sputters in a cyclic fashion? If an automobile engine did this, we would take it ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SUN-AND-SPIRAL CLOCK The astronomical sophistication of ancient humans becomes more obvious each year. A novel method of keeping track of the seasons has been discovered on an isolated butte in New Mexico. Here, the Anasazi, who occupied Chaco Canyon between 400 and 1,300 A.D ., carved spiral petroglyphs into the face of a cliff. Then, they arranged stone slabs so that sharp slivers of sunlight fell on the spirals. The precise position of the sliver of light depends of course upon the location of the sun. The solstices and equinoxes are registered by unique configurations of light slivers and spirals. In contrast to other calendar sites, which rely upon the rising and setting points of sun on the horizon, the New Mexico clock depends upon the altitude of the sun at midday. Slivers of moonlight on the spirals also seem to have astronomical significance. (Sofaer, Anna, et al; "A Unique Solar Marking Construct," Science, 206:283, 1979.) Reference. Our Handbook Ancient Man contains much additional material on archeoastronomy. For a description of this large volume, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are the sun's fires going out?After reviewing solar maeasurements from the last 200 years, Jack Eddy, of the Smithsonian Observatory, has concluded that the sun's diameter shrinks by about 10 kilometers per year. This observation fits nicely with the ten-year-old enigma of missing solar neutrinos. A shrinking diameter implies a cooling sun, while the paucity of neutrinos suggests that the sun's nuclear fires are at a low ebb. Something similar may have happened in the 17th. Century when the so-called Little Ice Age prevailed. (Anonymous; "Scientists Shrink from Smaller Sun," New Scientist, 82:982, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 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 Unusual Double Sun April 30, 1984. Mediterranean Sea. "Shortly before sunset the phenomenon shown in the sketch was observed." From the m.v . Stability out of Piombino. (Twiselton, J.; "Mock Sun," Marine Observer, 55:78, 1985.) Comment. This is actually a case of abnormal refraction. Mock suns are characteristically 22 and/or 46 from the true sun horizontally. From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Sun As A Scientific Instrument In connection with the preceding item on solar oscillations and asymmetry, a few brave astrophysicists are now proposing that one mode of solar oscillation (the 160-minute period) is really a manifestation of the sun "ringing" in response to gravity waves sweeping through it! A nearby binary star, Geminga, has a period of this length. It seems that the 160-minute oscillation of the sun is far too long to be a solar pressure wave, and external forces could conceivably be involved. This article also mentions "the throbbing earth" reported in SF#30, an effect which may result from gravitational waves emanating from the center of our galaxy. (Walgate, Robert; "Gravitational Waves on the Sun?" Nature, 305:665, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Quiet sun: violent earth When R.B . Stothers, at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, decided to look into the possible correlation of solar activity and terrestrial volcanism, he fully expected to find no connection at all. After all, what force generated by small changes in the sun's output could stir up the earth's magma from a distance of 93 million miles? Stothers was surprised. "Stothers analyzed two immense catalogs, published in the early 1980s, that list more than 55,000 known eruptions since the year 1500. Concentrating on several hundred of the moderate-to-large eruptions, he found statistically significant patterns in eruption frequency that match the solar cycle. Eruptions seemed most numerous during the weakest portions of the solar cycle." Further, there was a 97% confidence that the correlation was not a statistical accident. The only cause-and-effect explanation offered by Stothers was negative and indirect. During periods of abundant sunspots, increased solar emissions jar the earth's atmosphere slightly. Communicated to the crust, these slight taps trigger tiny earthquakes that relieve stresses beneath volcanos, thus delaying their eruptions until solar acitivity dies down. Not especially convincing! (Anonymous; "Volcanos on Earth May Follow the Sun," Science News, 137:47, 1990.) Comment. Down the years, many scientists and laymen have tried to correlate sunspots and earthquake frequency ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sun-earth-moon system may not be stable The application of zero-velocity surfaces (a mathematical technique) to the sunearth-moon, three-body system indicates that the eccentricity of the earth's orbit renders the system unstable. The conclusion is that the moon may one day escape the earth and become a planet and, turning the situation around, that the origin of the moon by capture is a strong possibility. (Szebehely, V., and McKenzie, R.; "Stability of the Sun-Earth-Moon System," Astronomical Journal, 82:303, 1977.) Comment. This paper is typical of several recent ones in celestial mechanics that throw doubt on long-held dogmas about the long-term stability of the solar system. For more on this subject, consult ABB1 in our Catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 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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... that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACB1 The Appearance of Comets in Cycles ACB2 Nonrandom Direction-of-Approach of Comets to the Sun ACB3 New Comets Have Almost Critical Velocity ACB4 Sun-Grazing Comets: The Kreutz Group ACB5 Changing Cometary Periods ACB6 Jupiter's Family of Comets ACB7 Low-Eccentricity Cometary Orbits ACB8 The Scarcity of Hyperbolic Orbits ACB9 Cometary Groups ACB10 Orbits of New Comets Diverge from Common Point ACB11 Excess of Retrograde Long Period Comets ACB12 Uranus-Neptune Region Favored as ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More on "the massive solar companion"Something big out there beyond Neptune perturbs the orbits of the sun's outer fringe of planets. In addition, there are unexplained perturbations in the orbits of earth satellites, peculiar periodicities in the sunspot cycle, and equally puzzling regularities in earthquake frequency. Infrared detectors have also picked up unidentified objects in the sky. These anomalies might all be explained by the existence of a large, dark planet with several moons -- or, if the mystery object turns out to be very far away, by a very large, dark stellar companion of our sun with its own system of planets. Several astronomers have been trying to pin down the properties of this Planet X or Massive Solar Companion (MSC). John P. Bagby has recently published a novel solution to this nagging puzzle in celestial mechanics. He suggests that the Massive Solar Companion is actually a distributed system; that is, appreciable mass also occupies the several stable Lagrangian points. The total MSC mass might be as much as half the sun's mass, perhaps 100 Astronomical Units (100 times the earth's distance from the sun.) If the MSC and its attendants are this massive, astronomers will have to revise the mass and density of the sun downward by a good bit. (What they have done in the past is estimate the mass of the solar system as a whole and assumed it mostly resides ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Blue Flash Green flashes occasionally appear when the sun (or moon or Venus or Jupiter) sink below the horizon. Blue flashes are much rarer but still well-recognized phenomena. An example of the latter was observed in 1995 on the Indian Ocean. August 11, 1995, Bay of Bengal. Aboard the m.v . Repulse Bay enroute Jeddah to Port Klang. "Prior to sunset the vessel was proceeding due east across the Bay of Bengal and it was quite apparent that the sun was still very bright and had not taken on its usual darkorange or red appearance; even with half its diameter above the horizon, the sun was much too bright to view directly. As the last segment of the sun dipped below the horizon, a blue 'horn' formed at each end of it, as shown in sketch (a ), and these then closed up to form a bright-blue arc, as shown in sketch (b ). " (Leslie, A.J .; "Blue Flash," Marine Observer, 66:115, 1996) Comment. The blue flash is a shorter-wavelength version of the green flash. The basic phenomenon is explained in terms of dispersion of the sun's spectrum by the atmosphere near the horizon. Even so, many enigmas remain about these low-sun phenomena. There have been observed: multiple flashes, flashes preceding sunset, complex flash ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sunspots And Planetary Alignments Many scientists and laymen have noticed that the sunspot cycle and Jupiter's period are both about 11 years. This must be a coincidence, because the tidal forces exerted on the sun by distant Jupiter seem far too weak to disturb the sun's internal operations. (See details in ASO9 in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) Could it be that we are missing something, for there is some evidence that some planetary alignments also exert influence on the number of spots seen on the sun's face? In particular, the Uranus-Neptuneearth conjunction has been investigated by B. Payne, who wrote the following in Cycles: "Sunspots increase when two or more planets line up, an effect I have observed for more than a decade. During the last six years, Uranus and Neptune have been within a few degrees of each other. Their conjunction, which occurs every 137 years, is an ideal situation to validate the hypothesis that sunspot numbers are associated with planetary positions." Payne's lengthy analysis is omitted, but the essence of his study can be seen in the accompanying graph. He concludes: "The results clearly show that sunspot numbers increase markedly during Uranus-Neptune-Earth-sun alignments." (Payne, Buryl; "Sunspot Number Changes during Planetary Alignments," Cycles, 45:146, 1995) Comment. It will take a lot more than ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The sun controls the earth's global electrical circuit Data collected from electrosondes (balloons measuring atmospheric electrical currents) over the Antarctic ice caps infer that solar flares stimulate large surges in the flow of electrical charge from the upper atmosphere to the earth's surface. Because this unidirectional flow of fair-weather electricity must ultimately be balanced by thunderstorms somewhere on the planet, it follows that the frequency and severity of terrestrial thunderstorms are dictated, at least on the average, by solar activity. Formerly, global circuit theory had it that the thunderstorms themselves were the driving force behind the fairweather current flow. Now it seems that the sun calls the tune and that thunderstorms do not arise at random. (Anonymous; "Solar Activity and Terrestrial Thunderstorms," New Scientist, 81:256, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Deadly Sun Sunspottery, or the linking of seemingly unrelated phenomena to solar activity, has been a popular pastime for as long as sunspot records have been kept. Usually pooh-poohed by scientists because the link between cause and effect seems absent, some impressive statistical evidence now associates heart attacks with geomagnetic and solar activity. Malin and Srivastava have shown that the number of cardiac emergencies in their area of India is very closely tied to geomagnetic activity, which in turn is controlled by the sun. Standard statistical tests confirm an especially strong correlation. But why should the two observables be associated at all? The authors' concluding sentence reads: "The possibility that there is some other cause (or solar origin?) responsible for both the magnetic and medical phenomena should not be ignored." (Malin, S.R .C ., and Srivastava, B.J .; "Correlation between Heart Attacks and Magnetic Activity," Nature, 277:646, 1979.) Top Curve: Magnetic activity index. Bottom Curve: Daily admissions of cardiac emergiencies From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Planets as sun-triggered lasers Apparently both the earth and Jupiter emit radio energy when triggered by bursts of radio waves arriving from the sun. The outer atmospheres of these planets act like radio lasers, which store radio energy and then release it suddenly when stimulated by weaker solar signals. The earth's laser operates between frequencies of 50 and 600 kilohertz. Its emissions are known as the "auroral kilometric radiation" or AKR. While some of these terrestrial emissions are spontaneous, others are stimulated by Type-III solar radio bursts. The newly discovered Jovian laser operates at hectometric wavelengths and is also triggered by the solar radio bursts. (Calvert, W.; "Triggered Jovian Radio Emissions," Geophysical Research Letters, 12:179, 1985.) Comment. Earth and Jupiter thus act like radio transponders, releasing large bursts in response to small solar stimuli. The role of electricity in the history of the solar system is only beginning to be appreciated. Of course, the radio lasers mentioned above are not very powerful, but what might have occurred during the formative stages of the solar system? Could electromagnetic forces have been more important then than they are now? In this regard, note that electrical forces seem to be strongly involved in the dynamics of Saturn's rings. And Saturn's rings themselves may resemble a miniature solar system in the accretion phase. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL- ...
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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. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects On the sun, south is almost everywhere Astronomers have been shocked by the discovery that the sun has no south pole! "Instruments on board the probe Ulysses have been measuring the radial component of the solar magnetic field. The field lines were expected to become more bunched and intense as the probe approached the south pole. 'Instead, the strength of the magnetic field remained absolutely constant,' says Richard Marsden, a project scientist on Ulysses." (Anonymous; "No Solar Pole," New Scientist, p. 11, September 24, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Phenomena G2 1974: Strange Phenomena G1 Home ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury's orbit explained without relativity A most satisfying element of support for Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR) has been its accounting for the residual precession of Mercury's orbit. In recent years, however, a rival explanation has been found in the non-symmetric gravitational field of the sun. Surface oscillations of the sun betray hidden internal rotation, which produces asymmetry in the sun's gravitational field. By applying the distorted field in predicting the orbit of Mercury and the minor planet Icarus, astronomers are more successful than when they use the GR. The authors of this paper claim that GR averages some 2 standard deviations off the mark, while results -using the nonsymmetrical gravitational field of the sun are right on the money! (Campbell, L., et al; "The Sun's Quadrupole Moment and Perihelion Precession of Mercury," Nature, 305:508, 1983.) Reference. For other explanations of the advance of Mercury's perihelion, see AHB1 in our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information at: here . From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Halley reappears!No, comet Halley has not reversed direction for an anomalous encore. We'll have to wait another 70-or-so years for that. However, Halley did make a surprise reappearance on February 12, 1991. Astronomers were startled by a sudden flare-up. It was not a trivial brightening; the width of the flare was a remarkable 300,000 kilometers. Comets often flare up as they swing close to the sun and absorb its heat and radiation. But Halley is now billions of kilometers away in the frigid reaches of the outer solar system. No one knows what happened. (Pease, Roland; "Halley at Large," Nature, 349:732, 1991.) Comment. Other comets have mysteriously flared up far from the sun. See ACO2 in our catalog The Sun and Solar System Debris. Apparently comets harbor considerable pent-up energy. If proximity to the sun is not required to stimulate gas releases or chemical reactions, comets may have their own energy agenda. Comets seem to be little more than chunks of dirty ice. Where could the flare energy come from? If only cold fusion were a viable "acceptable" energy source! To order The Sun and Solar System Debris, see: here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Green Flashes Are Yellow Rarely, green flashes are observed just as the tip of the setting sun disappears below the horizon. Most of these flashes have a perfectly good explanation. The earth's atmosphere acts like a prism and disperses the light of the sun into a spectrum, and the last portion of this spectrum that one usually sees is green. Conditions have to be just right, though. A flat horizon and a layer of warm air are important. But even when conditions seem perfect, the green flash does not always appear, and all one sees is the red tip of the sun sinking out of sight. Even if the patient observer is rewarded by a green flash, he may really have been deceived, for there are "false" green flashes. A. Young, San Diego State University, reported at a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society on a peculiar type of optical illusion that can afflict observers of the setting sun. It seems that the intense red light of the sun near the horizon can bleach the red-sensitive receptors in the retina so that an intent observer becomes temporarily color blind to red. When this happens, the observer sees the yellow part of the dispersed solar spectrum as being green (yellow minus red = green). The true green flash may never have appeared at all. (Seife, Charles; "Don't Let Your Eyes Deceive You," ...
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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 Bad Spin Split Astronomers have long realized that the angular momentum of the sun is only 1/180th that of the solar system as a whole. The overwhelming majority of the angular momentum is tied up in planetary motion. To make matters even more puzzling, the angular-momentum vectors of the sun and the planetary system are 7 apart. The implication is that the sun and planets could not have been formed by the rapid condensation of a molecular cloud -- the present theory. Rapid condensation requires that the sun get a much bigger share of the angular momentum. These anomalies have led T. Gold to propose a slow-condensation model, in which several hundred million years are required rather than the tens of thousands of years in the current scenario. Another unexpected feature of Gold's model makes the sun a degenerate object, perhaps a neutron star. As the author of this article states: "Gold has stood the conventional view of the origin of the solar system on its head." (Maddox, John; "Origin of Solar System Redefined," Nature, 308:223, 1984.) Reference. The above "spin-split" enigma is discussed more thoroughly in ABB3 in our Catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. See description of this book at here . From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... What could possibly accelerate a single subatomic particle to such a high speed, 99.99999999999999999999 percent that of light, that it would smash into the earth's atmosphere with the energy of a hard-hit tennis ball? If you don't have a clue you're not alone. These particles are ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, which are billions of times more energetic than the run-of-the-mill cosmic rays that continuously bombard earth's atmosphere." (Anonymous; "Space Streakers," Astronomy, 27:34, March 1999.) "The most powerful explosion ever ever observed -- a deep space eruption detected in January -- released in just seconds a burst of energy equal to billions of years of light from thousands of suns. Researchers say in studies to be published today that the explosion, called a gamma-ray burst, occurred 9 billion light years from earth. What caused the explosion is a mystery." (Anonymous; "Blast's Light May Have Been Greater Than Rest of Universe," Baltimore Sun, March 26, 1999.) "Every day, the sun blows billions of tons of ionized gas, electrons and protons into space -- the "solar wind." Sometimes, especially near the solar maximum, this wind is punctuated by squalls and storms of dangerous highenergy particles." Two giant solar storms erupted in 1972. Luckily, they were sandwiched between Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions to the moon. If the astronauts had been caught on the lunar surface during one ...
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... 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 "TAIL WAGS DOG" IN SOLAR SYSTEM The Oort Cloud of comets hovering at the far frontiers of the solar system is, as we know from SF#57, not without its anomalies. Here, let us assume that it really does exist, even though we cannot see it. From a new book by I. Asimov (title below), we learn that this remote haze of icy fluff, the Oort Cloud, may really have about 90% of the angular momentum of the entire solar system. It was already sufficiently anomalous to discover that the planets possess fifty times the angular momentum of the much more massive sun. (See ABB3 in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) Astronomers have been attempting for years to explain this 50:1 split. Now, with the Oort Cloud apparently having ten times the angular momentum of the planets, the situation is much worse. According to Asimov, the solar-system angular momentum is split as follows: Oort Cloud 90% All of the planets 9.8 % The sun 0.2 % The total mass of the Oort Cloud is estimated to be roughly that of Saturn. The recent flyby of Halley's Comet created this dilemma. It was discovered that Halley was a chunk containing 140 cubic miles of ice - much larger than anticipated for this "typical" comet. If the estimated 2 trillion comets are, on the average, Halley' ...
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... now on Mars, a long-lasting mystery has been the source of the rare "flares" or bright flashes of light that have appeared on the Martian surface down the years. A famous flare example was observed and reported in 1900 by A.E . Douglass, at the Lowell Observaory. The popular press quickly announced that the Martians were signalling us. Actually, this assumption was quite understandable because in those days the newly discovered Martian "canals" were in everyone's thoughts. Most scientists, however, rejected the signal notion preferring to attibute the flare to the specular reflection of sunlight from snowy peaks on Mars. But they were wrong, too. Close-up inspection by modern spacecraft has revealed no snowy peaks or large bodies of water on Mars that might mirror the sun. But another possibility has now come to the fore. The Martian flares could be reflections of sunlight from flat, hexagonal crystals of water ice in the thin Martian clouds; the same crystals that create some of the solar halos and sun dogs seen on earth. That this sort of specular reflection does occur was demonstrated on June 7, 2001, when a flare was actually photographed in the area of Edom Promontorium. The photography was possible because scientists had been watching this spot intently -- with cameras at the ready -- because a well-observed flare had occurred at this location in 1954, and calculations showed that conditions would be just right for the sun to be again reflected by clouds at this spot on June 7, 2001. It was a prediction that came true. ...
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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. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Monarch Compasses Field experiments down the years suggest that migrating birds use a variety of strategies to chart their courses with high precision. The geomagnetic field, the sun, the stars, prominent landmarks, and even odors help guide them across the continents and open seas. But birds are considered highly evolved animals so their sophisticated navigational techniques are not especially surprising. Monarch butterflies, however, are mere insects, with tiny brains (navigation-data processors) and not much in the way of the environment sensors and internal clocks required for long-distance migration. Yet, some of these colorful insects manage to flutter up to 4,000 kilometers from the eastern U.S . and Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico. How do they do this? S.M . Perez et al have now shown that monarch butterflies are equipped with a sun compass; that is, they chart their courses by noting the sun's changing azimuth. This feat requires not only the measurement of solar azimuth but also reference to an internal clock. Humans cannot do this without artificial instruments. Furthermore, even on cloudy days, migrating monarchs fly in the proper direction (generally south-southwest). Apparently, they also have evolved a backup navigation system, perhaps a geomagnetic compass. (Perez, Sandra M., et al' "A Sun Compass in Monarch Butterflies," Nature, 387:29, 1997.) Comment ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Yagi Watches A Solar Eclipse During the partial solar eclipse of July 11, 1991, D. Emerson had his Yagi antenna pointed in the direction of the phenomenon. His receiver was tuned to 145.8 MHz. The sun is always emitting radio noise, and one would expect that the moon passing in front of the sun would gradually cut off most, but not all, of the radio noise picked up by the antenna and, after the eclipse's midpoint, the noise would increase back to normal levels. Instead of the expected: Radio noise power measured during a partial solar eclipse. The arrows indicate the stages of the eclipse "There was no radio evidence of any effect of the solar eclipse until 1822 UTC, 58 minutes after the start of the eclipse. At that point, all detectable solar emission disappeared within the space of about nine minutes. The emission did not start to reappear until 72 minutes later, at 1943 UTC, and was fully restored by 1951 UTC, 13 minutes before the end of the eclipse, which occurred at 2004 UTC. "The fact that radio emission disappeared and reappeared fairly abruptly part way through the eclipse indicates that most of the radio emission was occurring from one discrete point on the sun's surface rather than from the entire solar disc." (Emerson, Darrel; "Radio Observations of Two Solar Eclipses," QST , p. 21, February 1995 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 2000 CR105 and Planet X 2000 CR105 is a supercomet some 400 kilometers in diameter. It is one of hundreds of icy TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects) that normally populate the Kuiper Belt girdling the solar system just beyond the orbit of Neptune. The problem is that 2000 CR105 is not normal. Its orbit is highly eccentric, with an aphelion 13 times farther out than Neptune's . This massive object (probably mostly ice) takes 3175 years to circle the sun. 2000 CR105 is real; it has been photographed; it is not Mirror Matter; no one blames any terrestrial extinctions on it. Nevertheless, we can and must wonder how its orbit became so badly distorted. Often in past years, whenever astronomers detected cometary orbits gone awry, they invoked Planet X; that is, some undiscovered massive body plying the outer reaches of the solar system. Indeed, there have been several intense and unsuccessful searches for Planet X over the years. (See Chapter AX in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) History seems to be repeating itself with 2000 CR105. Astronomer B. Gladman proposes that 2000 CR105 was forced into its present eccentric orbit by an encounter with a Mars-size Planet X that now orbits the sun at a distance about 15 times that of Neptune. From the standpoint of celestial mechanics, this perturbation of 2000 CR105's orbit is certainly within the realm of possibility. But two associated ...
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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. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Novaya Zemlya Effect Rarely, as the long polar night draws to a close, the sun will suddenly burst above the horizon weeks ahead of schedule. This is the Novaya Zemiya Effect, and it is basically a polar mirage. Even when the sun is still 5 below the horizon, its light can become trapped between thermoclines and be transmitted over the usual horizon. The atmospheric ducts act much like flat light pipes. In the Novalya Zemlya Effect the sun's image is grossly distorted, quite different from the high quality mirages sometimes seen over hundreds of miles in the polar latitudes. (Anonymous; "New Light on Novaya Zemlya Polar Mirage," Physics Today, 34: 21, January 1981.) Reference. Related atmospheric phenomena are collected in Section GEM in our Catalog: Rare Halos. More information on this book here . Triple Novaya Zemlya Effect. Three distorted images of a sun still well below the horizon. From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury's polar caps and icy minicomets Mercury, closest planet to the sun, should be baked bone dry, seeing that equatorial temperatures reach 800 F. When Mariner 10 flew past Mercury in 1974, its camera eye reinforced the baked-cinder model. To everyone's surprise, recent radar images obtained with powerful earth-based antennas, revealed a highly reflective patch at Mercury's north pole. Could it be ice, for ice reflects radar waves well? Quite possibly, for when Mercury's polar temperatures are calculated, away from the sun's direct glare, they plunge to -235 F. This means that some of the water vapor in the planet's thin atmosphere might freeze out in the poles, creating ice or frost caps. Wouldn't Mariner 10 have seen such a remarkable deposit? Not necessarily, for the spacecraft viewed only half the planet and, if the 640 x 300-kilometer ice patch were covered with dust, it could have been invisible to the camera. But it would still be a bright patch on terrestrial radar scopes, because radars see through thin dust layers. So, polar ice is not physically impossible on Mercury, although it is defi nitely surprising so close to the sun. All that is needed is a little water in the planet's atmosphere. Mainstream thinking is that "passing comets and asteroids" might bequeath Mercury some of their H2O ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 22: Jul-Aug 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How can the sun influence chemical reaction rates?When water is added to bismuth trichloride, a precipitate, bismuth oxychloride, forms. The precipitation rate seems to vary with time, being different from one month to the next. This time variation has been confirmed at many laboratories around the world and is not dependent on any obvious meteorological condition. Instead, some investigators claim to have found a rather good correlation with the sunspot cycle! (Majorino, Gianfranco, and Zecca, Luigi; "Period Analysis of the Picardi P-Test," Cycles, 33:78, 1982.) Comment. This precipitation test, called the Piccardi P-Test, has been offered for years by cycle students as proof of extraterrestrial influences on earthly chemistry, including biochemistry. No explanation has been suggested; and one reads about it only in "fringe" publications. From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Of The Missing Comets A key feature of our solar system is the Oort Cloud of comets that surrounds the sun and its family of planets. No one has yet seen the Oort Cloud directly, but the textbooks say that it must be there. In fact, all stars like our sun with planetary systems should have their own private Oort Clouds of comets - if the prevailing theory of planetary-system formation is correct. When we see a comet looping around the sun, it is because it has been jostled loose from the Oort Cloud by a passing star or molecular cloud. Further, some of these jostled comets should be kicked outwards and thus escape the solar system. Continuing with this reasoning, we on earth should sometimes see interstellar comets that have been shaken loose from other stellar systems. But we don't ! T.A . McGlynn and R.D . Chapman worry about this. "This lack of detections of extrasolar comets is becoming an embarrassment to the theories of solar system and comet formation." McGlynn and Chapman calculate that we should have seen six interstellar comets in the past 150 years, but the actual number is zero. Such interstellar comets would be easy to spot because they would be moving much faster than our own comets. Two possible explanations for the missing interstellar comets are: (1 ) The Oort Cloud theory is wrong; and (2 ) Solar systems like ours are rarer ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Hot Spots On Mercury Radio telescopes can give planetary astronomers a rough idea of the temperature existing several feet below the surface of a distant planet. Scrutinizing Mercury with their big electronic "ears," they have found two spots on the plamet where the temperatures are several hundred degrees higher than in the surrounding areas. Actually, these hot spots are easy to understand; because, to a Mercurian, the sun comes to a stop in the sky over one of these points and then moves backwards to the other point 180 away. As the sun tarries over these two spots, it heats them preferentially. The strange apparent motion of the sun is due to the 3:2 ratio between Mercury's period of revolution around the sun (88 days) and its axial spin period (59.6 days). What is surprising is that the energy detected radiating from the two hot spots is all reradiated solar energy; that is, there seems to be no contribution at all from Mercury's core! If no heat is leaking out of Mercury's core, the core itself is very likely solid. If it is solid, it cannot establish convection cells and thus generate a magnetic field through dynamo action. But back in 1975, the Mariner 10 spacecraft radioed back that Mercury actually does possess a magnetic field, and a surprisingly large one at that. (Wilford, John Noble; "Theory of Mercury ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury: the impossible planet Mercury, largely hidden in the sun's glare, also conceals beneath its baked, cratered surface: (1 ) far more iron than solar-system theory allows; and (perhaps) (2 ) a dynamo that should not exist. Let us take the excess-iron problem first. Mercury's density is 5.44 (compared to earth's 5.52), so that it very likely contains much iron. Our moon, which resembles Mercury in size and external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 126: Nov-Dec 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Towering Shafts Of Light Ice crystals in the atmosphere can dazzle us with bright haloes, sundogs, and similar optical phenomena -- as long as the sun or moon are shining. Sometimes, though, human light sources will create remarkable displays using the same ice crystals. The first of the two examples below is notable for its extreme height; the second provides the accepted explanation. August 24, 1998. South China Sea. Aboard the m.v . Oriental Bay , Hong Kong to Singapore. "Four shafts of narrow vertical light were observed reflected in the sky. Upon consulting the chart it was revealed that they were 'reflections' of the four flares of the Kakap Natuna oil terminal, which at this point was 75 n mile away. "As indicated in the sketch, the shafts of light were visible above a lower layer of stratocumulus cloud, and, when measured by sextant, their upper tips were calculated to be nearly 13 km high. The shafts appeared to be reflected in a thin layer of cirrostratus and, as the vessel approached to 60 n mile from the terminal, the glow from the flares was also visible on the horizon." (Peterson, J.L .; "Optical Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 69:110, 1999.) Tall light pillars rise over the South China Sea February 4, 1999. Toyama Bay, Japan. The caption quoted below is located beneath ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
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... signs of man were found in a cave called Toca da Esperanca (Grotto of Hope), deep in the black limestone cliffs of the Serra Negra mountains, 1,100 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro. "The site caught the interest of the scientific community after archaeologist Maria Beltrao reported finding a stone implement and the cut bones of an extinct species of horse in the dig last year. "The bones were so old that they could not be dated by carbon-14, which can measure about 40,000 years. The Weak Radiation Laboratory in France tested them by a more sensitive uraniumthorium method, and came back with a staggering date of 300,000 years. .. .. . "A cave called Grotto of the Cosmos at nearby Xique-Xique contained paintings of suns, stars and comets, and this is what archaeologists believe is the oldest astronomical observatory in the Americas. "' There probably were at least two cultures here,' said (J .) Labeyrie. 'One, about 10,000 years ago, made the pain tings. Another, much older, was responsible for the artifacts.' "In the grotto's dim light, a red comet 4.5 feet long stretches across the low ceiling, against a painted backdrop of stars. Red suns rise and set amid figures of lizards, a creature traditionally associated with the sun. .. .. . "Near the entrance of the cave is a notch where every year, precisely on the winter solstice (June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere), the sunlight ...
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... Rainbows GEB2 Intersecting Rainbows GEB3 Lunar Rainbows with Offset White Arcs and Bows GEB4 Red Rainbows GEB5 Moving Rainbows... GEB6 Solar Rainbows with Offset White Arcs GEB7 Lunar Rainbows Transforming to Disks GEB8 Radial Streaks Crossing Rainbows GEB9 Rainbows Perturbed by Thunder and Lightning GEB10 Anomalous Fogbows... GEB11 Anomalous Dewbows, Cloud bows, Horizontal Rainbows GEB12 Sandbows GEB13 Rainbows Parallel to the Horizon GEB14 Purple Rainbows GEB15 Supernumerary Rainbows GEB16 Prismatic Pillars at the Foot of the Rainbow GEB17 The Dark Space between Primary and Secondary Rainbows GEB18 Grossly Distorted Rainbows GEB19 Rainbows Dividing Sky Colors GEB20 The Odor of the Rainbow Double White Rainbows Tertiary Rainbows Polarization of Rainbow Light Segments of Greyish Light in the Sky Unexplained Dark Lines in the Sky GEH UNUSUAL HALO DISPLAYS AND CORONAS GEH1 Offset Halos and Anomalous Arcs GEH2 Noncircular Halos GEH3 Extraordinary Mock-Sun and Mock-Moon Displays GEH4 Halos Dividing Sky Colors GEH5 Bishop's Ring... GEH6 Halos of Unusual Radii GEH7 Jumping and Moving Halos GEH8 Kaleidoscopic Suns GEH9 Skewed and Deformed Halo Displays GEH10 Bottlinger's Rings GEH11 Transient Lines Superimposed on Halo Displays GEH12 Optical Effects Where Halo Displays Touch the Horizon GEH13 Close, One-Sided Mock Suns GEH14 Halo Displays Formed by Terrestrial Ice Crystals Anomalous Lunar Coronas Circumzenithal Arc and Black Band GEI OBSERVER-CENTERED PHENOMENA GEI1 Puzzling Features of the Brocken Specter GEI2 Heligenschein GEI3 Rotating Spokes about the Shadow of One's Head Sylvanshine Snow Sparkles GEL LOW-SUN PHENOMENA GEL1 Puzzling Features of the Green Flash GEL2 Anomalous Diverging Rays at Sunset and Sunrise GEL3 Color Phenomena and the Earth's Shadow on the Sky GEL4 Abnormal Refraction Phenomena with Astronomical Objects ...
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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. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Reviewing ozone-mapping data from the polar-orbiting Nimbus-7 satellite, R. Stolarski and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have seen the concentration of ozone over Antarctica drop dramatically -- some 40% -- every October. This disappearing act commences about a month after the sun begins to graze the northern horizon and affects the entire continent. By early November, the sun is high enough to manufacture enough ozone via its ultraviolet radiation to fill the ozone hole up again. An analogous hole does form over the North Pole in the northern spring. An additional fact of interest: the hole is getting deeper each year; that is, the ozone concentration is less and less each October. Speculations about the deepening seasonal hole involve the widespread use of chlorofluorocarbons and Antarctica's physical isolation from other land masses which would help channel ozone southward from areas where the sun still shines. (Weisburd, S.; "Ozone Hole at Southern Pole," Science News, 129:133, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 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 Too many short-period comets Some comets, such as Halley's , have periods of less than 200 years. Scientists have postulated that these comets, which orbit relatively close to the sun, originally came from the far-distant Oort Cloud on parabolic (non-returning) orbits around the sun. Perturbations by the planets, notably Jupiter, deflected them into the tighter orbits we see today. The problem is that the number of parabolic comets entering the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud of comets (located at the outermost fringes of the solar system) is 100 times too small to account for the existing population of short-period comets. M.E . Bailey believes this discrepancy can be removed if the Oort Cloud possesses a massive inner core of comets. (Bailey, M.E .; "The Near-Parabolic Flux and the Origin of Short-Period Comets," Nature, 324:350, 1986.) Reference. The Oort Cloud of comets is an entrenched part of astronomical dogma. For observations challenging its existence, see our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. A description of this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Libyan Signs From Southeastern Kentucky Curious images and writings turn up with surprising frequency in North America. The sculpture illustrated was among several found in a cave on the Virginia-Kentucky border. Made life-sized from hard sandstone, it bears curious symbols on its back. Quite obviously, it is the head of an Indian chief, but the symbols might be Libyan, according to Barry Fell. He translates them as: "luminous, radiant, sun-like." Interestingly enough, the ancient leaders of the Natchez Tribe were called "Suns" and wore feathered headdresses like those of the Plains Indians. Further, the Natchez Suns apparently maintained that their ancestors came to North America from North Africa -- thus the Libyan symbols! (Calhoun, Vernon J.; "Libyan Evidence in Southeast Kentucky," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 7:127, 1978.) Comment. Much controversy swirls about such symbols and their proposed translations. From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Halley's comet is winking at us Halley's Comet, still a billion kilometers away, is just beginning to emit gases at the urging of the sun's rays. It should, therefore, be getting brighter -- and it is -- but its brightness pulsates. A French team of scientists, led by Jean Lecacheux, has determined that Halley's Comet flares up at regular intervals just over 24 hours apart. We usually do not study comets carefully until they are very close to the sun, so we don't know if this blinking behavior is typical or not. The most reasonable explanation is that Halley's Comet rotates about every 24 hours and that its surface is not uniform. One portion of its surface may be brighter or emit more luminous gases than the rest. In any event, we have a new astronomical curiosity. (Lloyd, Andrew; "Halley's Comet Is Blinking," New Scientist, p. 20, May 24, 1984.) Reference. Cometary outbursts are cataloged at ACO20 in The Sun and Solar System Debris. This Catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar Model Confirmed, But Standard Model Crippled A persistent astronomical anomaly (well-covered in SF#112 and earlier) has apparently been satisfactorily disposed of. Even staunch anomalists will have to close the book on the solar-neutrinodeficit problem. No deficit really exists because the neutrinos emitted by the sun change while in flight from a type that is easy to detect to a type that is difficult to register experimentally. The total number of neutrinos reaching the earth is what it should be according to theory but we have not been able to detect them all. This neutrino schizophrenia has now been confirmed, and our theory about how the sun works is safe. But the erasure of the solar-neutrinodeficit problem tells the particle physicists that neutrinos do indeed change type, which implies that they possess mass. But anomalies are sometimes contagious. The Standard Model of particle physics, so successful in many respects, is now ailing. It asserts that neutrinos cannot change types and do not possess mass. (Seife, Charles; "Polymorphous Particles Solve Solar Mystery," Science, 292:2227, 2001. Weiss, P.; " Physics Bedrock Cracks, Sun Shines In," Science News, 159:388, 2001.) Comment. Without question, we have here an experimental triumph, but the undermining of that pillar of physics, the Standard Model, is a high price to pay. We have closed one book ...
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... -Levi-9 's true nature have arisen because of two observations: (1 ) No water vapor has been detected in the plumes thrown up by the impacts of the fragments; and (2 ) The comet's Fragment M, which was supposed to have vaporized in 1993, as comets are wont to do, apparently did not and left a scar on Jupiter like the other fragments. So, Shoemaker-Levi-9 had no discernible ice (unlike comets; it was fragile and easily fragmented (unlike rocky asteroids); and Fragment M did not have a coma (unlike comets but like asteroids)! Was Shoemaker-Levi-9 really a comet? (Roylance, Frank D.; "Is That Really a 'Comet' Hitting Jupiter?" Baltimore Sun, July 20, 1994. Roylance, Frank D.; "Fragment M's Reappearance Puzzles Astronomers," Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1994.) Reference. See our Catalog The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the comet-asteroid question. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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