115 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The earth: a doubly charmed planet In SF#85, we learned that the evolution of advanced life forms on earth may have depended upon the protective influences of Jupiter and Saturn. These two giant planets can gravitationally deflect potentially devastating asteroids and comets away from the earth. It seems now that we are doubly lucky! Computer runs demonstrate that the presence of our large moon has stabilized the earth's spin axis down the eons. Presently, the earth's spin axis makes an angle of 23.5 with the plane of the earth's orbit (its "obliquity"). The well-known result is our yearly procession of seasons. Without the steadying effect of the moon, however, the earth's obliquity would probably have swung chaotically over much larger values. Such extreme changes would have been inimical to the development of life, particularly advanced life. As a case in point, the polar axis of Mars, with only two tiny moons to dampen its spin excursions, seems to have gone through many wild swings, as indicated in the figure. What deadly climatic changes must have wracked our sister planet! (Touma, Jihad, and Wisdom, Jack; "The Chaotic Obliquity of Mars," Science, 259: 1294, 1993. Also: Laskar, J., and Robutel, P.; "The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets," Nature, 361:608, ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf087/sf087a04.htm
... solar system was the epitome of stability -- wayward planets were impossible. Then along came chaos theory which implied that the flight of a butterfly in Brazil could, in principle, affect weather in Canada. In effect, a slight change in initial conditions could, in the fullness of time, have very large effects. Now, it is generally admitted that the solar system is chaotic after all. Each planet is subject to the tiny, butterfly-like gravitational tugs of the other planets, especially Jupiter. Given enough time, these gravitational nuances can result in the ejection of a planet from the solar system -- and may already have done so in the past! Mercury and Mars are the most vulnerable on a billion-year time scale. In the case of Mercury, its orbit will become more and more elliptical according to computer simulations. Eventually a close gravitational encounter with Venus is possible. This could send Mercury careening off into deep space. The probability of this happening is only 1 in a 1000 over 5 billion years, but it is not zero. Mars might likewise be ejected by a passing nudge from earth. However, this encounter could go the other way. Depending upon the celestial dynamics of the encounter, Mars might gravitationally fling earth out into the Galaxy, and our planet would truly become "Spaceship Earth." (Frank, Adam; "Crack in the Clockwork," Astronomy, 26:54, May 1998.) Comment. The computer simulations used in the foregoing study have to assume that we know all the forces acting in the ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf120/sf120p03.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life Currents In Space A few of the hundreds of meteorites picked up in the Antarctic wastes have chemical properties consistent with a Martian origin. Calculations, too, support the notion that a large meteoric impact could propel bits of the Martian surface into space where, statistically speaking, a tiny fraction would be captured by the earth's gravitational field. Some of these would fall to earth; others would remain in orbit. Now, the reverse scenario has been investigated numerically. S.A . Phinney and colleagues at the University of Arizona have calculated what would happen to small chunks of the earth's crust if a large meteor impact excavated a 60milewide crater. "Phinney's group used a computer to calculate where 1,000 particles would go if ejected from Earth in random directions, moving about 2.5 kilometers per second faster than the minimum speed necessary to escape. Of the 1,000 hypothetical particles, 291 hit Venus and 165 returned to Earth; 20 went to Mercury, 17 to Mars, 14 to Jupiter and 1 to Saturn. Another 492 left the solar system completely, primarily due to gravitational close encounters with either Jupiter or Mercury that 'slingshot' them on their way." (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Have Earth Rocks Gone to Mars?" Science News, 135:191, 1989.) Comment. One implication from the preceding analysis is that terrestrial bacteria and spores could well ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf063/sf063a07.htm
... 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 ASTRONOMERS COPE WITH BOTH CHAOS AND TOO MUCH ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE The solar system . The recent advent and fast rise in popularity of chaos theory is destroying some favorite, long-sworn-to notions of astronomers. One in particular is solar-system stability. Could any of the planets pop out of their orbits and embark upon wild and unpredictable trajectories? "We can't rule it out," stated J. Wisdom, an MIT planetary scientist. (Freedman, David H.; "Gravity's Revenge," Discover, 11:54, May 1990.) Comment. Well, OK, there is a tiny theoretical chance that such an event might occur in the future, but it certainly never happened in the past. To admit such a possibility would open that Pandora's Box of vigorously suppressed catastrophic scenarios. Reference. More information on solarsystem instability may be found in ABB1 in the catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering details here . The universe as-a -whole . The disovery of the Great Wall of galaxies (SF#67) and the regular clumping of galactic matter (SF#69) has greatly surprised astronomers, who have been emphasizing how uniformly distributed galactic matter should -- according to theory, at least. Now, D.C . Koo, at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says, "The regularity is just mind- ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf071/sf071a07.htm
... , things are not quite as certain as they appear. Radiometric dating is not all that precise; errors may be large indeed. Take the Pennsylvanian period for example. It is part of the Carboniferous period, when many of the great coal deposits were laid down. The classical duration of the Pennsylvanian -- used in many texts -- is 34 million years. A meticulous new study of central European stratigraphy now pegs the Pennsylvanian as spanning only 19 million years. Now that's a 44% change! This new figure for the duration of the Pennsylvanian has already cast doubt on the origin of the famous Pennsylvanian cyclothems (repetitive strata) in North America. It had been thought that these seemingly cyclic deposits were correlated with sea level changes forced by variations in the earth's orbit (the Milankovitch periods). With this substantial compression of Pennsylvan-ian time, this correlation falls apart. The cyclothems, which are of impressive area and thickness, now seem to have been created by some other, still unrecognized phenomenon. (Klein, George deV.; "Pennsylvanian Time Scales and Cycle Periods," Geology , 18:455, 1990.) Comment. Even worse, perhaps, is the fuzziness conferred on the entire geological time scale by this compression of the Pennsylvanian and the possibility of similar revisions for other periods. From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Martian canals: is lowell vindicated?Whenever we get the opportunity, we try to clear Percival Lowell's name. Lowell may have gone too far in claiming that the canals of Mars were the labors of intelligent beings, but he definitely saw "something." Earthbound observers still see and photograph Martian canals, despite the acknowledged fact that Martian orbiters and landers saw nothing resembling canals. R. Gordon now relates how on June 6, 1967, he and a friend, W.H . McHugh, were viewing Mars through an 8-inch f/9 reflecting telescope. The thick haze reduced atmospheric transparency, but the seeing was excellent. The infamous canals were there! "Two canals stretched clearly from Sabaeus Sinus and Meridiani Sinus to the northern deserts, where they faded. A most interesting canal was Deuteronilus-Protonilus -- originating in Niliacus Lacus which ran both east and west until I lost sight of it near the limb -- we counted at least six oases on this one, strung out like beads on a string." (Gordon, Rodger; "Martian Canals: Is Lowell Vindicated?" Sky and Telescope, 75:348, 1988.) Comment. Yes, some of the canals that Lowell and others drew are still there -- not physically perhaps -- but possibly as anomalies of perception and/or camera/telescope aberrations. Reference. The Martian "canal" story is ...
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... system is modeled. The mean eruptive interval of Old Faithful has changed over time. This is consistent with the behavior of a chaotic system, which by definition must be nonstationary in the mean. Seismic activity is believed to be a perturbation shifting Old Faithful into a new chaotic state with a different shape to the strange attractor. A simple non-linear dynamic model of geyser behavior is proposed that leads to chaotic behavior and is consistent with the observations of eruption interval data for Old Faithful." (Nicholl, Michael, et al; "Is Old Faithful a Strange Attractor?" Eos, 71:466, 1990.) Comment. "Strange attractor" is a specialized term employed in chaos analysis. So, Old Faithful is not really faithful; neither are the planets in their orbits (see under Astronomy). Is there nothing left in Nature that is reliable -- just about everything is non-linear and therefore a candidate for chaotic behavior. Reference. An entire setion on geyser phenomena may be found in GHG in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Its post-eclipse brightening has long puzzled astronomers, but this short, intense flash was even more anomalous than usual. H.B . Hammel and R.M . Nelson suggest that this 1983 flash might have been the reflection of some catastrophic event occurring on the hidden half of Jupiter -- possibly the impact of some large object -- or, even more intriguing, Jovian lightning. (Hammel, H.B ., and Nelson, R.M .; "Bright Flash on Jupiter in 1983," Nature, 366:117, 1993.) Comment. Could this Jovian "lightning" actually have been an electrical spark? This thought dovetails nicely with the pair of "ghostly" infrared spots that race across Jupiter's surface in synchronism with Io's orbital motion. (See SF#91.) The two spots are believed to be the moving terminals of a gigantic electrical circuit that stretches from Jupiter's surface to Io and back again. The 1983 flash might have been a current surge in this cosmic circuit. Reference. More on Io's post-eclipse brightning can be found in AJX6 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For description of the book, see here . From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Horizon Glows Seen On The Moon The spacecraft Clementine , now engaged in surveying the moon from orbit, has apparently recorded once again a perplexing sky glow that precedes lunar sunrises and follows lunar sunsets. An astronaut standing on the moon watching the spot where the sun is about to rise would see first of all two well-recognized phenomena: the solar corona (even though the solar disc is still well below the horizon) and the zodiacal light (sunlight reflected from interplanetary dust). In addition, the astronaut would detect a glow along the horizon itself, as in the illustration. Since the moon is virtually airless, there should be none of those gas molecules and suspended dust particles that cause the sunsets and sunrises that we admire so much here on earth. Still, there must be something suspended above the moon's surface to scatter light from the sun still located just below the horizon. The best guess is that lunar dust particles are ionized by solar radiation and are repelled upwards from the surface and hang there suspended by electrostatic forces. But no one really knows for certain the cause of the glow. (Cowen, R.; "On the Horizon: Clementine Probes Moon Glow," Science News, 145:197, 1994.) Reference. Anomalous lunar horizon glows are cataloged in ALO11 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For details, visit here . From Science Frontiers #93 ...
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... collapse. Hayden and Beckmann do not dread this at all. In fact, they (and others) point out that some of the vaunted experimental "proofs" of Special Relativity can be explained in other ways. For example: (1 ) The bending of starlight passing close to the sun can easily be accounted for using Fermat's Law; and (2 ) The advance of Mercury's perihelion was explained by P. Gerber, 17 years before Einstein's 1915 paper on the subject, using classical physics and the now accepted assumption that gravity propagates at the speed of light. As for the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, Michelson (an unbeliever in Relativity) believed that he and Morley failed to detect ether drift because the ether was entrained with the earth as it orbited the sun. It is rarely mentioned that Michelson and H.G . Gale repeated the experiment in 1925 to see if ether drift could be detected as the earth rotated on its axis. They did! And Einstein was sorely tried explaining the result. A 1979 repeat of the experiment at the University of Colorado, using la-sers found "unexpected perturbations," which were blamed on "other causes." (After all, Relativity and Einstein are sacrosanct!) The gist of all this is that Hayden and Beckmann suspect that Special Relativity is founded upon quicksand. The reader should not be surprised to learn that Beckmann himself has a theory to supplant Special Relativity once it is discredited. (Bethell, Tom; "A Challenge to Einstein," National Review , p. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf073/sf073p15.htm
... 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 "COMPACT STRUCTURES": WHAT NEXT?We know that immense molecular clouds drift through interstellar space, but a new denizen has now made itself known through its ability to diffract quasar radio signals. Although constituted only of ionized gases, these new objects are called "compact structures." "' Compact means that these objects are about as big as the earth's orbit around the sun, and therefore larger than all but the biggest stars. They are, however, much smaller than the clouds that previous observations have detected in interstellar space. They reveal their presence by diffracting the radio waves coming from distant quasars. .. .. . "The objects move too fast to be near the quasar -- to be that far away, they would have to go at 500 times the speed of light -- so the observers conclude that they are in our own galaxy. Previous observers didn't see them, [R .L .] Fiedler says, because they didn't observe the same quasar at close enough intervals." If these ionized clouds are spherical. they have masses comparable to the asteroids; but, if they are elongated, their mass is anyone's guess. No one knows how they are formed, how long they last, or where the energy comes from to maintain them in an ionized state. Extrapolating from the five instances recorded so far, the observers speculate that these ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supermasses That Come And Go Quasars, black holes, violently active Seyfert galaxies, jets of matter expelled from galaxies, and many similar puzzles of modern astronomy fall into place (and reason) if one unthinkable assumption is made: the cyclic appearance and disappearance of supermasses inside galaxies. Normal galaxies seem to have masses of about 1011 times that of the sun. The unthinkable assumption suggests that every 108 years or so, these ordinary, unassuming galaxies become supermassive (about 1013 solar masses) for several million years. When the core of a galaxy becomes supermassive, its stars are tugged into tight new orbits. The subsequent switching off of the supermass allows the galaxy to expand outwards again. The author claims to have found just such expansion effects among the globular clusters in our own galaxy. His data are striking and quite convincing. The notorious "missing mass" problem of cosmology disappears with the cyclic supermass assumption because the time-averaged mass of each galaxy will be much higher than that observed in its normal enervated state. Doesn't this sudden temporary appearance of mass violate the laws of physics? No, says the author, physicists habitually assume a superfluid, superconducting vacuum state, which is the ultimate source of all mass-energy, when they develop their theories of fundamental particles. If particle physicists can (and must) evoke such magic, so can astronomers. (Clube, Victor; "Do We Need a Revolution in ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rings of uranus: invisible and impossible?Now that they have discovered nine rings around Uranus, astronomers are having trouble explaining them. First, if they are made up of small chunks of matter, the laws of celestial mechanics dictate that they should quickly spread out radially into much wider rings in just a decade or two. In other words, if the rings are ancient they should not have maintained their present form. Second, the rings are invisible when one would expect them to be bright like Saturn's . Yet, they reflect less light than the blackest coal dust. T.C . Van Flandern proposes that each ring is actually a single satellite, so small that we cannot see it, and that it sheds gases as it orbits. This small solid body would make the celestial mechanics people happy, and the gases would be invisible to the eye but still absorb light, making the ring of gases detectable when Uranus occults a star. (Van Flandern, Thomas C.; "Rings of Uranus: Invisible and Impossible?" Science, 204:1076, 1979.) Comment. An alternative explanation is that the rings are recently acquired and will soon disappear. An 1847 observation of a ring around Uranus exists, but a datum this old carries little weight. See our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets for this old sighting. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Gravity Waves Correlated with Geomagnetic Storms Effects of Comets upon Geomagnetic Activity Effects of Lunar Eclipses upon Geomagnetic Activity Effect of Solar Flares upon the Potential Gradient Effect of Geological Features upon Geomagnetic Activity Effects of Earthquakes upon the Potential Gradient Effect of Volcanism upon Geomagnetic Activity GG GRAVITATIONAL PHENOMENA GGF VARIATIONS IN GRAVITY Nontidal Variations of the Gravitational Field Periodic Changes in Gravity GGH MAGNETIC HILLS Spook Hill and Kin GH PHENOMENA OF THE HYDROSPHERE GHC UNUSUAL PHENOMENA OF WATER SURFACES GHC1 Foam Strips on Inland Waters GHC2 Streaks, Slicks, Calm Patches GHC3 Stratified Typhoon Waves GHC4 Sudden Whitening of Dead Sea GHC5 Dead Water and Slippery Seas GHC6 Bulging River Surfaces GHC7 Swiftly Traveling Surface Disturbances GHC8 Honeycomb Appearance of Flowing Water Remarkable Convection Patterns in Ponds Long Lines of Microorganisms on the Ocean Surface Massive Foam Accumulations Storm Footprints on the Ocean as Seen from Orbit Remarkable Falling and Rising Lake Levels Parting of the Red Sea Reversal of Niagra Falls and Related Phenomena GHG GEYSERS, PERIODIC WELLS, BLOWING CAVES GHG1 Geysers at Sea GHG2 Geysers and Blowing Wells Correlated with Weather Phenomena GHG3 Geysers and Intermittent Wells Correlated with Tidal Forces GHG4 Cold-Water Geysers and Periodic Springs and Wells [GHQ6] Hydrothermal Earthquake Precursors Hydrothermal Explosions Effect of Earthquakes upon Geyser Activity GHS THE BEWILDERING VARIETY OF TIDES GHS1 Sun-Dominated Tides GHS2 Sea and Lake Seiches... GHS3 Spectacular Tidal Bores GHS4 Diurnal, Triple, and Quadruple Tides GHS5 Long-Period Tides of Unexpected Strengths GHS6 Tides That Precede the Moon Extraordinary Tsunamis Tsunami Cycles GHT OCEAN TURBULENCE AND CIRCULATION PHENOMENA GHT1 Extraordinary Deep Circulation Events GHT2 Sonar-Detected Subsurface Oceanic Structures GHT3 Nonvolcanic Underwater Eruptions GHT4 Anomalous El Ninos GHT5 The ...
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... water on Mars * The grooves on Phobos * The two faces of Mars * Lunar clouds, mists, "weather" * Ring of light around the new moon * Dark transits of Jovian satellites * Io's energetic volcanos * Jupiter as a "failed star" * Venus-earth resonance Comments from reviews: "The author is to be commended for his brilliantly conceived and researched volume", Science Books. 383 pages, hardcover, $18.95, 80 illustrations, 4 indexes 1985. 988 references, LC 85-61380, ISBN 915554-19-4 , 7x10 format. The Sun and Solar System Debris: A Catalog of Astronomical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Our sun, powerhouse of the Solar System and an enigma itself, is orbited by clouds of asteroids, comets, meteors and space dust These "minor objects" cause "major headaches" to astronomers searching for explanations. Typical subjects covered: Solar svstem resonances * Bode's Law and other regularities * Blackness of comet nuclei * Cometary activity far from solar influences * Unidentified objects crossing sun * The 'missing' solar neutrinos * Pendulum phenomena during solar eclipses * Observations of Planet X * Meteorite geographical anomalies * Meteorites from the moon * Long fireball processions * Very long duration meteorites * Zodiacal light brightness changes * [Picture caption: One of the many possible modes of solar surface oscillation] Comments from reviews: "It is an unusual book, nicely executed, and I recommend it highly", Icarus. 288 pages, hardcover, $17.95, ...
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