62 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pairs Of Ghostly Spots Sweep Across Jupiter Atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea, NASA's Infra-red Telescope Facility has detected a pair of infrared-bright spots that race across Jupiter's upper atmosphere in tune with the motion of Io, one of Jupiter's large, Galilean satellites. This synchronism suggests some sort of energy interchange between Io and the top of Jupiter's atmosphere. The theory now in vogue states that Jupiter's rotating magnetic field induces a voltage across 2300-mile-diameter Io, resulting in an electrical current of some 5 million amperes flowing between Io and Jupiter, some 262,000 miles away. In this bizarre electrical circuit, the two moving "terminals" on Jupiter, in the northern and southern hemispheres, are heated by the current flow and show up as fuzzy infrared-bright spots. (Cowen, R.; "Jupiter and Io: Infrared Spots Mark Link," Science News, 144: 325, 1993.) Comment. In passing, it should be remarked that Io is mantled by a cloud of electrically conducting sodium vapor. A weird moon in other respects, too, Io occasionally casts double shadows on Jupiter's upper atmosphere during transits. See AJX4 in The Moon and the Planets. In addition, in AJX2, infrared-hot shadows of the satellites Ganymede and Europa are mentioned. Very strange! To order The Moon and the Planets ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Has jupiter flashed before?Well, not Jupiter itself but its strange Galilean satellite Io. On July 26, 1983, Io suddenly brightened by about 50% for just under 2 minutes. The "flash" represented an emission of energy of some 1028 ergs, which is equivalent to the impact on the satellite of an ice mass 5-kilometers in diameter moving at 60 km/sec. This collision interpretation is encouraged by the 1994 impacts of cometary fragments on Jupiter proper. In the case of Io, however, there is another possibility: electrical arcing. Io's volcanoes are prodigious spewers of metallic sodium, and T. Gold has speculated that colossal arcs may occur in this conducting environment as Io cuts through Jupiter's magnetic field. (See Science Frontiers #10. (O 'Brien, Roger; "Has Jupiter Flashed Before?" British Astronomical Association, Journal, 104:6 , 1994.) Comment. Io is also noted for its erratic brightening after it emerges from Jupiter's shadow. For more on Io's so-called "post-eclipse brightening," see p. 67 in the book Science Frontiers and the catalog volume The Moon and the Planets, both described here . From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Jovian lightning or cosmic short circuit?In July, 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is scheduled to meet a fiery end as it plunges into Jupiter's atmosphere. Since this cataclysm is predicted to occur on Jupiter's far side, the pyrotechnics will be largely hidden from our telescopes. Yet, if any of Jupiter's four large Galilean satellites are swinging behind Jupiter during the comet's impact, but still visible to us by virtue of their distances from Jupiter, we might see one or more of these moons suddenly brighten due to light reflected from the incineration below. This very well might happen, and something similar has happened before. On July 26, 1983, just 6 minutes after it emerged from behind Jupiter, the Galilean satellite, Io, suddenly brightened by 50% -- a "flash" that lasted 118 seconds. Now, Io is notoriously fickle brightness-wise. 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 ...
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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 Seeing Double And Even Triple On Jupiter Sometimes the shadows cast by Jupiter's satellites on the face of the planet during transit are doubled or, more rarely, tripled. This article draws attention to several recent observations of this most perplexing phenomenon. W.E . Fox points out that these multiple shadows are really not all that uncommon. He does not try to explain them. (Fox, W.E .; "Jupiter: Double and Triple Satellite Phenomena," British Astronomical Association, Journal, 88:360, 1978.) Reference. Our Catalog, The Moon and the Planets, records several observations of double shadows in Section AJX. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Long Arms Of Venus And Jupiter Many times in the two or three "scientific" centuries now behind us, investigators have discovered, almost against their wills, that the moon and planets affect the earth. The moon's influence is understandable, but the planets are too far away for their gravitational fields to influence one terrestrial dust mote. Well, here is one more study showing that the planets (Venus and Jupiter, in this case) do affect the peak electron density in the earth's ionosphere. The effect is most noticeable when these planets are close to earth and dwindles as they swing around to the other side of the sun. The authors are at a loss to explain this effect in terms of gravitation, suggesting that perhaps Venus or Jupiter may instead affect solar activity, which in turn modifies the terrestrial ionosphere. (Harnischmacher, E., and Rawer, K.; "Lunar and Planetary Influences upon the Peak Electron Density of the Ionosphere," Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Electricity, 43:643, 1981.) Comment. Actually, no one has shown how the planets can possibly influence the sun with known action-at-a -distance forces. Electrical forces are taboo. There are no other "recognized" forces. From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Dark Secret Behind Jupiter When Jupiter's satellite Io ducks into Jupiter's shadow, something mysterious happens. Some of the time, but not always, Io emerges from the shadow about 10% brighter than when it entered. In 10-20 minutes, its brightness decays to normal levels. One suspicion is that SO2 in Io's atmosphere condenses on the planet's surface when it is in the cold shadow, thus coating some dark areas with a bright sulfurous 'frost.' However, a recent measure of Io's post-eclipse brightness detected no brightness change whatsoever. Apparently we have a real but rather unreliable phenomenon. (Morrison, Nancy D., and Morrison, David; "Io; Post-Eclipse Brightening Still Mysterious," Mercury, 11:27, 1982.) Reference. Io's post-eclipse brightening is cataloged at AJX6 in The Moon and the Planets. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Comets, asteroids, or neither?Like supernova 1987A, also mentioned in this issue, comet P/Shoemaker-Levi-9 is generating headlines in the scientific and popular media. Everyone expected that the impact of this comet on Jupiter would provide us with some very interesting phenomena, but most thought that the debris kicked up by the impacts would reveal something new about Jupiter -- not about comets, since everyone knows what they are! Instead, the long-held theory that comets are simply dirty iceballs is now questioned. Shoemaker-Levi-9 was originally classified as a comet because: (1 ) Its fragments all appeared to be surrounded by comas like all well-behaved comets; and (2 ) It was easily torn apart by Jupiter's strong gravitational field as it narrowly missed Jupiter in 1992. This is just what one would expect from a loosely compacted dirty iceball. But doubts about Shoemaker-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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Australasian tektites coughed up by a moon of jupiter?The Australasian tektites are glassy blobs found on or near the surface of the ground from the Philippines, through southeast Asia, all the way to Tasmania. Similar but much smaller "microtektites" appear in deapsea de posits in the adjacent oceans. Radiometric and fission-track dating indicate that the tektites solidified about 700,000 years ago. Yet, their geological age, as measured by the age of the terrestrial sediments in which they are found, is only a few thousand years. This great disparity in age engendered a confrontation between geologists and geophysicists. The latter insisted on their 700,000-year figure; the former said "maybe so" but the tektites are still found only in very young, superficial sediments. The point here is that time-of-solidification may not be the same as time-of-fall. At stake is the prevailing theory, now dogmatically proclaimed, that tektites are created when a large asteroid impacts the earth, ejecting molten droplets of rock which shower back to earth as solidified tektites. No one has ever found a suitably large crater ( 200 miles in diameter) assignable to the Australasian tektite strewn field. Nevertheless, the impact model prevails; and the young geological age of the tektites is dismissed as erroneous. A Soviet scientist, E.P . Izokh, has recently proposed a radically different scenario that would produce both ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Radar glories on jupiter's moons "Three ice-covered moons of Jupiter, in comparison with rocky planets and the Earth's moon, produce radar echoes of astounding strengths and bizarre polarizations. Scattering from buried craters can explain these and other anomalous properties of the echoes. The role of such craters is analogous to that of the water droplets that create the apparition known as 'the glory,' the optically bright region surrounding an observer's shadow on a cloud." Eshleman, Von R.; "Radar Glory from Buried Craters on Icy Moons," Science, 234:587, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ganymede Magnetic Paradox In December 1995, the Galileo space-craft was injected into orbit around Jupiter, thereby becoming the first known artificial satellite of this giant planet. In the five years that have transpired, Galileo has radioed back voluminous data about Jupiter itself and its four large Calilean satellites. These natural satellites have turned out to be a disparate bunch. Three have iron cores, but Callisto breaks the mold with an unusual core of mixed ice and rock. Europa probably possesses an ocean, and Callisto might also. Only one of Jupiter's large satellites, Ganymede, boasts a magnetic field. In fact, Ganymede is apparently the only satellite in the solar system to display an intrinsic, dipole magnetic field like the earth's . Although Ganymere's magnetic field is like that produced by a permanent bar magnet, its core is much too hot for permanent magnetism. Again like the earth, Ganymede's field is theorized to be generated by the convection of electrically conducting liquid in its core -- a dynamo of sorts. All well and good, but Ganymede is so small that it should have cooled off billions of years ago thereby freezing its metallic core. So then, whence its magnetic field? One way out of this box it to suppose that about a billion years ago Ganymede was circling Jupiter in an orbit that took it much closer to this ponderous planet. Then, Jupiter's powerful ...
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... 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 Comet Source ACB13 Cometary Perturbations Suggestive of Planet X ACB14 Rapid Attrition of the Oort Cloud by Molecular Clouds ACB15 Dynamical Improbability of the Oort Cloud ACO OBSERVATIONAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACO1 Two-Dimensional Comet Tails ACO2 Cometary Activity Far from Solar Influence ACO3 Comets without Nuclei ACO4 Absence of Meteorites from Comet-Related Showers ACO5 Contraction of Cometary Comas as the Sun is Approached ACO6 Unexplained Abundance of Short-Period Comets ACO7 Persistence of Long-Period Comets Despite Attrition from Molecular Clouds ACO8 Seriality of Cometary Apparitions ACO9 Multiple Tails and Antitails ACO10 Ejection of Spherical Halos ACO11 Correlation of Terrestrial ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets The two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are 318 and 95 times more massive than the earth, respectively. Being so weighty they strongly perturb the orbits of comets, deflecting many away from the inner solar system, where we reside. Calculations by G. Wetherill, at the Carnegie Institution, reveal that if Jupiter and Saturn were only 15 times the mass of the earth, the earth would have been devastated every 100,000 years by giant comets, instead of about every 100,000,000 years, as indicated by the geological record. Under such intense bombardment, it would probably have been difficult for advanced life forms to develop. (Croswell, Ken; "Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets," New Scientist, p. 18, October 24, 1992.) Comment. Reasonable as the foregoing assertion sounds, we do not really know what stimulates the development of new life forms. Actually, the fossil record reveals that some biological "radiations" occurred soon after great geological upheavals. That the Jupiter-Saturn "shield" was and is not completely effective is indicated by the heavy debris traffic mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 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 Post-eclipse brightening of io confirmed For about 15 minutes after Jupiter's satellite Io emerges from the planet's shadow after an eclipse, it unaccountably brightens far beyond its normal level. Observing Io with a spectrophotometer in 1978, F.C . Witteborn et al measured a brightness increase in the 4.7 -5 .4 micron range that was three to five times the brightness at other phase angles. Long a controversial phenomenon, this confirmation of Io's post-eclipse brightening has led to a search for possible explanations. Witteborn et al suggest that the transient flare-up is a complex thermoluminescent effect excited by interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere, followed by solar heating as Io emerges from the shadow. (Witteborn, F.C . et al; "Io: An Intense Brightening near 5 Micrometers," Science, 203:643, 1979.) Comment. Io also modulates Jupiter's microwave emissions. From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unbelievable Baalbek The city of Baalbek, called Heliopolis by the ancient Greeks, lies some 50 miles northeast of Beirut. Here are ruins of the greatest temple the Romans ever tried to construct. However, we must focus not on mundane Roman temples but upon a great assemblage of precisely cut and fitted stones, called the Temple today, which the Romans found ready-made for them when they arrived at Baalbek. It was upon this Temple, or stone foundation, that the Romans reared their Temple of Jupiter. No one knows the purpose of the much older Temple underneath the Roman work. J. Theisen has reviewed the basic facts known about the Temple's construction -- and they are impressive, perhaps even anomalous. Being 2,500 feet long on each side, the Temple is one of the largest stone structures in the world. Some 26 feet above the structure's base are found three of the largest stones ever employed by man. Each of these stones measures 10 feet thick, 13 feet high, and is over 60 feet long. Knowing the density of limestone permits weight estimates of over 1.2 million pounds. Some people with impressive engineering skills cut, dressed, and moved these immense stone blocks from a quarry 3/4 of a mile away. A walk to this quarry introduces the observer to the Monolith, an even larger block of limestone: 13 feet, 5 inches; 15 ...
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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 Lunar Crater Chains The recent breakup of comet Shoemaker-Levi 9 into a long procession of fragments that subsequently crashed into Jupiter (SF#95) causes one to wonder whether similar events have occurred elsewhere in the solar system. On bodies with solid surfaces, the impacts of such processions would likely result in chains of craters. Jupiter's moon, Callisto, in fact, displays a dozen or so crater chains that might be attributed to processions of projectiles. The crater chain on the floor of the lunar crater Davy (Nasa) How about our own moon? H.J . Melosh and E.A . Whitaker have studied the close-up lunar photos and found two good candidates. The more spectacular lunar crater chain stretches 47 kilometers across the floor of the crater Davy. This chain consists of about 23 pockmarks each measuring 1-3 kilometers in diameter. A similar, more degraded chain is found in the crater Abulfeda. Melosh and Whitaker suggest that: ". .. the Davy and perhaps the Abulfeda chains were created by tidally disrupted 'rubble pile' asteroids." (Melosh, H.J ., and Whitaker, E.A .; "Lunar Crater Chains," Nature, 369: 713, 1994.) Comment. It is only natural to ask if the earth itself also bears the scars inflicted by similar processions of celestial debris. In SF#80, we described one ...
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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. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What's Cooking On Europa?Data streaming back to earth from the Galileo spacecraft encode a curious fact about Europa, one of Jupiter's large, Galilean satellites. The nighttime flow of heat from Europa's polar regions is 1 watt/meter2 higher than can be accounted for by all known mechanisms, such as the tidal heating created as Jupiter's powerful gravitational field flexes the satellite's integument. (Anonymous; "Cozy Nights," New Scientist, p. 27, June 5, 1999.) Comment. What is happening beneath Europa's icy surface? "Something wonderful"? Recall that in the film 2010, humans were "given" all worlds except Europa. Was A.C . Clarke prescient again? From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB 2000 . 1997 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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... , there seems to be a great dearth of small, cool, solid, water-and-carbon-rich planets circling beneficent suns. Can it be that we are looking for extraterrestrial life in the wrong places? Life may have originated and prospered on the multitude of sun-less aggregations of matter drifting through the void, some doubtless quite close to us. Myriad nomadic planets may be roaming our Galaxy free from the clutches of parent stars. Two teams of astronomers think they have detected 25 of these free-floating planets, and say there could be hundreds of millions of them wandering the Milky Way. These free-floaters or "drifters" were created when small clouds of gas and dust coalesced under gravity's urging. If such collapsing clouds were less than 80 times Jupiter's mass, they would not be able to sustain nuclear reactions and become long-lived stars. Many would be-come "brown dwarfs." Still smaller aggregations -- less than 14 Jupiters -- would never shine at all. These would remain warm for a while as they dissipated the gravitational energy that created them. Such small objects would be temporarily detectable by infrared telescopes. Hundreds of such infrared "point sources" turn up in sky surveys. These are the only "drifters" we can detect. "Drifters" that have already cooled off are certainly out there by the hundreds of millions. (Muir, Hazel; "The Drifters," New Scientist, p. 14, April 1, 2000.) Comments. Science-fiction writers have not ...
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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 Ribbons In The Sky November 18, 1999. North Atlantic Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Waterford enroute from Pto Bolivar, Columbia, to Ijmuiden. At 1832 UTC an azimuth of Jupiter was taken shortly after sunset. The sky in the vicinity of Jupiter was completely clear, no cloud of any type, with but a few small cumulus dotted around the horizon. About five minutes later, having completed the calculations, the observer again looked out to see a ribbon type cloud, broken in formation, stretching almost from [the] eastern horizon to [the] western horizon. If the estimated height (see below) is reasonably correct, then the bandwidth couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, apparently more cigar-shaped in cross section than flat, the maximum axis being horizontal, the minimum vertical. The cloud was fairly consistent in density, and at a fairly stable altitude, not undulating or rippled, having the consistency of a small cumulus cloud (white and fleecy), but also translucent. Initially, it was thought to be a condensation trail, but this was shortly dismissed as it was considered too low (estimated to be less than 10,000 ft altitude, probably around 7,0008,000 ft). Both ends of the cloud were checked with binoculars but no aircraft was evident; however, as a yardstick, and by good fortune, one did appear ...
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... steadily on the earth's atmosphere? (Northrop, T.G ., and Connerey, J.E .P .; "A Micrometeorite Erosion Model and the Age of Saturn's Rings," Icarus, 70:124, 1987.) From Mars. Inside the vast Valles Marineris Canyon complex, Viking Orbiter photos have picked out wind-blown patches of dark material. These patches are strung out along faults for some 200 kilometers. Astronomers believe they are volcanic vents, which are a scant few million years old. (Anonymous; "Recent Volcanism on Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1985.) Comment. Another of the surprisingly large number of youthful features in the solar system. From Europa. The surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean satellites, seems to be covered with a relatively smooth veneer of ice. Beneath this frigid skin, according to one theory, lie about 100 kilometers of liquid water. Why hasn't this water frozen completely, given the trifling sunlight at Jupiter's distance from the sun? Tidal stresses provide some heat but not enough; unless, of course, Europa's orbit was much more eccentric in recent times. (Anonymous; "Oceans under the Crust of Europa," Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1987.) Comment. An alternate possibility is that Europa's ice and water inventories are recent acquisitions, like Saturn's rings! From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 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 A Curious String Of Coincidences The journal Nature is not the place where one usually finds mention of bizarre coincidences. Nature's nature is supposed to be exclusively rational -- completely dedicated to a cause-and-effect universe. Yet, there it was: A letter from A. Scott calling attention to the fact that three fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter almost precisely 25 years after three crucial events in the Apollo-11 moon landing mission. Fact #1 . Comet fragment 1 impacted the same day as the Apollo-11 launch, but 25 years later. Fact #2 . The largest comet fragment hit Jupiter 25 years to the minute after the actual landing. Fact #3 . The final comet fragment hit almost precisely 25 years after lift-off from the lunar surface. "So the start, climax and end of the series of impacts coincided exactly with the start, climax and end (in the sense of departure from the Moon) of the Apollo-11 mission to the Moon." (Scott, Andrew; "Strange But True," Nature, 371:97, 1994.) Comment. Truly, nature works in mysterious ways. Are these incredible coincidences a transcendental beckoning, like the monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey ? Wait a minute, it was no other than Arthur C. Clarke, who first pointed out Fact #2 above. And what ...
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... 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, ...
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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 Io's electrical volcanos Thomas Gold, of Cornell, long known for his provocative theories, has not disappointed us in this paper. Jupiter's moon, Io, exhibits an anomaly that seems to call for a radical explanation. Io's volcanos erupt with such violence that molten material is flung to heights of 250 kilometers. These outbursts proceed from caldera, and one is led to assume that normal volcanic action is to blame. Unfortunately for this simplistic idea, Io does not seem to possess low-molecular-weight substances, such as water, that could serve as a good propellant at reasonable temperatures. Sulphur is common, but its atomic weight is so high that temperatures exceeding 6000 K would be required to shoot matter out to 250 kilometers. Gold suggests that Io's volcanos get their firepower from electrical sources. He points out that Io short-circuits Jupiter's ring current periodically. Gold estimates that 5 million amperes flow through Io when it passes through the ring current. The energetic eruptions and caldera might therefore be electric-arc phenomena. The electrical energies available are sufficient to account for the observed outbursts. (Gold, Thomas; "Electrical Origin of the Outbursts on Io," Science, 206:1071, 1979.) Comment. Several scientists and non-scientists have proposed in the past that the sunspots and even some planetary craters result from large-scale electrical arcing within the solar system ...
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... 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 have infected every planet in the solar system and perhaps even planets in nearby star systems! Conceivably, if other star systems had histories like ours, biological traffic might be quite heavy in interstellar space. In fact, extraterrestrial life forms may be arriving here continually; and we may be such ourselves! From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Target Earth Let Jupiter take care of itself! What about us -- Terra, the third planet? A February article in Sky and Telescope begins: "Military satellites have been watching huge meteoroids slam into the Earth's atmosphere for nearly two decades." Secret until recently, infrared scanner data from military satellites have detected 136 atmospheric explosions since 1975 with yields of 1 kiloton or more. There may actually have been as many as four times this number, because the satellites are programmed to look for unnatural events, such as nuclear detonations. They often ignore extraterrestrial projectiles. Why aren't earthbound observers aware of all these atmospheric explosions? Because most are infrared events; few emit enough visible light to attract the attention of ground-based observers. However, two of these "secret" meteoric events might explain some Fortean phenomena recorded over the last two centuries. April 15, 1978. Over Indonesia. A military satellite watched a colossal daylight fireball that, for one second only, would have rivaled the sun to anyone watching from the ground below and alert to such phenomena. The TNT yield was estimated at 5 kilotons. August 3, 1963. Between South Africa and Antarctica. A huge airburst equivalent to a 500 kilotons was picked up by a worldwide network of acoustic detectors. The cosmic interloper this time was believed to have been a small asteroid about 20 meters in diameter. (Beatty, J. Kelly ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An exploded planet and the "face on mars"Between Mars and Jupiter swirls the main main asteroid belt. In the view of many astronomers, including T. Van Flandern, there resides the debris of an exploded planet. Van Flandern has adduced considerable evidence supporting the exploded planet hypothesis, which we will pass over in favor of a look at the possible effects of said exploding planet upon a large but equally hypothetical satellite of said planet. Such a satellite would have been heavily pelted by debris on the side facing the exploding planet. Furthermore, this battered sphere, having lost its gravitational "anchor," would assume a new orbit around the sun as well as a new orientation in space. Is there any object in the solar system plastered mainly on one side with debris and craters? You guessed it: Mars! What possible connection could there be between this purported cataclysm and the "face on Mars"? The connecting thread is very weak but so beguiling that we must mention it. T. Van Flandern has proposed eight tests for the artificiality of the "face" and its associated "pyramids," "city," etc. One is the three-dimensionality of the "face." Another is the "fractal" test, which is useful in distinguishing between artificiality and naturalness. The "face" readily passes four of the eight tests. A fifth test (bilateral symmetry) cannot be decided ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Planetary Conjunctions that Changed the World On May 17, 2000, five solar-system planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) plus the moon slowly wheeled into a tight 19 arc. It was a notable heavenly conjunction. All manner of natural catastrophes were predicted but failed to materialize. It has been this way down recorded history. Universal deluges were anticipated during similar conjunctions on September 14, 1186, and February 19, 1524, but the weather refused to cooperate with the planets. Humanity survived nicely. This does not mean that historical upheavals are never correlated with planetary conjunctions. If a society believes strongly enough in the power of the stars and planets to shape human destiny, events may be correlated with the heavens. Such was the case in ancient China. In China, the "Mandate of Heaven" concept has been used since ancient times as both a framework for history and a guide to future actions. The basic idea is that Heaven awards ruling power to a sage-king because of his virtue. His descendants remain as Earthly deputies until they become corrupted, whereupon outraged Heaven gives signs in the sky that the Mandate has passed on to a different sage-king to continue the cycle. Three transfers of the Heavenly Man-date marked the beginnings of the Hsu, Shang, and Chou Dynasties. In fact, the tightest grouping of the five visible planets in the period from 3, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eight Little Craters All In A Row The recent impact upon Jupiter of a procession of chunks from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 has encouraged geologists to look for crater chains here on earth. Such have been spotted on the moon, and it is unlikely the earth escaped such bar rages. Of course, older terrestrial craters are harder to identify due to the ceaseless geological activity here on earth. In the first 1996 number of Geophysical Research Letters, M.R . Rampino and T. Volk describe a possible swath of meteoric devastation across the North American Midwest. "Eight circular geologic structures ranging from about 3 to 17 km in diameter, showing evidence of outwarddirected deformation and intensive brecciation, lie within a linear swath stretching about 700 km across the United States from southern Illinois through Missouri to eastern Kansas. Based on their similar geological characteristics and the presence of diagnostic and/or probable evidence of shock, these structures, once classified as 'crypto volcanic' or 'cryptoexplosion' structures, are more confidently ascribed to hypervelocity impact. No other similar occurrence of aligned features is known, and we calculate the probability of a chance alignment to be less than 10- 9 ." The craters are all roughly the same age: 310-330 million years. Rampino and Volk suspect they were formed all at once by a string of asteroids or comets. (Rampino, Michael R., and Volk, Tyler; "Multiple Impact ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology New world culture old Fantastic claim by explorer Archeological riddle The ancient-humans-in-europe controversy Astronomy Direct observations of hyperion's chaotic motion A NEW QUASAR DISTANCE RECORD: A NEW EMBARRASSMENT Explaining lunar flashes with life-savers Astronomers up against the "great wall" Biology Dna on cell surfaces Really-deep rivers Geology We live atop a chemical retort Australasian tektites coughed up by a moon of jupiter? Microorganisms complicate the k-t boundary Continuity at the conrad discontinuity Geophysics Eyewitness account of cropcircle formation Possible ball lightning in ankara Psychology Solar activity and bursts of human creativity Geomagnetic activity related to mental activity Psychotherapy may delay cancer deaths Physics A WATCHED ATOM IS AN INHIBITED ATOM General A HUNGARIAN UFO ...
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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 Tilted Planetary Magnetic Fields The axis of the earth's magnetic field is tilted about 11 away from our planet's axis of rotation. This tilt is embarrassing to the reigning "dynamo theory," in which the axes of the magnetic field and rotation are presumed to be aligned. The situation is even worse with some the other planets; viz., Uranus with 60 and Neptune with 47 . Jupiter's tilt is 10 , while Saturn's is only 1 . Clearly, something is awry. Two possibilities are: (1 ) The dynamo theory is incorrect; or (2 ) The magnetic fields measured by spacecraft are actually combinations of central, dynamocreated, dipole fields, which are aligned with the axes of rotation, and "other" dipole fields originating in the outermost portions of the planetary cores. If the latter solution to the dilemma is correct, we must account for the origin and disposition of these "other" dipoles. (Eberhart, J.; "Straightening the Magnetic Tilts of Planets," Science News, 137:294, 1990.) Reference. The anomalously titled magnetic fields of planets are cataloged in The Moon and the Planets. For details on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects In The Dark About Dark Matter During our last two-month collecting cycle, four "dark matter" items worth mentioning turned up. A wider search undoubtedly would have netted many more, because dark matter is worrying a lot of astronomers. Observations of visible matter, the only kind we can see directly, suggest that most of the universe is, in fact, composed of dark matter. This conclusion comes mainly from the belief that something unseen (dark matter) is tugging on visible matter, making it do things the laws of motion say it should not do. All visible bodies, therefore, seem to be careening about in a dense cloud of unseen, unknown masses. These might be dark, Jupiter-sized objects, black holes, and/or some exotic forms of matter. We must choose between the reality of dark matter or admit that something is awry with our laws of gravitation and motion when they are applied on a cosmological scale Now, let us examine those four darkmatter items from the recent literature: D. Lin, a University of California astronomer, has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits around our own galaxy (the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Alien Meteors Meteors or shooting stars are usually considered to be small fragments that have been broken off the asteroids plying orbits between Mars and Jupiter. If this belief is correct, meteors darting into the earth's upper atmosphere would have speeds less than 260,000 kilometers per hour. Any objects with significantly higher velocities must come outside the solar system. It has, therefore, been unsettling to find that quite a few meteors hit our atmosphere at speeds much higher than 260,000 km/hr. Radar measurements of 160,000 meteors by A. Taylor and colleagues, at a New Zealand site, found that about 1% (1500 meteors) struck the atmosphere with velocities greater than 350,000 km/hr. These speedsters must come from beyond the solar system. The question arising is: Whence all this interstellar debris? One hint comes from the fact that the aliens appear to come from the direction in which the sun and its family of planets are traveling through interstellar space. Evidently, this interstellar medium is far from a vacuum; it is strewn with flotsam and jetsam -- but from what smashed planets, moons, and asteroids? (Samson, Alan; "Radar Traps Visitors from Outer Space," Dominion Sun Times (Wellington), April 25, 1993. (Cr. P. Hassall) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Dna undermines key paradigms Did captive christians and moslems build this mayan pyramid? A LARGE CELTIC PYRAMID IN GERMANY? Astronomy Two-faced planets and moons Pairs of ghostly spots sweep across jupiter Biology Some people are brighter than others Crayfish communication Pizzaspermia! The earth's biosphere, 'tis no thin veneer Geology Do earthquakes raise mima mounds? Geophysics Remarkable hailstones Lightning stalled aircraft Post-lightning glows Fiber fall ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The shattering of 951 gaspra 951 Gaspra is an irregular asteroid with an average radius of 6.1 kilometers. Located at the inner edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Gaspra is believed to be composed mainly of olivine, pyroxene, and nickel-iron. Shape model of Gaspra showing the locations of the grooves. On October 29, 1991, the Galileo spacecraft swept past 951 Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers, snapping photographs as it went. J. Veverka et al report below on what the photos showed: "We report the discovery of grooves in Galileo high-resolution images of Gaspra. These features, previously seen only on Mars' satellite Phobos, are most likely related to severe impacts. Grooves on Gaspra occur as linear and pitted depressions, typically 100-200 m wide, 0.8 to 2.5 km long, and 10-20 m deep. Most occur in two major groups, one of which trends approximately parallel to the asteroid's long axis, but is offset by some 15 , the other is approximately perpendicular to this trend. The first of these directions falls along a family of planes which parallel three extensive flat facets identified by Thomas et al. The occurrence of grooves on Gaspra is consistent with other indications (irregular shape, cratering record) that this asteroid has evolved through a violent collisional history." (Veverka, J., et al ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Microbes threaten radiocarbon dating Astronomy Has jupiter flashed before? A POT POURRI OF MARTIAN CUSIOSITIES (AND WE DON'T MEAN "FACES" AND "PYRAMIDS") Biology Anomalous larvae and the burning of heretics When humans were an endangered species Straight from the horse's ear The watchmaker is not blind after all! Geology Weird icicles Giant sea-bed pockmarks Geophysics Anomalous phenomena associated with the 1908 tunguska event How can the moon affect the earth's temperature? Kobe quake jostles the geo- magnetic field Superhail Physics When different universes rub together Another starchy anomaly Unclassified Unidentified object ...
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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. 7: June 1979 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Where Did Chief Joseph Get A Cuniform Tablet? Rameses Ii Hooked on Tobacco Ancient Rock Cairns in the California Desert Astronomy Post-eclipse Brightening of Io Confirmed Seeing Double and Even Triple on Jupiter White Area in Bottom of Martian Crater Biology The Deadly Sun What Drummer Do Periodical Cicadas Hear? The Moon and Life Geology Unwanted Noise on the Terrestrial Tape Recorder Geophysics Solar Activity Triggers Microearthquakes More Milky Seas Seen The Sun Controls the Earth's Global Electrical Circuit Psychology Bpm equals dowsing Is There A Science of Anomalies? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Senegambian Megalithic Monument Complex A Celtic Frontier Site in Colorado? Astronomy A Bump in the Cosmic Background Phoebe Not Locked to Saturn Biology Descent of Man -- or Ascent of Ape? Life's Origin Within the Earth? Or Did it Drift in From Without? Geology The Burgess Shale Puzzle Iridium-rich Layers and Catastrophism Geophysics The Long Arms of Venus and Jupiter Giant Thunderstorm Clusters Offshore Booms Are Still with Us Psychology Dreams More Real Than Reality Warts on Demand? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 22: Jul-Aug 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Neanderthal Man May Still Survive in Asia Code of the Quipu The Chaco Canyon Road System Astronomy Dark Secret Behind Jupiter Where Did the 1780 Eclipse Go? Herbert Ives and the Ether Biology Bowerbird Art for Art's Sake The Nomads Within Us Geology Old Hannah's Explosions Large Changes of the Earth's Magnetic Fields in Historical Times Geophysics Ball Lightning with Internal Structure Haily Rollers How Can the Sun Influence Chemical Reaction Rates? Psychology Conditioned Responses That Short-circuit the Conscious Brain ...
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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 What causes the sunspot cycle?Even since the sunspot cycle was discovered, a few people have been trying to prove that it is caused by the influence of the planets, particularly Jupiter with its 11.86-year period. A century of various correlations has convinced almost no one. John P. Bagby has now introduced a new piece to the puzzle of solar-system cyclic behavior. While searching for possible perturbations of the planets due to a tenth major planet or a dark massive solar companion (MSC), he discovered that the perihelia of the outer planets (orbital points closest to the sun) were being disturbed with an average period of 11.2 years. This is almost exactly the sunspot period. This serendipitous finding caused Bagby to wonder whether some common influence was causing not only the sunspot cycle and those perturbations in outer-planet perihelia but also cyclic volcanic and seismic activity on earth. Some correlations indeed do indicate a sun-earth link of some sort. Bagby suggests two possibilities: (1 ) Mutual resonance effects between the planets, (2 ) The effects of a massive solar companion. (Bagby, John P.; "New Support for the Planetary Theory of Sunspots," privately circulated paper, 1983.) Comment. Even "farther out" is the thought that gravitational waves or some unrecognized influence from the galaxy or beyond causes the whole solar system to "ring." In ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Those Old Maps of Antarctica Inca Walls and Rockwall, Texas Astronomy Enormous Stellar Shell Raises Theoretical Questions Radar Glories on Jupiter's Moons Optical Bursters Halley's Confounding Fireworks Neptune's Strange Necklace Recent Explosion on Sirius? Biology Prebiological Chemistry in Titan's Atmosphere Million-cell Memories? Grounded Bats Nicheless Philosophical Confusion? Monarch Migration An Illusion Geology Moho Vicissitudes A Slice of Ocean Crust in Wyoming The NACP Anomaly Reversed Magnetization in Rocks Geophysics Geomagnetic Reversals From Impacts on the Earth Mystery Plumes and Clouds Over Soviet Territory Sailing Through A Waterspout Psychology Personality and Immunity ...
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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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... she suggests that the earth is bombarded each by 20 house-size, icy minicomets. Well, L. Frank, University of Iowa, did just that in 1986. He was duly pilloried for his trouble. But, at the 1997 spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Frank presented new data to back up his previous assertions. The most startling of his new evidence came from a camera aboard a NASA satellite. Time-lapse photos imaged two objects streaking into the atmosphere over Poland and Germany. Frank identified these as clouds of water molecules from disrupted icy minicomets. The clouds had expanded from the house-size minicomets to clouds 3550 miles wide, weighing 20-40 tons. Frank thinks the minicomets come from a cloud of such objects orbiting the sun from earth out to Jupiter and beyond. Why don't they evaporate in the sunlight and near-vacuum of outer space? Perhaps, thought Frank, they are protected by a thin coating of carbon. (Roylance, Frank D.; "Space Snowballs Theory Gains Credence," Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1997. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Is Earth Pelted by Space Snowballs?" Science News, 151:332, 1997. Thanks to all who sent in clippings. There are too many to mention here. Frank's photos also appeared on some national news programs.) Comments. We have already mentioned the minicomets several times in SF. See SF#60/275, for example. If verified, icy minicomets might well be the source of some of the ...
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... that time, then it may be concluded that the space number density of submicron sized particles must have uncreased by a factor of 105 or more. During these times the light transmission properties of the solar system would have been significantly altered resulting in major adverse effects to the earth's climate. Thus it is quite possible that these dust congestion episodes were responsible for the abrupt climatic variations which occurred toward the end of the last Ice Age." Whence these interplanetary dust clouds? The author of this article ruled out terrestrial volcanism (an insufficient source of iridium) and encounters with asteroids and cometary tails (too infrequent to account for the long periods of high dust levels). Rather, the dust source may have been the same event that created the recently discovered dust ring between Mars and Jupiter, which is believed to be only a few tens of thousands of years old. The nature of the "event" is not specified. (LaViolette, Paul A.; "Evidence of High Cosmic Dust Concentrations in Late Pleistocene Polar Ice (20,000-14,000 Years BP)," Meteoritics, 20:545, 1985.) References. See our catalog volume The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the flotsam and jetsam of outer space. This book is described here . Also see the following item on "icy meteors" which is also pertinent. From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The earth's retinue of mini-asteroids. "Asteroids as big as houses pass near the Earth 100 times more often than anyone suspected. On an average day, about 50 asteroids measuring at least 10 metres across come closer to the Earth than the Moon, and each year about five such objects may hit the planet." (Second reference below.) These startling data come from D. Rabinowitz and coworkers at the University of Arizona, who have been scanning nearby space with a telescope fitted with supersensitive charge-coupled devices (CCDs). They have picked up astronomical objects that have escaped conventional instruments. Several sources have been suggested for this unexpected, threateningly large population of small asteroids: (1 ) debris hurled earthward from collisions within the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter; (2 ) the breakup of a large object formerly in orbit about the earth; and (3 ) fragments blasted off the moon by impacts of large asteroids there. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Earth Gains a Retinue of Mini-Asteroids," Science, 258: 403, 1992. Also: Mitton, Simon; "HouseSized Asteroids Home In on the Earth," New Scientist, p. 16, October 31, 1992.) Comet Smith-Tuttle. At a conference in Sydney last October, astronomer D. Steele announced that comet SmithTuttle is heading towards a possible impact with earth on August 14, 2116. This 3.1 -mile-diameter chunk of ice would have the destructive power of 20 million megatons (1 .6 million Hiroshima ...
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... , but there are now more questions than ever. We now pose four of these -- none of them could even have been asked before the space program. Not only is the magnetic axis of Uranus tilted grotesquely away from the planet's axis of rotation, but the latter lies almost in Uranus' orbital plane. Q1. Why are the magnetic fields of Neptune and Uranus tilted at such grotesque angles with the axes of rotation? A1. Probably because of giant impacts. Q2. "Why does Mercury have an iron core twice as massive, relative to its size, as any other rocky planet?" A2. Probably because a giant impact tore off its rocky mantle. Q3. "How can Neptune sustain 1400-kilometer-per-hour winds -- faster than Jupiter's -- when it is so far from the sun, whose heat powers atmospheric circulation?" A3. ?? Q4. "How could Mars -- now more than 50 C below freezing -- have been warm enough in its early days to have water flowing on its surface?" A4. Possibly due to geothermal heat. (Kerr, Richard A.; "The Solar System's New Diversity," Science, 265:1360, 1994.) Reference. A large collection of solar-system anomalies exists in our catalog volume: The Moon and the Planets. To order, visit here . From Science Frontiers #97, JAN-FEB 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Weiss, R.; "Carbon Ratio Shows Halley May be Alien," Science News, 135:214, 1989.) As if all this were not bad enough, calculations of the amount of matter expelled from Halley and incorporated in known meteor streams allow an estimate of Halley's residence time in the inner solar system. (One has, of course, Halley's present mass, but must estimate its original mass!) The conclusion is that Halley has spent only 23,000 years in its present orbit! (Maddox, John; "Halley's Comet Is Quite Young," Nature, 339:95, 1989.) Comments. Admittedly, this is a pretty shaky calculation, but it accords with the calculation that Halley had a close encounter with Jupiter about 20,000 years ago. The manifest contradictions in the inferences made above from recent observations of Halley mean that we still have a lot to learn about comets, Halley in particular. One should also recall that the solar system has other features that may be youthful, such as Saturn's rings. (See ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets) For other cometary anomalies, see Chapter AC in our catalog volume: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Both catalog volumes are described here . From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... cold fusion and the re-cent excitement over high-temperature superconductivity demonstrate that a largely unexplored universe exists in the electrochemistry of the solid state. Favorite theories lie in shambles; faces are very red; the most elite of our scientific institutions were caught with blinders on! Beyond these amusements, the practical import for energy production is enormous, and who know what else will eventuate? But what about science itself? First, cold fusion will doubtless generate a brand new crop of anomalies which we are only able to guess at now. Pertinent to our effort to catalog anomalies, it is possible that cold fusion may be occurring deep in the earth giving rise not only to heat but the upwelling flux of helium-3 , now called "primordial" perhaps in error. The icy planets Jupiter and Saturn generate heat, too, and may also be cold fusion reactors! Even the sun, which is undeniably hot (at least on the surface!), may be fusing light elements in ways we have yet to grasp in our stellar models. After all, no one has yet explained that deficit in solar neutrinos! There will be egg on a lot of faces if our notions of stellar energy generation are widly in error. We may be overreacting here; but we predict with confidence that the future will bring a good many scientific papers that begin with those all-toofamiliar words, "We now know that..." If physicists must now develop a new appreciation of electrochemistry, should not the biologists, too? At the risk of going too far, ...
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... bright orange gaseous fireball, which appeared to be hurled earthwards directly down the observer's line of sight, growing constantly larger and larger. One witness described the fireball as resembling rolling orange smoke. The ball then ceased to increase in size, giving the impression that it had stopped. Its orange colour rapidly gave way to rainbow colours which gradually gave way to white and faded in brilliance until all that remained were several patches of luminous white light, although these were impressive in their own right." A similar phenomenon was noted the following night, although the ship was 7 farther south. September 18, 1982. South Atlantic Ocean. From a different ship in the same area as the one above. "The altitude of the first sighting was approximately 24 , level with the planet Jupiter and offset to its right. The six subsequent bursts were above the first, and slightly to the right, leaving a fantail of purple/white lenticular clouds which leaned to the right as shown in the sketch. Although they all kept their lenticular shape, the final burst did break up, giving the appearance of being in a gaseous state. Each burst commenced as a pinprick of bright, white light expanding rapidly to at least 2 times the diameter of the sun (No. 1)...." (Anonymous; "Unidentified Phenomena," Marine Observer, 53:132, 1983.) Comment. The above observations were made aboard ships 300-400 miles off Brazil. The only event correlated with the phenomena was a meteorological rocket said to have been launched ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf031/sf031p19.htm
