53 results found.
... as the velocities of the planets do in the solar system. This observation is anomalous itself, because it seems that the laws of orbital motion have been violated. We will save this anomaly for another day, the one we are after now is called: The Winding Dilemma. N. Comins and L. Marschall elaborate as follows: "Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy don't have as far to go to complete an orbit as stars located farther from the center. Thus, inner stars should orbit more frequently than outer stars, resulting in a spiral that gradually winds up as the galaxy ages. But observations of spiral galaxies at various distances -- and thus at different stages in their evolution -- have shown that this is not the case. Astronomers believe density waves, stochastic star formation, or perhaps a combination of both processes may sustain or regenerate the spiral pattern." Density waves have recently been applied to explain the spiral rings of Saturn, and now to the arms of spiral galaxies. The density waves are thought to stimulate the condensation of bright new stars as they move through space. A good analogy is the bioluminescent wake of ship in tropical waters. The density waves in a galaxy maintain the spiral pattern with new stars, while the old stars die out (in much less time than it takes for them to orbit the hub) as they orbit out of the spiral pattern. Postulating density waves just raises more questions, as is often the case in science. What causes the density waves? Theory says that the density waves ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Snowballs And Magnetic Asteroids The genesis of a cosmic "dust bunny". The nebulous meteor of July 29, 1970, as observed over Dover, England. The great diversity of the debris swirling around the solar system is making life difficult for scientists trying to reconstruct solar-system history. At the high end of the density spectrum, we now have an asteroid that seems to be mostly metal (probably iron). This is the asteroid Gaspra, some 13 kilometers across, that the Galileo spacecraft encountered in August 1992 on its way to Jupiter. Scientists had not expected Galileo's magnetometer to flicker as it passed Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers -- but it did. In fact, considering the inverse square law and Gaspra's small size, it was a magnetic wallop. Thus, Gaspra is the first known magnetic asteroid; and it is probably mostly metal. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic Ripple Hints Gaspra Is Metallic," Science, 259: 176, 1993.) At the low end of the density spectrum, we now find that Pluto's moon, Charon, and some of Saturn's moons have very low densities (1 .2 -1 .4 ), meaning they are probably mostly water ice. Such density figures come from direct observation of these objects' volumes combined with mass estimates from their orbital dynamics. (Crosswell, Ken; " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Newtonian Gravity May Have Broken Down In Greenland Anomalies in the measurement of gravity in Australian mines have stimulated an experiment in one of the very deep holes drilled in the Greenland ice cap. The hole at location Dye-3 is 2 kilometers deep. Gravity measurements were made at 183-meter intervals between depths of 213 and 1673 meters. Elaborate precautions were taken to assure that proper corrections were made for ice density and the nature of the rock below the ice. Ice-penetrating radar sketched the topography of the icerock surface, and surface-gravity measurements assessed density variations in surrounding ice and rock. The results of this finely tuned experiment are found in the final two sentences of the report's Abstract: "An anomalous variation in gravity totaling 3.87 mGal (3 .87 x 10- 5 m/s 2 ) in a depth interval of 1460 m was observed. This may be attributed either to a breakdown of Newtonian gravity or to unexpected density variations in the rock below the ice." (Zumberge, Mark A., et al; "The Greenland Gravitational Constant Experiment," Journal of Geophysical Research, 95:15483, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1 s-2 . We do not yet have adequate resolution to discriminate this scalar model from a scalarvector model." (Eckhardt, D.H ., et al; "Experimental Evidence for a Violation of Newton's Inverse-Square Law of Gravitation," Eos, 69:1046, 1988.) "In the late summer of 1987, an ex periment was performed to determine the value of the Newtonian gravitational constant, G, by measuring the variation of the earth's gravity, g, with depth in the Greenland icesheet. The site for the experiment - the radar station at Dye-3 , Greenland - was selected because of the existing 2000- m-deep ice borehole there. Previous analysis of ice-cores from the borehole indicate that the ice density can be accurately modeled. Gravity measurements were made to a depth of 1673 meters in the ice, the sub-ice topography was mapped with high-precision radar echo sounding over a 10-km-diameter region, and a series of 24 locations in a 32-km-diameter network around the hole were surveyed with gravity, leveling, and GPS positioning. "When corrected for the sub-ice topography, a gravity anomaly that accumulated to nearly 4 mGal in 1.4 km was observed. We find measured anomalies can be taken as evidence for non-Newtonian gravity, but can also be accounted for in terms of Newtonian physics if a suitable distribution of high densiity masses exist beneath the borehole." (Zumberge, Mark Al, et al; "Results from ...
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... )+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACB1 The Appearance of Comets in Cycles ACB2 Nonrandom Direction-of-Approach of Comets to the Sun ACB3 New Comets Have Almost Critical Velocity ACB4 Sun-Grazing Comets: The Kreutz Group ACB5 Changing Cometary Periods ACB6 Jupiter's Family of Comets ACB7 Low-Eccentricity Cometary Orbits ACB8 The Scarcity of Hyperbolic Orbits ACB9 Cometary Groups ACB10 Orbits of New Comets Diverge from Common Point ACB11 Excess of Retrograde Long Period Comets ACB12 Uranus-Neptune Region Favored as 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Something hot beneath small saturn-satellite surfaces Crater-density studies of the small, icy Saturn satellites Rhea, Dione, Mimas, and Tethys reveal important non-uniformities in crater distribution and age. The anomalies are so large that astronomers have concluded that these objects must have undergone considerable evolution after they were formed by accretion (the currently accepted mode of formation). Unfortunately these four satellites are so small that they could not have accommodated any reasonable energy source capable of causing the observed crustal evolution. The authors suggest strong local concentrations of radioactive heat generators rather than uniformly distributed radiogenic substances, such as those that helped mould the earth's surface. (Plescia, J.B ., and Boyce, J.M .; "Crater Densities and Geological Histories of Rhea, Dione, Mimas and Tethys," Nature, 295:285, 1982.) Comment. Interestingly enough, local concentrations of radioactivity have been discovered on the moon. From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 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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... few years ago (SF#100*), sea-bed pockmarks are remarkable geological features. They occur worldwide on the floors of all of the oceans and even some lakes. They are found in shallow waters and at depths of thousands of meters. In diameter, these roughly conical depressions may span 350 meters or more and be up to 35 meters deep. No trivial phenomenon, some pockmark fields exceed 1,000 km2. Like the curious abyssal ridges (SF#97), sea-bed pockmarks are rarely discussed despite their great geological and economic importance. Recent issues of Geology contain three fascinating papers relating to giant sea-bed pockmarks. In Ref. 1, J.T . Kelley et al describe a pockmark field in Belfast Bay, Maine. Here, the density of the pockmarks reaches 160 per km2, and they are apparently the largest pockmarks yet discovered. The Belfast Bay field is "fresh" and "active" in the sense that the pockmarks are sharply defined and methane bubbles still stream up from buried organic matter. Natural-gas plume rising from the sea-floor off the Carolina coast. Another pockmark field is the subject of P.R . Vogt et al (Ref. 2). It occupies a strip about 1.3 km wide and 50 km long between Greenland and Spitzbergen. This strip of pockmarks seems to be underlain by a deposit of methane hydrate 200-300 meters thick. [Methane hydrate is a weird substance that looks like dirty ice. When brought to the surface, the methane fizzes away, leaving ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gas Hydrates And The Bermuda Triangle Gas hydrates are stable, solid lattices of water molecules, in which the water molecules are hydrogen-bonded into hollow spheres or oblate spheroids in which gas molecules are enclosed. They are not true compounds, but rather clathrates or inclusion compounds. They often form in huge masses in ocean-bottom sediments and, if disturbed by slumping or some other stimulus, can release immense quantities of gas bubbles. These gases rise to the surface, subdivided en route, and reach the surface as a huge upwelling of frothy, low-density fluid. A ship cannot float in such low-density fluids. If a large plume rose above the sea's surface, aircraft passing through it would lose engine power. Quoting the final paragraph: "Intermittent natural gas blowouts from hydrate-associated gas accumulations, therefore, might explain some of the many mysterious disappearances of ships and planes -- particularly in areas where deep-sea sediments contain large amounts of gas in the form of hydrate. This may be the circumstance off the southeast coast of the United States, an area noted for numerous disappearances of ships and aircraft." (McIver, Richard D.; "Role of Naturally Occurring Gas Hydrates in Sediment Transport," American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Bulletin, 66:789, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury: the impossible planet Mercury, largely hidden in the sun's glare, also conceals beneath its baked, cratered surface: (1 ) far more iron than solar-system theory allows; and (perhaps) (2 ) a dynamo that should not exist. Let us take the excess-iron problem first. Mercury's density is 5.44 (compared to earth's 5.52), so that it very likely contains much iron. Our moon, which resembles Mercury in size and external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects High g-values in mines Measurements of G, the constant in Newton's Law of Gravitation, made in mines are always significantly higher than those made in surface laboratories. No one is quite sure why. It has been suggested that a lack of knowledge of the densities of surrounding rocks might account for this discrepancy. But Holding and Tuck report new measurements in Australian mines, where the densities are very well known. The G values are still high. Mine measurements of G differ in the fact that the masses employed can be much farther apart. (Holding, S.C ., and Tuck, G.J .; "A New Mind Determination of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant," Nature, 307:714, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7 ) than the faintest quasars. If the open universe we see today is extrapolated back near the beginning, the ratio of the actual density of matter in the universe to the critical density must differ from unity by just one part in 1059. Any larger deviation would result in a universe already collapsed on itself or already dissipated. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Top Ten Problems with the Big Bang," Meta Research Bul letin , 6:64, 1997. Bulletin address: P.O . box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20825-5186.) From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ; and Identified the earth as the most likely perpetrator of this celestial catastrophism. Day's abstract follows: Mars has surface features that are not seen on inner planets or moons. These are hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have provided that encounter. The Roche limit is 2.9 Earth radii. The Roche limit is that distance within which Mars would begin to be torn apart by the gravitational pull of nearby Earth. (Day, Richard A.; "A Roche-Limit Encounter Explains Martian Features," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comment. Anomalists with long memories will see immediately that Day's theory is displaced Velikovskyism. Velikovsky had Venus ...
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... -- no one foresaw impact havoc in his day. But, his use of the word "whimper" can be attached to another, much slower astronomical agent of planetary death: cosmic dust and gas. Here's the current situation: "For the most part of the past five million years, the Solar System has been moving through a rather empty region of interstellar space between the spiral arms of the Milky Way. But a few thousand years ago, it entered a diffuse shell of material expanding outward from an active star-forming region called the Scorpius-Centaurus Association. Such 'super-bubble' shells of gas and dust result from the formation of massive stars, or the explosion of those stars as they become supernovas, and contain gas and dust clouds of varying densities." The density of matter in this solarsystem-engulfing shell could well shroud our planetary system with dust and gas a million times more dense than that we now encounter. If this happens, the sun's rays would slowly dim and life forms dependent on photosynthesis would expire. P. Frisk, a University of Chicago astronomer, forecasts a "bumpy ride" for earth dwellers during the next 50,000 years; but we think Eliot's "whimper" is more expressive of what might happen. (Jayawardhana, Ray; "Earth Menaced by Superbubble," New Scientist, p. 15, June 22, 1996) Comments. A possible precursor of things to come was the enigmatic "Siberian Darkness" of September 18, 1938. (See our Report # ...
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... -- objects smaller than atoms but with masses which, in some cases, might be as great as a planet. Such objects, he claims, could account for volcanic hot spots, gravitational anomalies, concentrations of mass on the Moon (mascons), the existence of the rings of Saturn, and even the observations that gave rise to the notion of a 'fifth force.'" J. Gribbin, whose article begins with the above paragraph, is quick to proclaim that this "theory of everything" is not just silly-season kite flying. Rather, it was proposed by A.P . Trofimenko in the well-respected Astrophysics and Space Science (168:277) Restricting ourselves to speculations concerning the earth, Trofimenko sees our planet as a sphere of low-density material enclosing 126 mini black holes that account, first, for the many gravity anomalies we measure on the surface; and, second, the earth's high density. That's right, there's no iron core in this model! Some of the mini black holes near the surface create local hot spots (plumes, volcanos, etc.) through the emission of Hawking radiation. Trofimen-ko's scheme encompasses the planets, the stars, and, as advertised, "every thing." (Gribbin, John; "Could Mini Black Holes Provide a 'Theory of Everything?'" New Scientist, p. 25, September 1, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... crazy idea. Why would an entire planet swell up like a balloon? Hugh Owen answers in this way: "The geological and geophysical implications of such Earth expansion are so profound that most geologists and geophysicists shy away from them. In order to fit with the reconstruction that seems to be required, the volume of the Earth was only 51 per cent of its present value, and the surface area 64 per cent of that of the present day, 200 million years ago. Established theory says that the Earth's interior is stable, an in ner core of nickel iron surrounded by an outer layer that behaves like a fluid. Perhaps we are completely wrong and the inner core is in some state nobody has yet imagined, a state that is undergoing a transition from a high-density state to a lower density state, and pushing out the crust, the skin of the Earth, as it expands." (Owen, Hugh; "The Earth Is Expanding and We Don't Know Why, "New Scientist, p. 27, November 22, 1984.) Reference. For more on the Expanding Earth Hypothesis, see category ETL6 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This book is described here . Relative bad fit of South America and Africa on a globe of modern size is indicated by the black gaps (gores). The black areas disappear on an earth with a diameter 80% of the modern value. From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ago at Oklo, Gabon. The concentration and configuration of the natural uranium and surrounding materials at that time had been just right to sustain fission. In fact, the analysis of the nuclear waste in the burned rocks demonstrated that plutonium had also been created. This implies that natural breeder reactors are also possible, raising the possibility of hitherto unappreciated, long-lived heat sources deep in the earth, in the other planets, and inside some of the stars. Don't worry that the Oklo phenomenon might occur today on the earth's surface. The concentration of fissionable U-235 has fallen considerably in the last 2 billion years due to its radioactive decay. But, deep inside the earth and other astronomical bodies, nuclear criticality might still be possible due to different pressures, densities, etc. In a stimulating and generally overlooked paper in Eos, J.M . Herndon proffers four important natural phenomena that may involve natural fission reactors. Geomagnetic reversals . In the deep earth, where pressures and densities are high, natural nuclear reactors may generate intermittent bursts of heat -- just as they did at Oklo -- and thereby cause the earth's dynamo to falter and reverse. Planetary heating . Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune emit much more energy than they receive from the sun. Natural nuclear reactors could be the reason. Stellar thermonuclear ignition . Astronomers assume that the high temperatures required to ignite the thermonuclear reactions powering stars come from gravitational collapse, but this source does not seem adequate to some scientists. Nuclear fission reactors could ignite stars just as they do ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Echo Sounder Outlines Strange Patches Over Underwater Peaks February 11, 1977, on the s.s . Remuera, in the South Pacific. (00 24'S , 88 06' W). The echo sounder clearly showed an undulating sea floor with sharp peaks, some 600 fathoms below the ship. The peaks were recorded distincly but above several faint, elongated, flamelike patches were noted. These patches were interpreted as changes in water density due, perhaps, to volcanic or hydrothermal activity. (Howard, K.E .; "Soundings in a Volcanic Area," Marine Observer, 48:20, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects There never was a "crater"!Humans favor tales with beginnings and endings, perhaps because we are mortal ourselves. The universe must, we suspect, have been created either naturally or supernaturally, and it will end either according to the Laws of Thermodynamics or by fiat on Judgment Day! Some scientists, though, see other possibilities. In 1948, F. Hoyle, H. Bondi, and T. Gold proposed that the universe had no beginning and was, therefore, infinitely old. Originally, they hypothesized that, as the universe expanded, new matter was continuously created, and thus the density of matter stayed about constant in time. This Steady State Universe was kicked around for a while but ultimately consigned to the cosmological wastebasket. Now, the idea is being revived as the prevailing Big Bang Universe runs into problems, which have been documented perhaps too thoroughly in past issues of SF. The revised steady state model has jettisoned the idea of continuous creation in favor of many discrete "creation events," which will doubtless be called "little bangs." They also fill space with small metallic needles which absorb microwaves and reemit the uniform microwave background. The new theory needs more work, but Hoyle and his colleagues write in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal: "This paper is not intended to give a finished view of cosmology. It is intended rather to open the door to a new view ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ghost Galaxies "Small ghost galaxies, devoid of stars but harboring dense clumps of invisible matter, may outnumber the entire population of luminous galaxies in the universe." If ghost galaxies contain no stars at all, how do we know they are there? By extrapolation! In recent years, astronomers have been able to detect dwarf galaxies lit by just a few luminous stars. These faint, miniscule galaxies are kept from flying apart by the gravitational pull of invisible dark matter. In fact, the density of dark matter in dwarf galaxies is a hundred times that in our bright, normal-size Milky Way. Further, the more dwarfish and dimmer a galaxy, the denser its dark matter and the more of them there are in the universe. Now for the promised extrapolation. J. Kormendy and K.C . Freeman take things one step further, concluding that the universe is flooded with sub-dwarf galaxies that are thick with dark matter, and without enough luminous stars for us to see them in our telescopes. These ghost galaxies are only 1/10,000 as massive as the bright galaxies like the Milky Way but much more common. (Cowen, R.; "Tiny Galaxies Have Hearts of Darkness," Science News, 155:38, 1999.) Comments. If the universe if awash in ghost galaxies, why don't we bump into them occasionally? Maybe we have! Another ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Interplanetary Doldrums A special session of the 1999 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union was convened to discuss an extraordinary event: "The day of the solar wind almost disappeared." That was May 11, 1999. The doldrums lasted over 27 hours. Actually, the velocities of the particles constituting the solar wind did not slacken much: 360 kilometers/second, down just 10% from the norm. The wind's density, though dropped from 10 to 0.2 particles/cubic centimeter. Nothing untoward happened on the earth's surface. In space, the earth's magnetosphere expanded when the pressure of the solar wind diminished and more X-rays were emitted from the polar atmosphere, but these effects did not surprise anyone. The big question is: What happened on the sun that stopped its exhalations? No one seems to have an answer. (Lazarus, Alan J.; "The Day the Solar Wind Almost Disappeared," Science, 287: 2172, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The spin we're in From planets to stars to entire galaxies, the rate of spin is related to mass. If one defines Q (see graph) as angular momentum divided by the object's mass and a density factor, it is roughly equal to the object's (mass)0 .7 . Such empirical equations are generally accurate only over a limited region, but this newly discovered relationship holds for almost 50 orders of magnitude. For some unfathomed reason, all astronomical entities spin at rates determined by their masses. Even clusters of galaxies fall into step, slowly pirouetting in intergalactic space to some unknown tune. (Anonymous; "How Things Spin," Sky and Telescope, 64:228, 1982.) Comment. In the foregoing item, a team of investigators reported that the entire cosmos may spin. Does the cosmos, too, obey this new momentum-mass formula? From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The better, bigger big bang Astronomers are ever more discomfitted by the Big Bang hypothesis for the creation of the universe. The reasons are several: The observed universe is extremely homogeneous, even though theory says that distant parts of the universe could never have been causally connected; No satisfactory explanation exists for the density fluctuations that had to occur for galaxies to be formed; and The universe seems to be flat, not curved, and the Big Bang does not explain why. Paul Steinhardt and Andreas Al-brecht, at the University of Pennsylvania, have developed a radically different Big Bang -- a two-stage one, with hot and super-cooled states. The three objections listed above are neatly disposed of in the new version, but at the cost of a radically new view of the cosmos. The "new" universe is about 10100 times as big as the 12 billion light years assigned to the cozy universe we used to know -- and it is presumably correspondingly older. This means that the portion of the cosmos we see is only a negligible fraction of the whole -- a fraction that just happens to be homogeneous. Somewhere, way out beyond the farthest quasar, things could be -- well -- different! (Anonymous; "A Bigger, Better Big Bang," Astronomy, 11:62, February 1983.) Reference. Our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos brims with ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Quick Quasar Quasar 4C29.45 threatens to make quasars even harder to understand. Quasars have always appeared to emit too much energy for their size; that is, our present knowledge of physics does not provide us with a mechanism for generating such huge energy densities. Now, quasar 4C29.45 comes along and pulsates on time scales of 30 minutes and less. These pulsations are sharp and not spread out timewise, implying that quasar 4C29.45 must be smaller than 30 light-minutes in size -- otherwise the disturbance causing the pulsation would have to travel faster than light. On the night of April 10, 1981, the situation (already bad) worsened, when brightness jumps of 0.2 magnitude occurred nearly instantaneously. Conclusion: quasar 4C29.45 may be only lightseconds in diameter, which should really by physically impossible. The anonymous author of this item ventures that: ". .. since the real nature of quasars is unknown, it is uncertain how they can or cannot behave." (Anonymous; "A Quick Quasar," Sky and Telescope, August 1984.) Comment. Perhaps we have been naive in thinking that the laws of physics determined how things can and cannot behave. Evidently these laws are not as secure as we have been led to believe! Note in passing: the quasar impasse would be easier to bridge if quasars were very close instead of as distant as their ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Young Interplanetary Dust Here follows an abstract of an article that appeared in Science: "Nuclear tracks have been identified in interplanetary dust particles (IDP's ) collected from the stratosphere. The presence of tracks unambiguously confirms the extraterrestrial nature of IDP's , and the high track densities (1010 to 1011 per square centimeter) suggest an exposure age of approximately 104 years within the inner solar system." (Bradley, J.P ., et al; "Discovery of Nuclear Tracks in Interplanetary Dust," Science, 226:1432, 1984.) Comment. Where does this young dust come from? The Poynting-Robertson drag is supposed to sweep the inner solar system clear of dust fairly quickly. If comets supply a steady stream of dust, the particles should display a wide range of exposure ages. Apparent path of star SAO 186001 behind Neptune. The star's light was reduced at the black circle. From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of Dust Clouds And Ice Ages Ice cores from the polar ice at Camp Century, in Greenland, have been analyzed for the presence of cosmic dust. "It is concluded that on five occasions during the interval 20,000-14,000 years BP, cosmic dust mass concentrations in the solar system rose by one and two orders of magnitude above present day levels. Moreover if the particles found in these ice core samples are indicative of the particle size distribution which prevailed in the interplanetary medium at 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Clash Of Hypotheses Millions of Mima Mounds dot various terrains west of the Mississippi, from British Columbia south to northern Sonora, Mexico. They are also found in Africa and South America. Mima Mounds are formed of soil and small stones. They are often 2 meters high, with diameters of 20 meters. Mound densities can reach 25-50 per hectare. Mima Mounds, prai-rie mounds, pimple mounds, or whatever they are called locally, are widely thought to be the work of pocket gophers, although this hypothesis is still contested, as we shall see below. No one denies that pocket gophers are often associated with the mounds. In fact, a recent scientific paper describes the relationship between the sizes and shapes of the mounds and the numbers of resident gophers. The authors of this paper, G.W . Cox and J. Hunt, state confidently that: The seismic waves intersect, an interference pattern forms. Loose surface material collects at points of minimum surface disturbance (open circles). "Investigations of Mima mounds in western North America support the hypothesis that mounds are formed by the gradual translocation of soil by pocket gophers..." (Cox, George W., and Hunt, Jodee; "Form of Mima Mounds in Relation to Occupancy by Pocket Gophers," Journal of Mammalogy, 71:90, 1990.) In another paper, appearing at almost the same time, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gaia on mars?H.L . Helfer, University of Rochester, noting the absence of extensive cratering on the northern plains of Mars, suggests that some 2-3 .5 billion years ago these plains were covered with oceans. These ancient seas, perhaps as much as 700 meters deep, protected the plains from direct impacts. Further, crater density counts for Chryse and the Martian highlands imply that Mars possessed a fairly dense atmosphere until about 1.5 billion years ago. In his Abstract Helfer speculates as follows: "With both early Earth and early Mars having similar atmospheric compositions and not too dissimilar atmospheric structures, it is reasonable to suppose that the warm Martian oceans, like the ancient oceans of Earth, would develop anerobic and aerobic photosynthesizing prokaryotes and structures like stromatolites. Their development might have changed the Martian atmosphere. Their fossils might be found along the fringes of the old oceans, the northern lowland plains." (Helfer, H.L .; "Of Martian Atmospheres, Oceans, and Fossils," Icarus, 87:228, 1990.) Comment. The Gaia influence is seen in the molding of the Martian atmosphere into something more conducive to the development of life. One can also speculate that, if life did develop on Mars, it could have seeded the earth via bits of debris blasted off by meteorite impacts. Several meteorites picked up in Antarctica are thought to have come from Mars ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Indigestible Supernova Leftovers There seems to be a mysterious "central compact object" lurking amid the debris of Supernova SN1987A. Prevailing supernova paradigms cannot account for this high density remnant. While some aspects of standard supernova theory were supported by observations made during and since the 1987 explosion, astrophysicists are left with several puzzles in addition to the mystery object itself: "Other puzzles include the largescale asymmetries observed in the heavy element ejecta (Fe-group line emission), the supernova envelope (optical polarization), and the circumstellar medium ([ O III] ring), which are in addition to the complex structures resulting from hydrodynamic instabilities." (Chevalier, Roger A.; "Supernova 1987A at Five Years of Age," Nature, 355:691, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm, wet, fertile mars Mars may not be orbited by huge artificial satellites of alien provenance, but its geological history is looking more and more as if could have supported or perhaps still does support life. "A large number of anomalous landforms on Mars can be attributed to glaciation, including the action of ice and meltwater. Glacial landscapes are concentrated south of lat -33 and in the Northern Plains suggesting vast Austral and Boreal ice sheets. Crater densities on the glaciated terrains indicate that the final glacial epoch occurred late in Martian history. Thus, Mars may have had a relatively warm, moist climate and dense atmosphere much later than previously believed." (Kargel, Jeffrey S., and Strom, Robert G.; "Ancient Glaciation on Mars," Geology, 20:3 , 1992.) If Mars was warm and wet not too long ago, as implied above, perhaps life did gain a foothold there through either independent invention or, perhaps, through seeding by template-carrying comets or meteorites. P.J . Boston et al have investigated one possible Martian ecosystem: "We have reexamined the question of extant microbial life on Mars in light of the most recent information about the planet and recently discovered nonphotosynthetic ecosystems on Earth -- deep sea hydrothermal vent communities and deep subsurface aquifer communities. On Mars, protected subsurface niches associated with hydrothermal activity could have continued to support life even after surface conditions ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earth-moon fission: a slight hint Although the Sm/Nd isotope ratios of the earth and the chondrites (a type of meteorite) seem pretty close in value, the possibility of a slight but significant discrepancy remains. If this small difference is confirmed, it would strongly imply that the earth's Sm/Nd ratio was shifted after the planet's formation. The most reasonable event that could shift this ratio is an long-debated earth-moon fission, wherein the earth's lighter surface material was somehow torn off to form the moon. (DePaolo, Donald J.; "Nd Isotopic Studies: Some New Perspectives on Earth Structure and Evolution," Eos, 62:139, 1981.) Comment. The moon's density is markedly less than the earth's , so the idea is not as wild as it seems. The hypothetical fission of Earth-Moon could have shifted the Nd isotope ratio in relation to that of the chondrites. From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... green ice] most likely results from 'ice pump' processes which produce large amounts of ice platelets in the water column beneath ice shelves. These subsequently accumulate and become compacted into bubble-free, desalinated ice." The inclusions in the green ice are probably trapped by the accumulating platelets. Since the green ice is confined to the bottoms of the bergs, it becomes apparent only after the bergs capsize. The green icebergs in the Weddle Sea originate mainly from the Amery Ice Shelf. (Kipfstuhl, J. et al; "The Origin of Green Icebergs in Antarctica," Journal of Geophysical Research, 97:20,319, 1992.) Similar phenomenon. The ice calving from Alaskan glaciers is often a beautiful blue color -- the consequence of the ice's high density rather than inclusions. Alaskans export this ice to Japan where it is popular in drinks at tony parties!. From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The scale of organization of the universe is of critical importance because it is a measure of state of the cosmos when hydrogen atoms first condensed from the seething sea of ions following the Big Bang. The prevailing expectation has been that galactic clusters and superclusters should be distributed at random; that is, no order prevails at that scale. Recent redshift measurements, however, hint more and more forcefully that the huge superclusters of galaxies are almost as neatly arranged as the atoms in a crystal. A recent paper in Nature by J. Einasto et al puts a number on the spacing of the superclusters: "Here, using a new compilation of available data on galaxy clusters, we present evidence for a quasi-regular three-dimensional network of rich superclusters and voids, with the regions of high density separated by "120 Mpc [megaparsecs]. If this reflects the distribution of all matter (luminous and dark), then there must exist some hitherto unknown process that produces regular structure on large scales." (Einasto, J., et al; "A 120-Mpc Periodicity in the Three-Dimensional Distribution of Galaxy Superclusters," Nature, 385:139, 1997.) Comment. Hmmm! A "hitherto unknown process." It appears that our science is still incomplete, despite what some science writers have insisted recently. Reference. Chapter AWB in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos describes several other galaxy-distribution anomalies. For more on this book, visit here . From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William ...
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... 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 feet, 6 inches; and 69 feet, 11 inches. The Monolith weighs in at over 2,000,000 pounds. In comparison, the largest stones used in the Great Pyramid tip the scales at only 400,000 pounds. Not until NASA moved the giant Saturn V rocket to its launch pad on a giant tracked vehicle has man transported such a large object. Today, one sees no evidence of a road connecting the ...
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... Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Speculations from gold The item "Restless Gold" in SF#41 has now been amplified by J.-O . Bovin et al. Using a high-resolution electron microscope, magnification 30,000,000, with a real-time video recorder, this group has obtained startling pictures of gold crystals and their environs. "At this magnification, individual columns of atoms in the gold crystals are clearly revealed; it appears that not only are atoms of the surfaces of small crystals in constant motion, hopping from site to site, but also that the crystals are surrounded by clouds of atoms in constant interchange with atoms on the crystal surface. The clouds of gold atoms extended up to 9A from the crystal surface, continually changing their shape and density." The remarkably dynamic nature of solid surfaces, as now revealed, has many implications. (Bovin, J. -O ., et al; "Imaging of Atomic Clouds Outside the Surfaces of Gold Crystals by Electron Microscopy," Nature, 317:47, 1985.) The problem of snowflake growth (SF#38) is probably solvable in terms of clouds of water molecules surrounding crystal nuclei with electrostatic fields guiding the symmetric deposition of molecules. Biological structures, too, are probably encompassed by clouds of atoms and molecules; viz., the crystal-like, polyhedral viruses. Does the highly ordered DNA structure also possess an aura of molecules constantly swapping places ? Such would not be inconsistent with "jumping genes" and M. Kimura's Neutral Theory of ...
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... really knows just how the terrestrial magnetic field is generated or why it has reversed its direction so frequently in past geological time. Per-haps there is a clue in the following correlation: "The Mesozoic-Cenozoic histories of reversals in the earth's magnetic field and of periods of widespread anoxia in the ocean basins show a remarkable correlation; periods of black-shale deposition (' anoxic events') occur during lengthy periods without magnetic reversals (' quiet periods'). My assembly of published work indicates a remote connection between quiet periods and anoxic events and suggests its form: Magnetic quiet periods coincide with fast seafloor spreading. During these periods, buoyant spreading ridges displace seawater into broad shelves, thus decreasing earth's albedo and causing global warming. Temperature gradients, and thus density gradients, from pole to equator decrease in surface waters, and the deep ocean currents of oxygenated polar waters wane. Oxygen minimum zones intensify and widen; anoxic conditions throughout entire basins are indicated by black shales deposited in the deep sea. These relations thus suggest that the earth's interior processes and its climates are related and their status recorded by both magnetic polarity and anoxic event chronologies of the earth." (Force, Eric R.; "A Relation among Geomagnetic Reversals, Seafloor Spreading Rate, Paleoclimate, and Black Shales," Eos, 65:18, 1984.) Comment. But what stopped and restarted the magnetic reversals and other concurrent processes? Strangely enough, the quiet, anoxic periods do not seem to coincide with biological extinctions! From Science Frontiers #32 ...
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... 100-kilometer craters on a regular basis. And scientists are casting worried looks at those near-earth asteroids, knowing that one day one will be on a collision course. Not to worry, say the modern-day Technocrats, we will launch nucleararmed rockets that will nudge such cosmic threats into harmless trajectories. These Pollyannas are presumptious. They assume that asteroids are hard, cohesive objects that will be shoved aside by a few megatons of explosive energy. There are two things wrong with this idea, and these reveal how radically our ideas about the nature of asteroids have changed in just 10 years. First, most astronomers will now agree that asteroids are orbiting rubble piles rather than monolithic objects. For example, the near-earth asteroid Mathilde, 53 kilometers in diameter, has a density of only 1.3 grams/cubic centimeter. Its porosity must be greater than 50%. It is not a hard, coherent object. Instead of a bullet, it is more like a cloud of shotgun pellets. It would be hard to divert all this debris with a nuclear blast. To make matters worse, asteroids like Mathilde are stickier than a cloud of buckshot. This fact is deduced from photos of asteroids showing many to be marked by huge craters. (Mathilde has one 33 kilometers wide.) K.R . Housen et al, using laboratory tests and scaling data, argue that asteroid craters were not blasted out by collision. (Mathilde is not "shattered" as one would expect given such a huge crater.) Rather, the craters are " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Celestial burlesque?Astronomers have long wondered about Mercury. Its density (5 .44) is unusually high for such a small planet, and its orbit's inclination (7 ) and eccentricity (0 .206) are also anomalously high. In one blow. W. Benz, A.G .W . Cameron, and W. Slattery may have solved all three problems. Four frames from a computer simulation of proto-Mercury being stripped of its lighter, outer crust by a collision. Frame times are -1 , + 2.3 , + 7.7 , and + 41.7 minutes after impact. The dark molten sheet of iron in Frame #4 will collapse into a sphere, while the silicates will escape Mercury's gravitational pull. They think Mercury's original, lighter, silicate outer layers were stripped off during the impact of one of the small protoplanets that are thought to have swirled around the inner solar system shortly after its formation. Computations on a supercomputer revealed to these three researchers that, if the protoplanet had hit Mercury at between 20 and 30 kilometers/second, then its dense iron core would have survived pretty much intact. A lower velocity would not have stripped off the lighter outer layers; anything higher would have blasted the whole planet into smithereens. Calculations of this type also suggest that if a protoplanet the size of Mars had hit protoearth, it likewise would ...
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... Altitude Luminosity (AHAL)When meteors plunge into the earth's upper atmosphere, friction with the air causes them to incandesce and burn up. The smaller ones are completely consumed. A few bigger ones reach earth and are renamed "meteorites." So far, all of this is well-understood. But when meteors begin to burn up much above 100 kilometers, a problem arises. The air there is normally much too thin to cause incandescence and burn-up. Observational anomalies are abundant. Two Leonid fireballs were seen glowing at 160 kilometers by Japanese scientists. In 1998, a Dutch team in China detected bright Leonids at 200 kilometers! In addition, some Russian reentering space-craft began glowing well above 100 kilometers. ANAL is a solid phenomenon. Of course, the density of the upper atmosphere does increase somewhat when solar activity is high. Atmospheric gravity waves can also cause the atmosphere to bulge out. But these effects are inadequate to explain all observations. R. Spalding, at Sandia National Laboratories, ventures that ions in the upper atmosphere are electrostatically attracted to meteors and create light when they collide with them. A. Ol'khovatov suggests that "plasma instabilities" may be involved. To learn more about these, go to the latter's web site at: www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/3240/ (Ol'khovatov, Andrei; "Anomalous High Altitude Luminosity," Meteorite!, 6:18, May 2000.) Comments. AHAL remains unexplained. Interestingly enough, ANAL occurs at the same high altitudes ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Magnetic tune played on saturn's rings The strange dark radial spokes seen in Voyager's photos of Saturn's rings wax and wane with a period of about 621 minutes. This is very close to the rotation period of Saturn's magnetic field. Somehow, the rotating magnetic field interacts with the particles making up the rings, forcing density or reflectivity changes that we see as transitory spokes. It is not yet clear how this magnetic tune is played. (Proco, C.C ., and Danielson, G.E .; "The Periodic Variation of Spokes in Saturn's Rings," Eos, 63:156, 1982.) Comment. Brightness changes have also been noted in the zodiacal light, which is light reflected from particles surrounding the sun. After reading about Saturn's variable spokes, one wonders whether solar-system magnetic fields might be the cause of these mysterious variations in the zodiacal light. From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates. Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon! Supporting evidence. Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail. Anomalously young radiocarbon dates in north-central North America. Example: the Gainey site in Michigan. Physical evidence of particle bombardment. Example: chert artifacts with high densities of particle-entrance wounds. Anomalous uranium and plutonium abundance ratios in the affected area. Tree-ring and marine sediment data. The authors claim that the burst of radiation from a nearby supernova, circa 12,500 years ago, not only reset radiocarbon clocks but also heated the planet's atmosphere, melted ice sheets, and led to biological extinctions. If verified, the claimed phenomenon would also "reset" archeological models of the settlement of North and South America. To illustrate, we may have to add as many as 10,000 years to site dates in much of North America! (Firestone, Richard B., and Topping, William; "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times," The Mammoth Trumpet, 16:9 , March 2001 ...
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... ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Way Of Looking At The Solar System The current scientific consensus has the sun and its planets forming during the same process of accretion/condensation. In this view, the inner terrestrial planets differ from the outer giant planets only because their volatile elements were driven off by the sun's heat. This scenario has many problems, as recorded in our catalog volume The Moon and the Planets. G.H .A . Cole thinks that astronomers might have more success in explaining the origin of the solar system if they considered it a system of five large bodies of star stuff (light elements), each surrounded by its own retinue of high density satellites (the sun's four satellites would be the inner planets). In effect, then, we would have a quintuple star system in which only one member (the sun) collected enough star stuff to make it to incandescence. The four, large, outer planets would be merely failed stars. The advantages of this change of perspective are threefold: (1 ) All five central bodies are now compositionally similar as a class, (2 ) In each of the five systems, the angular momentum of the central body is greater than that of its satellites, whereas in the unitary solar system the angular momentum of the nine planets is much greater than that of the sun -- an embarrassing anomaly. (3 ) A final "bonus" appears when the distances of ...
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... !"That's what Princeton astronomer N. Bahcall said of the discovery that the very early universe was already partitioned by colossal walls of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years long. That walls of galaxies exist is not a new idea, but finding that they existed shortly after the Big Bang is highly disconcerting to most astronomers. How did these walls form so early? Why hasn't the force of gravity modified the basic structure of the cosmos over the billions of years that followed the Big Bang? The astronomical quandry is this: If the very early universe looks pretty much the same as today's universe, the implication is that mass, the source of gravitational sculpting, is scarce. But this is at odds with the cosmic expansion rate which implies a much higher density of matter. (Appenzeller, Tim; "Ancient Galaxy Walls Go up; Will Theories Tumble Down?" Science, 276:36, 1997.) Comment. The existence of galaxy walls, like so many astronomical constructs, depends upon the assumption that the red shifts of galaxies are proportional to their recessional velocities and, additionally, their distances and ages. So much rides on this one assumption. The same situation prevails in biology, where everything is founded on the assumption that random mutations and natural selection can together generate any degree of complexity, sophistication, and innovation seen in nature. The history of science tells us that many paradigms have fallen because they depended upon faulty assumptions. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... it. He begins, however, by pointing out the philosophical impasse encountered as Big Bang proponents look backward to time = 0 and earlier. Where did the matter/energy of the Big Bang come from? Was the venerable Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy violated? Big Bangers loftily dismiss such questions as "nonsense." Narlikar follows with some observational problems of the Big Bang: There seem to be objects in the universe that are older than the Big Bang age of the universe (9 -13 billion years); Quasar redshifts used to support the Big Bang theory may arise from the general expansion of the universe; The microwave background radiation of 3 K, which was gleefully embraced by Big Bangers as an echo of their version of creation, is actually of the same energy density as starlight, cosmic rays, etc., and need not have anything to do with the Big Bang; and The Big Bang Theory and General Relativity assume a constant G (the gravitational constant), but some recent lunar orbit measurements suggest that G is slowly decreasing! (Narlikar, Jayant; "Was There a Big Bang?" New Scientist, 91:19, 1981.) Comment. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole Big Bang business is the contempt with which theory supporters dismiss all objections. Is the Big Bang a scientific theory or a belief system? Reference. Observations challenging the Big Bang may be found throughout our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For information about this book, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #17, Fall ...
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... - or, if the mystery object turns out to be very far away, by a very large, dark stellar companion of our sun with its own system of planets. Several astronomers have been trying to pin down the properties of this Planet X or Massive Solar Companion (MSC). John P. Bagby has recently published a novel solution to this nagging puzzle in celestial mechanics. He suggests that the Massive Solar Companion is actually a distributed system; that is, appreciable mass also occupies the several stable Lagrangian points. The total MSC mass might be as much as half the sun's mass, perhaps 100 Astronomical Units (100 times the earth's distance from the sun.) If the MSC and its attendants are this massive, astronomers will have to revise the mass and density of the sun downward by a good bit. (What they have done in the past is estimate the mass of the solar system as a whole and assumed it mostly resides in the sun.) This would require a large change in our model of the sun and its system of planets. (Bagby, John P.; "Evidence for a Tenth Planet or Massive Stellar Companion Beyond Uranus," paper given at the Tomorrow Starts Here Conference, September 1982.) Reference. Our Catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris contains an entire section on Planet X. Ordering information at: here . From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... It's all true; an arti cle bearing the above title appeared in the January 1988 number of Sky and Telescope. Doubts do surface once in a while, despite all the TV documentaries, all the textbooks, and all the newspaper jottings, where black holes are described in the hushed tones used only with profound truths of nature. To set the stage, we quote a paragraph from said article: "There is, however, a serious problem with black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion. The rapid orbital motion of the companion star tells us that the central X-ray star has a mass of more than three suns. General Relativity assures us that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist. J. McClintock, the author of this ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gravity Anomaly Ripples Centered In Canada When scientists recently examined gravity anomaly data for North America, strange circular ripples appeared to surround a point near Hudson Bay. These ripples seem to have spread out like those from a pebble dropped into a pond, but here the ripples are actually ancient density variations in the earth's crust, now covered over by thick sediments. One hypothesis is that a 60-90 kilometer meteorite smashed into the earth some 4 billion years ago, wrinkling the young surface for several thousand kilometers in all directions around a colossal crater. Magma welling up in the crater solidified creating the nucleus of the North American continent. It is quite possible that the other continents began their existences in this way -- meteor impact. The gravity data that led to this hypothesis have been available for some time but apparently no one ever looked at them with continental patterns in mind. (Simon, C.; "Deep Crust Hints at Meteoric Impact," Science News, 121:69, 1982.) Comment 1: John Saul has discovered surface indications of immense ring structures in the American southwest. See ETC2 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, which is described more fully here . Comment 2: If all our continents were initiated by meteor impacts, and if they were once clustered together in a supercontinent, as postulated by Continental Drift, then the incoming meteorites would have to have been focussed on ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf020/sf020p09.htm
... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Care for a cup of viruses?" The concentration of bacteriophages in natural unpolluted waters is in general believed to be low, and they have therefore been considered ecologically unimportant. Using a new method for quantitative enumeration, we have found up to 2.5 x 108 virus particles per millilitre in natural waters. These concentrations indicate that virus infection may be an important factor in the ecological control of planktonic microorganisms, and that viruses might mediate genetic exchange among bacteria in natural aquatic environments." (Bergh, Oivind, et al; "High Abundance of Viruses Found in Aquatic Environments," Nature, 340:467, 1989.) A sip of water could therefore introduce a billion virus particles into your stomach! This level of virus density in natural water is about 10 million times that formerly estimated. Besides reducing your thirst, what are the implications of this discovery? First, it suggests that bacteria in natural waters are probably kept in check by viruses as well as protozoans. So far, this sounds good. Second, since viruses can ferry genetic material between organisms via transduction (i .e ., host DNA is carried to the next host). This means that genes for antibody resistance and increased bacterial virulence (as present in sewage) may be spread quickly and widely. Also, "engineered bacteria" proposed for use in agriculture, viz., the ice-minus bacterium created to protect strawberries, may die, but their new genes will soon be everywhere. (Weiss, R.; " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Waiting for saturn's rings to collapse The more we learn about Saturn's rings, the stranger they seem. One of the latest theoretical models of the rings has them composed of balls of hard ice, which interact through mutual collision and are herded by the gravitational caresses of small moons. The successes of this model have been tempered by the fact that it also implies that Saturn's rings are very young. "Theorists would have no problem with a broad, featureless disk surviving the 4.5 billion years since the early days of the solar system, but features such as spiral density waves are clear evidence that satellites, including the profusion of small ones found near the rings, are draining angular momentum from the rings. The satellites should be spiraling outward into ever larger orbits as they gain angular momentum, and the A-ring should collapse inward into the B-ring in just 100 million years as its particles lose angular momentum." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Making Better Planetary Rings," Science, 229:1376, 1985.) Reference. For other indications of youth in Saturn's rings, see ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The star of the star-nosed mole (Left) Tenticle-like rays surrounding one nostril of the star-like mole. (Right) The number of rays around the other nostril give the density of sensory receptors. The star-nosed mole is one of North America's more bizarre mammals. Its nostrils are surrounded by mobile, Medusa-like appendages that are richly suppled with nerves and blood vessels. These tentacle-like structures form the "star," which has long been considered a tactile organ used for feeling for prey. However, behavioral experiments by E. Gould et al indicate that the star may be more than a tactile organ. It seems to sport electrical sensors that detect the minute electrical fields surrounding worms, leeches, insect larvae, and other favorite mole tidbits. This conclusion derives from experiments in which starnosed moles preferentially attacked the parts of worms that are most strongly electrical. Actually, scientists have been puzzled as to how this mole found its prey, for this mammal is semiaquatic and somehow locates its dinner in muddy water even though it has poor eyesight. Although some fish possess electrical sensors, they are uncommon in mammals. Half way around the planet, another strange creature, also classified with the mammals, frequents muddy waters looking for the same sort of prey favored by the star-nosed mole. The Australian platypus also has weak vision and employs search techniques similar to those of ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf088/sf088b07.htm
