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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. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tunguska Afterglow June 30, July 1-3 , 1908. England. We quote from a London cable to the New York Times. "Several nights through the week were marked by strange atmospheric effects which Dr. Norman Lockyer of the South Kensington Solar Physics Laboratory believes to be a display of the aurora borealis, though personally I have not observed any colored streamers. "Following sunsets of exceptional beauty and twilight effects remarkable even in England, the northern sky at midnight became light blue, as if the dawn were breaking, and the clouds were touched with pink, in so marked a fashion that police headquarters was rung up by several people, who believed a big fire was raging in the north of London." (Anonymous; "Like Dawn at Midnight," New York Times, July 5, 1908. Cr. M. Piechota) Comment. Actually, all of northern Europe saw a succession of very bright nights beginning June 30, 1908. It was even possible to take photographs at midnight. The cause was not the aurora borealis but rather the Tunguska Event (Siberian Meteor) of June 30, 1908. Of course, Western Europe did not know what had happened in Siberia for years. Terrestrial dust from the Tunguska Event that was blasted into the upper atmosphere or perhaps particulate matter accompanying the impacting object (probably a comet) was apparently the cause of the nightime airglow. From Science Frontiers #121 ...
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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. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double Image Of Cresent Moon November 24, 1989. Knoxville, Tennessee. "Conditions: Clear sky (no clouds, but a slight haze). Waning moon was approx. 60 above the horizon, air temperature 33 F. "I came out of the house about 6:25 AM to perform a task and, being an amateur astronomer, I looked up at the sky to see what was visible. I noticed the crescent of the waning moon appeared as a double crescent. My eyes kept trying to resolve it into a single image, but it wouldn't resolve. I then looked at several other light sources (radio tower, porch light, & street light) and determined that my vision was probably fine, as these objects appeared as single images. Looking back at the moon, it still appeared as a double image. I covered the right eye and I still saw a double image. I did the same with the left eye and got the same results. I then held out my right arm and extended my thumb to cover one crescent. I saw only one image that way. I moved my thumb and the image was again doubled. I concluded that I was viewing refracted images of the moon. "Conditions prevented continuous observation, but I was able to return approximately every five minutes. By 6:55 AM the sky was brightening and there was only a single lunar crescent. ...
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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 Sympathetic Lightning "Video recordings made from the space shuttle at night show large areas of lightning activity in clouds and some flashes that appear to be sympathetic with other flashes. Nearly simultaneous appearances of lightning as far apart as 100 km suggest that widely separated discharges may somehow be related." (Ahmadjian, Mark, et al; "Video Pictures of Lightning Discharges Taken from the Space Shuttle," Eos, 67:891, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fall Of Hot Globules January 6, 1909. Santa Cruz, California. "It rained hot bird shot at Santa Cruz today for nearly an hour, according to Mrs. W.H . Burns and her neighbors. Some of the shot has been preserved. "Mrs. Burns's curiosity was aroused yesterday by the peculiar antics of a number of barefooted children who were playing in front of her house. When she asked them what was the matter they told her that the air was full of electricity and that hot shot was falling from the clouds. "Then she heard a clatter on the housetop like hail and saw little white threads of steam rising from neighboring roofs. The steam was found to be the result of the dropping of little hot globules on the damp shingles. "This peculiar rain continued from about 3 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and varied in intensity. At one time the children, who were bareheaded and unshod, were compelled to take cover." (Anonymous; "Hot Shot from the Sky," New York Times, January 7, 1909. Cr. M. Piechota.) From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Costa rica's neglected stone spheres The calico debate, plus a little editorializing Astronomy Small icy comets and cosmic gaia Carbon in a new comet Meteorites also transport organic payloads Supernova confusion and mysteries "COMPACT STRUCTURES": WHAT NEXT? Biology Nose news Checklist of apparently unknown animals New vertebrate depth record Aggressive mimicry Parasites control snail behavior Geology Do large meteors/comets come in cycles? Complexities of the inner earth Geophysics Concentrated source of lightning in cloud More carolina waterguns More moodus sounds Inside a texas tornado Ship enveloped by false radar echo Psychology Dowsing skeptics converted Do dreams reflect a biological state? ...
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... thought, expressed in SF#125, that the icy-comet controversy might be winding down was premature. P. Huyghe, coauthor with L. Frank of The Big Splash, responded to SF#125 with three recent articles. Two reply to major criticisms of the icy-comet theory; the third gives geological and geophysical reasons why there must have been icy comets or some other substantial influx of water and carbon to the earth's surface down the geological eons. No instrumental artifacts. The basis for the 1985 claim of L. Frank et al that small, icy comets continually bombard the earth's upper atmosphere came from photos taken far above the earth from the Dynamics Explorer 1. Large, transient "holes" appeared in the atmosphere. These were attributed to vapor clouds created by small, icy comets. (SF#44) Critics claimed that these "holes" were no more than instrumental errors. L.A . Frank and J.B . Sigwarth have investigated this possibility and have rejected it. (Frank, J.A ., and Sigwarth, J.B .; "Atmospheric Holes: Instrumental and Geophysical Effects," Journal of Geo physical Research, 104:115, 1999. Cr. P. Huyghe) Navy radar search used incorrect cross sections. A more recent attack on the icy comets came from S. Knowles et al. (SF#125) They claim that their search of the sky with the Naval Space Command Radar would surely have detected the icy comets if they exist. Frank and Sigwarth respond that ...
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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 Black Auroras July 23/24, 1998. Gulf of St, Lawrence. Aboard the m.v . Appleby , Port Cartier to Immingham. "The aurora borealis was sighted at 0330 UTC. There was a band measuring 35 long in azimuth, with deepblue almost black vertical bands lying between the altitudes of 15 and 25 . The colour changed to brilliant blue at 0335, lasting for about 15 minutes before cloud began to obscure it." What were the "almost black" vertical bands embedded in the main band? Aurora expert R. Livesey replied as follows. "There is a phenomenon called the 'black aurora' which consists of small regions of very low luminosity embedded in brighter auroral light; the 'black' rays reported from the Appleby could have been a phenomenon of this type." (Wilson, J.L .; "Aurora Borealis," Marine Observer, 69:112, 1999.) Black auroras may actually be more than just the contrast effect suggested by Livesey. Low-light TV systems detect clockwise vorticity in the black bands, and the bands seem to be associated with upward electron beams. In other words, black auroras are apparently a distinct phenomeon in their own right and not just nonluminous parts of the visible aurora. (Stenbaek-Nielsen, H.C ., et al; "Why Do Auroras Look the Way They Do?" Eos, 80:193 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The clovis police Birds of burden Astronomy Nature, hypothesis, and the big bang At last, a theory of everything! Biology 1989 SIGHTINGS OF OGOPOGO Hypermutation rather than Geology Baikal's deep secrets Is the arctic ice cover thinning? Impact crater beneath lake huron Wagnerian sands of the desert Geophysics Icy minicomets not so dead! CROP CIRCLE UPDATE: WHAT ARE "THEY" TRYING TO TELL US? UPWARDLY DIRECTED LIGHTNING FROM CLOUD TOPS Psychology HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION SUPERIOR TO SALICYLIC ACID General The belgian flying triangle updated ...
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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 Meteoric night-glow During some intense meteor showers, such as the Leonids in 1866 and the Bielids in 1872, observers noted a faint diffuse glow of the night sky in the direction of the meteor shower radiant. The glows were aurora-like but no sunspot or magnetic activity was noted. A New Zealand scientist, W.J . Baggaley, has suggested that these strange glows were caused by sunlight scattered from huge clouds of fine meteoric dust accompanying the meteor swarms. (Anonymous; "Meteoric Night-Glow," Sky and Telescope, 35:485, 1978.) Comment. This item is closely related to the many observations of luminous skies and, in particular, the vivid sky glows following the Tunguska Event of 1908. There may also be a connection with the highly variable behavior of the not-sowell-understood zodiacal light. From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hailstorms as Imaginative Sculptors June 29, 1984. Padis Plateau, Romania. This plateau is located in the Transylvanian Western Carpathians. The weather was pleasantly warm even though the ground was still covered with snow. In the south there suddenly appeared a cumulonimbus capillatus whose top seemed to me to be about 14 kilometres or 42 000 feet. As the cloud took on the character of cumulonimbus incus and gradually covered the entire sky, thunder could be heard more and more loudly. The flock of sheep grazing in the deep valley gathered together just as they do before sunset because they too felt the approaching storm. At 16 UT the first raindrops fell. A weak shower of rain followed, and then loose-structured 20-mm-diameter discs of ice. Soon afterwards what was to be 30 minutes of "sky fire" set in. Stone-like pieces of ice streamed to the ground, very heavily and violently. Some of the hailstones were the size of a nut or plum. Within minutes a white carpet covered the plateau of Padis at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 feet), and the air grew very cool. The landscape was covered by a milky-white veil of fog which rose from the cold ground to a height of 1 to 1.5 metres to embrace the whole dolomite plateau. Then for three minutes the hailstorm paused, before restarting! It lasted for 55 minutes, and it was ...
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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 The milky sea a.k .a . "white water"June 1854. South of Java. Aboard the American clipper Shooting Star . Captain Kingman reporting: "The whole appearance of the ocean was like a plain covered with snow. There was scarce a cloud in the heavens, yet the sky...appeared as black as if a storm was raging. The scene was one of awful grandeur; the sea having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness, and the stars going out, seemed to indicate that all nature was preparing for that last grand conflagration which we are taught to believe is to annihilate this material world." We selected this account of the milky sea phenomenon because of its vivid verbiage -- something absent from the modern reports: "August 13, 1986. Northwest Indian Ocean. The entire sea surface took on an intense white glow which was not unlike viewing the negative of a photograph." The milky sea is a rather common phenomenon. In fact, the British Meteorological Office has established a Bioluminescence Database, which presently contains 235 reports of milky seas seen since 1915. P.J . Herring and M. Watson have employed this Database in a review paper on these impressive displays. Geographical plotting of the reports shows a strong concentration in the northwest Indian Ocean (see figure). Seasonally, there is a strong peaking in August and a secondary blip in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An oasis on mars -- no palm trees but...Most of the data returned from the Viking Landers and Orbiters confirm a highly desiccated surface for Mars. Life-as-we-know-it would seem to be impossible in such an ultra-dry environment. The Solis Lacus region is an exception. On occasion, Orbiter photos of this region have revealed heavy frosts and fogs. Further, the clouds here have more moisture in them than elsewhere on Mars. Conclusion: Considerably more water exists near the surface of the Solis Lacus region than elsewhere. Since this area was the source of the great 1971 Martian dust storm, one wonders whether the unusual concentration of water has been revealed only because winds have stripped off the normally dry surface layer. (Huguenin, R.L ., et al; "Mars: An Oasis in Solis Lacus," Eos, 60:306, 1979.) Comment. Close-up photos of Mars show many signs of fluid erosion. Abundant water may still remain well below the planet's surface. Reference. Probable wet areas on Mars are cataloged at AME16 in The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information for this book is located here . From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chicken-plucking by tornados In the early 1840s, Professor Loomis of Western Reserve College stuffed dead chickens into an eight pounder and fired the cannon vertically. Object: to see if high velocities would deplume the chickens. It seems that Loomis didn't know whether to believe all those stories about tornados tearing the feathers off chickens. Unfortunately, his experiments were inconclusive because the cannon disgorged clouds of feathers plus well-shredded chickens. He recommended that other scientists try lower muzzle velocities! Since those more innocent days, science has accumulated many eye-witness accounts of this incredible phenomenon, including actual photographs that do not appear to have been tampered with in the darkroom. There can no longer be any reasonable doubt, tornados do deplume chickens. (Galway, Joseph G., and Schaefer, Joseph T.; "Fowl Play," Weatherwise, 32:116, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tidal Wave Of Gammas Sweeps Solar System On March 5, 1979, a colossal burst of gamma rays swept through the solar system, triggering radiation detectors on nine different spacecraft. By comparing the times of arrival of the burst, the direction of the source was narrowed down to a "box" a couple of arc minutes across. Gamma-ray bursts have never before been correlated with visible sources, but this time the box contained the remnants of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. The anomaly that arises involves the immense distance of the supposed source and the strength of the burst when it reached the solar system. The power level of the supernova remnant gamma flash would have had to be about 1037 watts -- a stupendous figure. If the supernova remnant is a neutron star, as current theories suggest, the neutron star would have to be 10 to 100 times the size of the usual neutron stars. (Anonymous; "Gamma-Ray Burst Comes from Outside the Galaxy," New Scientist, 87:776, 1980.) From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A TSUNAMI AND A PERUVIAN CULTURAL GLITCH Lenses in antiquity Strange craters Astronomy Hypnotic mars The perseus flasher: mystery solved! Three planetary notes Biology Has the second law been repealed? Human direction finding Magnetic "dead" reckoning Another tale of ogopogo Geology Meteor-impact winters, magnetic field reversals and tektites Tektite-like objects at lonar crater, india Geophysics Are the soviet plumes only orographic clouds? Lightning triggered from the magnetosphere Psychology Magnetic fields and the imagination Men in black (mibs) Folie a famille A "MAGICAL GENIUS" Pi and ramanajan A MODEST EXAMPLE OF THE LONG ARM OF SYNCHRONICITY ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 147: May-Jun 2003 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology New Zealand's 1200AD Barrier Too Many Years Ago, Texas Quick Mud Captured a Young Woman Astronomy Cosmology gets Real! Really! What's Beyond the Kuiper Cliff! Biology The Master Code Some Odd Creaters Wrought by the Master Code Geology Rock Sliders at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California Depluming the Earth Geophysics Smokey, Cigar-Shaped Object Floats Across Room Ice Music Crustal Music Chemistry When Gold Goes Bad Unclassified The best UFO Cases ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 151: Jan - Feb 2004 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology 7,000-year-old circles in Modern Crop Fields Fingers Lost and Found Astronomy Not Enough TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects = KBOs Kuiper-Belt Objects) Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral? Biology Thickening the Ocean's Biomass Sponging on Sponges What else is Meant to Be? Geology Building a Fire with Wood 45 Million Years old The Shrinking of Chicxulub Geophysics The Deadliest Forest Fire in American History The Yellowstone-Lake Bulge Want Big Waves for Surfing? Forget Hawaii and Australia! Anomalous Auroral Flashes Psychology Why Sleep? If we must Sleep, Why must we Dream too? Chemistry Lab-made Microfossils ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightningless thunder?August 22, 1987. Wotton-under-Edge, England. "There had been thunder about, but the clouds were high, and there was intermittent sunshine. I was at work with a friend of mine, sawing logs, in one part of the garden. My wife was picking beans, about 80 yards away. Without any kind of warning, there was a violent detonation overhead, at what might have been tree-height. Service in war enables one to describe an explosion better than those whose experience is limited to Guy Fawkes' Day. This seemed to me about the same as an air-burst from a German 88 mm high velocity gun. My friend and I took it to be lightning; but neither of us saw any flash -- perhaps because we were both looking downwards at the time. "Shortly afterwards, my wife appeared, dazed and shaken. The explosion had evidently been closer to her, for she (having served in the WRNS) was reminded of an ammunition ship blowing up 'whoosh,' suggestive of a very high speed aircraft flying very low. That is what she momentarily thought it was, coming from the ridge of the Cotswold escarpment, under which this house lies; and she instinctively ducked. Immediately before the detonation, there seemed to her to be a sound not unlike machine-gun fire; and there was a movement of the air ...
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... about fifty miles per hour. "The agency, though invisible, behaved like a solid object throughout and did not show any fluid tendencies, i.e . no variation in speed, line or strength. There was no visual aberration either in front, above or below the advancing line. "After crossing the field on a shallow arc the 'line' dropped to a position about 1 o'clock and radially described a circle 75 ft radius in about 4 seconds. The agency then disappeared." Meaden, a champion of the plasma-vortex theory, believes that the observation reported by Barnes is consistent with this theory. During a later interview, Barnes stated that a hissing noise accompanied the phenomenon. This, thinks Meaden, could be due to electrical discharges within the plasma cloud. (Meaden, G.T .; "Circle Formation in a Wiltshire Cereal-Crop -- an Eye-Witness Account and Analysis of a Circles-Effect Event at Westbury," Journal of Meteor ology, U.K ., 14:265, 1989.) Comment. Still at issue are the formation of a large, swirling mass of ionized air, its mysterious motion, the precision of the circles, and the diverse, almost too-neat geometrical patterns. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... computer bulletin board here! Subject: #235852-Ball Lightning From: Jeff Baum (PHX)
[email protected] To: Emory Kimbrough [TCL]
[email protected](X ) "On 8 January 1992 we were in MSP [Minneapolis/St. Paul] ready for pushback at sunrise. Weather was sleet squalls, temperature of + 2 degrees C (35 degrees F), ceiling of indefinite 100 obscured, visibility of about 1 and mile variable. We deiced and taxied for the active 11L, airborne in 8 minutes after deicing had ended. The First Officer was flying that leg. Climbing through about 900 feet ABL, this incandescent sphere approximately 10 cm (6 inches) in diameter surrounded by a, what I called, plasma
cloud of bluish white approx 1 to 1 and meter (3 to 4 feet) in diameter with bright white 'rays' similar to a fireworks explosion formed just forward and to the left of the radome. We contacted this within second on our left side, just aft of the attach seam of the radome (namely about in line with my left foot). With this contact there was a sharp bang. The cabin crew reported the loud bang but didn't see any haze or light inside the cabin. One did report seeing a bright light on the left side of the aircraft's exterior." Reference. Rayed ball lightning is fairly common. We have cataloged it in GLB3 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science
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... taken by the Voyager-2 spacecraft, David A. Godfrey (National Optical Astronomy Observatories) has discovered an unusual feature in the planet's atmosphere. His mosaics reveal a hexagon centered on the north pole. Since neither probe flew directly over the pole, the complete scene has to be created by 'stretching' a series of photographs taken from the side as Saturn rotated, then fitting them into a polar projection." The straight sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 kilometers long. The entire structure rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions, which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior. The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere. The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most astronomers seem to favor some sort of standing-wave pattern in the atmosphere; but the hexagon might be a novel sort of aurora. More extreme speculation has Saturn's radio emissions emanating from the hexagon (something we can see and which has the right rotation period) rather than from the planet's interior (something we cannot see). (Anonymous; "A Hex on Saturn," Sky and Telescope, 77:246, 1989.) Comment. Note the similarities between the hexagon and the radial spoke structure sometimes seen in the atmosphere of Venus, as described in AVO6 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering details for this book are here . ...
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... the upward luminous discharge that was seen to move out of the top of a single thunderstorm during the flight of STS-31. This video image was taken at 0335:59 UTC 28 April 1990 while the shuttle was on its 55th orbit and passing over Mauritania, northwest Africa. .. .. . "The storm that had the luminous discharge was located at approximately 7.5 N, 4.0 E, and was about 2000 km from the shuttle's position. The lightning discharge was determined to be at least 31 km long. .. .. . "We are now trying to understand the significance in relationship to the earth's atmosphere and the global electric circuit." (Vaughan, Otha H., Jr., et al; "A Cloud-to-Space Lightning as Recorded by the Space Shuttle Payload-Bay TV Cameras," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 1459, 1992.) Comment. Somewhere 31 kilometers above the thundercloud, there must have been a concentration of electrical charge that acted as a "terminal" for the bolt. How did it get there? Reference. A more recent term for "rocket lightning" is "sprite" or "elf." These phenomena are cataloged under GLL1 in the catalog: Lightning, Auroras . For a description of this book, see: here . From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the long nights, is a band of dedicated meteor observers -- mainly amateur astroomers. Collectively, they record many meteor showers and fireballs; all quite respectable astronomical objects. But sometimes fuzzy, rapidly moving luminosities appear, as in the following paragraph written by J.S . Gallagher: "Diffuse luminous objects moving at angular velocities similar to those of meteors were observed during over 200 hours of meteor watching in 1991. They fell in three broad categories: arcs, patches, and 'meteors' similar in appearance to comet comas. Though I at first dismissed the possibility of their being related to meteors, I reconsidered this relation after eliminating other possible causes such as reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy comets postulated by L.A . Frank to account for the transient "holes" seen in satellite ultraviolet images of the earth. (See SF#60 and #72 for more.) (Gallagher, John ...
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... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Class Of Solar System Objects For decades astronomers have suspected and searched for Planet X, a large body beyond Neptune swinging slowly about the sun and gravitationally perturbing Neptune's orbit. Planet X has never been found, but somewhere out there are some pretty hefty bodies, as described by T. Van Flandern: "The discovery of a second miniplanet beyond Neptune, 1993 FW, augments the discovery of 1992 QB1 last fall. Both objects are believed to be in the 200-300-km-diameter range, with magnitudes between 2324, distances at discovery between 40-45 AU, and low inclinations.... Although the discoverers of these two objects hailed them as the first representatives of the elusive 'Kuiper belt' of comets, other theoreticians have confirmed that the line of reasoning leading to the suggestion of such a belt is spurious. That fact, combined with the absence of any comet-like characteristics in these two new objects, their relative size as compared with any other known comet, and their unusually red coloration, seem to make them the first-discovered members of a new class of solar system bodies. Since the searches leading to their discovery have examined only 1.5 out of tens of thousands of square degrees of sky wherein such objects might be discovered, it seems a reasonable conjecture that thousands of additional similar objects will ultimately be found. In short, it appears at this early stage that the solar system may have a second asteroid belt beyond Neptune." ( ...
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... bumps in the brain. The function of the vomeronasal system is pheromone detection. It was widely believed that humans had long ago discarded this sensory system along evolution's trail. But a closer look at the human nose by B. Jafek and D. Moran, affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center at the University of Colorado, revealed that all humans examined displayed two tiny pits on both sides of the septum, just inside the the opening of the nose. Behind the holes were tubes lined with unique cells that could well be pheromone detectors, since they responded positively to puffs of air laden with pheromones. In conclusion, we humans actually do have a sixth sense, and we are all enveloped in an aura -- not the luminous aura of the mystics but a cloud of pheromones. Somehow, our attitudes towards others are likely affected by these pheromones. (Blakeslee, Sandra; "Human Nose May Hold an Additional Organ for a Real Sixth Sense," New York Times, September 7, 1993. Cr. P. Gunkel) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Green Thunderstorms Anecdotes abound that exceptionally severe thunderstorms may appear to emit an eerie, sickeningly yellow-green light. Skeptics scoff at this notion. The excited observers were deluded, or they made it all up. This is, of course, the same knee-jerk response greeting UFO reports and accounts of many other anomalies. Thunderstorms, however, do have an objective existence. And it turns out that a few storm-watching meteorologists have also seen greenish thunderstorms. Such professional testimony is usually dismissed as due to the reflection of greenish ground vegetation by the storm clouds or, perhaps, the effects of sheets of hail preceding the storms. In 1995, F.W . Gallagher et al decided to settle the matter. They chased likely looking thunderstorms armed with a spectrophotometer. Many storms later, they proved, first of all, that some thunderstorms are definitely green. In fact, some gradually change from blue to green in the space of half an hour. Their ground observations, plus more spectrophotometer data taken from aircraft, refute the theory that the green color is from reflected vegetation. Hail may contribute to the green color but is not required. In sum, green thunderstorms really do exist, but no one yet knows where all the green comes from. (Gallagher, Frank W., III, et al; "Green Thunderstorms Observed," Amer ican Meteorological Society, Bulletin, 77:2889, 1996 ...
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... anything like it,' he said. "The Oregon State University oceanographer said the pool, about 6 feet in depth, is approximately 3 feet wide by 8 feet long. It is near the lush white and orange bacteria mats found last summer." The murky pool of fluid was discovered during a dive in a research submarine. The temperature of the pool was about 4.5 C (40.1 F) which made it 1 C warmer than the surrounding lake water. (Anonymous; "Strange Blue Pool Found in Crater Lake," Sunday Oregonian , August 13, 1989. Cr. R. Byrd) Comment. Some lakes in northern climes still retain ancient seawater in their bottoms. Also, we have the well-publicized African lakes that suddenly overturn, producing clouds of poisonous gases. See our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Accelerating Universe Many laymen are uncomfortable with the idea that the entire universe originated at an infinitesimal point and is now expanding away from this cosmic navel. Many astronomers are equally disturbed by the recent discovery that all these fleeing stars and galaxies are not being reined in by the force of gravity. In fact, observations of distant supernovas indicate that this exodus of matter is actually speeding up. Some universal repulsive force, it seems, is operating on very large scales of distance. From an unknown somewhere energy is being added to all constituents of the cosmos. The universe is more than a cloud of debris flying away from the Big Bang's Ground Zero. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the ken of our primitive instruments, is a fount of energy of which we know nothing. All this is a serious challenge to our understanding of space, time, and matter. Cosmologists are now appealing to quantum mechanical "shimmers," to "X -matter," and to a property called "quintessence." (Glanz, James; "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279:651, 1998. Also: Glanz, James; "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work," Science, 279:1298, 1998.) Comment. When theorists toss around terms like "X -matter" and "quintessence," you can be sure that the basic laws of the universe ...
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... , 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, visit here . From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... J . Martel, Radio Officer. "At 0855 GMT the look-out observed what appeared to be a searchlight shining downwards for about 10 seconds on a bearing of 300 T and 20 above the horizon. This light was extinguished and was replaced by a luminescent patch of approximately one degree in diameter. A semi-circular area of over-all moderate luminosity formed about the luminescent patch. This took about three minutes to form and the dimensions are shown in the sketch. When this had formed, another luminescent patch was also observed above the semicircular area and after a total period of seven minutes the phenomenon dispersed completely. Weather conditions were as follows: dry bulb 19.0 C, wet bulb 17.0 C, barometer reading 1016.7 mb, good visibility, no cloud. Position of ship: 23 05'N , 17 25'W ." (Brackenbridge, M.; "Unidentified Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 48:21, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... sea has been a continuous phenomenon on a geological time scale and may have served either as a seed or refugium for the evolution of biological photochemical reactions or adaptations." We formally classify this item under GEOPHYSICS because scientists are still pondering how these glows are created. Some of the light is obviously black-body radiation from the very hot (350 C) water but: ". .. other potential, narrow-band sources of light may be superimposed on the blackbody radiation spectrum, including crystaloluminescence, Cerenkov radiation, chemiluminescence, triboluminescence, sonoluminescence, and the burning of methane in supercritical water." (Van Dover, Cindy Lee, et al; "Light at Deep Sea Hydrothermal Vents," Eos, vol. 75, 1994.) Comment. If cold, diffuse molecular clouds in deep space can synthesize glycine, imagine what the hot, chemically-rich fluids around hydrothermal vents might be able to do. From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , 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 such possibility located in Argentina. There are also those several hundred thousand Carolina Bays concentrated along the southeastern U.S . seacoast. These shallow depressions are in a shotgun pattern but are also thought to be the consequence of impacts -- perhaps a cloud of debris rather than a procession. (SF#82) Lunar craters display many anomalies. See our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Clearly, something dramatic had happened. "There are two possibilities: a huge volcanic eruption or a collision between the Earth and a solid object: an asteroid or comet. Ice-cores drilled from Greenland show no evidence of large-scale volcanic activity at that time, so Professor Baillie and others now believe a cosmic impact is more likely. The result would have been to throw up a huge veil of dust and debris, cooling the Earth and producing widespread crop failures." (Anonymous; "Raining Death and Dark Ages," London Times, July 27, 1994. Cr. A. Rothovius) In the scientific literature, Baillie has elaborated on the cosmic-projectile theme, adding that the dust veil could also have been created when the solar system passed through a cloud of cosmic dust. (Baillie, M.G .L .; "Dendrochronology Raises Questions about the Nature of the AD 536 Dust-Veil Event," The Holocene , 4:212, 1994. Cr. L. Ellenberger) Comment. The scientific literature hints of dust-veil events in more recent times: (1 ) the white-sky phenomenon of 1912; and (2 ) the "dry fog" of 1783. See details in GWC1 and GWD4 in Tornados, Dark Days, etc. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 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 More Milky Seas Seen August 4, 1977. Indian Ocean. The s.s . British Renown enetered a large area of milky sea. The intensity of light was so great that the deck appeared to be just a dark shadow. During the display, humidity seemed to increase and the radio operator reported a decrease in signal strengths at HF and MF frequencies. September 6, 1977. Indian Ocean. An area of bioluminescence resembling white sea fog was spotted near the m.v . Wild Curlew. Entering the area, the milky light seemed to hover above the sea's surface. So strong was the light that the clouds above were illuminated. (Anonymous; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 48:118, 1978.) Reference. Section GLW9 in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras collects many more observations of milky seas. For more information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... stream beds and have been attributed to water action. The ancient Spokane Flood that carved our Washington State's channeled scablands is seen as an apt terrestrial analogy. The Martian channels, however, are much larger than the water-eroded terrestrial analogs. The authors of the subject paper suggest that ice rather than water created the Martian channels, pointing out that terrestrial ice-stream and glacier landforms are much closer to the Martian features in terms of scale. (Lucchitta, Baerbel K., et al; "Did Ice Streams Carve Martian Outflow Channels?" Nature, 290:759, 1981.) Comment. This suggests the possibility that earth and Mars may have had synchronous Ice Ages due to solar variations or, perhaps, the envelopment of the entire solar system by a huge cloud of absorbing matter. From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... precision. At its altitude of 3700 miles, the earth's atmosphere is supposed to be so thin that friction will bring the satellite only 1/250th of an inch closer to the earth each day. The trouble is that Lageos actually falls at ten times this rate. In 1979 it descended 60% faster than it does now. Lageos will stay in orbit several hundred thou-sand years, but space scientists are understandably concerned about their theories about the upper atmosphere. Many suggestions have been made to explain this anomaly. Some say the atmosphere is thicker than expected; others prefer to think there is more helium than predicted; but the "plasma drag" effect seems to fit the situation the best. Lageos may, in fact, be electrically charged and interacting with the surrounding cloud of electrically charged particles and is ever so slightly braked by the electrical forces. (Maran, Stephen P.; "Fall from Space," Natural History, 91:74, December 1982.) From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 on September 18. Rocket launches do pro-vide spectacular luminous phenomena offshore from Cape Kennedy, but the above phenomena do not seem consistent with small meteorological rockets ...
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... 's recent observation that terrestrial impact craters 10kilometer-diameter and up have been blasted out episodically -- every 28.4 million years on the average. This figure is close enough to 26 million years to impel some astronomers to search for a periodic source of cosmic projectiles. R.A . Muller and M. Davis, at Berkeley, think they have found one. They postulate that the solar system is really a double-star system. Our sun's companion star has only about 0.1 solar mass and is so faintly luminous that we have not found it visually. It does, however, now cruise along its orbit some 2.4 light years away. But it will be back! In fact, it returns every 26 million years to jostle the Oord Cloud of comets that hovers on the fringe of the solar system. This nudging periodically sends a large shower of comets careening around the inner solar system. The earth intercepts one or more of these projectiles each visit and -- bang -- we have new craters and another biological catastrophe. (Anonymous; "A Star Named George," Scientific American, 250:66, April 1984.) Comment, Ho hum! Still another cometary impact scenario. Ignatius Donnelly was pretty convincing in this matter a century ago. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... there that some metal compounds of chlorine, fluorine, and sulfur are vaporized in some locales. Such metallic "mists" could well coat out as "frost" on the cooler, higher elevations. Actually, two outstanding Venusian anomalies can be explained by such metallic "frosts." Radar signals from earth are strongly reflected from the planet's mountains and high plateaus. These regions may owe their unusually high reflectance to metallic "frosts" consisting of such radarbright minerals as pyrite, which is probably present in vapor form at lower, hotter elevations. During the 1978 Pioneer Venus mission, four instrumented probes plunged into the Venusian atmosphere. All instruments with external sensors on all four probes failed mysteriously 12.5 kilometers above the planet's surface. Thinking is that the probes pierced a cloud deck of metallic vapor that condensed on the cold sensor surfaces. (Anonymous; "Metal 'Frost' on Venus?" Sky and Telescope, 90:13, August 1995.) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... semi-rural area. Fog made visibility poor. It began to rain -- a brown jelly-like slime that smeared the windshield. A rotten-egg odor pervaded the area. The car engine stopped, and the two began to walk to find assistance. After 50 yards, they encountered millions of small rays of "lightning" flashing everywhere. They were 2-3 feet long and reached high into the sky. Looking back toward the car, they saw a reddish fluorescent glow with streams of light coming down from the sky to the glowing region. Grass and weeds along the roadside were standing straight up and glowing. Deep-red lines of light were seen dancing on the road. They returned to the car, and it felt hot to the touch! Soon, clouds moved in and the display was over. The authors of this article personally investigated this event within a few days of its occurrence. They found the two witnesses obviously very shaken, but believe that the accounts are fresh and unadulterated. Also pertinent is the fact that a large solar flare had just occurred, and intense auroral displays had been predicted. Also, the two women were apparently the only witnesses of this phenomenon. (Swords, Michael D., and Curtis, Edward G.; "Atmospheric Light Show," Pursuit, 16:116, 1983.) Comment. The article also contains the authors' analysis in some depth. Basically, they thought the phenomenon to be auroral with coincidental rainfall containing organic debris. Reference. Many other low-level auroras are described ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The message of aluminum-26 "Our solar system may be inside the cloud of debris from a star that exploded 10,000 to 1,000,000 years ago. This startling conclusion was reached by Donald Clayton of Rice University after studying observations of the amount of aluminum-26 (26Al) in the interstellar medium." Instruments on satellites (gamma-ray spectrometers) have detected so much aluminum-26 that radical hypotheses seem required. The problem is that aluminum26 is radioactive with a half-life of only about 1 million years -- a very short time astronomically speaking. The aluminum-26 cannot be primordial solar-system stuff; it cannot even be 10 million years old. It had to be created somewhere nearby recently. The best aluminum-26 factory conceived so far is a nova in our vicinity. (Anonymous; "Are We inside a Supernova Remnant?" Sky and Telescope, 69:13, 1985.) Comment. A nova close enough to engulf the earth with its debris must have had a profound effect on the earth and its cargo of life -- perhaps on Saturn's rings, too. See next item . From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... any other globular clusters checked so far. Are globular clusters in general different from the rest of the Milky Way? Possibly, see below. (Anonymous; "No Globular Planets?" Astronomy, 28:34, October 2000. Anonymous; "Planets Come Up Missing in a Globular Cluster," Sky & Telescope, 104:23, October 2000.) Answer. Globular clusters are peculiar in several additional ways. For example, the globular clusters in the Milky Way have a spherical distribution rather than being compressed into a flat spiral with the rest of our galaxy's stars. There is even evidence that the clusters may not participate in the Milky Way's ponderous rotation. See AOB4 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos for still more globular-cluster idiosyncracies. A spherical cloud of globular clusters coexists in space with the disc-shaped Milky Way. Each globular cluster is a dense spherical aggregation of tens of thousands of stars. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 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. Place your ad free. ...
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... vegetable food in the polar night is about as incongruous as imagining them trekking down to the Lower 481 Scientists are now maintaining that these dinosaurs did prosper on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, even in the dark, because the climate then was semitropical or temperate. This was because the earth's climate was more equable or uniform. They are, however, surprised by the lack of mineral deposition in the dinosaur bones, which look rather "mode m". (Anderson, Ian; "Alaskan Dinosaurs Confound Catastrophe Theorists, " New Scientist, p. 18, August 22, 1985. ) (The apparent survival of dinosaurs during two months of darkness is being used as an argument against asteroidal catastrophism, which it is claimed wiped out the dinosaurs with a long-lived dust cloud that blocked the sun. WRC) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... England. Unusual features of a spectacular thunderstorm. Some recently reviewed records of a great thunderstorm mention two interesting anomalies: Hailstones 2 inches long shaped like cigarettes Three successive balls of lightning corkscrewing down from the sky. (Meaden, George T.; "Cigarette-Shaped Hailstones and Spiral Descent of Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:332, 1985.) Reference. The foregoing anomalies are discussed in our Catalog of Anomalies. See GWT2 in Tornados, Dark Days for tornado burning and dehydration and GWP for oddly shaped hailstones in the same volume. Ball lightning is cataloged in GLB in Lightning, Auroras. Both books are described more fully here . The funnel of the 1955 tornado at Blackwell, Oklahoma, was lit up like a neon tube. Cloud-to-earth electrical currents could be the cuase of the scorching reported above. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Meteorites Also Transport Organic Payloads Excerpts from the Abstract of a paper printed in Nature: "Much effort has been directed to analyses of organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrites because of their implications for orgainc chemical evolution and the origin of life. We have determined the isotopic composition of hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon in amino acid and monocarboxylic extracts from the Murchison meteorite. .. .. . "These results confirm the extraterrestrial origin of both classes of compounds, and provide the first evidence suggesting a direct relationship between the massive organo-synthesis occurring in interstellar clouds and the presence of pre-biotic compounds in primitive planetary bodies." (Epstein, S., et al; "Unusual Stable Isotope Ratios in Amino Acid and Carboxylic Acid Extracts from the Murchison Meteorite," Nature, 326:477, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Naturally all of astronomy heaved a sigh of relief over this. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived, and a second dose of antacid now seems required! Just a few days after the above, researchers reported in the New York Times some discomforting news: "According to Dr. Robert W. Noyes of Harvard-Smithsonian (Center for Astrophysics), the observations gathered by an extraordinarily sensitive camera show that the bright exploding star, or supernova, is actually two points of light, very close together, one about 10 times brighter than its companion. Since neither was present before the explosion, astronomers assume both arose from the same blast, but how this could happen is a mystery. .. .. . "The supernova and its apparent companion lie in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, at a distance of 150,000 light years from earth. The instrument used by the Harvard-Smithsonian group measured the distance between the two supernova elements as about one-twentieth of an arc second. This is about the separation a human eye would see between the headlights of a car some 6,000 miles away "Dr. Noyes said this distance was equivalent to an actual distance between the two bright objects of only about 3,000 Astronomical Units, where one Astronomical Unit is the distance from the sun to the earth, about 93,000,000 miles. This is a tiny distance in astronomcial terms; but if both objects stemmed from the same explosion, Dr. Noyes said, they must have been moving apart ...
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... in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many craters still lie undiscovered beneath sediments. In addition, most meteors/comets splashed into the oceans, leaving no record at all. An updating of the most recent crater data available, such as they are, greatly weakens the case for the popular 28-31 million-year period and strengthens support for a 19-22 million-year period. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Toads Fall To Squashy Fate On Route 66, near Gallup, New Mexico, June 1949. "Temperature 104 . Absolute blue sunny skies. No clouds anywhere to be seen, from one horizon to the other for 360 . "Out of nowhere, without warning, it poured extremely hard rain, hail, and toads. The hail balls were maybe the size of grapes to the size of peas. The toads were a medium brown in color and approximately the size of an adult's thumbnail. This whole incident lasted for less than 5 minutes, if my memory is correct. .. .. . "The highway and the desert sands seemed to be one and the same, and the whole area seemed to be alive and moving. By now, we were down to a very slow speed, and under closer observation we noticed that the area was littered with millions of hailstones and those toads hopping all over. "The storm stopped as fast as it started, and the toads disappeared just as fast. I'll never forget how slippery the road was as we drove over those toads, and the popping of their bodies under the tires of my automobile." (Schuler, Richard A.; personal communication, July 23, 1987.) Comment. The sudden onset of the violent storm and the huge numbers of toads are both difficult-to-account for. If a whirlwind picked up ...
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