119 results found.
... 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 Meteoric "dust bunnies"All around the world, watching through 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 ...
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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 Atmospheric Footprints Of Icy Meteors Serendipity triumphs again. From a dayglow experiment aboard NASA's satellite DE-1 (Dynamic Explorer-1 ) comes an unexpected discovery of considerable potential importance. Looking down on the earth, the DE-1 records the light emitted by atmospheric oxygen at altitudes of about 200-300 kilometers -- this is the so-called "dayglow." The experimenters, L. Frank, J. Sigwarth, and J. Craven, all at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, have found that their dayglow images are speckled with transitory dark spots. "According to Sigwarth, each hole expands like a drop of dye spreading out in a glass of water; within about 30 seconds the dayglow intensity drops by about 95 percent over an area of about 3,000 square kilometers. Then, over the next 3.5 minutes, the dayglow intensity increases toward its normal value as the hole grows to an area of about 25,000 km2 ." The Iowa group thinks that the holes or spots are created by meteors hitting the upper atmosphere because the spots follow the same time distribution as meteors. For example, they are more frequent during the well-known meteor showers. The theory is that the dark spots are formed when ice associated with the meteors is turned into water vapor, which reacts with the atmospheric oxygen producing the dayglow, in effect removing temporarily part of the light ...
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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 Do large meteors/comets come in cycles?Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Alien Meteors Meteors or shooting stars are usually considered to be small fragments that have been broken off the asteroids plying orbits between Mars and Jupiter. If this belief is correct, meteors darting into the earth's upper atmosphere would have speeds less than 260,000 kilometers per hour. Any objects with significantly higher velocities must come outside the solar system. It has, therefore, been unsettling to find that quite a few meteors hit our atmosphere at speeds much higher than 260,000 km/hr. Radar measurements of 160,000 meteors by A. Taylor and colleagues, at a New Zealand site, found that about 1% (1500 meteors) struck the atmosphere with velocities greater than 350,000 km/hr. These speedsters must come from beyond the solar system. The question arising is: Whence all this interstellar debris? One hint comes from the fact that the aliens appear to come from the direction in which the sun and its family of planets are traveling through interstellar space. Evidently, this interstellar medium is far from a vacuum; it is strewn with flotsam and jetsam -- but from what smashed planets, moons, and asteroids? (Samson, Alan; "Radar Traps Visitors from Outer Space," Dominion Sun Times (Wellington), April 25, 1993. (Cr. P. Hassall) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What's Up There?Some Leonid meteors are not behaving the way meteors should. They begin to burn up well above 100 kilometers where the atmosphere is too thin -- essentially a good vacuum -- to cause frictional heating and consequent vaporization. We mentioned this conundrum briefly in SF#125. We now have the scientific details at hand concerning the supporting observations made during the November 1998 Leonid bombardment. The observations were made by an international team in China. Photographic cameras were employed as well as an all-sky TV camera equipped with an image intensifier. All photographed meteors began to visibly burn up below 130 kilometers, but the TV camera consistently picked up the same meteors at higher altitudes. Both sets of cameras recorded the same final burn-up heights. The most startling observation was a meteor that the TV camera detected at roughly 200 kilometers altitude. The highest observed Leonid meteor with initial mass of about 1 kg started radiating at an altitude of almost 200 km. The origin of meteor radiation at such high altitudes is still not well understood and more detailed observations will be needed, including near-infrared spectroscopy. (Spumy Pavel, et al; "Atmospheric Behavior and Extreme Beginning Heights of the Thirteen Brightest Photographic Leonid Meteors...," Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 35:243, 2000. Cr. R. Spaulding) Comment. As in SF#125, we must add that sounds ...
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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. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Trio Of Strange Meteors January 25, 1990. Western North America "While residents from Anka to Mankato were calling radio stations Thursday to report the sighting of a bright, slow-moving light in the pre-dawn sky, people across the western half of the nation were doing the same thing." .. .. . "Most eyewitnesses in the spectacle, which was reported over a 12hour period from a number of locations, said it was greenish, although some said it was turquoise, or white, or had an orange tail." (McAuliffe, Bill; "Was It Junk? Maybe So. But It Sure Lit Up the Sky," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 26, 1990. Cr. R. PanLener via L. Farish.) Comment. Color changes are not uncommon in meteor sightings. However, the slowness of this meteor was remarkable. January 27, 1990. U.S . Midatlantic States. "Thousands of people in the Eastern United States reported seeing a strange bluish-green light in the sky Saturday night, which some experts said could have been an unusually large meteorite. .. .. . "In North Carolina, Jim Iodice, who was flying a Cessna 172 over Pilot Muntain Saturday night said that he saw a 'glowing, yellowishblue light' between 7 and 7:30 p.m . that appeared to be near the plane. The ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A METEOR IMPACT OR EARTH SLUMP?November 22, 1996. The Honduras-Guate mala border. About 10:10 PM, the residents of this area observed a red-andyellow fireball moving east-to-west. The bolide's passing was marked by a loud detonation. From this information, one would bet heavily that this was simply a routine meteor detonation caused by the heat generated during entry into the atmosphere. The next morning, however, people discovered a landslide covering several acres on the slopes of Cerro Negro, a mountain 14 kilometers from San Luis. Did the meteor slam into the mountain overnight? So far, investigators have not been able to decide whether the landslide is just gravity-slumping on the slope or a disturbance created by the night's meteor. One observer believes he can see traces of a crater some 50 meters wide. Experts from the U.S . and Canada plan to examine the site in detail. (Anonymous; "A Hit in Honduras?" Sky and Telescope, 93:12, March 1997.) From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Meteor-impact winters, magnetic field reversals and tektites "Nuclear winter" is a term now in vogue. And, believe it or not, the rains of tektites discussed below may have been the forerunners of climatic catastrophes similar to the postulated nuclear winters. We shall call them "meteor-impact winters. First, a tad of background: Great meteor impacts and tektite events seem to have occurred nearly simultaneously with deep-cutting biological extinctions and reversals of the earth's magnetic field. Ever since this apparent synchrony was recognized a few decades ago, theorists have been vying in generating scientific scenarios, especially some mechanism that would reverse the earth's magnetic field. New entrants in the lists are R. Muller and D. Morris, two Berkeley physicists. Here is how they see it: "A sufficiently large asteroid or cometary nucleus hitting the Earth lofts enough dust to set off something like a 'nuclear winter.' The cold persists long after the dust settles because of the increased reflectivity of the snow-covered continents. In the course of a few centuries, enough equatorial ocean water is transported to the polar ice caps to drop the sea level about 10 meters and thus reduce the moment of inertia of the solid outer reaches of the Earth (crust and mantle) by a part in a million. 'That doesn't sound like much, Morris told us. 'But when we realized that ...
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... Brightening of Io AJX7 Discrepancies in Predictions of of Eclipses and Transits AJX JUPITER'S MAGNETIC FIELD AJX1 Offset Magnetic Field AL THE MOON ALB THE MOON'S ORBITAL ANOMALIES ALB1 Earth-Moon Instability ALB2 Discrepancies in the Moon's Ephemeris ALB3 Nongravitational Forces and Earth-Moon Acceleration Discrepancies ALB4 Earth-Moon Acceleration Incompatible with Moon's Origin in Earth Orbit ALE LUNAR GEOLOGY PROBLEMS ALE1 Asymmetrical Distribution of Maria and Large Basins ALE2 Sinuous Rilles and Formations Resembling Terrestrial Water-Formed Features ALE3 The Lunar Rays ALE4 Lunar Features Seemingly Shaped by Ice ALE5 Swirl Markings ALE6 Anomalous Red Formations ALE7 Layered Structures ALE8 Lunar Glasses ALE9 Nonrandom Distribution of Lunar Craters ALE10 Unexplained Minor Surface Features ALE11 Large-Scale Asymmetries in in Composition ALE12 Dark-Haloed Lunar Craters ALE13 Local Concentrations of Radioactivity ALE14 Scarcity of Dust and Meteoric Material ALE15 Young Lunar-Surface Ages ALE16 Local Concentration of Volatiles ALE17 Lunar Soils Older Than Associated Rocks ALE18 Problems in Dating Lunar Rocks and Soils ALE19 Compositional Differences between Earth and Moon ALE20 Apparently Anomalous Long Term Persistence of Craters ALE21 Alignment of Mascons and Lunar Moments of Inertia ALE22 Geological Changes within Historical Times ALF LUNAR LUMINOUS PHENOMENA ALF1 Infrared Anomalies ALF2 Lunar Catastrophism within Historical Times ALF3 Transient Points of Light ALF4 Localized Color Phenomena ALF5 Transient, Large-Area Luminescence ALF6 Lightning-Like Phenomena on the Moon ALL THE MOTION OF LUNAR SATELLITES ALL1 Perturbation of Artificial Lunar Satellites ALO ANOMALOUS TELESCOPIC AND VISUAL OBSERVATIONS ALO1 Doubling of Lunar Detail ALO2 Variable Spots, Streaks, and Other (Apparently) Optical Phenomena ALO3 Banded Craters ALO4 Lunar "Canals" and Lineaments ALO5 The Lunar Zodiacal Light ALO6 Distortions of the ...
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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 DID A HALF MILLION METEORS FALL ON THE CAROLINAS?The Carolina Bays get scant notice in the literature these days, but E.R . Randall has rescued them this undeserved obscurity. "For years, people living along the Carolina coast have marveled at a series of strange, oval-shaped depressions in the ground called 'Carolina Bays.' "From the air these shallow, marshy bogs created a landscape that resembles the pockmarked surface of the moon. They crisscross each other in a chaotic tapestry, but at ground level are hardly noticeable because of thick forests and semitropical swamplands. "Highways and modern housing developments have all but obliterated thousands of the bays, leaving them visible only to trained eyes. "Still, it is estimated that no fewer than 300,000 such bays, ranging from a few feet across to almost two miles in diameter, dot the East Coast landscape from southern New Jersey to northeastern Florida. One source places the number at more than half a million." Map showing areas of abundant Carolina Bays and frequent meterorite finds. However, meteorites are rare in the areas of the bays. Floyd continues with a brief history of the Carolina Bay region and then reviews some of the theories of origin that have been proposed. Two now-discarded mechanisms of formation invoked: (1 ) immense schools of spawning fish; and (2 ) icebergs stranded as the Ice Ages waned. In presenting today ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Osmium Isotopes Support Meteoric Impact Comparison of terrestrial and meteoric osmium-isotope abundances tends to confirm the hypothesis of a meteorite strike at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. (Luck, J.M ., and Turekian, K.K .; "Osmium-187/Osmium-186 in Manganese Nodules and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary," Science 222:613, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Memories of 1913 March 31, 1991, about 7:10 PM, Quebec. G. Morisette and his wife were driving along the road to Sept-Iles, when his wife asked him to stop the car to watch a strange luminous phenomenon. Thinking that it was only Venus or an aircraft, Morisette pulled off the road and got out. To his surprise, it was a formation of five or six meteors cruising leisurely toward the north on parallel paths. This fascinating spectacle lasted about 15-20 seconds -- long as meteor events go. The fireballs disappeared simultaneously. No sounds were heard during or after their passage. (Morisette, Gartan; "Escadrille de Meteores," Astronomie-Quebec , July-August 1991. Cr. F. St. Laurent) Comment. The slow progress and disciplined motion of the Quebec meteors remind one of the famous meteor procession of February 9, 1913, which was also a predominantly Canadian event. However, the 1913 procession headed southeast over the northeastern states and out into the Atlantic. See AYO7 in Sun and Solar System Debris. This catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -Induced Ionospheric Disturbances GER13 Easier Radio Transmission in One Direction than Its Reverse GER14 Radar Dot Angels GER15 Radar Ring and Line Angels GER16 Radar Ghosts Mexico's Zone of Silence Infrared Angels Extremely-Low-Frequency (ELF) Phenomena Effect of Low-Pressure Areas upon Shortwave Propagation Unidentified Atmospheric Radio Bursts Detected by Satellites GES SHADOW PHENOMENA GES1 Eclipse Shadow Bands GES2 Moving Shadow Bands in the Atmosphere GES3 Colored Shadows GES4 Shadow Bands Seen through the Telescope GES5 Unusual Shadows Observed during Eclipses GES6 Non-Eclipse Shadow Bands GES7 Persistent or "Living" Shadows GES8 Curious Mountain Shadows Curious Shadows of Condensation Trails GEZ ANOMALOUS MAGNETIC AND ELECTRIC-FIELD DISTURBANCES GEZ1 Unexplained Magnetic Disturbances GEZ2 Effect of the Moon on the Geomagnetic Field GEZ3 Effects of Solar Eclipses on Geomagnetism GEZ4 Effects of the Planets on the Geomagnetic Field GEZ5 Meteor Activity Correlated with Geomagnetic Activity GEZ6 Terrestrial Electrical Effects Correlated with Meteors GEZ7 Geomagnetic Disturbances Correlated with Stellar Activity GEZ8 Gravity Waves Correlated with Geomagnetic Storms Effects of Comets upon Geomagnetic Activity Effects of Lunar Eclipses upon Geomagnetic Activity Effect of Solar Flares upon the Potential Gradient Effect of Geological Features upon Geomagnetic Activity Effects of Earthquakes upon the Potential Gradient Effect of Volcanism upon Geomagnetic Activity GG GRAVITATIONAL PHENOMENA GGF VARIATIONS IN GRAVITY Nontidal Variations of the Gravitational Field Periodic Changes in Gravity GGH MAGNETIC HILLS Spook Hill and Kin GH PHENOMENA OF THE HYDROSPHERE GHC UNUSUAL PHENOMENA OF WATER SURFACES GHC1 Foam Strips on Inland Waters GHC2 Streaks, Slicks, Calm Patches GHC3 Stratified Typhoon Waves GHC4 Sudden Whitening of Dead Sea GHC5 Dead Water and Slippery Seas GHC6 Bulging River Surfaces GHC7 Swiftly Traveling Surface Disturbances GHC8 Honeycomb Appearance of Flowing Water Remarkable Convection Patterns ...
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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 Anomalous High 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 ...
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... , "they both heartd an unmistakable 'swishing noise' as it passed south of their rural Galveston County home. The sonic boom came several minutes later -- but the swishing sound occurred simultaneously with the visual apparition....Ben graphically described the sounds as 'like a skier coming down a slope,' but with a rapid fluctuation in loudness, 'about two or three hertz.' Jeannette compared the faint sound to the noise made by a fast boat as it slaps across waves on a choppy lake. 'But there was no motor noise,' she added, 'just a sound like repeated puffs of air through your mouth.'" Oberg points out that the mysterious Space Shuttle sounds are basically the same as the anomalous swishes and whizzes attributed by some to meteors. So far, few scientists have accepted meteor sounds as real, preferring to label them "psychological." But now that the Space Shuttles are known to generate similar anomalous sounds, perhaps scientists will install instruments along their well-known reentry paths and find out what is really happening. (Oberg, Jim; "Shuttle 'Sounds' May Provide Answer to Old Puzzle," Houstonian, January 1985, p. 4. A McDonnell Douglas publication. Cr. J. Oberg) Comment. One possible explanation of anomalous meteor sounds is that a few individuals detect electromagnetic signals as sounds; i.e ., they are "electrophonic" sounds. The history of auroral sounds is basically the same as that of anomalous meteor sounds. They may both have the same explanation. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Target: Greenland Reports of recent large meteors and suspicious craters are plentiful in back issues of this newsletter. (SFs #93, #102, #103, #110, to name a few) Here is another. December 9, 1997, Greenland. At 5:11 A.M ., crews of three trawlers at widely separated sites off south Greenland reported "a blazing fireball that turned night into day." At a distance of 100 kilometers (62 miles), the flash was compared to that from an atmospheric nuclear explosion. Danish officials dismissed the possibility of a surreptitious nuclear test. The U.S . Air Force stated that the object was neither a reentering spacecraft nor artificial space debris. Some seismic tremors also emanated from Greenland, so the impact of a large meteorite is suspected. Based on the visual sightings and a moving object caught on a parkinglot surveillance camera in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, the probable impact point is at 61 25' N., 44 26' W. Efforts to locate the meteorite will have to wait for favorable weather. The supposed meteor was not a small object. The Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen compared it to the Kap York meteor that fell south of Thule, Greenland, in prehistoric times. Pieces of this iron meteorite aggregating 50 tons have been collected. (Sawyer, Kathy; "Fireball a Mystery till Thaw," Charlotte Observer, December ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Sounds From An Australian Fireball On April 7, 1978, a very large fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales. Seen by hundreds, it generated many high quality reports. Fifteen of the written reports mentioned anomalous sounds -- hisses, hums, swishes, and crackling sounds heard simultaneously with the visual sighting. Such sounds are anomalous because the meteor is tens of kilometers high and real sound would take a minute or more to reach the ground. (The sound from a detonating meteor is often heard several minutes later.) Keay is convinced of the reality of the anomalous sounds and suggests that the highly turbulent plasma in the meteor wake generates powerful electromagnetic radiation at audio frequencies. This intense radio energy reaches the earth at the same time the visible light does. It may be converted into sound as it interacts with the surface and the observer. (Keay, Colin S.L .; "The 1978 New South Wales Fireball," Nature, 285:464, 1980.) Reference. Sounds from high-altitude meteors (" electrophonic" sounds) are covered in GSH2 in our Catalog: Earthquakes, Tides, Anomalous Sounds. Information on this book is posted here . From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Target: south america August 13, 1930. Upper reaches of the Brazilian Amazon. In SF#102, we provided a short notice of a probable large bolide impact near Brazil's border with Peru. Apparently, this event resembled the much more famous 1908 Tunguska blast. More details have now been provided by M.E . Bailey et al in the Observatory, as based on old accounts that appeared in the British Daily Herald and the papal newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Bailey et al write: "The Daily Herald report [March 6, 1931] describes the fall of 'three great meteors...[which]...fired and depopulated hundreds of miles of jungle...The fires continued uninterrupted for some months, depopulating a large area.' Unfortunately, although the fall is said to have occurred around "8 o'clock in the morning" and to have been preceded by remarkable atmospheric disturbances (a 'blood-red' Sun, an ear-piercing 'whistling' sound, and the fall of fine ash which covered trees and vegetation with a blanket of white), few details are provided that constrain the time and place of the event. Nevertheless, the story refers to an article in the papal newspaper L'Osservatore Romano [March 1, 1931], apparently written by a Catholic missionary 'Father Fidello, of Aviano', and it is to this ...
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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 Review Of The Tektite Problem Tektites are small glassy stones with drop-like and button-like shapes. They are found primarily in four strew fields in Europe, Australia, North America, and Africa. Just about everyone believes that tektites are once-liquid droplets of rock that were solidified in flight. The major question -- often intemperately debated -- is the location of the tektite source. Are they of terrestrial, lunar, cometary, or some other origin? A recent study by Shaw and Wasserberg, using element abundances as a guide, strongly favors a terrestrial origin, with meteor impacts serving as the liquefying and splashing agents. Indeed, specific craters have long been associated with the European and African strew fields. Those who believe that the tektites were splashed all the way from the moon by meteor impacts have not given up yet. One provocative fact stressed in this article is that the ages of the four groups of tektites are 35, 14, 1.3 , and 0.7 million years. Tektites are all quite young! (Smith, Peter J.; "The Origin of Tektites -- Settled at Last?" Nature, 300: 217, 1982.) Comment. Were there no tektite-forming meteor impacts prior to 35 millions of years ago? Is this observation related to the great rarity of meteorites in sedimentary rocks? Just what is different about the past 35 million years? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rise Of Astronomical Catastrophism After being ridiculed for well over a century, astronomical catastrophism is now coming into its own. First, there was the admission that a few small craters, like Meteor Crater in Arizona, just might be of meteoric origin; then, more and bigger craters (astroblemes) were recognized; and, recently, the discovery of the iridium-rich layer at the Cretaceious-Tertiary boundary has made the subject very popular, as evidenced by the following three items: A long, very thorough and scientific review of geological and biological changes caused by meteor strikes throughout the earth's history. (McLaren, Digby J.; "Bolides and Biostratigraphy," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 94:313, 1983.) A shorter, popular version of the above. (McLaren, Digby; "Impacts That Changed the Course of Evolution," New Scientist, 100:588, 1983.) Evidence is growing that the collision of planetary material with the Earth can profoundly affect local geology, and that impacts of very large meteorites may have influenced the evolution of the Earth and the life that exists upon it. This quotation is from the lead-in to the article references below, which also has a nice world map of major impact sites over 1 km in diameter. (Grieve, Richard; "Impact Craters Shape Planet Surfaces," New Scientist, 100:516, 1983 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 11: Summer 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Huge Terrestrial Rings In 1978, J.M . Saul reported the discovery of hundreds of large terrestrial ring structures, many of them tens of kilometers in diameter. Around the rims were concentrated metal ores. Saul surmised that episodes of meteor bombardment about 4 billion years ago created these nearly perfect circles. Unfortunately for this theory, little of the earth's surface is 4 billion years old! Now, a new population of circular structures 8-20 km across have been recognized in New Zealand, where the surface is dated at 100-320 million years. How could 4-billion-year-old meteor craters make themselves felt through all the layes of sediment? One possibility is that the rings are not meteoric but diapiric; that is, expressions of upwelling magma from inside the earth itself. (Hawkes, Donald D.; "More Strange Circles on Earth," Open Earth, no. 7, p. 19, February 1980.) Comment. The orphans in the preceding item may have been forced up from the interior, too. Could the lunar craters have originated in this fashion? Reference. To read more about these huge "mineral" rings, consult Section ETC2 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, which is described here . From Science Frontiers #11, Summer 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Leonid Luminosity Puzzle Around November 17 every year, meteorwatchers strain to see the Leonids dart through the night sky. The Leonids are meteors that radiate from a point in the constellation Leo. The millimeter-size bits of debris that create this annual light show are tiny fragments discarded by the comet Temple-Tuttle that burn up high in the atmosphere. Astronomers are secure and comfortable with this explanation of the mid-November spectacle. Perhaps they shouldn't be. In November 1998, an intriguing anomaly cropped up -- way up, 120 miles up! Leonids were seen to burn up at this altitude where there is not enough atmosphere to create the friction required to vaporize the space debris. Perhaps the cometary fragments from comet Temple-Tuttle are unusually volatile. Perhaps there is something else going on at the outer fringes of the atmosphere. Who knows? (Witze, Alexandra; "Scientists Gain Insights into Meteors," Northwest Florida Daily News, May 27, 1999. Cr. B. Reid) Comments. Sometimes, comets flare up so far from the sun that solar heating is negligible. This poorly understood phenomenon may be related to the highaltitude flare-ups of the Leonids. Some people claim they can sometimes hear meteors hiss as they streak through the sky at altitudes so high that there is not enough air to convey sound! Such "electrophonic sounds" may have an electromagnetic origin; that is, some ...
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... 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 a restricted portion of the earth's surface; that is, where the supercontinent ...
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... April 23, 1994. The phenomenon was observed independently by some 100 amateur astronomers. The initial analysis of data returned at the same time by the lunar satellite Clementine at first seemed to confirm the amateurs' telescopic impressions. But after correcting the satellite data for lighting geometry and other effects, Clementine's vision of the TLP faded away like the Cheshire Cat. TLP doubters were well-satisfied. (Anonymous; "Lunar Surface Change: A False Alarm," Sky & Telescope, 99:22, March 2000. Cr. D. Barbiero.) Comment. Were the independent observations by 100-or-so geographically dispersed amateurs all hallucinations? The TLP "myth" does not fade away so easily. On the night of November 17/18, 1999, the Leonid meteors pelted the earth's atmosphere and, as one would expect, the moon's surface. The moon's atmosphere, however, is almost non-existent so its share of the Leonid shower did not burn up before hitting the surface. But might not the high-velocity impacts with the surface create luminous phenomena? To find out, a team of observers monitored the dark side of the moon during the peak of the Leonid shower. Sure enough, at least six flashes were detected visually and on video tapes. They lasted only a fraction of a second and ranged in brightness from 3rd. to 7th. magnitude. (Anonymous; "Leonid Meteors Strike the Moon," Astronomy, 28:29, March 2000.) Comments. TLPs obviously do occur. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earth's water not imported?That the earth is continuously bombarded by icy minicomets is unpopular in the Court of Science. Even less acceptable is the notion that over the eons these house-sized chunks of ice contributed substantially to our planet's inventory of water. In what will surely be hailed as the death knell of the icy comet theory is the discovery by K. Muehlenbachs, of the University of Alberta, and F. Robert and M Javoy, from the University of Paris, that the water contained in the earth's rocks, both ancient and recent, is isotopically different from the water found in meteorites. Meteoric water is assumed to be isotopically the same as cometary water. Conclusion: comets could not have contributed substantially to our planet's water inventory in the geological past. (Anonymous; "Earth's Water Did Not Come from Comets," New Scientist, p. 19, June 20, 1992.) Comment. Of course, the isotpic measurements have to be weighed against all the data supporting the icy comet theory Icy comets could, after all, be a recent phenomenon. Also, no one has ever actually analyzed a piece of cometary ice; it is simply assumed that it would be similar to meteoric water. From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iceland And The Iridium Layer The high concentration of iridium between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras (about 65 million years ago) is widely interpreted as indicating a worldwide catastrophe caused by the impact of a comet or meteor. The increase of iridium concentration over normal levels is much higher in northern latitudes, suggesting that the impact point is in this region. But no impact scar of the proper size and age exists. However, if one looks for scabs rather than scars, one finds that Iceland is formed entirely of volcanic rocks younger than the Cretaceous. To Fred Whipple of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, these facts dovetail nicely. Iceland was form ed by magma welling up from a 100-km hole in the sea floor blasted out by a 10-km meteor. (Anonymous; "The Blow That Gave Birth to Iceland?" New Scientist, 89:740, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tektite-like objects at lonar crater, india Arguments about the origin of tektites persist in the scientific literature. A strong consensus has these small, drop like glassy bodies originating when meteors smash into the earth, liquifying themselves and some of the surface rocks. The resulting liquid droplets solidify in flight and when they descend form "strewn fields" hundreds, even thousands, of miles in extent. The main argument has been over whether the actual impact craters giving rise to the tektites might actually be on the moon instead of the earth. Looking over the literature, one sees that this debate has been characterized by much invective and scientific infighting. Today, most scientists concur that some tektite strewn fields are definitely associated with specific, although distant, meteor craters on the earth's surface. Unfortunately, the large separations of craters and strewn fields add a circumstantial flavor to the evidence. However, some tektite-like objects are to be found in the immediate vicinities of terrestrial craters, but not in far-flung strewn fields; viz., the Aouelloul Crater in Mauritania, and the Zhamashin Crater in the USSR. Another example has now come to light: the Lonar Lake Crater, a 50,000-year-old impact crater, in the Deccan flood basalts in India. From the paper's abstract: "Homogenous, dense glass bodies (both irregular and splash form) with high silica contents ( 67 ...
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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 Mysterious Spate Of Sky Flashes Bill Katz and a small group of Canadian amateur astronomers have accumulated a total of 14 observations of bright flashes in Aries in just a year or so. "Point" meteors (meteors seen head-on) usually appear as flashes like this, but to see 14 in the same region of the sky in such a short span of time is truly remarkable. (Katz, Bill; "Chasing the Ogre," Astronomy, 13:24, April 1985.) From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TUNGUSKA EVENT Rich reviews the facts known about the fall and detonation of the famous 1908 "meteor." That this was no ordinary meteor is born out by several curious data: Tree-rings in the area show an enormous acceleration of growth since 1908; Inhabitants of this remote region stated that the reindeer suffered from mysterious scabs in 1908; There is a slight but definite increase in the radioactivity of the surviving trees; and Testimony indicates that the me-teor changed direction twice before impact. The various theories of what really happened, from black hole to nuclear explosion, are listed without comment. (Rich, Vera; "The 70-Year-Old Mystery of Siberia's Big Bang." Nature, 274:207, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tektite Mysteries Tektites are small glassy bodies found strewn on and near the surface in several regions of the world. They come in various shapes: droplets, buttons, even dumbbells. By general agreement, tekites are attributed to meteoric or cometary impacts that melt terrestrial rocks and splash liquid droplets into the atmosphere. There they are shaped by aerodynamic forces and solidify. This scenario is all very reasonable, but some nagging problems remain. Where-o -where is that crater? 770,000 years ago, a huge meteor hit somewhere on earth and strewed an immense batch of tektites and microtektites over fully 10% of our planet's surface (about 5 x 107 square kilometers). This is called the "Australasian strewn field." Such a recent cataclysm must have left a large and inescapable crater somewhere. The problem is that no one has yet found it. (Ref. 1) Many lines of evidence suggest that the missing crater is in Indochina. C.C . Schnetzler and J.F . McHone located four likely structures in Laos from Landsat images. However, visits to these areas found no evidence of an impact. (Ref. 2) So, this mystery persists. How were the Muong Nong tektites formed? Muong Nong tektites are unusually large (up to 24 kilograms), layered tektites. They are found in an area 1,000 kilometers in extent from Hainan Island to southern Indochina ...
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... Phenomena in Nature 248 pages, photocopied edition, $16.95, 74 illustrations, 5 indexes, 1982. 1070 references, LC 82-99902, ISBN 915554-09-7 , 7x10-in format. Hardcover edition, $24.95: out of stock Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation: A catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Here is our "weather' Catalog. As everyone knows, our atmosphere is full of tricks, chunks of ice fall from the sky, tornado funnels glow at night. The TV weathermen rarely mention these "idiosyncrasies". [Picture caption: Conical hailstones with fluted sides] Typical subjects covered: Polar-aligned cloud rows * Ice fogs (the Pogonip) * Conical hail * Gelatinous meteors * Point rainfall * Unusual incendiary phenomena * Solar activity and thunderstorms * Tornados and their association with electricity * Multiwalled waterspouts * Explosive onset of whirlwinds * Dry fogs and dust fogs * Effect of the moon on rainfall * Ozone in hurricanes * Ice falls (hydrometeors) Comments from reviews: ". .. can be recommended to every one who realizes that not everything in science has been properly explained", Weather 202 pages, hardcover, $16.95, 40 Illustrations, 5 indexes, 1983. 745 references, LC 82-63156, ISBN 915554-10-0 , 7x10 format. Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Quakes and monster, solitary waves and natural detonations; these are the ...
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... highly unlikely life could exist on Mars today,' [C .] McKay said. .. .. . "However some scientists have not dismissed the possibility that primitive life may still exist on Mars. 'The chances are remote but life may be located in slushy brines well below the surface, or even inside Martian rocks,' said Howard Klein, who headed the biological experiments on board Viking. Living microorganisms have been found just below the surface of rocks in Antarctica, Klein said." (Anonymous; Antarctica Hints at Why There May Be Fossils on Mars," New Scientist, p. 20, September 4, 1986.) Comment. It is curious that some of the meteorites picked up in Antarctica are thought to have originated on Mars and been blasted off by meteoric impacts. This observation leads to the speculation that terrestrial life might have been seeded from Mars -- meteoric panspermia! Are we all Martians? If you have hung on this far, you'll want to read about "Life as a Cosmic Phenomenon" just below. Also refer to our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris for material on the putative Martian meteorites. From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Asteroids And Meteorites Since the meteorites we pick up on earth (Antarctica and elsewhere) are thought to have come from pulverized asteroids, it is something of a shock to find profound dissimilarities between asteroids and meteorites. "The problem is that while reflectance spectra of some meteorites measured in the laboratory appear to correspond to spectra of various asteroids, the S class, which makes up about half of all asteroids in the inner belt, doesn't appear to match any common meteorite class, and conversely, common meteorite classes (e .g ., Ordinary Chondrites) appear to match only a few asteroids." (Harris, Alan W.; "Asteroid 29 Amphitrite Is a Topic of Interest," Geotimes, 30:25, June 1985.) Comment. Note that the visual meteors or shooting stars that burn up high in the atmosphere are believed to be cometary debris (SF#44) and mostly ice and dust. The meteors large and substantial enough to make it through the atmosphere and arrive at the surface as meteorites must have a different source -- something more palpable, such as the asteroids, but the spectral disparities reported above may force a reevaluation of this theory. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Purple Blobs In Texas In early September 1979, the Associated Press carried a story about three purple blobs found in a yard in Frisco, Texas. One blob evaporated away, while the remaining two were preserved for analysis by NASA. The blobs were warm when found and had appeared during the height of a meteor shower. At first, NASA scientists did not rule out the possibility that the jelly-like goo might be extraterrestrial, but an AP dispatch the next day (not as widely printed) inferred that the blobs were merely industrial waste! (Anonymous; "NASA Scientists to Prob Mystery of 2 Purple Blobs Found in Texas," Baltimore Sun, September 8, 1979.) Comment. The blobs closely resemble gelatinous meteors or pwdre ser reported rarely down the centuries. One instance of pwdre ser was reported in 1978 from England in the Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., and there are doubtless more that are swept under the rug. We may be sure that NASA will have nothing further to do with something as outrageous as pwdre ser. Many pwdre ser observations are cataloged at GWF7 in Tornados, Dark Days, Anomalous Precipitation. This volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... expelled considerable gas and dust -- a characteristic of comets, according to mainstream thinking. Another peculiar aspect of the phenomenon is that Chiron is now located 12 A.U . from the sun (12 earth orbits out). Conventional wisdom has it that solar heating is too weak at that distance to vaporize cometary ices. However, other comets, such as Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, have displayed comas even farther away from the sun. Thus, we have two possible anomalies here: (1 ) The existence of a huge cometlike asteoid in a peculiar orbit (2 ) A mechanism that expels gas and dust from comets at great distances from the sun. The blurring of the distinctions between asteroids and comets is aggravated by the recognition that some other asteroids produce streams of particles that create meteor showers; that is, some asteroids are not merely associated with meteor streams, they actually create them, just as comets expel ice and rocky debris. Some bold astronomers now ask whether asteroids are all burntout comets. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Another Asteroid Has Turned Comet," Science, 241:1161, 1988.) Comment. Taking the matter a step further, could not the four inner, terrestrial planets also be the cores of huge burnt-out comets? See AVO8 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets for observations of comet-like phenomena associated with Venus! This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ...This rock fall was well recorded by 3 UC Berkeley (BDSN) and Caltech (TERRAscope) broadband seismographic stations and 15 shortperiod seismographic stations (operated by the USGS in Menlo Park and the University of Nevada, Reno). In fact, it is the largest vertical rock free-fall ever recorded seismically and it registered on seismographs up to 200 km distant." (Uhrhammer, R.A .; "Seismic Analysis of the Yosemite Rock Fall of July 10, 1996," Eos, 77:508, 1996.) December 9, 1995. Southern Ecuador. "On the afternoon of December 9, 1995, a bolide exploded in the atmosphere over the Andes in southern Ecuador. Many people in nearby towns witnessed the event. They reported seeing a streaking meteor, which terminated in a loud and brilliant explosion. In some locales, the flash was noticeable even through cloud cover. The burst of light was observed by satellite optical sensors used to detect atmospheric nuclear tests. Three local seismic stations also recorded signals from the explosion...This bolide appears to be unique in that it was observed by eyewitnesses and located by both satellite and ground-based sensors." The sound of the meteor's explosion was heard at least 56 kilometers away. (Chael, Eric P.; "Seismic Signals from a Bolide in Ecuador," Eos, 77:508, 1996.) From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon We classify this remarkable phenomenon under ASTRONOMY because in several respects it parallels some meteoric phenomena, such as the famous February 9, 1913, bolide procession that amazed inhabitants of eastern North America. Unhappily, we only have room to quote one paragraph from a 10-page report. "General outline of the phenomenon. At night, early on the 20th of September of 1977, over a vast area in the northwest of the European part of the USSR, unusual light phenomena in the atmosphere were observed, namely formation and motion of bright, luminous bodies surrounded by extended shells and emitting light rays or jets of quaint shapes. The shells transformed and diffused within 10 to 15 minutes. Besides, a more longlived, stable glow was observed, mostly in the northeastern part of the sky. These phenomena took place during disturbances of the geomagnetic field and the upper atmosphere. Somewhere, aurora borealis was seen." (Gindilis, L.M ., and Kolpakov, Yu.K .; "The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon," RIAP Bulletin, 2:3 , April-September 1995. RIAP = Research Institute of Anomalous Phenomena, P.O . Box 4684, 310022 Kharkov-22, UKRAINE) References. The 1913 meteor procession is described in AYO7 in our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Also see: SF#79. Details on our catalog here . The Petrozavod phenomenon as seen ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life Currents In Space A few of the hundreds of meteorites picked up in the Antarctic wastes have chemical properties consistent with a Martian origin. Calculations, too, support the notion that a large meteoric impact could propel bits of the Martian surface into space where, statistically speaking, a tiny fraction would be captured by the earth's gravitational field. Some of these would fall to earth; others would remain in orbit. Now, the reverse scenario has been investigated numerically. S.A . Phinney and colleagues at the University of Arizona have calculated what would happen to small chunks of the earth's crust if a large meteor impact excavated a 60milewide crater. "Phinney's group used a computer to calculate where 1,000 particles would go if ejected from Earth in random directions, moving about 2.5 kilometers per second faster than the minimum speed necessary to escape. Of the 1,000 hypothetical particles, 291 hit Venus and 165 returned to Earth; 20 went to Mercury, 17 to Mars, 14 to Jupiter and 1 to Saturn. Another 492 left the solar system completely, primarily due to gravitational close encounters with either Jupiter or Mercury that 'slingshot' them on their way." (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Have Earth Rocks Gone to Mars?" Science News, 135:191, 1989.) Comment. One implication from the preceding analysis is that terrestrial bacteria and spores could well ...
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... ! (Ref. 2) If we can have Missing Matter, we suppose that Invisible Stars are not as ridiculous as they sound. It is postulated that Invisible Stars are composed of Mirror Matter, a new construct of astronomers who are desperately trying to explain their burgeoning files of celestial anomalies. Mirror Matter is strange "stuff." It interacts with Ordinary Matter only through gravity, it doesn't emit light. It is palpable but invisible. (This sounds weird, but no weirder than quantum mechanics!) Foot also pointed out that stars composed of Ordinary Matter may be orbited by Mirror-Matter planets. Expanding along these lines, whole star systems could be 100% Mirror Matter, and we'd never see them at all. How about Mirror-Matter asteroids and meteors zipping around our solar system -- invisible but palpable and threatening? As a matter of fact, it has been speculated that the still-mysterious Tunguska Event of 1908 (lots of energy but no crater) was an encounter with a Mirror-Matter meteor. (Ref. 3) References Ref. 1. Osorio, M.R . Zapatero, et al; "Discovery of Young, Isolated Planetary Mass Objects...," Science, 290: 103, 2000. Ref. 2. Chown, Marcus; "See-Thru Suns," New Scientist, p. 28, November 11, 2000. Ref. 3. Reynolds, David; "Mirror Image," Science News, 158:291, 2000. From Science Frontiers #133, JAN ...
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... the moa, not to their own overhunting as others maintain, but rather to a cataclysmic event that occurred some 800 years ago. Maori oral history tells of "the falling of the skies, raging winds, upheaval of the Earth, and mysterious devastating fire from space." Even some of the place names in New Zealand relate to some kind of catastrophe. In the province of Otago, there is Waipahi (place of the exploding fire) and Tapanui (big explosion). Oral history is entertaining, but scientists want something more palpable before they will entertain Velikovskian ideas about recent history. Well, if you visit Tapanui (big explosion place), you can find Landslip Crater, a 900 x 600meter depression 130 meters deep. This does not have the appearance of a bona fide meteor crater, but all around it are suspicious signs. For example, treefall distribution from 800 years ago was radially away from Tapanui out to 4080 kilometers. In the same area one finds the trinities, small globules of silicates with tektite overtones. And then there is the extirpation of the moas about this time. To be sure, there are separate, conventional explanations of all these phenomena. But, if you add the Maori oral traditions to all these suspicious physical signs, a Tunguska-like event does not seem impossible. (Steel, Duncan, and Snow, Peter; "The Tapanui Region of New Zealand: A 'Tunguska' of 800 Years Ago?" paper at the Conference on "Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, '91'," Flagstaff, June 1991 ...
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... 1908 tunguska event N.V . Vasilyev has prepared a lengthy review of the 1908 Tunguska "event," which is usually ascribed to a wayward comet or meteorite. Vasilyev's data is based upon 167 reports, mostly in Russian. They show once again that this was no ordinary impact event, as illustrated by the following observations: A "local" magnetic storm began about 6 minutes after the explosion (If that is what it really was.) and lasted for more than 4 hours. These magnetic perturbations resembled those following nuclear atmospheric explosions. The Tunguska object left no smoky trail like many fireballs, but rather irridescent bands that looked like a rainbow. Following the "explosion," at least part of the object continued on in the same direction but veered upwards. [Meteors sometimes skip out of the atmosphere on trajectories like this.] Although the Tunguska event occurred on June 30, 1908, optical anomalies appeared all across northern Europe as early as June 23. These included mesospheric, silvery clouds, very bright nights, colorful twilight afterglows [something like those following the Krakatoa eruption], and remarkably intense and long-lasting solar halos. Some of these effects persisted until late July. Neither craters nor meteoric debris have been discovered so far, despite assiduous searches. The explosion created a shock wave that leveled 2150 km2 of taiga and a flash that singed about 200 km2. (Vasilyev, N.V .; "The Tunguska Meteorite: A Dead-Lock or the Start of a New Stage of Inquiry?" RIAP Bulletin, 1;3 ...
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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 Nuclear bombs will not save the earth!Not too long ago, geologists adamantly denied that there were any large meteor craters pockmarking our planet. Now, they find 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stone Alignments in Subsaharan Africa Good-bye to the Bimini Wall and Road? Astronomy What Caused the Grooves on Phobos? A New Cosmic Heresy Biology The Four-eyed Fish Sees All A Sinuous Line of Sea Snakes Geology Echo Sounder Outlines Strange Patches Over Underwater Peaks Is the Earth A Giant Methane Reservoir? Geophysics Bioluminescence and Spurious Radar Echoes Curious Patches of Light on the Horizon Meteoric Night-glow Psychology Out-of-the-body Traveller Exerts No Influence Category X South of the Bermuda Triangle ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 144: Nov-Dec 2002 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A dirty story from Amazonia From door to door to what or -- perhaps -- to whom? Astronomy Mercury: Magnetic and sinistral Tunguskas forever Biology Animal antics Processionary sperm The Changeux paradox A statement we never thought we'd see Geology Something went 'splat' in Bolivia Death in the pits Geophysics Complex ball-lightning events Revisiting the Spanish hydro-meteors of January 2000 Psychology So out-of-body experiences originate in the brain? False recovered memories Unclassified Three reasons why ETs have not contacted us ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 153: May - Jun 2004 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology 5,500-year-old Clusters of Stone Pillars Rock Art and Rock Music Bog Butters Astronomy Parallel Double Meteor Trails Martian Bunnies? Inflation Inflated Biology Genome Fusion in Radically Different Species Animal Fasting in the Wild Nanotubular "Highways" Connect and Trap Cells Geology Hydroplaning in Geology Sand Dunes Invisible at Ground Level Another "Cookie-Cutter" Event Geophysics Will-O -The-Wisps Sicilian Sparks Psychology A Strange Property of Hyperlexia Chemistry The Darwinian Breeding of Nanostructures One "Pathological Science" May Not Be So Sick After All! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shergottites and nakhlites: young and mysterious The shergottites and nakhlites are two types of meteorites that have scientists scratching their heads. Both types have been dated by various radioactive clocks at 1,300 million years or less -- far younger than all other meteorites. Where could such young meteorites have originated? The asteroids and moon's surface are far too old. A current guess is the surface of Mars. There, an impacting meteor could have blasted pieces of young lava sheets in space and thence to earth. The shergottites have a shocked structure and could well have originated in such catastrophism, but the nakhlites show no signs of violence and seem to require a separate explanation. (Anonymous; "Mystery Meteorites May Come from Mars," New Scientist, 91:219, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 The earth's other moons Over the past two centuries, night-sky observers have recorded a number of objects that moved too fast to be asteroids and too slowly to be meteors. John P. Bagby has studied this problem for over 20 years, publishing several hotly debated papers during this period. His latest contribution summarizes evidence supporting his contention that the earth has captured chunks of space debris, some of which have disintegrated, some of which are still in orbit amidst tons of artificial-satellite debris. The supporting observations have come from optical surveillance programs, tracking networks, radio-propagation anomalies, and (most interesting to the anomaly collector) old reports of bright objects near the sun (especially the August 1921 object) and the curious group of retrograde objects that passed over Germany in 1880. (Bagby, J.P .; "Natural Earth Satellites," British Interplanetary Society, Journal, 34:289, 1981.) Reference. Material on the August 1921 object is cataloged at AEO1 in our book: The Sun and Solar System Debris. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 A Hint Of Extraterrestrial Oceans The Allende carbonaceous chondrite (a well-known meteorite) contains a layered mineral related to serpentine, which seems to have been formed under aqueous conditions before it was incorporated into the meteoric mass. In the sometimes obscure language of science, the authors say that the unusual characteristics of this mineral may ". .. reflect undetermined extraterrestrial conditions experienced by some chondrules and aggregates." (Tomeoka, Kazushige, and Buseck, Peter R.; "An Unusual Layered Mineral in Chondrules and Aggregates of the Allende Carbonaceous Chondrite," Nature, 299:327, 1982.) Comment. Usually "hydrous" and "sedimentary" meteorites are quickly forgotten! They don't conform to expectations. From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sedimentary rocks on venus?The Soviet spacecraft Veneras-13 and 14 took photos of the hot surface of Venus from their landing spots beneath the planet's thick cloud cover. The rocky debris surrounding the spacecraft shows, to nearly everyone's surprise, strong evidence of sedimentary, layered structure. The rock formations display ripple marks, thin layering, differential erosion, and even hints of cross-bedding. The vision of ancient seas on Venus leaps to the mind, but according to the Russian scientists, it is far more likely that the sediments were created by winds, episodic volcanism, or repeated meteor strikes. (Florensky, C.P ., et al; "Venera 13 and Venera 14: Sedimentary Rocks on Venus?" Science, 221:57, 1983.) Reference, Venus harbors many anomalies. See our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets. This book is described here . Two pictures of the surface of Venus taken by the Russian space probe Venera 14. From Science Frontiers #29, SEP-OCT 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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