115 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Neptune's arcs: embryonic moons?The publicity given to the 1984 observations of possible discontinuous rings around Neptune (SF#38) have brought to light two other enigmatic observations. The 1981 sighting of a "third satellite" of Neptune have now been interpreted as still another discontinuous ring at a different radius. A third discontinuous ring seems to be indicated by the reanalysis of some 1968 occultation data. Astronomer Bill Hibbard, at the University of Arizona, speculates that the three separate arcs of material orbiting Neptune are "trying to decide whether to become a satellite." (Hecht, Jeff, and Henbest, Nigel; "Neptune's Arcs -- A Satellite in Formation?" New Scientist, p. 19, Apil 25, 1985.) Comment. If the debris around Neptune is just now accreting into satellites and Saturn's rings really do have youthful features (SF#39), one has to consider some disquieting possibilities: (1 ) Saturn and Neptune have been recently "disturbed," or (2 ) The entire solar system is not as old as the conventional scenario demands. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Reviewing ozone-mapping data from the polar-orbiting Nimbus-7 satellite, R. Stolarski and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have seen the concentration of ozone over Antarctica drop dramatically -- some 40% -- every October. This disappearing act commences about a month after the sun begins to graze the northern horizon and affects the entire continent. By early November, the sun is high enough to manufacture enough ozone via its ultraviolet radiation to fill the ozone hole up again. An analogous hole does form over the North Pole in the northern spring. An additional fact of interest: the hole is getting deeper each year; that is, the ozone concentration is less and less each October. Speculations about the deepening seasonal hole involve the widespread use of chlorofluorocarbons and Antarctica's physical isolation from other land masses which would help channel ozone southward from areas where the sun still shines. (Weisburd, S.; "Ozone Hole at Southern Pole," Science News, 129:133, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... been perplexing in practice. First, one member of a closely spaced double star will be occulted normally by the rings but its companion won't . Second, some terrestrial observatories will record an occultation but another a few thousand miles away will not. Such experiences have led to the hypothesis that the rings are discontinuous; that is, they are arcs rather than complete rings. Why should Neptune's rings be different from those of the other major planets? On speculation maintains that the arcs are the consequence of one or more recently satellites. Another hypothesis, by J.J . Lissauer, has the arcs gravitationally shaped and maintained by two moons, one of the shepherd type (as with Saturn's rings), the other at a Lagrangian point in the arc's orbit. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Neptune's Ring Arcs Confirmed," Science, 230:1150, 1985. Also: Lissauer, Jack J.; "Shepherding Model for Neptune's Arc Ring," Nature, 318:544, 1985.) Comment. The theories employing "shepherd" moons to gravitationally mold and maintain planetary rings have been weakened by the apparent absence of such bodies at the theoretically necessary locations around Saturn and Uranus. Also relevant is the possible youth of Saturn's rings. Neptune's rings may also be young. See SF#43 and ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. This volume is described here . Neptune's arc ring may be controlled by two moons, a shepherd and a Lagrangian ...
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... May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hold everything: it may be a nonproblem Newtonian gravitation may not have to be tampered with, as described above. Galaxies may not need "missing mass" to stabilize them after all. B. Byrd and M. Valtonen estimate that many clusters of galaxies are really flying apart. "Clusters of galaxies can eject members by a gravitational slingshot process, with one galaxy after another being accelerated through the dense centre of the cluster and fired out into the Universe at large. If this happens, the ejected galaxies are moving at more than the escape velocity from the system, so estimates of the total mass in the system based on the assumption that all the galaxies are in bound orbits will be incorrect" (Anonymous; "Expanding Clusters Confuse Astronomers," New Scientist, p. 13, March 2l, 1985.) Comment. In previous entries, we have seen jets of stars being squirted into space, immense shells of stars being ejected by elliptical galaxies, and other cosmic sowings of astronomical systems. Now, entire galactic clusters are being thrown around the universe. This hard-ly seems a universe that is "running down," as the Laws of Thermodynamics would have us believe. Somebody or something is stirring the pot -- a pot in which biological systems and perhaps super-biological systems are ingredients in the stew. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Waiting for saturn's rings to collapse The more we learn about Saturn's rings, the stranger they seem. One of the latest theoretical models of the rings has them composed of balls of hard ice, which interact through mutual collision and are herded by the gravitational caresses of small moons. The successes of this model have been tempered by the fact that it also implies that Saturn's rings are very young. "Theorists would have no problem with a broad, featureless disk surviving the 4.5 billion years since the early days of the solar system, but features such as spiral density waves are clear evidence that satellites, including the profusion of small ones found near the rings, are draining angular momentum from the rings. The satellites should be spiraling outward into ever larger orbits as they gain angular momentum, and the A-ring should collapse inward into the B-ring in just 100 million years as its particles lose angular momentum." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Making Better Planetary Rings," Science, 229:1376, 1985.) Reference. For other indications of youth in Saturn's rings, see ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... bonus" appears when the distances of the satellites in the five systems are plotted, as indicated, and compared. The arrangement of the four terrestrial planets (the "solar satellites") closely resembles the distribution of Jupiter's four Galilean satellites. There are loose ends, to be sure, like Pluto and Saturn's rings, but the idea seems worth studying further. (Cole, G.H .A .; "Dynamical Form of the Solar System," Observatory, 105:96, 1985.) Comment. The arrangement of satellites in the figure may have no physical significance, but if you like Bode's Law you should appreciate the situation. Reference. For more information on the book The Moon and the Planets, visit: here . Distribution of orbital radii (r ) of central body satellites, where R is measured in terms of central body radii. Cole terms the similarities 'remarkable'. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Mercury's orbit explained without relativity A most satisfying element of support for Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR) has been its accounting for the residual precession of Mercury's orbit. In recent years, however, a rival explanation has been found in the non-symmetric gravitational field of the sun. Surface oscillations of the sun betray hidden internal rotation, which produces asymmetry in the sun's gravitational field. By applying the distorted field in predicting the orbit of Mercury and the minor planet Icarus, astronomers are more successful than when they use the GR. The authors of this paper claim that GR averages some 2 standard deviations off the mark, while results -using the nonsymmetrical gravitational field of the sun are right on the money! (Campbell, L., et al; "The Sun's Quadrupole Moment and Perihelion Precession of Mercury," Nature, 305:508, 1983.) Reference. For other explanations of the advance of Mercury's perihelion, see AHB1 in our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information at: here . From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 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 Mysterious "thing" in orbit around saturn When the two Voyager spacecraft flew past Saturn, both detected strong bursts of radio emissions recurring every 10 hours, 10 minutes. New termed SEDs (Saturn Electrostatic Discharges), the period of these bursts would be matched by the period of an object rotating around Saturn at a distance of about 100,000 kilometers. Is there anything visible at this distance? Sure enough, Voyager optical instrumentation detected a thinning, possibly an actual gap, about 150 meters wide, in the B-ring at this radius. The big puzzle is why a thinness or gap is maintained over a long period of time and how it is associated with the SEDs. (Evans, D.R ., et al; "The Source of Saturn Electrostatic Discharges," Nature, 299:236, 1982.) Comment. Could Saturn and its rings, which may be electrically charged, be some sort of electromagnetic machine, with arcing occurring at the gap? Reference. SEDs are cataloged at ARF1 in our book: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The puzzle of the moon's origin The moon is the closest and best-studied astronomical object. Yet, there is no agreement as to its mode of origin. One might say that planetary scientists have just about thrown in the towel on the three major theories of lunar origin. Two recent articles attest to this discouraging situation. A Sky and Telescope article provides an excellent review of all three theories, indicating the reasons why each fails to convince a majority of scientists. The theories and the primary reasons for their rejection are: (1 ) Fission from earth . Lack of sufficient angular momentum in the earthmoon system and the fact that the moon does not orbit in the plane of the earth's equator. (2 ) Gravitational capture . The capture of such a large object in a nearly circular orbit is considered too improbable. (3 ) Earth-moon accretion as a double planet . The compositions of the earth and moon are too different. This article concludes that the resolution of the problem of lunar origin must await our return to the moon for more scientific exploration. (Rubin, Alan E.; "Whence Came the Moon?" Sky and Telescope, 68:389, 1984.) An article in Science also discusses the classical theories of lunar origin and quickly disposes of them for the above reasons. However, a fourth theory makes an appearance, which we might call the Big Splash Theory. The idea is that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chiron: the black sheep of the solar system Charles Kowal discovered the smooth, very dark sphere called Chiron over five years ago. Only a little more is known about it today. Chiron is 300-400 kilometers in diameter -- asteroid-size. But its orbit (aphelion, 18.9 A.U .; perihelion, 8.5 A.U .) is definitely anomalous for asteroids. One would expect to find only comets in this region of the Solar System. To compound the mystery, Chiron's orbit is unstable. This planetoid was originally somewhere else (no one knows where) and was nudged into its present orbit by a major planet. One group of researchers calculates that Saturn could have been the nudger, and that the event might have happened as recently as 1664!! (Lipscomb, R.; "Chiron," Astronomy, 11:62, March 1983.) Comment. Only a minor bit of extrapolation will carry a proponent of catastrophism from a 1664 nudge of a 400-kilometer body to a much more violent Solar System rearrangement sometime during the past 10,000 years. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Lageos Falls Too Fast In May of 1976, NASA launched a geodetic satellite into an orbit over the poles about 3700 miles out. The satellite, called Lageos, is covered with laser reflectors so that it can be tracked with high 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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon's moonlets The great lunar basins are not arranged randomly. They occur in bands -- not one band but several. How can this geometry be explained. One hypothetical scenario has the primitive moon surrounded by many moonlets 60 miles and larger in diameter, plying equatorial orbits that are unstable. As the moonlets' orbits decayed, some crashed into the moon's equatorial regions, blasting out a band of huge craters. The force of the impacts also caused the lunar crust to slide over the still-liquid core by as much as 90 . When the next group of moonlets crashed, they gouged out a new belt of craters and shifted the crust still more. Magnetic measurements of lunar rocks tend to confirm that the lunar crust did indeed shift by large angles -- several times. (Anonymous; "Did the Moon Have Moonlets?" Science Digest, 92:20, January 1984.) Comment. Such events could also have happened on earth, which would account for tropical-zone fossils being found at the present-day poles. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 More on "the massive solar companion"Something big out there beyond Neptune perturbs the orbits of the sun's outer fringe of planets. In addition, there are unexplained perturbations in the orbits of earth satellites, peculiar periodicities in the sunspot cycle, and equally puzzling regularities in earthquake frequency. Infrared detectors have also picked up unidentified objects in the sky. These anomalies might all be explained by the existence of a large, dark planet with several moons -- or, if the mystery object turns out to be very far away, by a very large, dark stellar companion of our sun with its own system of planets. Several astronomers have been trying to pin down the properties of this Planet X or Massive Solar Companion (MSC). John P. Bagby has recently published a novel solution to this nagging puzzle in celestial mechanics. He suggests that the Massive Solar Companion is actually a distributed system; that is, appreciable mass also occupies the several stable Lagrangian points. The total MSC mass might be as much as half the sun's mass, perhaps 100 Astronomical Units (100 times the earth's distance from the sun.) If the MSC and its attendants are this massive, astronomers will have to revise the mass and density of the sun downward by a good bit. (What they have done in the past is estimate the mass of the solar system as a whole and assumed it mostly resides ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What causes the sunspot cycle?Even since the sunspot cycle was discovered, a few people have been trying to prove that it is caused by the influence of the planets, particularly Jupiter with its 11.86-year period. A century of various correlations has convinced almost no one. John P. Bagby has now introduced a new piece to the puzzle of solar-system cyclic behavior. While searching for possible perturbations of the planets due to a tenth major planet or a dark massive solar companion (MSC), he discovered that the perihelia of the outer planets (orbital points closest to the sun) were being disturbed with an average period of 11.2 years. This is almost exactly the sunspot period. This serendipitous finding caused Bagby to wonder whether some common influence was causing not only the sunspot cycle and those perturbations in outer-planet perihelia but also cyclic volcanic and seismic activity on earth. Some correlations indeed do indicate a sun-earth link of some sort. Bagby suggests two possibilities: (1 ) Mutual resonance effects between the planets, (2 ) The effects of a massive solar companion. (Bagby, John P.; "New Support for the Planetary Theory of Sunspots," privately circulated paper, 1983.) Comment. Even "farther out" is the thought that gravitational waves or some unrecognized influence from the galaxy or beyond causes the whole solar system to "ring." In ...
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... SF#31, the geological record seems to show that widespread biological extinctions have occurred about every 26 million years. Coupled with this is Walter Alvarez'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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... a large amplification factor by laboratory standards, particularly for a CO2 laser. But, the authors speculate that the sheer size of the natural lasers could make them useful tools in the future for communicating with distant civilizations beyond our own planetary system." The atmospheres of Mars and Venus are almost pure CO2 . The CO2 molecules are excited by the absorption of energetic solar photons; then, thermally emitted photons at about 10 micrometers from lower reaches of the atmosphere collide with the excited molecules, stimulating them to emit another 10-micrometer photon, thus doubling the number of photons. This is typical laser action. Deming and Mumma speculate that the natural laser action existing in the Martian atmosphere could be intensified and focussed into an intense beam of infrared radiation of enormous power by placing two large mirrors in orbit, creating a space-borne analog of a laboratory laser. With this huge laser, one could conceive of communicating with neighboring stellar systems. (Taylor, F.W .; "Natural Lasers on Venus and Mars," Nature, 306:640, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 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 Bermuda Triangle In Orbit Every time the British research satellite Ariel 6 passes over British Columbia and the Caspian Sea, something turns off the high voltage power to two of its experiments, leaving a third power supply unaffected. Even more eerie is the discovery that the sun must be shining on the ground for the phenomenon to occur. The radio commands controlling the switching are coded on a 5 kHz subcarrier superimposed on a l48.25 MHz carrier. The frequencies and coding are so highly specific that it is hard to imagine how the spurious commands arise. Also peculiar is the finding that the undesired switching can be prevented by simply beaming the pure carrier at the satellite just before it enters the two mystery zones. (Schwartz, Joe; "Mystery Beams Affect UK Satellite," Nature, 280:25, 1979.) Comment. This is only the latest in a long series of mysterious spacecraft electronic problems. From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Problems At The Rim Of The Solar System Neptune is an undisciplined member of the solar system. No one has been able to predict its future course accurately. Already this maverick planet is drifting off the orbit predicted just 10 years ago using the best data and solar-system models. All of the outer planets, in fact, confound predictions to some degree. In addition, some long-period comets have anomalous orbits. Astronomers have been aware that something was wrong for decades and anticipated finding a trans-Neptunian planet large enough to perturb the outer solar system. The discovery of Pluto did not help matters; it is much too small. The most popular explanation of the orbital anomalies relies on a large, still-undetected planet, possibly 3-5 times the mass of the earth, swinging sround the sun at some 80-100 Astronomical Units. But many have searched and no one has found anything. Planet-X , as it is often called, is just another bit of "missing mass." Thomas C. Van Flandern and Robert Harrington propose that all the obvious orbital damage in the outer solar system is the result of a single encounter between Neptune and another body, call it Planet X if you wish, that was passing through the outer reaches of the solar system. (Frazier, Kendrick; "A Planet beyond Pluto," Mosaic, 12:27, September/October 1981. ...
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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. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects White Area In Bottom Of Martian Crater Near the Martian equator, in the bowl of a 58-mile-diameter crater, Viking Orbiter snapped a peculiar white region. Called the "White Rock," the formation is 8.5 x 11 miles in size and possesses an unusual grooved surface. White Rock is too close to the equator to be ice or snow. It is a unique and unexplained feature. (Anonymous; "A Martian Mystery," Astronomy, 7:64, January 1979.) Comment. White Rock looks a bit like an eroded salt plug! If so, the history of Mars will have to be rewritten. White Rock from 707 miles above Mars (NASA photo) From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Venus: highly radioactive or just cooling down?The surface temperature of Venus is about 480 C, higher than any other solar system planet. While Venus does trap solar radiation in its atmosphere greenhouse fashion, data from Pioneer Venus Orbiter show that the planet radiates 15% more energy than it receives from the sun. In other words, Venus's surface is hotter then it would be if only the greenhouse effect were operating. Where could this extra energy come from? If it arises from the decay of naturally occurring radioactivity, Venus would have to have 10,000 times as much radioactivity as the earth. If this is the case, Venus must have had an origin radically different from the earth's . (Anonymous; "The Mystery of Venus's Internal Heat," New Scientist, 88:437, 1980.) Comment. Another possibility is that Venus is still cooling down and is much younger than the earth! From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 The earth's ring The most profound climatic event of the Tertiary was the terminal Eocene event 34 million years ago. The sudden change in the abundance of forest plants suggests that the winters became much more severe while the summers remained about the same. At about the same time, the radiolaria were devastated by some sort of disaster. This was also the time when the North American tektite strewn field was deposited -- a field that stretches halfway around the world. John O'Keefe hypothesizes that some of the tektites and microtektites that rained down during this period missed the earth and went into orbit around it, forming an opaque Saturn-like ring. This ring might have lasted a million years or more; and its shadow could have caused the extrasevere winters postulated from botanical data. (O 'Keefe, John A.; "The Terminal Eocene Event; Formation of a Ring System around the Earth," Nature, 285:309, 1980.) Comment. Many who have previously speculated about terrestrial ring systems, such as I.N . Vail, were called pseudoscientists! Reference. The North American tektites are the subject of Section ESM3 in our Neglected Geological Anomalies. Ordering information here . Earth's ring shadow From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 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 Flattened Sun Means Trouble For Einstein Recent measurements of the sun's diameter by P. Goode and H. Hill show: (1 ) The sun is "ringing like a bell" due to constant sunquakes; and (2 ) The sun is flattened enough at itse poles to signifcantly affect the precession of Mercury's orbit. The gravitational influence of the sun's bulge is so large that it, in effect, competes with relativistic effects as an explanation of Mercury's precession. Goode, in fact, has suggested that the Theory of Relativity must be in error. (Anonymous; "Reputed Mistake Found in Einstein's Theory of Relativity," Baltimore Sun, April 6, 1982. An Associated Press item.) From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 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. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ephemeral Lines On Mars At first, the close-up Mariner and Viking photos of the Martian surface seemed to dispose of the famous "canals." Few permanent linear features were discovered -- certainly nothing like the complex grid of straight lines sketched and photographed by Percival Lowell. Lowell may be vindicated yet, for at least one sharp, dark line has been photographed by a Viking Orbiter during three Martian springs just north of the great volcano Arsia Mons. Called a "weather wave," this line appears only in the spring when Lowell's canals darkened. This year, a second long line, slightly curved, joined up with the first line at a triangular junction looking suspiciously like one of Lowell's "oases." (Anonymous; "Rare Martian Weather Wave -- with a Kink," Science News, 118: 7, 1980.) Comment. Could it be that the notorious Martian canals are atmospheric features that come and go? For more on the history of the Martian canals and recent observations, see AMO1 in our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets. This volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Long-delayed radio echoes J. Hals first observed long-delayed radio echoes in 1927. During the following half-century, scientists have been studying this perplexing problem, but it has been the amateurs who have accumulated the bulk of the data. Over 100 reports exist where echoes of radio transmissions were received seconds later at the original transmitting station. Since light travels 186,000 miles per second, any simple radio-wave reflector would have to be well beyond the moon's orbit. A wide variety of natural phenomena (interplanetary matter) and even artificial devices (alien space probes) have been postulated to explain the long delays. Muldrew's article is first of all an excellent summary of the long and fascinating history of this effect. His bibliography is extensive and apparently nearly complete. Muldrew next examines the various ionospheric mechanisms that might cause long delays. The ionosphere is a complex structure with ducts in which radio signals can get trapped. Delays of a second or so might be due to such trapping but the longer delays require some other explanation. Muldrew favors a rather complex interaction between signals from separate transmitters that (theoretically at least) can create a long-lived electrostatic wave that travels in the ionosphere -- a sort of natural memory device. The coded signals could then be read out much later when the proper natural conditions developed. Delays of up to 40 seconds might be possible with this "ionospheric memory ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Phoebe Not Locked To Saturn When Voyager 2 passed through the Saturn system a few months ago, it snapped pictures of Phoebe, Saturn's outermost moon. Phoebe is nicely rounded, 200 kilometers in diameter, and swings around Saturn in a retrograde orbit 550 days long -- nothing anomalous so far. Phoebe, however, turns out to be the only solar-system satellite whose axial period of rotation is not about equal to its period of rotation about its parent planet. All other moons, including our own, are gravitationally "locked" so that they always point the same hemisphere at the parent planet. (Anonymous; "Voyager's Fleeting Glimpse of Phoebe," New Scientist, 91:779, 1981.) Comment. One inference here is that Phoebe is a relatively recent addition -- and a good-sized one -- to the Saturn system, and just hasn't been there long enough to become "locked." From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supermasses That Come And Go Quasars, black holes, violently active Seyfert galaxies, jets of matter expelled from galaxies, and many similar puzzles of modern astronomy fall into place (and reason) if one unthinkable assumption is made: the cyclic appearance and disappearance of supermasses inside galaxies. Normal galaxies seem to have masses of about 1011 times that of the sun. The unthinkable assumption suggests that every 108 years or so, these ordinary, unassuming galaxies become supermassive (about 1013 solar masses) for several million years. When the core of a galaxy becomes supermassive, its stars are tugged into tight new orbits. The subsequent switching off of the supermass allows the galaxy to expand outwards again. The author claims to have found just such expansion effects among the globular clusters in our own galaxy. His data are striking and quite convincing. The notorious "missing mass" problem of cosmology disappears with the cyclic supermass assumption because the time-averaged mass of each galaxy will be much higher than that observed in its normal enervated state. Doesn't this sudden temporary appearance of mass violate the laws of physics? No, says the author, physicists habitually assume a superfluid, superconducting vacuum state, which is the ultimate source of all mass-energy, when they develop their theories of fundamental particles. If particle physicists can (and must) evoke such magic, so can astronomers. (Clube, Victor; "Do We Need a Revolution in ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rings of uranus: invisible and impossible?Now that they have discovered nine rings around Uranus, astronomers are having trouble explaining them. First, if they are made up of small chunks of matter, the laws of celestial mechanics dictate that they should quickly spread out radially into much wider rings in just a decade or two. In other words, if the rings are ancient they should not have maintained their present form. Second, the rings are invisible when one would expect them to be bright like Saturn's . Yet, they reflect less light than the blackest coal dust. T.C . Van Flandern proposes that each ring is actually a single satellite, so small that we cannot see it, and that it sheds gases as it orbits. This small solid body would make the celestial mechanics people happy, and the gases would be invisible to the eye but still absorb light, making the ring of gases detectable when Uranus occults a star. (Van Flandern, Thomas C.; "Rings of Uranus: Invisible and Impossible?" Science, 204:1076, 1979.) Comment. An alternative explanation is that the rings are recently acquired and will soon disappear. An 1847 observation of a ring around Uranus exists, but a datum this old carries little weight. See our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets for this old sighting. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of Conservation of Mass/Energy violated? Big Bangers loftily dismiss such questions as "nonsense." Narlikar follows with some observational problems of the Big Bang: There seem to be objects in the universe that are older than the Big Bang age of the universe (9 -13 billion years); Quasar redshifts used to support the Big Bang theory may arise from the general expansion of the universe; The microwave background radiation of 3 K, which was gleefully embraced by Big Bangers as an echo of their version of creation, is actually of the same energy density as starlight, cosmic rays, etc., and need not have anything to do with the Big Bang; and The Big Bang Theory and General Relativity assume a constant G (the gravitational constant), but some recent lunar orbit measurements suggest that G is slowly decreasing! (Narlikar, Jayant; "Was There a Big Bang?" New Scientist, 91:19, 1981.) Comment. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole Big Bang business is the contempt with which theory supporters dismiss all objections. Is the Big Bang a scientific theory or a belief system? Reference. Observations challenging the Big Bang may be found throughout our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For information about this book, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rims Of Galaxies Spin Too Fast According to the physical laws governing orbital motion in a central force field, like that of our sun, distant objects should rotate more slowly than those closer to the central mass. Thus, the outer planets of the solar system swing around the sun more slowly than the earth and the other inner planets. Astronomers always expected that the stars rotating around the massive hubs of the galaxies would obey these laws in a like manner. No such luck! Doppler measurements of galaxy rotations made by Vera C. Rubin and her colleagues, at the Carnegie Institution, indicate that most stars out near the galactic rims rotate just as fast or faster than those closer to the hub. Astronomers suppose that this anomalous rotation may be due to halos of undetected burntout stars and/or gas fringing the galaxies. Such halos would dis-tort the inverse-square-law field, permitting the observed anomalous rotation. (Anonymous; "Fast-Spinning Galaxies," Science Digest, 89:18, November 1981.) Comment. No one has yet discovered these hypothetical halos of mass. The universe seems to be full of "missing mass." An unpopular alternative would be the admission that Newton's Law of Gravitation does not hold on the galactic scale. From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 What caused the grooves on phobos?Photographs from the Viking Orbiters show that the Martian satellite Phobos displays a heavily grooved surface. Enough high-resolution photos have been taken to prove that these grooves emanate from the large crater named Stickney and run around the satellite to its opposite side where they die out. This suggests that the origin of the crater and the grooves are related. Further, the widest and deepest grooves (700 meters wide and 90 meters deep) are located close to Stickney. On the other side of Phobos, grooves are consistently less than 100 meters wide. Despite these hints of impact origin, the grooves are not quite what one would expect from simple fracture by collision. Some show beaded or pitted structures. Other grooves are composed of irregularly bounded segments. Finally, some of the straight-walled sections seem to have slightly raised rims. Evidently, some internal forces, perhaps stimulated by the formation of Stickney, also played a part. (Thomas, P., et al; "Origin of the Grooves on Phobos," Nature, 273:282, 1978.) Reference. The grooves of Phobos and its other anomalies are catalogued at ALL2 and ALL3 in The Moon and the Planets. To order this book, go to: here . Map of the strange grooves on the Martian moon Phobos From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sun-earth-moon system may not be stable The application of zero-velocity surfaces (a mathematical technique) to the sunearth-moon, three-body system indicates that the eccentricity of the earth's orbit renders the system unstable. The conclusion is that the moon may one day escape the earth and become a planet and, turning the situation around, that the origin of the moon by capture is a strong possibility. (Szebehely, V., and McKenzie, R.; "Stability of the Sun-Earth-Moon System," Astronomical Journal, 82:303, 1977.) Comment. This paper is typical of several recent ones in celestial mechanics that throw doubt on long-held dogmas about the long-term stability of the solar system. For more on this subject, consult ABB1 in our Catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... PHOTOGRAPHED FROM SPACE SHUTTLE Rocket lightning observed over the South Atlantic in 1964 Scientific disbelief in this phenomenon recedes as observations accumulate. We present below a few short excerpts from a scientific report: "Video images from space showing a single upward luminous discharge into the clear night air above a thunderstorm were recorded for the first time during the space shuttle STS-32 mission, and later during the STS-31 mission and other missions using the shuttle's payload-bay TV cameras. .. .. . "Figure 1 [impossible to reproduce] shows 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects ASTRONOMERS COPE WITH BOTH CHAOS AND TOO MUCH ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE The solar system . The recent advent and fast rise in popularity of chaos theory is destroying some favorite, long-sworn-to notions of astronomers. One in particular is solar-system stability. Could any of the planets pop out of their orbits and embark upon wild and unpredictable trajectories? "We can't rule it out," stated J. Wisdom, an MIT planetary scientist. (Freedman, David H.; "Gravity's Revenge," Discover, 11:54, May 1990.) Comment. Well, OK, there is a tiny theoretical chance that such an event might occur in the future, but it certainly never happened in the past. To admit such a possibility would open that Pandora's Box of vigorously suppressed catastrophic scenarios. Reference. More information on solarsystem instability may be found in ABB1 in the catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering details here . The universe as-a -whole . The disovery of the Great Wall of galaxies (SF#67) and the regular clumping of galactic matter (SF#69) has greatly surprised astronomers, who have been emphasizing how uniformly distributed galactic matter should -- according to theory, at least. Now, D.C . Koo, at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says, "The regularity is just mind- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Caves as musical instruments Sophisticated chemistry in ancient egypt Heads down! Out-henging stonehenge Astronomy Eclipse shadow bands Moonstone in orbit? The storm-swept cosmos Biology Nanobes Strange appetites Flash fish Throwing sand in the gears of molecular clocks Geology Copper pseudomorphs Geophysics Mysterious mountain deaths Puzzling shadows Psychology Phantoms of the brain Focused group energy (fge) Megamemories Unclassified They went a byte too far! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An exploded planet and the "face on mars"Between Mars and Jupiter swirls the main main asteroid belt. In the view of many astronomers, including T. Van Flandern, there resides the debris of an exploded planet. Van Flandern has adduced considerable evidence supporting the exploded planet hypothesis, which we will pass over in favor of a look at the possible effects of said exploding planet upon a large but equally hypothetical satellite of said planet. Such a satellite would have been heavily pelted by debris on the side facing the exploding planet. Furthermore, this battered sphere, having lost its gravitational "anchor," would assume a new orbit around the sun as well as a new orientation in space. Is there any object in the solar system plastered mainly on one side with debris and craters? You guessed it: Mars! What possible connection could there be between this purported cataclysm and the "face on Mars"? The connecting thread is very weak but so beguiling that we must mention it. T. Van Flandern has proposed eight tests for the artificiality of the "face" and its associated "pyramids," "city," etc. One is the three-dimensionality of the "face." Another is the "fractal" test, which is useful in distinguishing between artificiality and naturalness. The "face" readily passes four of the eight tests. A fifth test (bilateral symmetry) cannot be decided ...
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... Mars has two puzzling "faces": (1 ) That human-like visage at Cydonia; and (2 ) The whole northern hemisphere or "face." The latter is definitely real and consists of an immense, low-lying plain centered roughly on the planet's North Pole. The opposite face of Mars is occupied by rough, cratered highlands. This sharp, profound crustal dichotomy has been known for many years and has resisted explanation. In SF#113, T. Van Flandern advanced the theory that the rugged southern highlands are composed of the debris from an exploded planet which Mars once attended as a satellite. Be that as it may, there is something puzzling about the northern plains. We now have information from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), now orbitting the red planet, that the low-lying northern plains are much flatter than thought. For thousands of kilometers, they are smooth on a scale of hundreds of meters. This is flatter than the lava flows of the lunar maria; flatter than the smoothest central Sahara. These startling data come from the MGS's laser altimeter that can measure elevation of the terrain below it with 10meter accuracy averaged over the beam width of 150 meters. The only known terrain in the entire solar system that can match this flatness is the abyssal, sediment-filled floor of the South Atlantic. Hmmm! Does this imply that the northern plains of Mars were once an ocean floor? That's the favorite interpretation today. Of course, they might also be lava plains created by a colossal ...
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... the object in the ample illumination, but without success. Although the object had moved very slowly from its original position, total viewing time was less than ten seconds. There was no sound at any time during the sighting." When Johns reported the above incident, he was advised to see the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which an eerie monolith is a key player. Johns did so and commented that said monolith "blew his mind." It was just what he had seen, except that it was wider and shorter. (Olsen, Thomas M.; "Sighting Alert," report, 1996) Comment. We can understand why the monolith of 2001 appeared: (1 ) to protohumans; (2 ) to lunar explorers; and (3 ) in orbit around Jupiter; but WHY in Kentucky in 1996? From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Einstein In Free Fall We now describe two abstruse phenomena, one of which is well-recognized, the other which is suggested by quantum mechanics, but is yet unobserved. Both involve only tiny physical effects. Even so, we should remember that a linchpin of Special Relativity is the tiny advance of Mercury's perihelion. It was Mercury's miniscule orbital anomaly that helped overthrow Newtonian celestial mechanics. Now, quantum mechanics may, in turn, undermine Relativity. The gist of this introduction is that we have here tiny, hard-to-visualize phenomena that are so scientifically important that it is worthwhile trying to understand them. In the first abstruse phenomenon, quantum mechanical effects demonstrate that the laws of classical electromagnetism are flawed. According to the classical view, an electron cruising by an ideal solenoid (a tube with an internal magnetic field but none outside) should be unaffected; that is, the electron should not "feel" the confined magnetic field. But, in the quantum mechanical view, the "presence" of the electron is smeared out so that it penetrates the solenoid, and the electron is affected by the confined field. This has been demonstrated. A Los Alamos scientist, D. Ahluwalia, ventures that an analogous situation prevails with gravity. He notes that General Relativity predicts that a particle (or person) in free fall cannot distinguish this condition (weightlessness) from the situation in a hollow ...
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... his or her reputation if he or she suggests that the earth is bombarded each by 20 house-size, icy minicomets. Well, L. Frank, University of Iowa, did just that in 1986. He was duly pilloried for his trouble. But, at the 1997 spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Frank presented new data to back up his previous assertions. The most startling of his new evidence came from a camera aboard a NASA satellite. Time-lapse photos imaged two objects streaking into the atmosphere over Poland and Germany. Frank identified these as clouds of water molecules from disrupted icy minicomets. The clouds had expanded from the house-size minicomets to clouds 3550 miles wide, weighing 20-40 tons. Frank thinks the minicomets come from a cloud of such objects orbiting the sun from earth out to Jupiter and beyond. Why don't they evaporate in the sunlight and near-vacuum of outer space? Perhaps, thought Frank, they are protected by a thin coating of carbon. (Roylance, Frank D.; "Space Snowballs Theory Gains Credence," Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1997. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Is Earth Pelted by Space Snowballs?" Science News, 151:332, 1997. Thanks to all who sent in clippings. There are too many to mention here. Frank's photos also appeared on some national news programs.) Comments. We have already mentioned the minicomets several times in SF. See SF#60/275, for example. If verified, icy minicomets might well ...
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... "face" on this planet is really only an eroded mesa, we can attend to some other Martian curiosities. One of these is the so-called "stealth" region. For some 2,000 kilometers along the Martian equator west of Arsia Mons and Pavonis Mons stretches an area that is invisible to terrestrial radar. Of course, we can see this region; but, when a 3centimeter radar is pointed at it, no detectable echoes are returned. Thus, the term "stealth," as in the F-117 Stealth aircraft, Are the clever Martians trying to conceal something from prying earthlings, using, say, a "cloaking" device a la Star Trek? Of course not. Loose, unconsolidated sediments are poor reflectors of radar waves. Examination of Viking-Orbiter photos tell geologists that the "stealth" region is almost certainly thickly strewn with volcanic ash, which would absorb the radar waves very well. (Edgett, Kennth S., et al; "Geologic Context of the Mars Radar "Stealth" Region in Southwestern Tharsis," Journal of Geophysical Research, 102:21,545, 1997.) From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... solar system was the epitome of stability -- wayward planets were impossible. Then along came chaos theory which implied that the flight of a butterfly in Brazil could, in principle, affect weather in Canada. In effect, a slight change in initial conditions could, in the fullness of time, have very large effects. Now, it is generally admitted that the solar system is chaotic after all. Each planet is subject to the tiny, butterfly-like gravitational tugs of the other planets, especially Jupiter. Given enough time, these gravitational nuances can result in the ejection of a planet from the solar system -- and may already have done so in the past! Mercury and Mars are the most vulnerable on a billion-year time scale. In the case of Mercury, its orbit will become more and more elliptical according to computer simulations. Eventually a close gravitational encounter with Venus is possible. This could send Mercury careening off into deep space. The probability of this happening is only 1 in a 1000 over 5 billion years, but it is not zero. Mars might likewise be ejected by a passing nudge from earth. However, this encounter could go the other way. Depending upon the celestial dynamics of the encounter, Mars might gravitationally fling earth out into the Galaxy, and our planet would truly become "Spaceship Earth." (Frank, Adam; "Crack in the Clockwork," Astronomy, 26:54, May 1998.) Comment. The computer simulations used in the foregoing study have to assume that we know all the forces acting in the ...
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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 Einstein's nemesis: di herculis DI Herculis is an 8th-magnitude eclipsing binary about 2,000 light years from earth. These two young blue stars are very close -- only one fifth the distance from earth to our sun. They orbit about a common center of gravity every 10.55 days. So far, no problem! The puzzle is that, as the two stars swing around one another, the axis of their orbit rotates or precesses too slowly. General relativity predicts a precession of 4.27 /century, but for DI Herculis the rate is only 1.05 /century. This does not sound like a figure large enough to get excited about, but it deeply troubles astronomers. D. Popper, an astronomer at UCLA, says: "The observations are pretty clear. I don't think there's any question there's a discrepancy and, frankly, it is an important one and it's unresolved." Accentuating the challenge to general relativity is the discovery that a second eclipsing binary, AC Camelopardalis, also violates general relativity in the same way. It seems that wherever gravitational fields are extremely strong and space-time, therefore, highly distorted, general relativity fails. Ironically, it was a very similar sort of astronomical observation that helped make general relativity a pillar of the scientific edifice early in the 20th. century. The orbit of Mercury precesses a ...
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... here. Large impact craters occur in swaths. Although this has been suggested before, Shaw has mapped out several swaths where large craters of about the same age are located. His "K -T swath" includes the Chicxulub crater (Yucatan), the Manson crater (Iowa), the Avak crater (Alaska), and three more in Russia -- all of which were gouged out about the time of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary. Shaw has plotted several other swaths of different ages. The application of chaos theory to solar system debris. Shaw hypothesizes that nonlinear gravitational effects channel asteroids and comets into the inner solar system in intermittent bursts. The bursts are then captured by the earth and other inner planets, with some of these objects grouped in like orbits. Gravitational feedback occurs from earth to orbiting debris. Shaw believes that the uneven distribution of mass inside the earth -- due probably to the impact that created the moon -- influences where asteroids and comets impact. In turn, these large objects keep smashing into the same regions and their cumulative effect contols the flow of material inside the earth. Then, this change in mass distribution feeds back to change orbits and impact swaths. The above is just a taste of what is revealed in Shaw's book of 600+ pages. It cannot fail to be controversial. (Monastersky, Richard; "Shots from Outer Space," Science News, 147:58, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon: still partly molten?Our long-time impression has been that our moon is a cold body, solidified eons ago, when its primordial ration of heat radiated away. But the lunar satellite Clementine -- tracked with great precision by lasers on earth -- undulates suspiciously as it orbits the moon. "The overall shape of the orbit traces the broad tidal bulges raised on the moon by Earth and the sun; the size and timing of the bulges depend on the moon's rigidity. The Clementine data show that somewhere, probably deep in its interior, the moon is not quite as rigid as solid rock would be. Most likely, part of the rock is still molten." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Clementine Mines Its First Nuggets on the Moon," Science, 264:1666, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How can the moon affect the earth's temperature?Several weather phenomena, such as precipitation and thunderstorm frequency, have been linked to the phase of the moon. Now, it seems that the moon's "cold" emanations can also raise the earth's temperature. Explaining how the moon's phase can have any warming effect at all on the earth's atmosphere is difficult, because the infrared energy received from the moon is only 10-5 that in sunlight. Nevertheless, a slight but statistically significant temperature effect does exist. In one study, the microwave emission of molecular oxygen was measured by a polar-orbit satellite. These data gave meteorologists the temperatures of the lowest 6 kilometers of the atmosphere from all areas of the planet. The temperature difference between full moon and new moon was only 0.02 C, with the full-moon temperature being the higher. (Ref. 1) A second study took actual surface temperatures measured at noon GMT each day at 51,200 locations around the world. These near-surface temperatures revealed a difference of 0.2 C between full and new moons -- ten times larger than that from the satellite study. (Ref. 2) 0.2 C and even 0.02 C are much too large to be attributed to direct lunar "heating." Instead, geophysicists wonder if the moon's orbit modulates the influx of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did the universe have a beginning?" Abstract. The big bang theory postulates that the entire universe originated in a cosmic explosion about 15 billion years ago. Such an idea had no serious constituency until Edwin Hubble discovered the redshift of galaxy light in the 1920s, which seemed to imply an expanding universe. However, our ability to test cosmological theories has vastly improved with modern telescopes covering all wavelengths, some of them in orbit. Despite widespread acceptance of the big bang theory as a working model for interpreting new findings, not a single important prediction of the theory has yet been confirmed, and substantial evidence has accumulated against it. Here, we examine the evidence for the most fundamental postulate of the big bang, the expansion of the universe. We conclude that the evidence does not support the theory, and that it is time to stop patching up the theory to keep it viable, and to consider fundamentally new working models for the origin and nature of the universe in better agreement with the observations." This paper's author, T. Van Flandern, dismisses quickly two pillars of the Big Bang; i.e ., its supposed predictions of the cosmic microwave background and the abundances of light elements in the universe: "The big bang made no quantitative prediction that the "background" radiation would have a temperature of 3 degrees Kelvin (in fact its initial prediction was 30 degrees Kelvin); whereas Eddington ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar-system puzzles In the 30-or-so years that space probes have been visiting the solar system's other planets, much has been learned, but there are now more questions than ever. We now pose four of these -- none of them could even have been asked before the space program. Not only is the magnetic axis of Uranus tilted grotesquely away from the planet's axis of rotation, but the latter lies almost in Uranus' orbital plane. Q1. Why are the magnetic fields of Neptune and Uranus tilted at such grotesque angles with the axes of rotation? A1. Probably because of giant impacts. Q2. "Why does Mercury have an iron core twice as massive, relative to its size, as any other rocky planet?" A2. Probably because a giant impact tore off its rocky mantle. Q3. "How can Neptune sustain 1400-kilometer-per-hour winds -- faster than Jupiter's -- when it is so far from the sun, whose heat powers atmospheric circulation?" A3. ?? Q4. "How could Mars -- now more than 50 C below freezing -- have been warm enough in its early days to have water flowing on its surface?" A4. Possibly due to geothermal heat. (Kerr, Richard A.; "The Solar System's New Diversity," Science, 265:1360, 1994 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ironclad proof of the moon's origin? Did earth and moon "coaccrete" at the same time? That is, did two clouds of debris simultaneously collect and coalesce into two rough spheres, which then began orbiting about a common center of gravity? Or, perhaps the earth and moon were once a single mass that ultimately fissioned due to the gravitational tugging of a passing massive object. If either of these scenarios were correct, earth and moon would have similar bulk compositions. This, however, does not seem to be the case. The abundance and distribution of iron on the moon's surface, as measured by the lunar probe Clementine , indicates that the moon is richer than the earth in refractory (high meltingpoint) compounds. The moon, therefore, almost certainly originated elsewhere, contrary to what most astronomers have longbelieved. Given the constraints of celestial mechanics, the most likely hypothesis postulates a colossal impact involving protoearth and the interloping protomoon. After considerable havoc, the two battered spheres settled down into their present configuration. Thus expire the two most popular theories of the moon's origin. (Lucey, Paul G., et al; "Abundance and Distribution of Iron on the Moon," Science, 268:1150, 1995) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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