115 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Moonstone In Orbit?A chunk of "something" about 50 meters across plays tag with the earth as it circles the sun. Discovered February 10, 1999 by an automated, asteroid-hunting telescope in New Mexico, the object's official name is 1999 CG9. Its orbit is nearly circular and 9 million kilometers farther away from the sun than the earth. Its year is 1.09 earth years. "The object's orbit is extremely unusual. Comets and asteroids that cross the earth's orbit normally have eccentric orbits. There is only one asteroid-like object, called 1991 VG, that has an similar orbit to that of earth. When it was discovered eight years ago, astronomers thought it might be a spacecraft that had escaped the earth's gravity." However, newly discovered 1999 CG9 is much too large to be a wayward piece of space hardware. The best guess is that it is a piece of the moon that was knocked off by an impacting asteroid. (Hecht, Jeff; "Chip off the Moon," New Scientist, p. 13, February 27, 1999.) Comment. Might it not be a chip off the earth itself? Or perhaps space hardware from somewhere else?! From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 123 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf123/sf123p05.htm
... * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects)Overview Astronomy Biology Chemistry/Physics Geology Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project A ASTRONOMY Catalog of Anomalies (Astronomy Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACB1 The Appearance of Comets in Cycles ACB2 Nonrandom Direction- ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 119 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /cat-astr.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Orbiting Mountains Below Two years ago a Russian scientist suggested that tiny black holes orbiting within the earth might trigger volcanic activity. Now, he has extended the idea to earthquakes. "A .R . Trofimenko of the Minsk Department of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR believes that all cosmic bodies, including the Sun and the Earth, are riddled with "mini" black holes left over from the big bang. Though much smaller than atoms. such black holes would each contain as much mass as a mountain, up to about 2 x 1020 grams. "Trofimenko originally suggested that energy radiated by these mini black holes could make hot spots that produce volcanic outbursts. Now he has investigated the way in which such objects, by orbiting about the Earth's core, would distort the gravitational field at the surface of our planet." Each time a mini black hole passes beneath a spot on the surface, there would be a "gravitoimpulse" too short to be detected by current instrumentation but sufficient to trigger earthquakes. (Anonymous; "Baby Black Holes Blamed for Earthquakes," New Scientist, p. 18, September 19. 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 104 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf084/sf084g09.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 2000 CR105 and Planet X 2000 CR105 is a supercomet some 400 kilometers in diameter. It is one of hundreds of icy TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects) that normally populate the Kuiper Belt girdling the solar system just beyond the orbit of Neptune. The problem is that 2000 CR105 is not normal. Its orbit is highly eccentric, with an aphelion 13 times farther out than Neptune's . This massive object (probably mostly ice) takes 3175 years to circle the sun. 2000 CR105 is real; it has been photographed; it is not Mirror Matter; no one blames any terrestrial extinctions on it. Nevertheless, we can and must wonder how its orbit became so badly distorted. Often in past years, whenever astronomers detected cometary orbits gone awry, they invoked Planet X; that is, some undiscovered massive body plying the outer reaches of the solar system. Indeed, there have been several intense and unsuccessful searches for Planet X over the years. (See Chapter AX in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) History seems to be repeating itself with 2000 CR105. Astronomer B. Gladman proposes that 2000 CR105 was forced into its present eccentric orbit by an encounter with a Mars-size Planet X that now orbits the sun at a distance about 15 times that of Neptune. From the standpoint of celestial mechanics, this perturbation of 2000 CR105's orbit is certainly within the realm of possibility. But two associated ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 87 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf136/sf136p04.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 85 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf031/sf031p02.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why do spiral galaxies stay that way? or do they?Sometimes the simplest of observations produces the stickiest of dilemmas. Take, for instance, a well-formed spiral galaxy, of which there are a great many. When astronomers measure the circumferential velocities of the stars, as they circle around the galaxy's hub, they find that all the stars orbit at about the same velocity, regardless of how far out from the hub they are. Their speeds do not drop off with increasing distance, as the velocities of the planets do in the solar system. This observation is anomalous itself, because it seems that the laws of orbital motion have been violated. We will save this anomaly for another day, the one we are after now is called: The Winding Dilemma. N. Comins and L. Marschall elaborate as follows: "Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy don't have as far to go to complete an orbit as stars located farther from the center. Thus, inner stars should orbit more frequently than outer stars, resulting in a spiral that gradually winds up as the galaxy ages. But observations of spiral galaxies at various distances -- and thus at different stages in their evolution -- have shown that this is not the case. Astronomers believe density waves, stochastic star formation, or perhaps a combination of both processes may sustain or regenerate the spiral pattern." Density ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 70 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf055/sf055p07.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Neptune's strange necklace The puzzling occultations of stars by Neptune have led scientists to postulate that discontinuous rings of debris rotate around the planet. (SF#38 and #40) But, given the number of recent failures to detect the ring at all, astronomers have been reduced to thinking about even weirder configurations of matter. The most recent model, by P. Goldreich et al, envisions a necklace of arcs in orbit, as illustrated. They calculate that the resonant effects of a yet undiscovered satellite in an inclined orbit could produce this strange pattern. (Murray, Carl d.; "Arcs around Neptune," Nature, 324:209, 1986.) Comment. Voyager 2 will encounter Neptune in 1989. Hopefully, it will clear things up ringwise. Or, it may photograph something even more exotic, like some 2001-like monoliths in orbit!! A possible configuration for ring and arcs and a confining satellite in orbit around Neptune, according to the theory of Goldreich et al. Radial variations are exagerated. (Would any astronomer, even 10 years ago, have countenanced such a spectacle in the Solar System?) From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 53 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf049/sf049p07.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 52 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf009/sf009p13.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 52 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf024/sf024p04.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 52 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf057/sf057a04.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chaotic Dynamics In The Solar System The following abstract appeared in a 1988 issue of Eos, a weekly publication of the American Geophysical Union. "Newton's equations have chaotic solutions as well as regular solutions. The solar system is generally perceived as evolving with clockwork regularity, yet there are several physical situations in the solar system where chaotic solutions of Newton's equations play an important role. There are physical examples of both chaotic rotation and chaotic orbital evolution. "Saturn's satellite Hyperion is currently tumbling chaotically, its rotation and spin axis orientation undergo significant irregular variations on a time scale of only a couple of orbit periods. Many other satellites in the solar system have had chaotic rotations in the past. It is not possible to tidally evolve into a synchronous rotation without passing through a chaotic zone. For irregularly shaped satellites this chaotic zone is attitude-unstable and chaotic tumbling ensues. This episode of chaotic tumbling probably lasts on the order of the tidal despinning timescale. For example, the Martian satellites Phobos and Deimos tumbled before they were captured into synchronous rotation for a time interval on the order of 10 million years and 100 million years, respectively. This episode of chaotic tumbling could have had a significant effect on the orbital histories of these satellites." Theis abstract continues, naming as other candidates for chaotic histories: some of the asteroids, Miranda (a satellite of Uranus), and the planet Pluto. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 46 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf058/sf058a06.htm
... 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. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 44 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf019/sf019p04.htm
... 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 Invisible Suns And Maybe See-through Planets, Too Astronomers have been baffled lately by the discovery of planets wandering aimlessly through outer space apparently without the guidance of a central sun. (Ref. 1) Planets, you see, are supposed to have been formed in the discs of dense dust orbiting newly created stars. They have no business wandering through the void unattended. No problem, says R. Frost of the University of Melbourne, "They could be in orbit around Invisible Stars! (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- ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 44 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf133/sf133p03.htm
... 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 Ice-Covered Lake On Mars?The Mars Global Surveyor snapped an intriguing photo while orbiting over latitude 24.65 , longitude 207.10 . It looks like a lake! There even seem to be reflections of the surrounding terrain. But, as T. Van Flandern comments, this glassy-looking area cannot be liquid water because the vapor pressure is too low on Mars -- water would quickly evaporate away. Ice, however, is a strong possibility. (Van Flandern, Tom; "' Lake' on Mars?" Meta Research Bulletin, 8:30, 1999. For details, go to: http://www.cbjd.net/orbit/mars/steadlake.html) Comments. The reference did not specify the Martian hemisphere, but it was probably the northern, where there are extensive lowlands. In fact, if water once did flow on Mars, 75% of it would have drained into these lowlands. (Anonymous; "Mars in 3-D ," Science News, 156:11, 1999.) Back in 1976, the Viking Orbiter sent back pictures of so-called "searchlight areas" in the northern hemisphere. The speculation then was that these glassy, seemingly transparent features might be thin layers of ice. (AME5 in The Moon and the Planets) Possible ice-covered lake on Mars (Reproduction of a negative). From Science Frontiers ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 42 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf125/sf125p02.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double-star system defies relativity We all know that chapter from the Bible of Science that tells how Einstein's General Theory of Relativity triumphed over Newtonian celestial mechanics by accounting for the residual advance of Mercury's perihelion. The General Theory should also account for the precessions of double-star orbits, but a serious anomaly has been found. The double star DI Herculis has a Newtonian precession rate of 1.93 degrees per century, with another 2.34 added by relativistic effects. With more than 3,000 well-observed orbits of this star system on the books, astronomers come up with only 0.64 degree per century, instead of the 4.27 predicted by theory. Something is obviously awry; and all searches for errors and other influences on the orbit have been negative. (Anonymous; "Double-Star System Defies Relativity," New Scientist, p. 23, August 29, 1985.) Comment. As a matter of record, Newtonian mechanics can account for Mercury's perihelion advance if the sun is actually an oblate spheroid instead of the mathematically perfect sphere usually assumed. Also, the gravitational theory of J. Moffat seems to explain the motions of both Mercury and DI Herculis. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 42 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf042/sf042p05.htm
... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cyclothems as solar-system pulse recorders Geologists can help astronomers look back in time. The sunspot cycle can be seen in variations of varves; i.e ., annual layers of sediment; and the growth rings of shells have been used to estimate the number of days in the lunar month when the solar system was younger. Cyclothems may also be useful. Cyclothems are groups or bundles of strata that repeat themselves in stratigraphic columns. A generalized cyclothem from Illinois is shown in the illustration. In the U.S . western interior, rhythmic sedimentation appears in the Fort Hays Limestone Member of the Niobrara Formation. These cyclothems can be correlated over distances exceeding 800 kilometers and are believed to be the consequence of climatic changes associated with the earth's precession and orbital eccentriciy. These rhythms have been captured in bundles of shale-limestone couplets. A bundle of five coup lets, for example, is thought to express 21,000- and 100,000-year Milankovitchtype climatic cycles, as impressed by variations in the earth's orbital precession and eccentricity. Analysis of the Fort Hays Limestone Member, however, reveals that while bundles of five couplets do occur, the number may vary from 1 to 12. Clearly, things are not clear-cut. (Laferriere, Alan P., et al; "Effects of Climate, Tectonics, and Sea-Level Changes on Rhythmic Bedding Patterns in the Niobrara Formation (Upper Cretaceous), U.S . Western Interior," Geology, 15:233, 1987.) Comment. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 42 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf055/sf055p13.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nereid: grotesque shape or two-faced?Nereid, a satellite of Neptune, is peculiar in several ways: Its orbit is retrograde and highly elliptical (1 .4 x 9.7 million kilometers) Its brightness changes by a factor of four as it rotates Its diameter, according to M.W . and B.E . Schaefer (Nature, 333:436, 1988) is thought to be at least 660 kilometers. None of these facts taken alone is anomalous, but (2 ) and (3 ) taken together seem incompatible. If the large brightness changes are due to a highly irregular shape, Nereid's 660-kilometer size is too large, because astronomers agree that gravitational forces will sphericize all objects larger than 400 kilometers. On the other hand, if Nereid is two-faced, like Saturn's moon Iapetus (it's carbon-black on one side, light-colored on the other), astronomers are again faced with trying to explain how such a large solar-system object can acquire so much carbonaceous material on one side only. Also, Nereid's eccentric, retrograde orbit surely hints at a history of capture or orbit disruption. (Weisburd, S.; "Neptune's Nereid: Another Mysterious Moon," Science News, 133:374, 1988. Also: Veverka, J.; "Taking a Dim View of Nereid," ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 42 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf059/sf059p05.htm
... . 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 41 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf037/sf037p03.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 39 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf028/sf028p06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too many short-period comets Some comets, such as Halley's , have periods of less than 200 years. Scientists have postulated that these comets, which orbit relatively close to the sun, originally came from the far-distant Oort Cloud on parabolic (non-returning) orbits around the sun. Perturbations by the planets, notably Jupiter, deflected them into the tighter orbits we see today. The problem is that the number of parabolic comets entering the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud of comets (located at the outermost fringes of the solar system) is 100 times too small to account for the existing population of short-period comets. M.E . Bailey believes this discrepancy can be removed if the Oort Cloud possesses a massive inner core of comets. (Bailey, M.E .; "The Near-Parabolic Flux and the Origin of Short-Period Comets," Nature, 324:350, 1986.) Reference. The Oort Cloud of comets is an entrenched part of astronomical dogma. For observations challenging its existence, see our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. A description of this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 39 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf050/sf050p06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ganymede Magnetic Paradox In December 1995, the Galileo space-craft was injected into orbit around Jupiter, thereby becoming the first known artificial satellite of this giant planet. In the five years that have transpired, Galileo has radioed back voluminous data about Jupiter itself and its four large Calilean satellites. These natural satellites have turned out to be a disparate bunch. Three have iron cores, but Callisto breaks the mold with an unusual core of mixed ice and rock. Europa probably possesses an ocean, and Callisto might also. Only one of Jupiter's large satellites, Ganymede, boasts a magnetic field. In fact, Ganymede is apparently the only satellite in the solar system to display an intrinsic, dipole magnetic field like the earth's . Although Ganymere's magnetic field is like that produced by a permanent bar magnet, its core is much too hot for permanent magnetism. Again like the earth, Ganymede's field is theorized to be generated by the convection of electrically conducting liquid in its core -- a dynamo of sorts. All well and good, but Ganymede is so small that it should have cooled off billions of years ago thereby freezing its metallic core. So then, whence its magnetic field? One way out of this box it to suppose that about a billion years ago Ganymede was circling Jupiter in an orbit that took it much closer to this ponderous planet. Then, Jupiter's powerful ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 37 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p04.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 35 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf103/sf103a04.htm
... 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 The Planets Are Unpredictable It was only about 40 years ago when astronomers, aghast at Velikovsky's vision of worlds in collision, stated very firmly that the solar system was presently stable and had been so for eons. Now it seems that they may have been a bit hasty and all-encompassing. Not that the Velikovsky scenario is correct or that Mars might at any moment depart from its present orbit, but rather that astronomers must now admit an inability to predict planetary motion over billions of years - even tens of millions of years! For the solar system, if those ubiquitous computers are correct, is not a well-behaved family of planets. J. Laskar concludes from extensive numerical experiments: "The motion of the Solar System is thus shown to be chaotic, not quasiperiodic. In particular, predictability of the orbits of the inner planets, including the Earth, is lost with a few tens of millions of years." (Laskar, J.; "A Numerical Experiment on the Chaotic Behavior of the Solar System," Nature, 338:237, 1989.) Comment. Laskar's comments are directed toward the future, but the same conclusions should apply if we ran the solar system backwards in time. From this very narrow perspective of celestial mechanics, one cannot say positively that the planets, the inner ones especially, could not have radically altered their orbits within the past few millions of ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 34 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf063/sf063a05.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Asteroids That Turn Into Comets Even though Chiron is large (about 200 kilometers in diameter) and a bit dark for a rocky asteroid, astronomers have been quite comfortable with calling it an asteroid. True, its orbit between Saturn and Uranus is unusual, but what else could it be but an asteroid? A comet, that's what! Recently, the brightness of Chiron has doubled, suggesting that it has 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. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 34 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf060/sf060p04.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 34 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf098/sf098g11.htm
... 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 Next Let Us Consider Uranus Uranus is so distant that its satellites are difficult to observe. What astronomers do see is unsettling. The orbital eccentricities of the three inner satellites, using reasonable assumptions about tidal interactions, should decay to zero (perfect circles) in 107 -108 years. If the observational data are correct, one implication is that the Uranian satellite system should be evolving rapidly from a state of higher eccentricity. (Squyres. Steven W., et al; "The Enigma of the Uranian Satellites' Orbital Eccentricities," Icarus, 61:218, 1985.) Comment. Here we have one more sign of recent disturbance or solar-system youth. Time spans of 107 -108 years are very small compared to the estimated solar-system age of 5 x 109 years. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 29 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf040/sf040p05.htm
... 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 Some Funny Things Happened On The Way Around The World Weird things happen in the weightlessness of an orbiting spacecraft. In the many videos shot aboard the Space Shuttle s, we are treated to tools, even gently oscillating globules of water, floating aimlessly in midair. Even stranger are the effects of microgravity on humans and other life forms. Astronauts, for example, when they first arrive in orbit, sometimes perceive their world to be upside-down regardless of their orientation. Their nervous systems were apparently thrown for a loop when the force of gravity was cancelled out. These illusions disappear later in the mission. Speaking of loops, consider the medaka. This fish is the only vertebrate to have mated and laid eggs that developed into offspring in microgravity. Said offspring are doomed to lives of somersaulting swimming. (Wassersug, Richard J.; "Life without Gravity," Nature, 401:758, 1999.) Comment. Could there be a connection to the nervous affliction of tumbler pigeons? See BBB8 in Biological Anomalies: Birds. From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf127/sf127p09.htm
... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Spheres Can Dance To Convoluted Music A lot has been written about the "music of the spheres." But we don't hear much about this celestial music anymore; rather, "dances of the spheres" are in vogue. If only gravity and Newton's Laws ruled celestial motion, there would be no general solution to the hoary "three-body problem. But in the three special configurations illustrated, three bodies of equal mass can be shown to be stable. The third, the figure-of-eight, was not discovered until 1993 by C. Moore. Although mathematicians can prove it is stable, R. Montgomery admits: There is no understanding of why the orbit is stable, from either a physical or mathematical point of view. Certainly no figure-eight orbits have ever been observed in the cosmos so far, but who knows?. The situation becomes really bizarre when more than three equal masses are considered. A few of the many stable, but manifestly weird, configurations are also illustrated here. These are among the simplest. To illustrate, C. Simo has found a stable choreography for 799 bodies cavorting happily and stably together in space. And he was using only his laptop! (Appell, David; "Celestial Swingers," New Scientist, p. 36, August 4, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf139/sf139p02.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Planets As Fragments Of An Ancient Companion Of The Sun J. Webb has called attention to a fascinating feature of the solar system. "If one calculates the total energy and the total angular momentum of the planets, the numbers turn out to be very nearly the same as those of a single planet having a mass essentially the same as the total mass of all the planets, and orbiting the sun in an orbit which is near the present-day center of mass of all the planets. The possibility that the solar system was once a binary star (or is in the process of becoming one) needs to be examined more closely." (Webb, Jerry; "The Solar System and a Binary Star: Is There a Connection?" American Journal of Physics, 53:938, 1985.) Cross reference. See SF#42 for speculations about the solar system once being a quintuple star system. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf043/sf043p06.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf033/sf033p05.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf025/sf025p04.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf096/sf096a04.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf008/sf008p04.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An 11-minute binary 4U1820-30 is an X-ray binary star located in the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6624. Its claim to fame is a very short period of rotation -- only 685 seconds. In just a shade over 11 minutes, a neutron star orbits a white dwarf, according to present thinking. The orbit diameter is only 1/7 the radius of our sun, which implies the stars themselves are also small. 4U1820-30 is the shortest-period binary ever found -- so short that astronomers are looking for other explanations. Another curious fact mentioned in this item is that X-ray binaries are much more common in globular clusters than elsewhere in the universe. What is so different about globular clusters? (King, A.R ., and Watson, M.G .; "The Shortest Period Binary Star," Nature, 323:105, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf048/sf048p07.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Celestial burlesque?Astronomers have long wondered about Mercury. Its density (5 .44) is unusually high for such a small planet, and its orbit's inclination (7 ) and eccentricity (0 .206) are also anomalously high. In one blow. W. Benz, A.G .W . Cameron, and W. Slattery may have solved all three problems. Four frames from a computer simulation of proto-Mercury being stripped of its lighter, outer crust by a collision. Frame times are -1 , + 2.3 , + 7.7 , and + 41.7 minutes after impact. The dark molten sheet of iron in Frame #4 will collapse into a sphere, while the silicates will escape Mercury's gravitational pull. They think Mercury's original, lighter, silicate outer layers were stripped off during the impact of one of the small protoplanets that are thought to have swirled around the inner solar system shortly after its formation. Computations on a supercomputer revealed to these three researchers that, if the protoplanet had hit Mercury at between 20 and 30 kilometers/second, then its dense iron core would have survived pretty much intact. A lower velocity would not have stripped off the lighter outer layers; anything higher would have blasted the whole planet into smithereens. Calculations of this type also suggest that if a protoplanet the size of Mars had hit protoearth, it likewise would ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf061/sf061a03.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf025/sf025p03.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf100/sf100g11.htm
... black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion. The rapid orbital motion of the companion star tells us that the central X-ray star has a mass of more than three suns. General Relativity assures us that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist. J. McClintock, the author of this article, does not buy this reasoning. General Relativity, he says, has been shown to be valid so far only in weak gravitational fields, not in the very powerful gravitational fields of an X-ray star. ". .. we presume that Einstein's theory correctly describes strong gravity when we argue that certain X-ray stars are black holes, yet, at the same time, these alleged black holes are the acid test of Einstein' ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf056/sf056a04.htm
... unimposing geometric progression, which, if one inserts the earth's average distance from the sun, yields the distances of the other planets with enough accuracy to perturb astronomers. You see, all scientists abhor numerology. They must insist that the Titius-Bode Law has physical underpinnings. S. Weldenschilling and D. Davis now propose that the planets owe their present positions to a combination of two effects: The frictional drag of the gas in the solar nebula, which favors the presence of small planets in the inner solar system. Gravitational perturbations that create favored places for the coalesceing of planets. C. Patterson has expanded on this suggestion and finds that a model based on these effects works quite well for Jupiter and beyond, where planets are "bound together" in an interlocking system of orbital-period resonances. (See diagram.) Several important anomalies persist, however. That vacant niche between Uranus and Neptune is presently unexplained. In the inner solar system, the presence of Mercury is "embarrassing." (Anonymous; "Were Titius and Bode Right?" Sky and Telescope, 73:371, 1987. Reference. The "problem" of Mercury is treated in AHB2 in The Moon and the Planets. This catalog is described here . In C. Patterson's model the outer planets accreted at those spots where their orbital periods formed simple ratios. Planet ? ? is indicated by this theory, but has never been found. From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf051/sf051a04.htm
... Saturn's C-ring. Using current micrometeorite-flux estimates, the age of the C-ring is between 4.4 and 67 million years. Compared to the purported age of the solar system, 4.5 billion years, Saturn's C-ring (and perhaps the other rings, too) is a brand-new feature. Where did it come from? Is it related to the icy comets that seem to be raining down steadily on the earth's atmosphere? (Northrop, T.G ., and Connerey, J.E .P .; "A Micrometeorite Erosion Model and the Age of Saturn's Rings," Icarus, 70:124, 1987.) From Mars. Inside the vast Valles Marineris Canyon complex, Viking Orbiter photos have picked out wind-blown patches of dark material. These patches are strung out along faults for some 200 kilometers. Astronomers believe they are volcanic vents, which are a scant few million years old. (Anonymous; "Recent Volcanism on Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1985.) Comment. Another of the surprisingly large number of youthful features in the solar system. From Europa. The surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean satellites, seems to be covered with a relatively smooth veneer of ice. Beneath this frigid skin, according to one theory, lie about 100 kilometers of liquid water. Why hasn't this water frozen completely, given the trifling sunlight at Jupiter's distance from the sun? Tidal stresses provide ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf053/sf053a06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm, wet, fertile mars Mars may not be orbited by huge artificial satellites of alien provenance, but its geological history is looking more and more as if could have supported or perhaps still does support life. "A large number of anomalous landforms on Mars can be attributed to glaciation, including the action of ice and meltwater. Glacial landscapes are concentrated south of lat -33 and in the Northern Plains suggesting vast Austral and Boreal ice sheets. Crater densities on the glaciated terrains indicate that the final glacial epoch occurred late in Martian history. Thus, Mars may have had a relatively warm, moist climate and dense atmosphere much later than previously believed." (Kargel, Jeffrey S., and Strom, Robert G.; "Ancient Glaciation on Mars," Geology, 20:3 , 1992.) If Mars was warm and wet not too long ago, as implied above, perhaps life did gain a foothold there through either independent invention or, perhaps, through seeding by template-carrying comets or meteorites. P.J . Boston et al have investigated one possible Martian ecosystem: "We have reexamined the question of extant microbial life on Mars in light of the most recent information about the planet and recently discovered nonphotosynthetic ecosystems on Earth -- deep sea hydrothermal vent communities and deep subsurface aquifer communities. On Mars, protected subsurface niches associated with hydrothermal activity could have continued to support life even after surface conditions ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 17 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf082/sf082a05.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New Insights As To The Structure Of Matter Possible "nuclear-molecular" forms of magnesium-24 and carbon-12. Inside the atom. Physicists have long visualized the atomic nucleus as being a shell-like arrangement of its constituent protons and neutrons. Tantalizing experiments suggest other wise. Magnes ium-24, for example, may under some circumstances exist as two carbon-12 nuclei in tight orbit, as in the illustra tion. Even more startling is the "sausage" form of magnesium-24, in which six helium-4 nuclei (alpha particles) are lined up in a row. This "hyperdeformed" state has not yet been detected in the lab, but it demonstrates new thinking among the physicists. (Kenward, Michael; "Are Atoms Composed of Molecules?" New Scientist, p. 21, April 6, 1991.) Comment. Evidently we do not know everything about nuclear physics. Beyond the molecule. We are used to seeing atoms and molecules arranging themselves into mathematically regular crystals. Now it appears that particles consisting of thousands of atoms also spontaneously organize themselves. A.S . Edelstein et al find that molybdenum particles assemble themselves in cubes with two prominent edge lengths: 4.8 and 17.5 nanometers. The larger cubes show up in micrographs as 3x3x3 groupings of the smaller cubes. The smaller cubes each contain about 7000 atoms. (Edelstein, A.S ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf076/sf076p15.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Magnetic Stripes On Mars As the Mars Global Surveyor swooped down to altitudes between 100 and 200 kilometers above the Martian surface during its aerobraking orbits, magnetometers detected broad, parallel stripes with alternating magnetic polarity. These stripes across the planet's southern highlands are a great surprise to planetologists because they superficially resemble the magnetic stripes that parallel the rifts along the floors of the earth's oceans where new crust is forming. The obvious implication is that Mars once possessed drifting continents and a geomagnetic dynamo that occasionally reversed its polarity -- just as has supposedly happened and is still happening on earth. Prior to this discovery, Mars was deemed too small to have possessed a heat-driven geodynamo, and there is no obvious surface evidence of drifting continents. Easy as it is to conclude that Martian continents once sailed ponderously cross the planet's surface, the scientific jury is still out. First of all, the Martian magnetic stripes are substantially different from earth's in shape, pattern, strength, and, above all, size. The Martian stripes are about 200 kilometers wide and 2,000 long -- much larger than earth's . Their magnetic field strength is more than ten times that of the terrestrial stripes. Whatever magnetic phenomena occurred on Mars some 4 billion years ago must have been quite different from what happened on earth 200 million years ago. Yet, no other reasonable explanation has been found for the ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf124/sf124p03.htm
... 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. (Mathilde has one 33 kilometers wide.) K.R . Housen et al, using laboratory tests and scaling data, argue that asteroid craters were not blasted out by collision ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf127/sf127p03.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf004/sf004p03.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf045/sf045p20.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf007/sf007p06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A Stone Face From Ungava The Ancient Dispersal of Useful Plants Astronomy Cartwheels in Space Large, Unseen Mass is Pulling Earth Toward It Venus and Earth: Engaged Or Divorced? A Chilly Martian Night Biology The Hazards of Sewer Exploration Have Magnets, Will Travel Geology Moon-like Craters in the North Sea Floor An Ancient Planet Beneath A Youthful Veneer Tarnished Halos? Geophysics Purple Blobs in Texas Category X Bermuda Triangle in Orbit Transcendental Trivia? ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf009/index.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supernova Theory Exploded What happens when two white dwarf stars in close orbit finally fall into one another? Theory says you get a colossal explosion called a Type-I supernova. But this hypothesis is in trouble because a recent survey of white dwarfs revealed absolutely no double white dwarfs in a sampe of 25 from the Milky Way. Even if a few pairs are eventually found, they do not appear to be numerous enough to account for the rate at which supernovas are observed. (Crosswell, Ken; "Supernova Theory Exploded by Solitary White Dwarfs," New Scientist, p. 23, March 23, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf077/sf077b05.htm
... 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf012/sf012p01.htm