133 results found.
... of Astronomical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. From our own moon's cratered surface to the red, rock-strewn plains of Mars, the Solar System is a fertile field for scientific research. Despite centuries of observation, each new spacecraft and telescope provides us with new crops of anomalies [Picture caption: One drawing of the Venusian radial spoke system] Typical subjects covered: The ashen light of Venus * The Martian 'pyramids' * Kinks in Saturn's rings * Continuing debate about the Voyager life-detection experiments * Neptune's mysterious ring * Evidence of water on Mars * The grooves on Phobos * The two faces of Mars * Lunar clouds, mists, "weather" * Ring of light around the new moon * Dark transits of Jovian satellites * Io's energetic volcanos * Jupiter as a "failed star" * Venus-earth resonance Comments from reviews: "The author is to be commended for his brilliantly conceived and researched volume", Science Books. 383 pages, hardcover, $18.95, 80 illustrations, 4 indexes 1985. 988 references, LC 85-61380, ISBN 915554-19-4 , 7x10 format. The Sun and Solar System Debris: A Catalog of Astronomical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Our sun, powerhouse of the Solar System and an enigma itself, is orbited by clouds of asteroids, comets, meteors and space dust These "minor objects" cause "major headaches" to astronomers searching for explanations. Typical subjects covered: Solar svstem resonances * ...
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... 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 ...
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... 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 Frozen in Time A map of Antarctica produced in 1997 using data from the Canadian satellite Radarsat has revealed some unexpected geological features at the bottom of the planet. Among these are vast areas of previously unrecognized snow dunes -- all lined up in parallel like the ripples on a stream bed. However, these snow dunes are no ripples. They measure up to 100 kilometers in length with separations of 1-2 kilometers. They are, in fact, called "megadunes." At ground level, though, the snow dunes are not obvious because they are only a few meters high. Since Antarctica is often buffeted by fierce winds, one would naturally think that these snow dunes have an aeolian origin like desert sand dunes. This does not seem the be the case. Comparisons made using recently declassified images taken in the 1960s by U.S . military satellites reveal that the snow dunes have not moved in over 30 years! Some-thing besides wind-driven snow must be helping to sculpt these immense stationary patterns. (Tomlin, Sarah; "Vast Snow Dunes Frozen in Time," Nature, 402:860, 1999.) Comment. The fossil "string dunes" of Australia closely resemble the Antarctic snow megadunes in pattern and size, but of course they are composed of sand. "Megaripples" charted by sonar and shaped by water currents on the ocean floors are also comparable. See ETR3 in Carolina ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SAGA OF SOOT: PART I The tale began on March 27, when Comet Hyakutake passed within 15 million kilometers of earth. At this point in its trajectory, it came into the field of view of the X-ray astronomy satellite ROSAT. ROSAT was designed to look at stars whose extremely high temperatures can generate X-rays. It seemed ridiculous to point ROSAT's instruments at a comet composed mainly of ice and dust. How could a comet emit X-rays? When a German-American team of scientists proposed taking a peek at Hyakutake with ROSAT, scientific eyebrowns were raised. What a waste of observing time! At the most, the team thought they might pick up a smudge of weak X-rays where dust grains flying off Hyakutake collided with dust grains normally present in interplanetary space. The team did get ROSAT to take a look, and what the satellite saw ignited a controversy. Some 50,000 kilometers in front of the comet was a bright crescent of X-rays, 100 times brighter than the brightest "smudge" the team of scientists had hoped for. This was completely unexpected. All astronomers could do was come up with three rather unconvincing theories: (1 ) Solar X-rays were absorbed and reemited by the comet (Xray fluorescence); (2 ) Cometary material emitted X-rays when bathed in the solar wind; and (3 ) Charged particles were ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects TLPs One Fades, Others Flash The TLP (Transient Lunar Phenomenon) reported in SF#127 involved a 40-minute darkening of an area near the lunar crater Aristarchus on April 23, 1994. The phenomenon was observed independently by some 100 amateur astronomers. The initial analysis of data returned at the same time by the lunar satellite Clementine at first seemed to confirm the amateurs' telescopic impressions. But after correcting the satellite data for lighting geometry and other effects, Clementine's vision of the TLP faded away like the Cheshire Cat. TLP doubters were well-satisfied. (Anonymous; "Lunar Surface Change: A False Alarm," Sky & Telescope, 99:22, March 2000. Cr. D. Barbiero.) Comment. Were the independent observations by 100-or-so geographically dispersed amateurs all hallucinations? The TLP "myth" does not fade away so easily. On the night of November 17/18, 1999, the Leonid meteors pelted the earth's atmosphere and, as one would expect, the moon's surface. The moon's atmosphere, however, is almost non-existent so its share of the Leonid shower did not burn up before hitting the surface. But might not the high-velocity impacts with the surface create luminous phenomena? To find out, a team of observers monitored the dark side of the moon during the peak of the Leonid shower. Sure ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Long Reach Of The Hawaiian Islands From aircraft and satellites, one can see strong contrasts in the roughness of the ocean surface in the lee of those idyllic islands with their volcanic peaks that poke over 10,000 feet into the Pacific airstreams. These long streaks on the ocean surface are called "wind wakes." The wind wake leeward the Hawaii is spectacular. These islands are swept by steady northeast trade winds. Mauna Kea (4201 meters), Mauna Loa (4201 meters), and other Hawaiian peaks penetrate high above trade inversion. Together they create a visible wind wake some 3,000 kilometers long to the west -- many time-greater than any other island wind wakes to be seen on the planet. The effects of these soaring peaks are more than visual. Their wind wake drives an eastward ocean current that, in turn, draws warm water away from the Asian coast 8,000 kilometers distant from Hawaii. Thus, a few island mountains affect the climate of a continent a fifth of the way around the globe! (Xie, Shang-Ping, et al; "Far-Reaching Effects of the Hawaiian Islands on the Pacific Ocean-Atmosphere System," Science, 292:2057, 2001.) Comment. The Hawaiian wind wake is not anomalous but it is surely interesting. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...
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... 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 Lake Michigan's Annual Silt Plume The item on the Caribbean "whitings" in SF#135 brought forth an article from a Chicago newspaper describing a similar phenomenon. Every spring a great plume of silt -- an estimated million tons of it -- is stirred up by winds and currents on Lake Michigan. This plume is easily visible to those who care to brave the bitter weather that time of year. The 125-mile-long chalky plume stretches along the shore from Wisconsin, past Illinois, around the southern tip of the lake, and up along the Michigan shore. The plume lasts several weeks and is easily seen by satellites high overhead. (Kendall, Peter; "Scientists Plumb Mystery of Lake Plume," Chicago Tribune, February 1997 or 1998. Cr. J. Cieciel.) Spring winds and currents stir up a 125-mile-long, chalky plume on Lake Michigan. From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... the total answer, though. An area called Tithonius Lacus, for example, is the source of many flares, but it is too cold in this part of Mars for clouds of water-ice crystals to exist. No closed book here! (Dobbins, Thomas, and Sheehan, William; "The Martian-Flares Mystery," Sky & Telescope, 101:115, May 2001. Anonymous; "Source of Flashes of Light Found," Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 24, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps.) Comment. The Martian-flare phenomenon is reminiscent of the "Perseus-flasher" discussions in 1987. (SF#53) The frequently observed flashes of light seen in the constellation Perseus turned out to be sun glinting off an artificial satellite. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... 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 Odd Growths Found On Satellite We cautiously classify the following phenomenon as "biological," although it might well be inorganic in nature -- perhaps something akin to "whisker growth" seen in metals under some conditions. "Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are scratching their heads over how a tiny patch of something managed to grow even though it was exposed to the harshness of outer space for nearly six years. "The mystery growth has been found in a toothpick-sized region on what is known as the Long Duration Exposure Facility. The bussized LDEF was launched in 1984 and was retrieved by a space shuttle in January 1990, a few weeks before its decaying orbit would have sent it crashing back to earth. .. .. . "NASA scientists in Huntsville, Ala., discovered the growth while examining a brownish discoloration on a Tefloncovered section of the satellite. "Using an electron scanning microscope, they saw tiny, stalactite-like structures on the Teflon. Tiny means the longest were about seven microns in size. That's about one-tenth the width of a human hair. "At first NASA scientists thought the growth might be a fungus or a mold that had contaminated the LDEF upon its return. However, their tests came up negative," (Anonymous; "Odd Space Growth on Satellite Baffles NASA," Arkansas Demo crat-Gazelle , September 9, 1992. Cr. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Isotropy Confounds Angular distribution of 153 gamma-ray bursts detected by the GRO satellite in 1991 Take a look at the distribution of 153 gamma-ray bursts registered by the Gamma-Ray Observatory (a satellite). There is no pattern, gamma-ray bursters seem to be evenly distributed in all directions. This is not what the astronomers expected, and the implications of this isotropy are staggering. Gamma-ray bursts emanate from highly localized unseen sources. They may last for a few milliseconds or stretch out for several minutes. The energy in the bursts ranges over 26 orders of magnitude. The rise-times of the bursts are so short that the sources can only be a few hundred kilometers across. Before the accompanying map appeared, most scientists thought that the bursters were nearby, probably in the disk of the galaxy, and were due to asteroids being digested by neutron stars or possibly neutron-star quakes. If such were so, the bursters would be concentrated in the plane of the galaxy (the Milky Way), which clearly they are not. Another theory places the bursters in a distant spherical halo about our galaxy. But, in this case, the bursters would have to be much more energetic than astronomers care to contemplate. In fact, if they exist in a galactic halo, we should also be able to detect the bursters in our neighboring galaxies -- but we do not! A ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified light explained?The strange optical phenomenon reported in SF#80 may have been the consequence of a barium release from a NASA satellite. At 9:17 PM EST, on January 13, 1991, the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) detonated a small canister of barium over South America. The greenish glow was visible from the U.S . southeast coast in the southwestern sky. (Suplee, Curt; "NASA Light Show 'Paints' Earth's Magnetic Field," Washington Post, January 14, 1991. Cr. D. Kreinbrink) Comment: The observation reported in SF#80 was logged as occurring at 0210 UTC, January 13, so there is a time discrepancy that needs to be resolved here. From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of life, particularly advanced life. As a case in point, the polar axis of Mars, with only two tiny moons to dampen its spin excursions, seems to have gone through many wild swings, as indicated in the figure. What deadly climatic changes must have wracked our sister planet! (Touma, Jihad, and Wisdom, Jack; "The Chaotic Obliquity of Mars," Science, 259: 1294, 1993. Also: Laskar, J., and Robutel, P.; "The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets," Nature, 361:608, 1993.) Comment. The successful evolution of higher life on earth (a presumption!) therefore seems to have depended upon the gravitational shields of Jupiter and Saturn as well as the presence of our unusually large satellite. How likely is this combination of planets and satellites in the rest of the universe? Of course, life-as-we-know-it also requires just the right kind of central star and a planet with good air and water. Perhaps lifeas-we-do-not-know-it is more likely! From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm, wet, fertile mars Mars may not be orbited by huge artificial satellites of alien provenance, but its geological history is looking more and more as if could have supported or perhaps still does support life. "A large number of anomalous landforms on Mars can be attributed to glaciation, including the action of ice and meltwater. Glacial landscapes are concentrated south of lat -33 and in the Northern Plains suggesting vast Austral and Boreal ice sheets. Crater densities on the glaciated terrains indicate that the final glacial epoch occurred late in Martian history. Thus, Mars may have had a relatively warm, moist climate and dense atmosphere much later than previously believed." (Kargel, Jeffrey S., and Strom, Robert G.; "Ancient Glaciation on Mars," Geology, 20:3 , 1992.) If Mars was warm and wet not too long ago, as implied above, perhaps life did gain a foothold there through either independent invention or, perhaps, through seeding by template-carrying comets or meteorites. P.J . Boston et al have investigated one possible Martian ecosystem: "We have reexamined the question of extant microbial life on Mars in light of the most recent information about the planet and recently discovered nonphotosynthetic ecosystems on Earth -- deep sea hydrothermal vent communities and deep subsurface aquifer communities. On Mars, protected subsurface niches associated with hydrothermal activity could have continued to support life even after surface conditions ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Puzzling Winds The Amazon jungle seems to be receiving more than its share of natural calamities. Remember the meteor-devastated swaths and strange "crater" reported in SF#103? Well, here's another phenomenon that may or may not be related. "Scientists studying weather patterns in the Amazon Basin have detected extremely powerful, sudden bursts of wind over the rainforest. The winds, which appear to be associated with thunderstorms in the northwest part of Brazil, blow downward with tremendous force. Satellite photos indicate that a single episode demolished 10 square miles of jungle in only 20 minutes." (Anonymous; INFO Journal, no. 74, p. 39, Winter 1996. INFO = International Fortean Organization. Source cited: Alexandria Journal, June 30, 1995) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cloud Plumes Natural But Still A Bit Anomalous During the mid-1980s, satellites photographed strange cloud plumes that stretched hundreds of kilometers downwind of some nothern islands, especially Bennett Island, in the Soviet Arctic. Some wondered if perhaps the Soviets were conducting tests of some new type of weapon in these remote locations. With the end of the Cold War, flights of instrumented aircraft over the islands were permitted. Data from these flights support the idea that the mystery cloud plumes are formed by air currents passing over the islands. In other words, they are only orographic or mountaincaused clouds, like those sometimes seen over the Rockies. But puzzles persist: Why are the plumes so long? Why do they form at such high altitudes -- more than 3 kilometers above the tops of the relatively small mountains on the islands? (Monastersky, R.; "Mountains Give Rise to Perplexing Plumes," Science News, 141:422, 1992. Also: Fett, Robert W.; "Major Cloud Plumes in the Arctic and Their Relation to Fronts and Ice Movements," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 925, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Phobos Mystery Object On March 28, 1989, Russian ground controllers suddenly and unexpectedly lost contact with their spacecraft that was shadowing the Martian moon Phobos. The last close-up photo of Phobos snapped by the spacecraft contained "an object which shouldn't have been there." Naturally, this Phobos Mystery Object (PMO) was quickly dubbed a UFO by some. It was even speculated that the Russian mission had been deliberately terminated by aliens! Such a scenario dovetailed neatly with the old speculations that Phobos is actually an artificial satellite of Mars, which is being used as a base of operations by someone or something. The final photo of Phobos, taken in infrared light just three days before the communication failure, reveals the outlines of both Phobos and the PMO. All surface detail is washed out, as is common in infrared photographs. If the PMO was at the same distance as Phobos itself, it would be about 2 kilometers wide and 20 long. Its surface brightness is the same as that of Phobos. The sides of the PMO are perfectly parallel; it is rounded at both ends; the end towards Phobos narrows slightly; the other end seems to have a slight protrusion. Since the PMO does not appear to have a metallic surface and displays no antennas or other indicators of artificiality, it is reasonable to ask whether it might be some natural phenomenon. One possibility is that the PMO image is only ...
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... reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy comets postulated by L.A . Frank to account for the transient "holes" seen in satellite ultraviolet images of the earth. (See SF#60 and #72 for more.) (Gallagher, John S.; "Diffuse Luminous Objects Having Angular Velocities Similar to Meteors," Strolling Astronomer , 36:115, 1992. Cr. P. Huyghe) References. The above phenomenon is cataloged in AYO8 under "Nebulous Meteors" in our book: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering information for this book and Lightning, Auroras (mentioned above) may be found here . From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blasted By A Beam Weapon On The Edge Of Space January 31, 1993. Aboard NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. This satellite detected a gammaray burst containing ten times more energy than any other burst ever observed. It was one hundred times stronger than any known constant source of gamma rays. Even so, careful searches with ground-based telescopes found nothing visible in the direction of the burst. Scientist B. Dingus remarked: "It's clear that it is unique event that liberates more energy in a few seconds than any other process in the Universe." Gamma-ray bursts remain one of the outstanding mysteries of astronomy. The depth of the mystery is underscored by the belief that the gamma rays must be confined to a narrow beam by their sources, rather than being emitted in all directions. No one knows how this focussing might be accomplished. Also, since we detect only those bursts that happen to be aimed at the earth (at a rate of about one per day), there should be a colossal number of bursts that we are unaware of. Yet, we cannot divine what these common, immensely powerful energy sources are. (Kiernan, Vincent; "Blasted by a Beam Weapon on the Edge of Space," New Scientist, p. 13, May 8, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blasting Rocks Off Planets "Can rocks from the surface of a major planet or satellite be launched into interplanetary space by natural processes? A few years ago the answer to this question would have been a resounding "no" from the experts on both volcanism and impact cratering, the only geological processes known to eject solid material at substantial velocities. Observation, however, has once again confounded expectation." In the snowy wastes of Antarctica, scientists have picked up meteorites that almost certainly came from the moon and Mars. And near St. Gallen, Switzerland, there was discovered a 22-centimeter block of Malm limestone that was apparently ejected from the Ries impact crater, almost 200 kilometers away, about 15 million years ago. We know all of these rocks are impact debris because they contain shatter cones indicating a violent origin. Not only did these bits of debris confound expectations, but their shatter cones implied shock-wave pressures far too low to achieve lunar and Martian escape velocities, or even the velocity necessary to propel that chunk of Malm limestone 200 kilometers. Something was wrong somewhere. It has turned out that shock-wave theory had been misapplied. It is not the pressure that is important in ejecting bits of debris from around the impact site, but rather it is the pressure gradient. Anomaly extirpated! (Melosh, H.J .; "Blasting Rocks Off Planets," Nature, 363:498, ...
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... Subjects Radar Interference And Luminescence March 8/9 , 1989. Arabian Sea. m.v . British Esk "During the night a particularly strong and distinct patch of radar interference was noted by all observing officers. The sketch shows the phenomenon as seen on the 12-n .mile range of the 3-cm radar. The racon type mark varied in length from 1-3 n.miles at a nearest range of 5-10 n.miles. The effect was minimal on the 10-cm radar. "The bearing of the mark remained fairly constant at about 20 abaft the port beam or about 230 . Of particular note was that around 1600 GMT to 1700 GMT (about 2 hours after sunset), when the mark on the radar was very distinct, the satellite communication system suffered a loss in signal strength sufficient to prevent transmission or reception, the bearing of the satellite being almost due south of the vessel. It was thought at the time that the signal mast had become aligned between the aerial and the satellite, but alteration of the ship's head to port or starboard did not cure the low signal strength. .. .. . "Of note, although this may have been a coincidence only, was that the vessel was passing through patches of bioluminescence at the time, mostly only bright enough to show up in the breaking waves of the ship's wake, but during the period of low signal strength, the whole area of white, foamy water along the ship's side frequently shone a bright greenish colour." ...
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... can be generated on the face of the moon. The first enlists the "Life-Saver effect (or "sugar-cube effect"). When Life Savers, sugar cubes, or rocks are fractured, light may flash from their broken surfaces. R.R . Zito, from Lockheed, thinks these flashes occur when energetic electrons are emitted from freshly fractured surfaces. Lunar rocks cracking under stress might very well produce flashes visible from earth. Zito also states that newly fractured rocks emit a curious burst of radio waves in the frequency range of 900-5 ,000 Hertz. (Eberhart, J.; "Does the Moon Spark Like a Life-Saver?" Science News, 136: 375, 1989.) The second explanation of lunar flashes blames them on earth satellites passing in front of the moon. Satellite surfaces can flash like a car's windshield in sunlight, thus simulating a lunar flash. It was just this mechanism that was used to explain the mysterious "flasher" in the constellation Perseus. (SF#53) The May 23, 1985, lunar flash, reported in SF#64, may have been a reflection from a large military weather satellite that was transiting the moon at the time of the flash, say R.R . Rast and P. Maley. However, the timing and position of the satellite are not as convincing as some would like. Besides, the outline of the flash in the photograph is "confined by features of the lunar terrain." (Anonymous; "Lunar Flash Mystery: Solved or ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop circles: daisy patterns and a red ball of light G.T . Meaden, in the second installment of his review of 1990 crop-circle research, singled out for special attention the so-called "daisy patterns." While these are not as intricate and mysterious as the spectacular nine-circle complex at Alton Barnes, the formation of one of the daisy patterns may have been accompanied by luminous phenomena. "Circles in a daisy pattern were reported from Devonshire and Somerset County: the first a centre circle with seven regular satellites, evenly spaced, from Bickington in June; the second a circle with six similar satellites from Butleigh Wootton, near Glastonbury in mid-July. "A third daisy-pattern system, one with ten ringed satellites surrounding a central ringed circle, turned up at the end of July in East Anglia. This last was formed on the night of 30-31 July, possibly in the late evening of 30 July at the time of the observation of a glowing ball of red light. It was seen by the farmer shining above his field at Hopton as viewed from his house on the edge of Gorleston (Norfolk). 'He looked at it through his binoculars and described it as a red central glow with a thinner red outer ring...By the time he had passed the binoculars to his son the thing had gone'" ( Eastern Daily Press ). ( ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Direct observations of hyperion's chaotic motion Hyperion is a 150-kilometer-diameter satellite of Saturn. Hyperion's irregular shape and the gravitational pull of Titan, a larger satellite of Saturn, make it a prime candidate for chaotic motion. After accumulating 53 Hyperion-days of observation, J. Klavetter has confirmed this theoretical suspicion. Hyperion's brightness varies wildly from day to day, as it spins unpredictably. The laws of motion and the largest computers are helpless here; although computer simulation can identify situations where chaos might develop. More alarmingly, some "subtle" chaos also appears in computer simulations of Pluto's motion and "perhaps other planets." (Kerr, Richard A.; "First Direct View of Solar System Chaos," Science, 246: 998, 1989.) Comment. Contemplate what might happen -- or might have happened already -- if any of the other planets moved chaotically. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wandering Albatrosses Really Wander Tracks of three Wandering albatrosses in the southern Indian Ocean. Six male wandering albatrosses nesting on Crozet Island, between South Africa and Antarctica, were fitted with tiny (180-gram) transmitters and tracked by satellite. Their flights were amazing: "Tracks of wandering albatrosses in the southwestern Indian Ocean showed that they covered between 3,600 and 15,000 km in a single foraging trip during an incubation shift. They flew at speeds of up to 80 km per h and over distances of up to 900 km per day. They remained active at night, particularly on moonlit nights..." (Jouventin, Pierre, and Weimerskirch, Henri; "Satellite Tracking of Wandering Albatrosses,; Nature, 343:746, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Books About The Crop Circles You know a phenomenon has "made it" when a book is devoted to it. With the English crop circles, we now have two books (bibliographical information below.) We will try to stock at least one of these books, but it will be a few months before can can get them on this side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, a review of the two books in New Scientist provides some information beyond that already presented in several past issues of SF. First, the crop circles, spanning 5 to 20 meters, are incredibly precise and sharp. Flattened stems on the periphery of a circle almost touch erect, undamaged stems. The so-called satellite circles that sometimes array themselves around the main circles may be connected by a narrow ring, thus: Even more curious, a short radial spur extends outward from some circles, so that from the air the circle resembles a fat tadpole. In his book, G.T . Meaden, the Editor of the Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., presents his theory of how the circles are incised in field crops: "He describes the clues that have enabled him to point to the circles being formed by the impact of a body of fast-spinning air that has been partially ionized. He explains how a columnar atmospheric vortex, with a vertical or inclined axis, provides the channel for the formation of a plasma (ionized gas) vortex and for its conduction towards the ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury: the impossible planet Mercury, largely hidden in the sun's glare, also conceals beneath its baked, cratered surface: (1 ) far more iron than solar-system theory allows; and (perhaps) (2 ) a dynamo that should not exist. Let us take the excess-iron problem first. Mercury's density is 5.44 (compared to earth's 5.52), so that it very likely contains much iron. Our moon, which resembles Mercury in size and external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury's magnetic field, it is small, only 1% that ...
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... to crop-circle enthusiasts. Time concluded that the admissions of Chorley and Bower have "brought to an end one of the most popular mysteries Britain -- and the world -- has witnessed in years." (Constable, Anne; "It Happens in the Best of Circles," Time, 138:59, September 23, 1991.) Essence of the Science article. The Science piece was written before the Time expose, but it presents several points supporting the existence of a genuine natural phenomenon beneath all the obvious hoaxing. T. Meaden, an English scientist, has personally investigated over 1000 crop circles. He remarks that, before all the media hype, all the corn circles were simple in design -- including plain circles, ringed circles, and circles with small satellite circles nearby. In 1991, Meaden organized Operation Blue Hill, during which 40 researchers watched British crop fields. Significantly, one circle formed in a field they had ringed with automatic alarms, making a hoax very unlikely. All in all, some 1800 crop circles have been recorded, many in other countries, including Japanese rice fields. One doubts that hoaxers could have been this ubiquitous. Further, Y. Ohtsuki, a Japanese scientist, has been able to reproduce some of the characteristic corn-circle patterns by dropping plasma fireballs into a plate dusted with aluminum powder. Even double rings can be created around central circles in this way. So, the simple crop circles could well have reasonable explanations. The gist of the Science article is that interesting science might be done with the ...
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... earlier voyage in October 1976. Over a zone extending more than 400 km to the north of Greenland there is evidence of a significant decrease in mean ice thickness in 1987 relative to that found in 1976. This thinning amounts to a loss of volume of at least 15% over an area of 300,000 km2 ." (Wadhams, Peter; "Evidence for Thinning of the Arctic Ice Cover North of Greenland," Nature, 345:795, 1990.) In an accompanying discussion of the ice problem, A.S . McLaren et al note that since the late 1800s, Arctic researchers using drills have reported consistently that the Arctic ice thickness averaged 3-4 meters. U.S . subma-rine surveys concurred with these figures during cruises in 1960 and 1962. Satellite surveys of ice cover from 19781987 found no trends. In other words, other sources of data on the Arctic ice reveal little change. The new results, therefore, need further confirmation. (McLaren, A.S ., et al; "Could Arctic Ice Be Thinning?" Nature, 345:762, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 50-POUND 'ICE BOMB' FALLS IN WEST VIRGINIA June 26, 1990. Jerry's Run, West Virginia. "Heisel and Alice Amos, and their grandson, Aaron Hupp, had just turned on a movie on television when the house was jarred with what Mrs. Amos thought was an explosion. "Looking out the front door, they saw their son, Donald, 43, looking in the direction of their television satellite dish some 30 yards away where something had hit the ground with a terrific impact. "Inspecting that area, they found a hole some 24 inches long and 18 inches wide, and about four to six inches deep filled with large chunks of broken ice. Amos said pieces of baseball- and marble-size ice were scattered in a 30-foot radius around the hole." Further facts from this newspaper account: Several other chunks of ice were found in an area about 1 mile long. Some chunks made whistling sounds as they fell. The larger chunks were completely transparent except for a yellowishbrown streak. Many of the chunks had sand in them. Some contained holes. The weather was clear. The Federal Aviation Administration stated that if the ice originated in aircraft toilets it would have been blue from the chemicals used. (Hawk, Harold; "50-Pound 'Ice Bomb' Falls near Jerry's Run," Parkersburg News, June 27, 1990. Cr ...
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... minicomets are of the same size (about 100 tons) and frequency (20 per minute over the whole atmosphere) as those predicted by L.A . Frank. Frank's icy comets have been received with about as much warmth as "cold fusion." One reason for the unpopularity of icy comets is that they would have provided sufficient water to fill the ocean basins, thus undermining the accepted view that our oceans derived from outgassed water vapor from deep within the earth. Besides this mindset, the minicomets do have some counts registered against them: (1 ) The effects of all the purported water vapor on the ionosphere should be easily detected but they are not; (2 ) Seismometers emplaced on the moon have not detected their impacts there; and (3 ) Military surveillance satellites have not seen these housesized objects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Small Comet Controversy Flares Again," Science News, 137:365, 1990. Also: Emsley, John; "Are 'Minicomets' Peppering the Earth's Atmosphere?" New Scientist, p. 36, June 9, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The perseus flasher: mystery solved!So goes the title of an item in Sky and Telescope. Instead of ending with an exclamation point, a question mark would have been more appropriate. The Perseus Flasher, a recurring flash of light in Perseus described in SF#39 and #49, is a topic upon which astronomers also wish to "close the book." So, we must ask ourselves how accurate the above title is. Photographic records of the Perseus Flasher site show no flashes at all in 3,288 hours of monitoring. In fact, a Harvard plate, which was being exposed at the same time that a 0-magnitude flash was reported by naked-eye observers, revealed nothing! The passages of some artificial satellites through the Perseus site have been correlated with naked-eye-observed flashes, suggesting that the flashes are only sun glints. One meteor observer, N. McLeod, claims that there is a background level of flashes from other parts of the sky which can also be attributed to satellite glints. The Sky and Telescope item concludes: "So the mystery is solved!" (Anonymous; "The Perseus Flasher: Mystery Solved!" Sky and Telescope, 73:604, 1987.) Comment. So, science in its relentless, inerrant progress has positively solved still another mystery. (Triumphal background music here!) In case you haven't noticed, the three "exhibits" above do not hang together too well. First, it is implied that the Perseus flashes ...
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... 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. ...
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... pairs" of magnetic intensity seem to move westward and poleward. In the southern hemisphere, they originate under the Indian Ocean and drift under South Africa into the southern Atlantic. This motion reminds one of sunspot motion, except that sun-spots move equatorward. There may be a connection here. (Ref. 2) The general decrease in the earth's magnetic field over the past few centuries may be due to intensifying core spots, which are magnetized in a sense opposite that of the main field. (Ref. 2) Large, deep earthquakes in 1983 and 1984 produced slow, wavelike changes in the local gravitational field at the surface, as measured by new superconducting gravity meters. The periods were 13-15 hours. (Ref. 2) Gravity and magnetism measurements from satellites show strong, coincident anomalies in the Indian Ocean (3 N 81 E). In fact the whole ocean surface is depressed in this region. To explain these overlapping anomalies, geophysicists suggest that a "valley" 5-10 kilometers deep exists at the coremantle boundary. (Ref. 3) References Ref. 1. Dziewonski, Adam M., and Woodhouse, John H.; "Global Images of the Earth's Interior," Science, 236:37, 1987. Ref. 2. Weisburd, Stefi; "The Inner Earth Is Coming Out," Science News, 131:222, 1987. Ref. 3. "Satellites See Valleys in the Earth's Core," New Scientist, p. 33, May 21, 1987. Comment ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Magnetic Precursors Of Large Storms On January 22, 1986, a magnetometer at the Fredricksburg Magnetic Observatory, in Virginia, recorded a sudden jump (of 45 gammas) in the earth's horizontal magnetic field component. Alerted to this, G. Wollin, at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, immediately predicted that a major snowstorm or flooding rains would hit northeastern states within six days. Wollin contacted the weather people in the region, but they discounted the prediction because satellite pictures and conventional weather indicators implied nothing of the sort. A three-day storm began on January 25, depositing 3 feet of snow in northern New England and 4 inches of rain along the coast from Washington to Boston. Wollin has had similar successes, without even looking at a weather map! Obviously, Wollin's forecasting techniques are not yet part of the Weather Bureau's arsenal. This is not too surprising because even Wollin does not understand why major storms should be preceded by several days by nervous magnetometers. He talks in a tentative way about solar storms, which do affect terrestrial magnetism, dumping energy into the oceans and thence into the atmosphere. But this is mainly speculation. Historically, we do know that long-term changes in the earth's magnetic field are linked to global temperature levels (see graphs); but here, too, cause and effect are not obvious. (Gribbin, John; "Magnetic Pointers ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Small Icy Comets And Cosmic Gaia L.A . Frank and his associates at the University of Iowa have speculated that the earth is continuously and copiously bombarded by small, icy comets. Not just a few now and then, but a steady rain so intense that over geological time some major geological consequences must ensue. (See SF#44.) Some observers commented that surely these scientists have thrown away their careers by suggesting something so ridiculous. But the data are there -- in the form of dark spots on satellite images of the earth's dayglow -- and late results continue to support this far-out interpretation, ridiculous or not. "The mass of these objects is estimated at about 108 gm each, and the total flux is about 107 small comets per year. If this flux is representative of the average flux over geologic time, then the water influx is sufficient to fill the Earth's oceans. The fluxes of these objects are also large for all the planets outside the orbit of Earth. Considerations of thermal stability imply that the fluxes of comets that impact Venus are considerably less. The outer giant planets may be significantly heated relative to solar insolation by the small-comet impacts. For example, the total energy input due both to solar insolation and comet impacts may be similar for Uranus and Neptune. Thus it is possible that the temperatures of these two planets are similar, even though ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 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," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wave-bands in calm waters and biscay boils An excerpt from an article in Nature: "There are numerous reports of internal waves being 'made visible' on the sea surface by their effect on the surface-wave field and the production of bands of steeper, often breaking, waves separated by zones of relatively calm water. The effect is sometimes quite dramatic. There are accounts of a 'low roar' as the bands of breaking waves, 'walls of white water,' pass a vessel. The bands are sometimes visible from aircraft, on ships' radar and are observed from satellites. In the Bay of Biscay 'boils' have been reported on the sea surface in the calm zones, and appear to be related to pulses of nutrients from the thermocline." These surface phenomena are truly delightful and almost always the consequence of internal waves interacting with the surface. The great bulk of the referenced report is concerned with sonar observations of internal waves and their effects along the coast of Scotland. (Thorpe, S.A ., et al; "Internal Waves and Whitecaps," Nature, 330:740, 1987.) Comment. For some remarkable accounts of wave packets, as well as solitary waves, see category GHW in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. This book is described here . On March 28, 1964, in the Indian Ocean, the R.R .S . Discovery ...
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... up-to-date, we here record the probable obliteration of observations of excess hydrogen in the inner solar system. Mentioned in SF#58, this excess hydrogen was observed from Voyager 2, as it cruised toward Mars and looked backward towards earth. Al-though the amount of excess hydrogen detected was only l/10,000,000-th of that required by the small icy comets postulated by L. Frank et al, the result was surprising and gave a boost to the icy comet theory. Unfortunately, perhaps, the "excess" hydrogen evolved from a clerical error, when a student miscopied a figure during the data analysis. (No PhD for that student!) Frank's icy comets are in even deeper trouble, since independent analysis hint that his satellite data may be attributable to instrument noise. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Comets Were a Clerical Error," Science, 241:532, 1988. Also: Hall, D.T ., and Shemansky, D.E .; "No Cometesimals in the Inner Solar System," Nature, 334:417, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... astronomy heaved a sigh of relief over this. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived, and a second dose of antacid now seems required! Just a few days after the above, researchers reported in the New York Times some discomforting news: "According to Dr. Robert W. Noyes of Harvard-Smithsonian (Center for Astrophysics), the observations gathered by an extraordinarily sensitive camera show that the bright exploding star, or supernova, is actually two points of light, very close together, one about 10 times brighter than its companion. Since neither was present before the explosion, astronomers assume both arose from the same blast, but how this could happen is a mystery. .. .. . "The supernova and its apparent companion lie in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, at a distance of 150,000 light years from earth. The instrument used by the Harvard-Smithsonian group measured the distance between the two supernova elements as about one-twentieth of an arc second. This is about the separation a human eye would see between the headlights of a car some 6,000 miles away "Dr. Noyes said this distance was equivalent to an actual distance between the two bright objects of only about 3,000 Astronomical Units, where one Astronomical Unit is the distance from the sun to the earth, about 93,000,000 miles. This is a tiny distance in astronomcial terms; but if both objects stemmed from the same explosion, Dr. Noyes said, they must have been moving apart at more than ...
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... 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 some heat but not enough; unless, of course, Europa's orbit was much more eccentric in recent times. (Anonymous; "Oceans under the Crust of Europa," Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1987.) Comment. An alternate possibility is that Europa's ice and water inventories are recent acquisitions, like Saturn's rings! From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... complex designs cut into English field crops by atmospheric vortices. (Why other countries are not similarly affected is unknown.) The simple circles range from 3 to 30 meters in diameter. The central, flattened vegetation is crushed clockwise about half the time, counterclockwise in the other cases. On two known occasions, the flattening process has actually been observed. The invisible atmospheric vor tex does its work in 30 seconds or less and generates a high-pitched humming sound. The complex nature of these vortices is attested to by the rare ringed circles and multiple patterns. Both single- and double-ringed circles are known. The wind direction always alternates from central circle to first ring to second ring. The most common multiple patterns consist of large central circles flanked by two or four, smaller satellite circles, all nicely spaced. In the quintuplets, all five circles are usually flattened clockwise, but one case has presented theorists with four counterclockwise circles accompanied by a single improbable clockwise circle! (Meaden, G.T .; "The Mystery of Spiral-Circle Ground Patterns in Crops Made by a Natural Atmospheric-Vortex Phenomenon," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:203, 1988.) Quintuplet pattern in barley crop, west Wiltshire, 1987 From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of Bimini waters. It is a curious panorama of wild claims by adherents of the Cayce-inspired Atlantis searchers and the knee-jerk academic scoffers - both of which go overboard! Be this as it may, our purpose here is the recording of some of the features near Bimini that Richards thinks are still anomalous. Three of these are located at A, B, and D in the accompanying drawing, which is based on an aerial photo taken at 6,000 feet. A is a 90 bend in the renowned "road." This bend is decidedly anomalous for a beachrock formation. B consists of a parallel row of stones. D is made up of regularly spaced piles of stones and extends over 1 miles, cutting diagonally across ancient beach lines. Richards also employed a satellite image of the area to locate other "regular" features, such as a triangle, a pentagon, and a sharp, right-angle corner with mile-long sides. Inspecting these regularities from a small boat, Richards found no obvious structures of any kind. Rather, the patterns were caused by sea grass and white sand. Even so, these superficial patterns may reflect the presence of artificial structures under the sediments. Certainly, if these regularities were observed in a photo taken over land, archeologists would rush to dig away the overburden. But this was Bimini, and everyone knows that no "high cultures" ever lived there! (Richards, Douglas G.; "Archaeological Anomalies in the Bahamas," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2:181, 1988.) ...
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... No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Way Of Looking At The Solar System The current scientific consensus has the sun and its planets forming during the same process of accretion/condensation. In this view, the inner terrestrial planets differ from the outer giant planets only because their volatile elements were driven off by the sun's heat. This scenario has many problems, as recorded in our catalog volume The Moon and the Planets. G.H .A . Cole thinks that astronomers might have more success in explaining the origin of the solar system if they considered it a system of five large bodies of star stuff (light elements), each surrounded by its own retinue of high density satellites (the sun's four satellites would be the inner planets). In effect, then, we would have a quintuple star system in which only one member (the sun) collected enough star stuff to make it to incandescence. The four, large, outer planets would be merely failed stars. The advantages of this change of perspective are threefold: (1 ) All five central bodies are now compositionally similar as a class, (2 ) In each of the five systems, the angular momentum of the central body is greater than that of its satellites, whereas in the unitary solar system the angular momentum of the nine planets is much greater than that of the sun -- an embarrassing anomaly. (3 ) A final "bonus" appears when the distances of the ...
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... 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. 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Waiting for saturn's rings to collapse The more we learn about Saturn's rings, the stranger they seem. One of the latest theoretical models of the rings has them composed of balls of hard ice, which interact through mutual collision and are herded by the gravitational caresses of small moons. The successes of this model have been tempered by the fact that it also implies that Saturn's rings are very young. "Theorists would have no problem with a broad, featureless disk surviving the 4.5 billion years since the early days of the solar system, but features such as spiral density waves are clear evidence that satellites, including the profusion of small ones found near the rings, are draining angular momentum from the rings. The satellites should be spiraling outward into ever larger orbits as they gain angular momentum, and the A-ring should collapse inward into the B-ring in just 100 million years as its particles lose angular momentum." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Making Better Planetary Rings," Science, 229:1376, 1985.) Reference. For other indications of youth in Saturn's rings, see ARL16 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects Neptune's partial rings Neptune's rings cannot be seen directly. Instead, earth-based astronomers watch for occultations or dimmings of stars as they pass behind the rings. This seems straightforward enough in theory, but the occultations have 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. ...
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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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... 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 Multiple Whirlwind Patterns English meteorologists are spending some of the lazy summer days out in the countryside tracking down whirl wind patterns engraved on fields of wheat and other crops. One eyewitness account of the formation of a single spial pattern has been found. However, the multiple spiral patterns excite the most interest because of their geometric regularity. Between 1980 and 1984, eight quintuplet patterns have been found consisting of a large central circle and four smaller satellite circles. Triplets were also discovered. Although the origins of the multiplet patterns are still unexplained, some interesting generalizations have emerged: 1. The whirlwinds responsible for the flattened circles of crops have lifetimes of only a few seconds, whereas dust devils may persist for many minutes; 2. These whirlwinds seem to occur around evening time instead of during the heat of the day; and 3. They are all anticyclonic, while tornados are almost all cyclonic and true heat whirlwinds are split about evenly in their spin direction. (Meaden, G.T .; "Advances in Understanding of Whirlwind Spiral Patterns in Cereal Fields," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:73, 1985.) Quintuplet circles found in a grain field near Cley Hill, England. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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