Earth & Space
On Oct. 8, Interested skywatchers should attempt to see the total eclipse of the moon and the rising sun simultaneously. The little-used name for this effect is called a “selenelion,” a phenomenon that celestial geometry says cannot happen.
Earth and Space News October 4, 2014: Space weather; Earthquake watch; Total Lunar Eclipse on October 8, 2014; Global weather; Super Typhoon Phanfone
Earth and Space News October 3, 2014: Large M7.3 Solar Flare – CME is NOT Earth-directed; Earthquake watch; Iceland’s Bardarbunga Volcano Captured in Spectacular Drone Footage; Rising atmospheric moisture from global warming not to blame for 2013 Colorado flood; Influence of short-term solar disturbances on the fair weather conduction current (PDF);S0’s Climate Change Playlist; Storm alert
Scientists have found the beginnings of life-bearing chemistry at the centre of the galaxy. Iso-propyl cyanide has been detected in a star-forming cloud 27,000 light-years from Earth.
An American physicist claims she has mathematically refuted the existence of black holes in our universe. The new theory combines Steve Hawking’s radiation theory with quantum theory’s fundamental law that no information ever disappears from the universe. Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill maintains she managed to merge two seemingly contradicting theories, Einstein’s theory of gravity and a fundamental law of quantum theory.
Could we grow a garden in the soils of Mars and the Moon? A new study digs down deep into the interstellar dirt and says that, yes.
Video of the five most awesome things that happened with space this week:
(5) The Hubble Space telescope finds the smallest known galaxy containing a “supermassive” black hole.
(4) Boeing, SpaceX win contracts to build ‘space taxis’ for NASA
(3) Mysterious satellite launched from Florida by Atlas 5 rocket
(2) NASA conducts recovery drills for next generation space capsule
(1) MAVEN spacecraft close to entering Mars orbit — and it won’t be alone
Science says the universe could be a hologram, a computer program, a black hole or a bubble—and there are ways to check
A tiny fragment of Martian meteorite 1.3 billion years old is helping to make the case for the possibility of life on Mars, say scientists.
The following 3 videos are inspiring examples of how technology can assist in our evolution, and help us to keep stay grounded, by providing us renewed perspectives on life here on Gaia.
We are part of a galactic supercluster called Laniakea, which contains a hundred million billion stars, according to a new study. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, provides our most detailed cosmic address yet. Superclusters – regions of space that are densely packed with galaxies – are the biggest structures in the Universe. But scientists have struggled to define exactly where one supercluster ends and another begins. Now, a team based in Hawaii has come up with a new technique that maps the Universe according to the flow of galaxies across space. Redrawing the boundaries of the cosmic map, they redefine our home supercluster and name it Laniakea, which means ‘immeasurable heaven’ in Hawaiian.
Black holes are some of the strangest objects in the universe, and they typically fall into one of two size extremes: “small” ones that are dozens of times more massive than the sun and other “supermassive” black holes that are billions of times larger than our nearest star. But until now, astronomers had not seen good evidence of anything in between.
Russian scientists say they made a “unique” discovery while analyzing samples from the exterior of the International Space Station – traces of tiny sea creatures on the station’s windows and walls. It remains unclear how marine plankton ended up in space.
Through the analysis of light from distant galactic clusters, astronomers have detected a mysterious signal that they’re having a hard time explaining. Although the signal is weak, could it be the much sought-after direct evidence for dark matter? Dark matter pervades the entire universe and makes up for the bulk of its mass, but what is it? We know it’s out there and oodles of indirect evidence for its presence, but seeing a direct signal has so far proven elusive.
Our universe may have emerged from a black hole in a higher-dimensional universe, propose a trio of Perimeter Institute researchers. What we perceive as the big bang, they argue, could be the three-dimensional “mirage” of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own.
