By Hal McKenzie February 21, 2003 Now that Steven Spielberg’s massive 20-hour miniseries Taken is finally over (except for the re-runs), have we learned anything new about UFO abductions? I would say about as much as one could learn about espionage from watching James Bond films. The production was long on Hollywood glitz, gratuitous sex […]
Astronomers have been busy trying to determine the spin period and composition of Venus‘ moon. December 8, 2010, results were announced by JPL/Caltech scientists, led by Michael Hicks. “Wait a minute; back up”, I hear you ask. “Venus has a Moon?” Of course it does. Well, kind of… Let me explain. It has […]
Image credit NASA, Caltech, MPIA, and Calar Alto Tycho’s supernova remnant, a real-world example of a Type Ia supernova. An an attempt to peer inside powerful star explosions, scientists recently made a “supernova in a jar” using a chemical reaction in a viscous fluid. Called the iodate-arsenous acid (IAA) system, the experiment involved injecting a […]
Topographic computer model of Sotra Facula, an apparent ice volcano on Saturn’s moon Titan. Not unlike the volcanoes of Hawaii, the supposed ice volcano, known as Sotra Facula, rises 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above the surrounding plain in a large, gently shaped dome, according to the mountain’s discoverer, geophysicist Randolph Kirk. The feature had previously […]
THE EARTH WOBBLES as it rotates on its axis. At least it used to. As of January 8, 2006, the wobbling has stopped, according to earth changes researcher Michael Mandeville. What will the effects be? No one knows. Maybe nothing. But this startling anomaly reminds us of some of the radical geophysical changes […]
The imaging system on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently had its first of many opportunities to photograph the Apollo landing sites. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) imaged five of the six Apollo sites with the narrow angle cameras (NACs) between July 11 and 15, within days of the 40th anniversary of the […]
Here’s an excellent high definition video on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field images, with a 3D simulation that flies you through Hubble’s most awe-inspiring photographs. The Deep Field images were created by pointing the Hubble Space Telescope for several days at a tiny patch of apparently empty sky — “empty” sky that turned out to […]
Getting troops to the fight can be as difficult as winning it. And for modern-day soldiers, the sites of conflict are so far-flung, and the political considerations of even flying over another country so complicated, that rapid entry has become nearly impossible. If a group of Marine Corps visionaries have their way, however, 30 years […]
On 27 December, COROT is to be launched into space on a unique astronomy mission: its twin goals are to detect exoplanets orbiting around other stars and to probe the mysteries of stellar interiors as never before. . . . While CNES is completing preparations for the launch from Baikonur/Kazakhstan, ESA and a large number […]
