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Astronomy (Bloggers & Personal)

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  • Is the Big Bang Cycling Through Hidden Time?

    05/29/2015 2:32:28 PM PDT · by lbryce · 99 replies
    Science ^ | Edward Belbruno
    Who hasn't looked up at the star-studded night sky and wondered, "Where did everything come from?" There are many ways to address this question. It was Edwin Hubble whose telescopic observations of galaxies in 1929 led to the major discovery that the universe is expanding, and that the rate of expansion is proportional to how far the galaxies are from one another. The farther apart they are, they faster they are going. This result implies there was a time about 13.75 billion years ago when the universe began in an event we now call the Big Bang. The evidence suggests...
  • Photos of Earth from Mars and Mars from Earth

    05/25/2015 4:24:26 PM PDT · by rickmichaels · 25 replies
    ebaumsworld.com ^ | March 18, 2015
    Just saw these cool pics of opposite views of the same thing...sort of:
  • Circumnavigate Time,Space, Quantum Mechanics, Einsteins Theories With Game Based on "Interstellar"

    05/22/2015 6:49:46 AM PDT · by lbryce · 5 replies
    Interstellar Movie Game ^ | May 22, 2015 | Chrome Experiments
    Interstellar:Can You Do It?Circumnavigate the Many dimensions of Time, Space,Having Left Twenty Years Ago, Be Home For Dinner Tonight?http://endurance.interstellarmovie.net
  • Advanced Ligo gravitational wave hunt is green lit

    05/20/2015 8:00:08 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 13 replies
    The British Broadcasting Corporation ^ | May 20, 2015 | Jonathan Amos, Science Correspondent
    One of the great physics experiments of our age looks ready to begin its quest.Scientists have held a dedication ceremony to inaugurate the Advanced Ligo facilities in the US. This pair of widely separated laboratories will be hunting for gravitational waves. These ripples in the fabric of space-time are predicted to result from extreme cosmic events, such as the merger of black holes and the explosive demise of giant stars. Confirmation of the waves' existence should open up a new paradigm in astronomy. It is one that would no longer depend on traditional light telescopes to observe and understand phenomena...
  • Showing my true colors! zot

    05/14/2015 12:03:15 PM PDT · by yuffy · 131 replies
    5/14/2015 | me
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  • Ceres Animation Shows Bright Spot

    05/11/2015 6:26:43 PM PDT · by lbryce · 23 replies
    NASA ^ | May 11, 2015 | Staff
    The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015. The images were taken from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers). In this closest-yet view, the brightest spots within a crater in the northern hemisphere are revealed to be composed of many smaller spots. However, their exact nature remains unknown. "Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice," said...
  • There are at Least 11 Runaway Galaxies Screaming Across the Universe

    04/26/2015 10:33:52 AM PDT · by lbryce · 18 replies
    Gizmodo ^ | April 26, 2015 | Maddie Stone
    Every now and then, astronomers spy a runaway star, one that’s hurling itself across its galaxy at breakneck speeds. But stars aren’t the only things that occasionally go beserker in the cosmic void: Galaxies themselves will sometimes depart home, never to return. In fact, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have now spotted 11 renegade galaxies, screaming across intergalactic space at up to 6 million miles per hour. Each of these star blobs has surpassed escape velocity, meaning that it’s broken the gravitational bonds holding it in its cosmic neighborhood. The discovery of these lonely exiles appears this...
  • Shocking Passover Blood Moon Predictions by Israeli Rabbi

    04/03/2015 6:06:37 AM PDT · by huldah1776 · 25 replies
    Breaking Israel News ^ | April 2, 2015 | Ahuva Balofsky
    A mystic rabbi living in southern Israel is urging all Jews to pray and repent as the third Blood Moon of a tetrad cycle approaches. Rabbi Amram Vaknin, who similarly predicted the events of the Gaza flotilla and the Carmel forest fire in 2010, and Operations Pillar of Defense (2012) and Protective Edge (2014), warns that Israel is facing great judgment and potential danger at this time. One of Rabbi Vaknin’s students, Gil Nachman, spoke to Breaking Israel News and, quoting the sage, explained that the numeric value of the Hebrew word for blood, dam, which is 44, alludes to...
  • In Milky Way, 100 Billion Planets May Exist in Habitable Zone

    03/23/2015 12:44:17 AM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 57 replies
    Weather.com ^ | March 18, 2015 | Michele Berger
    Life on Earth exists becuase of the sun and our distance from it. Without that star and the energy it gives off, we’d be what NASA once described as a “lifeless ball of ice-coated rock.” Luckily, we are far enough from it, and as of right now, it’s not radiating so much light as to make our planet uninhabitable. In some ways, we’re in the sweet spot, and researchers may have discovered many more such connections. Stars in the Milky Way may have 100 billion planets — two, on average, per star — in their habitable zone, the area far...
  • Paper: Spontaneous Creation of the Universe From Nothing

    03/05/2015 8:19:37 AM PST · by SeekAndFind · 34 replies
    Darwin's God ^ | 03/05/2015 | Cornelius Hunter
    A Two Thousand Year Old Project Two thousand years ago the Epicureans believed that the world arose spontaneously. Their idea was that randomly veering atoms attained a great variety of configurations by chance, and would eventually find themselves forming stable, functional structures. And while this may seem unlikely, the immense universe provided a great many opportunities for those configurations to come about. In Cicero’s dialog, the Epicurean explains this to his stoic opponent: You [stoics] would surely have no need of the activity of such a figure [a skilled craftsman] if you would only observe how unlimited, unbounded tracts...
  • NASA Admits That Winters are Going to Get Colder…Much Colder

    03/03/2015 9:48:29 AM PST · by Perseverando · 67 replies
    D.C. Clothesline ^ | November 18, 2014 | Chris Carrington
    The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. Like the Dalton Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Maunder Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots. (Source) Climatologist John Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, thinks that last year’s winter, described by USA Today as “one of...
  • Is This Picture a 'Seed' Sent to Earth by Aliens? Scientists Discover Mysterious Organism

    03/01/2015 1:26:58 PM PST · by lbryce · 107 replies
    SundayExpress ^ | January 25, 2015 | Nathan Rao
    Some scientists believe this is a seed sent to earth by aliens The never-before seen image shows a microscopic metal globe spewing out biological material feared to be an infectious agent. Though the origin or purpose of the mysterious sphere is uncertain, experts say it could contain genetic material - the precursor to life. They sensationally claim it could have been designed by an intelligent species to “seed” and propagate alien life on Earth. It is the first time anything like this has been seen and points not only to the existence of extra-terrestrial life, but to complex and...
  • 2,500 Year Old Jewish Tablets Found in Iraq - Arabs and Islam are Late Comers

    02/03/2015 4:16:16 PM PST · by Reverend Saltine · 18 replies
    Huffington Post ^ | February 3, 2015 | Simcha Jacobovici
    As we watch horrific images of beheadings from the country formerly called Iraq - a country that is disintegrating into various tribal fiefdoms before our eyes - it is easy to forget that it was once the cradle of civilization. In point of fact, Arabs are latecomers to the area. They are first mentioned in the mid 9th century BCE as a tribal people subjugated by the Assyrians. Way before that, the area was home to the Babylonians. First records indicate that Babylon was established as a city around the 23rd century BCE. It stood about 50 miles south of...
  • Sixty Four Scenes From Saturn-incredible Flash Presentation of the Saturnian System

    01/16/2015 8:16:14 PM PST · by lbryce · 14 replies
    CICLOPS ^ | Released: April 25, 2007 | iamond Sky Productions, LLC Released: April 25, 2007
    On June 18, 2006, we celebrated Paul McCartney's 64th birthday by highlighting sixty-four of our most dazzling images, a kaleidoscope of splendor and spectacle, in an 8-minute-long cinematic production accompanied by the music of the Beatles. These same sixty-four scenes from Saturn have been composited into the poster shown here. Credit: Diamond Sky Productions, LLC Released: April 25, 2007 Image/Caption Information
  • New Examination of Trans-Neptunian Objects Suggests Two Planets Lurk in Outer Solar System

    01/16/2015 11:06:16 AM PST · by lbryce · 20 replies
    From Quarks to Quasars ^ | January 16, 2015 | James Trosper
    Presently, our solar system is known to contain 4 fully-fledged rocky worlds: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars; 2 ice-giants: Neptune and Uranus; 2 gas-giants, Saturn and Neptune; 5 dwarf-planets, Ceres. Pluto, Eris, MakeMake, Haumea; around 100 moons; and an unknowable number of comets, asteroids and minor planets. Indeed, we’ve only begun to understand the full scope of our local corner of our galaxy, and new information emerges on a monthly-basis, yet there a number of seemingly obvious things that remain unknown. For instance, long before Pluto’s existence was deduced, astronomers scoured the outer solar system in search of another large...
  • New Evidence For Anthropic Theory That Fundamental Physics Constants Underlie Life-Enabling Universe

    01/16/2015 10:58:49 AM PST · by lbryce · 17 replies
    From Quarks to Quasars ^ | January 16, 2015 | FQIQ
    Full Title:New Evidence For Anthropic Theory That Fundamental Physics Constants Underlie Life-Enabling Universe For nearly half a century, theoretical physicists have made a series of discoveries that certain constants in fundamental physics seem extraordinarily fine-tuned to allow for the emergence of a life-enabling universe. Constants that crisscross the Standard Model of Particle Physics guided the formation of hydrogen nuclei during the Big Bang, along with the carbon and oxygen atoms initially fused at the center of massive first-generation stars that exploded as supernovae; these processes in turn set the stage for solar systems and planets capable of supporting carbon-based life...
  • Lawmakers in charge of NASA and the environment don't understand science

    01/13/2015 3:24:02 PM PST · by 2ndDivisionVet · 19 replies
    Engadget ^ | January 13, 2015 | Timothy J. Seppala
    Well, this is more than a little depressing: The politician who tried reducing NASA funding (and successfully shut it down for over two weeks) is now in charge of the senate subcommittee that effectively controls NASA. More than that, one of the most vocal climate-change detractors is now in charge of the United States Senate's Environmental committee. Let's let that sink in for a minute, shall we? Despite all the progress we've made so far with things like unmanned, deep-space space-flight and our efforts toward limiting the negative effects that humans have had on the environment, any future plans are...
  • We're Running Out of the Nuclear Fuel That Powers Space Travel

    12/02/2014 7:57:35 PM PST · by 2ndDivisionVet · 13 replies
    Gizmodo ^ | December 2, 2014 | Sarah Zhang
    Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than...
  • Dan Aykroyd endorses UFO Kickstarter campaign

    11/29/2014 8:44:41 PM PST · by 2ndDivisionVet · 35 replies
    Open Minds ^ | November 28, 2014 | Alejandro Rojas
    (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Dan Aykroyd, longtime paranormal and UFO enthusiast, has made an endorsement video for the Mutual UFO Network’s (MUFON) Kickstarter campaign. Aykroyd’s work in TV and film is legendary, and he is a major UFO buff. The extent of his interested was demonstrated in the 2012 documentary Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs. It is 2 hours of Aykroyd talking about UFOs, which may sound boring to some, but I loved it. His level of knowledge on the history of the phenomena is remarkable. He shows he is at par with some of the top researchers in the field. A video released...
  • Naming my daughter thank you freepers

    11/14/2014 5:10:41 AM PST · by The Friend · 62 replies
    None ^ | 14 Nov 2014 | The Friend
    Dear Freerepublicans, I came across your great Free Republic website about four years ago when I was googling the internet looking for information that can help us deciding on a formal name for our newly born daughter. Fourteenth November is celebrated as children’s day in India. 150 years ago, India’s first prime minister was born this day. Today, let me extend a long overdue ‘Thank You’ to this useful website and its inspiring members for the help that I received without you not even knowing about it. In the West, every formal name has an associated predictable child hood name....