Free Republic

Monsters from space: Would we want to know? Should we be told if a monster rock is heading our way? Researchers wrestled with this question on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Denver. Some suggested there was no point worrying the global population about its imminent demise. "If there is absolutely nothing you can do about it - you can't intercept it, you can't move people out of the way - then it makes no sense to incur social costs from whatever panic or overreaction there will be," argued Geoffrey...

The big and the bizarre The Chandra telescope took this image of the hole region The more they look, the more astronomers are amazed at what they are finding out about the heart of our galaxy. This is the location of a supermassive black hole, referred to by scientists as Sagittarius A* (its location in the sky is in the southern constellation Sagittarius). For the first time, researchers have been able to study in detail the light coming from a star that skirts close in to this exotic object at jaw-dropping speeds. From what the team can discern, their spectral...