Free Republic

Editor's Note: This piece was co-authored by Duggan Flanakin.  “We are all born ignorant,” Benjamin Franklin once said, “but one must work very hard to remain stupid.” Greens are incensed over suggestions that anything but fossil fuels and climate change might be turning green California and Australian ecosystems into black wastelands, incinerating wildlife, destroying homes and killing people. The notion that they and their policies might be a major factor in these fires gets them so hot under the collar that they could ignite another inferno. But the facts are there for all to see. PG&E certainly failed to maintain, upgrade and...

Meteor Explosion Near Puerto Rico Captured by a Satellite Meteorologist Danielle Banks says a NOAA satellite captured what appears to be a meteor exploding near Puerto Rico. At a Glance The bright ball of fire was captured in satellite images. Residents posted photos and video to social media. One astronomer guessed it was several feet in length. A bright ball of fire shot across the sky in Puerto Rico Friday afternoon, prompting local residents to speculate on what it was, and to wonder if it was a bad omen for the disaster-stricken island. Images of the fireball were captured by...

The first asteroid that will fly close to Earth on Saturday has been identified by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies as 2020 AH1. This asteroid is currently moving at an average speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour...estimated that this asteroid is about 246 feet wide. Trailing behind 2020 AH1 is an asteroid known as 2009 BH2... this asteroid measures about 656 feet wide, making it the largest space rock in the group. 2009 BH2 is currently flying towards Earth at a velocity of 40,000 miles per hour. The last asteroid that will visit Earth’s vicinity on Saturday is...

Brad Pitt is making a movie about him Space is a fiction invented by white people, who should be removed from earth. Black people should be removed from the earth – to prevent white people from colonizing other worlds. Is this simply a freewheeling debate led by an eccentric two-time national champion-turned-instructor, or a fireable offense? A student at Weber State University is demanding the firing of Ryan Wash, whose life story will be told in a Brad Pitt-financed biopic, calling him a “racist professor” who was teaching an “anti-white curriculum” to his students. Freshman Michael Moreno secretly recorded Wash...

SpaceX has launched 60 more mini internet satellites, this time testing a dark coating to appease stargazers. It is a “first step” compromise between SpaceX and astronomers fearful of having dark skies spoiled by hundreds and, eventually, thousands of bright satellites circling overhead. The Falcon 9 rocket blasted into a cold, clear night sky, recycled by SpaceX for its fourth flight. As the first-stage booster flew to a vertical landing on an ocean platform, the Starlink satellites continued hurtling towards orbit to join 120 similar spacecraft launched last year. Flight controllers applauded and the launch commentator described the booster’s fourth...

Earth's gravitational wave observatories -- which hunt for ripples in the fabric of space-time -- just picked up something weird. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo detectors recorded an unknown or unanticipated "burst" of gravitational waves on Jan. 14. The gravitational waves we've detected so far usually relate to extreme cosmic events, like two black holes colliding or neutron stars finally merging after being caught in a death spiral. Burst gravitational waves have not been detected before and scientists hypothesize they may be linked to phenomena such as supernova or gamma ray bursts, producing a tiny "pop" when...

The oldest solid material on Earth has just been identified, and it predates the Solar System itself by at least a few hundred million years. The teensy tiny microscopic grains of dust were forged in a distant star somewhere between 5 and 7 billion years ago, according to new research. By comparison, our Sun is just 4.6 billion years old. Eventually, these grains were carried to Earth in a meteorite. "This is one of the most exciting studies I've worked on," said cosmochemist Philipp Heck of the Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago. "These are the...

1. The Earthiest Kepler-78b is most similar to Earth in mass, diameter and composition; it could be made of rock with an iron core. But it’s no Earth analog, whizzing around its star in 8.5 hours, with temperatures exceeding 2,000° Celsius (SN Online: 10/30/13). 2. The wettest HR 8799c’s atmosphere lacks methane, which could signal life, but does have water and carbon monoxide (SN: 4/6/13, p. 5). Water has also been found in the atmospheres of WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b. 3. The rogue Planetary candidate PSO J318.5-22 has no parent star. The object is roughly six times the...

Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations. "This planet reveals the astounding diversity of worlds out there," said Nikku Madhusudhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, lead author of a report in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature. "Carbon-rich planets would be exotic in every way -- formation, interiors and atmospheres." It's possible that WASP-12b might...

The hottest known planet in our galaxy is being stretched into the shape of a football and rapidly consumed by its parent star, new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show. The extrasolar planet on the cosmic menu, called WASP-12b, may only have another 10 million years left before it is completely devoured, Hubble scientists announced Thursday. WASP-12b is so close to its sun-like star that it is superheated to nearly 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit and stretched into an elongated shape by enormous tidal forces.

...the exoplanet tally stands at 334 -- with more than 60 of those found this past year alone... WASP-12b... has 1.4 times the mass of Jupiter... orbits so close to the host star (0.023 astronomical unit, or about 2 million miles) that it takes just 26 hours to complete one revolution... has a diameter 1.79 times that of Jupiter. Run the numbers, and you'll deduce that WASP-12b has a mean density of just 0.3 g/cm3... The 12th-magnitude host star, situated some 670 light-years away in southeastern Auriga, is a luminous F dwarf that scalds WASP-12b with light 6,600 times more...

The popular Jupiter Shield theory proposes that the planet acts like a giant space shield due to its huge mass causing it to suck in or deflect dangerous debris. However, this shield theory is slowly falling out of favor and one of the leading critics is space expert Kevin Grazier. [Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D.] He's published several papers explaining why he thinks Jupiter is a "sniper rather than a shield". Recently, he's been aiming to prove how this 'sniper-like' process works. Grazier's extensive work could put the Jupiter Shield theory in jeopardy. He told Gizmodo: "Actually, I wouldn't say that...

TOI 700 d is a landmark discovery for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite NASA’s newest planet hunter just bagged some big game. For the first time, the agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a roughly Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its host star, the zone of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on a world’s surface, researchers announced today (Jan. 6). The newfound exoplanet, known as TOI 700 d, lies just 101.5 light-years from Earth, making it a good candidate for follow-up observations by other instruments, scientists added. “TESS was designed and launched specifically...

The cycle may result in dramatic space weather that could disrupt communications and power grids here on Earth. Two new sunspots have ended a long period of relative quiet on the surface of our blazing host star, heralding the start of a new 11-year cycle of sunspot activity — resulting in sometimes dramatic space weather that could disrupt communications and power grids here on Earth. The two new sunspots, designated as NOAA 2753 and 2754, were seen on Dec. 24 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory — a satellite that monitors the exterior and interior of the sun from a geosynchronous...

Stars are formed within large clouds of gas and dust known as stellar nurseries. While star formation was once seen as a simple gravitational process, we now know it is a complex dance of interactions. When one star forms it can send shock waves through the interstellar medium that trigger other stars to form. Supernovae and galactic collisions can trigger the creation of stars as well. In the late 1800s, astronomer Benjamin Gould studied OB stars and found that many of them lie within a partial ring within our galaxy, titled about 20 degrees from the plane of the Milky...

Astronomers unveiled new insights by NASA's TESS this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. The satellite spotted a new Earth-like exoplanet within its star's habitable zone, a new Tatooine star system, and a strange eclipse. TESS has been working hard to uncover new corners of the universe since its launch in 2018. Exoplanet enthusiasts, rejoice! This week, scientists revealed a series of new discoveries made by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The telescope has spotted a number of strange new worlds circling star systems near and far, the scientists announced at the 235th meeting of...

Is belief in God rational? Can it be proved beyond reasonable doubt? The Bible seems to say yes. 'What can be known about God is plain to people,' writes St Paul in Romans 1.19-20, 'because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.'In this the ancient philosophers agreed, with both Plato and Aristotle holding that the existence of a transcendent God is a matter of solid logical reasoning.Modern thinkers since...

Our magnificent gravitational wave astronomers have done it again, adding to the detection collection a new collision between two neutron stars. On 25 April 2019, the LIGO interferometer detected two neutron stars around 520 million light-years away coming together and merging into a single object. It's called GW190425, and although it's only the second such collision astronomers have ever seen, it's already broadening our understanding of these colossal cosmic smash-ups.

[R]esearchers using NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the Spitzer Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of a nearby planet called TOI 700 d. The world sits comfortably in the habitable zone of its host star, and from what astronomers can tell, it appears to be a lot like Earth. The best part? It's relatively close. Okay, so as we've all come to learn, "close" is a relative term when we're talking about objects in space. In the case of TOI 700 d, "close" means that the planet is hanging out at a distance of around 100 light-years. That's...

Currently, the faint star V Sagittae, V Sge, in the constellation Sagitta, is barely visible, even in mid-sized telescopes. However, around the year 2083, this innocent star will explode, becoming as bright as Sirius, the brightest star visible in the night sky. During this time of eruption, V Sge will be the most luminous star in the Milky Way galaxy. This prediction is being presented for the first time at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, HI, by astronomers Bradley E. Schaefer, Juhan Frank, and Manos Chatzopoulos, with the Louisiana State University Department of Physics & Astronomy. V...