April 1, 2020
“The most energetic outflow came from a quasar called SDSS J1042+1646 with 5×1030 gigawatts, or 5 million trillion trillion gigawatts. For perspective, a nuclear reactor puts out about one gigawatt of energy, while the total energy of all Milky Way stars is about 1028 gigawatts.”
Tired of corona-related news. Time to relax with a completely science-based, “you are somewhat insignificant in the greater scheme of things” post.
Enjoy.
March 14, 2020
Wasp-76b, as it’s known, orbits so close in to its host star, its dayside temperatures exceed 2,400C – hot enough to vaporise metals.
Hmm….this reminds me of…let me think for a minute…wait, I got it…
Yeah, that’s the one. I think.
(Seriously, check it out. Not even the Jedi could possibly handle an actual “inferno” planet.)
March 8, 2020
“So, let’s bring the samples back. So if those extraordinary claims are made, they can be verified.”
One likely extraterrestrial form of life might resemble a terrestrial form: the stromatolite.
They basically look like big rocks. I visited one site in Western Australia in 2003 with a group of Japanese students who were told by a local guide that the stromatolites were “3.5 billion years old.” (They’re not, but they do look like what life might have looked like at that point.”
So NASA is sending another rover to see if they can find evidence of a similar life form.
Sorry. No Slurm (yet?).
— Read on www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-51544476
February 29, 2020
Check out the link below for more detailed explanations and a neat video.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1184/why-is-nasa-sending-dragonfly-to-titan-here-are-five-reasons/
February 28, 2020
He added that the mini-moon appears to have been orbiting our planet since it was first captured by Earth’s gravity three years ago. Early observations also suggest it is small enough to fit in just about any garage or shed, with an estimated diameter between 2 and 3.5 meters (about 6 – 11 feet).
The photo obviously doesn’t match the actual size of this “mini-moon” but you get the idea.
There was another one a few years ago, by the way. It stayed a few months and then got booted out of orbit.
February 15, 2020
When I was a kid, I devoured books by Jules Verne, in the Classics Illustrated series vocabulary- and grammar-controlled for younger readers.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Voyage to the Center of the Earth
From the Earth to the Moon
Around the World in Eighty Days
Until I was in college, I didn’t even know that he wrote them in French.
Until a few days ago, I didn’t know they were part of a 54-volume set, complete with 4,000 hand-drawn illustrations that are now available online for free.
How’s that for enduring literary influence?
Check out the link below for more details…
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/jules-vernes-voyages-extraordinaires.html
February 7, 2020
“I think we’ve got a better chance of having slightly higher forms of life on Europa, perhaps similar to the intelligence of an octopus.”
Hmm. Maybe. It seems more like that any life would be of the microscopic or worm-like variety. But we still have to get out there first to find out…
January 24, 2020
January 20, 2020
“Proxima is our closest neighbor in an immense universe. How could we not be charmed by it?”
Well, the planet may or may not exist (the confirmation data won’t be publicly available for another couple years).
And it is most likely not inhabitable — despite being dubbed a “Super-Earth” (which really only refers to size and not whether it’s “Earth-like” or not).
Still, regardless of these facts, the most important part of this article in Scientific American is the science:
“We tried different tools to prove ourselves wrong, but we failed. However, we have to keep the doors open to all possible doubt and skepticism.”
Yes, the astronomers tried to prove their own discovery was a mistake. That’s how it works, folks. Challenge your assumptions, not jump to conclusions. Continue Reading
January 14, 2020
Are you sitting down for this? Well, you’re not really. Your butt isn’t actually touching the chair you’re sitting on. Since the meat of your atoms is nestled away in nuclei, when you ‘touch’ someone (or something), you aren’t actually feeling their atoms.
Nobody has ever really touched anything in their lives.
Sleep tight…
(Not exactly a new article, but still interesting; and, yes, I might be using this to justify an awful lot of my soon-to-be-beta-read new novel 😉
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