Category: Science
When rotating stars explode.
New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest a highly distorted supernova remnant may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The remnant appears to be the product of a rare explosion in which matter is ejected at high speeds along the poles of a rotating star. The remnant, called […]
Drilling on Mars… what the heck will they discover?
NASA’s Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars. The fresh […]
A Down To Earth Guide To The Cosmos by Mark Thompson (book review).
Mark Thompson’s book ‘A Down To Earth Guide To The Cosmos’ is a practical guide to astronomy. Hardly surprising as this is what he does on TV. What comes out of this book is also a measure of science and history, so you get far more than just looking up in the skies. Interspersed between […]
Our Future World by Curt Stager (book review).
‘Our Future Earth’ will make more sense from its sub-title ‘How The Planet Will Change In the Next 100,000 Years’. Considering how in Science Fiction we deal with such time periods as standard, I suspect outsiders think this is beyond their time frame to worry about. Author Curt Stager is a paleoecologist. That is, he […]
A Matter Of Porridge: a matter of taste by: GF Willmetts (article).
The housebreaker and thief colloquially called by her alias Goldilocks, because of her straw blonde hair, started it all. After breaking and entering the Bear family house, while they were out building up a pre-breakfast appetite, helped herself to their porridge. Therein lies the problem. Goldilocks found Father Bear’s porridge too hot. Mother Bear’s porridge […]
Enter… the planet-maker star!
A star thought to have passed the age at which it can form planets may in fact be creating new worlds. The disk of material surrounding the surprising star called TW Hydrae may be massive enough to make even more planets than we have in our own solar system. The findings were made using the […]
The Science Of Consequences by Susan M. Schneider (book review).
Consequences is something to consider from the start with this book as a third is devoted to notes and extensive bibliography which you aren’t really going to read but where author Susan M. Schneider proclaims she researched for the other two-thirds of ‘The Science Of Consequences’. Even books such as these create their own consequences […]
Destination Mars: New Explorations Of The Red Planet by Rod Pyle (book review).
With so much focus on the Apollo missions to the Moon and later with the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, sending unmanned flights to Mars seems to have been short-changed in comparison over the years. Even recent missions have been done on a cheaper budget than the biggest mega-film budget, although a mission […]
Gravity by Brian Clegg (book review).
Gravity. Can’t see it. Can’t live without it. It keeps us on the Earth and if you fall from a great height, you’ll fall at the same speed as anything else on this planet. Brian Clegg’s book ‘Gravity’ explores the history of its discovery from Galileo through to Newton and beyond. It’s also rather […]
Lakes of Mars.
A NASA spacecraft is providing new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet’s early evolution. The new information comes from researchers analyzing spectrometer data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater. The Martian crater is […]
