2012
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Science’s Looming ‘Tipping Point’ November 18, 2012 by Wal Thornhill It is essential in these exuberant times to pay critical attention to both the observational constraints and to the basic mathematical laws, with a clear sense of what is solid theory and what is only unsupported speculation. This seeming platitude … Continue reading |
2011
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A Nobel Prize for the Dark Side October 6, 2011 by Wal Thornhill ”Science today is about getting some results, framing those results in an attention-grabbing media release and basking in the glory.” —Kerry Cue, Canberra Times, 5 October 2011 On October 4, 2011 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three … Continue reading |
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Gravity Probe B and Related Matters September 5, 2011 by Wal Thornhill The following article is by Jeremy Dunning-Davies, Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Hull and member of the Royal Astronomical Society and Natural Philosophy Alliance. In a posting on the Thunderbolts web site on June 6th, Mel Acheson … Continue reading |
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Science Needs Natural Philosophers August 29, 2011 by Wal Thornhill “Those who regard philosophy as a ‘soft’ and unscientific discipline, in contrast to the ‘hard’ and scientific fields of mathematics and physics, have accepted a Big Lie. The ideas of mathematicians and physicists can be no more objective or certain … Continue reading |
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Alfvén Triumphs Again (& Again) May 9, 2011 by Wal Thornhill The lack of news reports in recent months has been due to a very heavy workload in preparing papers, a course and presentations. This work continues with the upcoming Natural Philosophy Alliance’s 18th annual conference at the University of Maryland, … Continue reading |
2010
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Deep Impact 2 October 27, 2010 by Wal Thornhill What can be said about the Deep Impact spacecraft’s imminent second rendezvous with a comet? From NASA websites comes the following information: The Deep Impact spacecraft is about to rendezvous with another comet. It will be the fifth comet to … Continue reading |
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Our Misunderstood Sun March 1, 2010 by Wal Thornhill “We stand on the verge of a vast cosmical discovery such as nothing hitherto imagined can compare with.” —Sir John Herschel in 1850, upon the discovery of a link between magnetic storms on Earth and sunspots, to Michael Faraday, the … Continue reading |
2009
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Science, Politics and Global Warming December 23, 2009 by Wal Thornhill “In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and … Continue reading |
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Electric Sun Verified October 20, 2009 by Wal Thornhill “Is it likely that any astonishing new developments are lying in wait for us? Is it possible that the cosmology of 500 years hence will extend as far beyond our present beliefs as our cosmology goes beyond that of Newton?” … Continue reading |
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The Simple Electric Universe September 6, 2009 by Wal Thornhill “Some people in each successive generation believe that theirs is the one that has at last seen everything clearly, that their insights point to the truth, the final answer. Yet scientific discovery marches on and today’s truth will become tomorrow’s … Continue reading |
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The Mystery of the Shrinking Red Star June 28, 2009 by Wal Thornhill We cannot see what is not on our mental ‘map.’ Almost the entire visible universe is in the form of highly-conductive plasma but electrical discharge in plasma is nowhere on the map. The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, the bright reddish … Continue reading |
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Cosmology in Crisis—Again! May 24, 2009 by Wal Thornhill “Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.” —from The Sound of Music. It seems the toughest thing for scientists to grasp—that a cherished paradigm like the big bang can be wrong. The latest crisis was reported in Physorg.com on May … Continue reading |
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Newton’s Electric Clockwork Solar System April 21, 2009 by Wal Thornhill We are told that gravity rules the cosmos. The story of the big bang, the origin of galaxies and stars, and our ultimate fate are founded on this belief. But the March 2009 Astronomy magazine carries the surprising headline, “Is … Continue reading |
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The Black Hole at the Heart of Astronomy March 28, 2009 by Wal Thornhill “Astronomical fads have always involved miracle working to some degree, and their discussion in so-called workshops and in the streams of papers that pour into the journals have affinities to the incantations of Macbeth’s witches on the blasted heath.” —Fred … Continue reading |
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It’s Time for Change February 15, 2009 by Wal Thornhill But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. —Hilaire Belloc Tumultuous times like these encourage questioning of long-held convictions. Our predicament seems the result … Continue reading |
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Astronomy has little to celebrate in 2009! January 15, 2009 by Wal Thornhill For those who haven’t noticed, this year is “The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009).” The International Year of Astronomy will involve 135 nations and thousands of events around the world. It marks the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the … Continue reading |
2008
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NASA’s Dim View of Stars December 22, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “..astronomers can tell the temperature of the central regions of the Sun and of many other stars within a few percentage points and be quite sure about the figures they quote.” —A Star Called the Sun, George Gamow. The cone … Continue reading |
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Assembling the Solar System October 23, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “The Genesis team can take great satisfaction not just in having salvaged their mission, but in underscoring once again how little we know about how our strange and wonderful home planet came to exist.” — Kelly Beatty, Sky & Telescope … Continue reading |
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The $6 billion LHC Circus September 10, 2008 by Wal Thornhill Science has become an international circus. And opening day for “The Greatest Show on Earth” has arrived. In the 27 km main circus ring we have the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, starting up after $6 billion dollars and thirty … Continue reading |
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Electric Gravity in an Electric Universe August 22, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “..if a special geometry has to be invented in order to account for a falling apple, even Newton might be appalled at the complications which would ensue when really difficult problems are tackled.” — Sir Oliver Lodge, FRS, 1921. [1] [This … Continue reading |
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Twinkle, twinkle electric star July 1, 2008 by Wal Thornhill Twinkle, twinkle electric star Astronomers don’t know what you are! “Sit down before facts like a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” … Continue reading |
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Electric Galaxies May 20, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “The conformist propensity of social institutions is not the only reason that erroneous theories persevere. However, once embedded within a culture, ideas exhibit an uncanny inertia, as if obeying Newton’s law to keep on going forever until acted upon by … Continue reading |
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Whatever happened to real science? May 13, 2008 by Wal Thornhill Just as much of modern science has become self-serving in striving for status and funding, the theory of how science should be done is similarly afflicted. An assessment of a theory based on ‘degrees of belief’ might be useful if … Continue reading |
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Enceladus, comets and electric moons April 1, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “William Whewell, in his 1840 synthesis The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, was the first to speak of consilience, literally a ‘jumping together’ of knowledge by the linking together of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common … Continue reading |
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Enceladus’ Cometary Plumes March 12, 2008 by Wal Thornhill Today the Cassini spacecraft is due to swoop over the south pole of Enceladus, one of the inner moons of Saturn, at a height of 50 km (30 miles), sampling its celebrated south polar plumes. The analyzers will “sniff and … Continue reading |
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More on Mercury’s Mysteries March 5, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.” —Claude Bernard (1813-78) French physiologist, 1865. MESSENGER flew 200 kilometres above Mercury’s … Continue reading |
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Comet – Asteroid Link Confirmed January 25, 2008 by Wal Thornhill “The remarkable properties of comets are not even remotely explicable by any of the numerous ad hoc assumptions of ‘modern’ comet theory.” — R A Lyttleton, FRS, Journey to the Centre of Uncertainty, Speculations in Science & Technology. Further support … Continue reading |
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Astronomical Myths of Mercury & the Sun January 14, 2008 by Wal Thornhill The Messenger spacecraft has its inaugural fly-by of the planet Mercury today. Once again we hear the mantra that it will answer the solar system’s big questions. Once again it will fail to do so because our modern myths of … Continue reading |
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2008 – Year of the Electric Universe January 10, 2008 by Wal Thornhill The pause in news from this website is ended. I declare 2008 the International Year of the Electric Universe. More on that later… “A first rate theory predicts A second rate theory forbids And a third rate theory explains after … Continue reading |
2007
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Io and the Electric Universe May 30, 2007 by Wal Thornhill The book is now available from Mikamar Publishing. “Compelling, highly readable, and superbly illustrated, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to what will surely be the beginnings of a scientific revolution in the years ahead. The Electric Universe understanding eliminates … Continue reading |
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The Astrophysical Crisis at Red Square April 17, 2007 by Wal Thornhill “The history of science shows that the progress of science has constantly been hampered by the tyrannical influence of certain conceptions that finally come to be considered as dogma. For this reason, it is proper to submit periodically to a … Continue reading |
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Global Warming in a Climate of Ignorance February 15, 2007 by Wal Thornhill “As for the promised control of nature, it is in rout before nature unleashed.” -Jacques Barzun, Science: the glorious entertainment “Next we come to a question that everyone, scientist and non-scientist alike, must have asked at some time. What is … Continue reading |
2006
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The Electric Sky – Interview with the author December 24, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and … Continue reading |
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The ‘Spiral Galaxy’ at Saturn’s Pole November 20, 2006 by Wal Thornhill Poincaré, at the conclusion of the preface to his book, ‘Hypothéses Cosmogoniques‘, states: “One fact that strikes everyone is the spiral shape of some nebulae; it is encountered much too often for us to believe that it is due to … Continue reading |
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Nobel Prize for Big Bang is a Fizzer October 29, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe them.” —George Orwell Consensus discourages dissent… It is the enemy of science, just as it is the triumph of politics. A theory accepted by 99 percent … Continue reading |
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The Real Impact of Victoria Crater October 16, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “I don’t like the ‘terrorist geology of impact’, which is not the same thing as saying that no impacts have ever occurred.” —V. Axel Firsoff. One of the key arguments used to support the impact origin of craters in the … Continue reading |
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Voyager Probes the Sun’s Electrical Environment September 30, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “…with his [Birkeland's] extraordinary intuition he had a feeling for the huge electrical importance of the universe. Future research may show that such messages from the sun are equally important to us as Galileo’s understanding of messages from the stars … Continue reading |
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Grey Matter vs Dark Matter August 28, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ’cause there’s bugger-all down here on Earth!” —Eric Idle from The Galaxy Song. On August 21the Chandra X-Ray Observatory website released the news: NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter … Continue reading |
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The Madness of Black Holes July 30, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one new delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some … Continue reading |
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The IEEE, Plasma Cosmology and Extreme Ball Lightning June 30, 2006 by Wal Thornhill This is a report on a few aspects of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS 2006), held in Michigan earlier this month. The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the … Continue reading |
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Watch This Space May 25, 2006 by Wal Thornhill There will be no news item this month due to attendance at an International Plasma Science Conference and other meetings in the US. It is hoped that some of the results of the meetings will be available for posting late … Continue reading |
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Venus isn’t our twin! April 22, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “You are not looking at a twin [Venus] to the Earth at all. There are very many substantial differences, ..the differences are so great it makes you wonder whether you could ever produce a twin of the Earth in some … Continue reading |
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Stardust Comet Fragments Solar System Theory March 14, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “History has a way of showing that what was once acceptable is complete nonsense.” – Bono From the NASA Stardust mission website we read: “The primary goal of Stardust was to collect dust and carbon-based samples during its closest encounter … Continue reading |
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First Evidence of Comet Ice – What Does it Mean? February 13, 2006 by Wal Thornhill “There is more riding on this mission than may be apparent from regular news sources. At issue is the assumption of an electrically neutral universe, upon which every conventional astronomical theory rests. The story of the formation of the solar … Continue reading |
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A Real ‘Theory of Everything’ January 1, 2006 by Wal Thornhill The editorial of New Scientist of 10 December 2005 is headlined: “Ideas needed: The hunt for a theory of everything is going nowhere fast.” It underlines the parlous state of theoretical physics in its inability to reconcile relativity and quantum … Continue reading |
2005
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Electric Earthquakes December 21, 2005 by Wal Thornhill Civilization’s interest in predicting the location and time of damaging earthquakes is clear. The potential for devastation of property that otherwise could be secured, and the loss of life that otherwise could be prevented, are powerful reasons to find predictive … Continue reading |
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Voyager 1 at the Edge – of what? November 13, 2005 by Wal Thornhill “The observations that are not explainable by current scientific theories are the most valuable, for they may propel the field forward in the next cycle of innovation, possibly to a paradigm shift.” – Don L. Jewett, What’s Wrong With Single … Continue reading |
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Hyperion’s History October 7, 2005 by Wal Thornhill On September 26th, Cassini successfully performed its closest flybys of Saturn’s moons Tethys and Hyperion. Hyperion (seen below in false color) is a strange, spongy-looking body with dark-floored craters that speckle its surface. The image of Hyperion evoked the same … Continue reading |
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Comet Tails of the Expected September 13, 2005 by Wal Thornhill Specific predictions were made almost four years ago on this website about the possible effects to be observed in the Deep Impact experiment. Key predictions were that there would be a flash just before impact and that the outburst accompanying … Continue reading |
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Supernova 1987A Decoded August 24, 2005 by Wal Thornhill Supernova 1987A is the closest supernova event since the invention of the telescope. It was first seen in February 1987 in the nearby Magellanic cloud, a dwarf companion galaxy of the Milky Way, and only 169,000 light years from Earth. … Continue reading |
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Comet Tempel 1′s Electrifying Impact July 13, 2005 by Wal Thornhill It is now little more than a week since the spectacular hyper-velocity meeting of Comet Tempel 1 with a copper projectile sent from Earth. Preliminary results of the Deep Impact experiment are being reported from telescopes in space and around … Continue reading |
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The Deep Impact of Comet Theory July 3, 2005 by Wal Thornhill (I hope my readers will forgive the absence of news items for the past few months while I took a break and gave some presentations in Europe on the Electric Universe. I did manage to keep an editorial eye on … Continue reading |
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The Dragon Storm March 26, 2005 by Wal Thornhill A news item headlined “The Dragon Storm” appeared on the Cassini mission website on February 24. The imagery of the celestial dragon in this context is an unconscious nod to an electrified universe. The new science of plasma behavior emphasizes … Continue reading |
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Columbia downed by Megalightning February 8, 2005 by Wal Thornhill The second anniversary of the Columbia disaster passed almost unnoticed on February 1. Recent news reports said that the astronauts assigned to the first space shuttle mission since then were confident the mistakes and technical problems that led to that … Continue reading |
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Saturn’s Strange Hot Spot Explained February 5, 2005 by Wal Thornhill The following excerpt is from the Keck Observatory News: MAUNA KEA (February 4, 2005) Astronomers using the Keck I telescope in Hawaii are learning much more about a strange, thermal “hot spot” on Saturn that is located at the tip … Continue reading |
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Titan – A Rosetta Stone for early Earth? January 30, 2005 by Wal Thornhill The original Rosetta Stone is a compact basalt slab (114x72x28 cm) that was found in July 1799 in the small Egyptian village of Rosette (Raschid), which is located in the western delta of the Nile. Today the stone is kept … Continue reading |
2004
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Megalightning at Saturn December 25, 2004 by Wal Thornhill As NASA’s Cassini spacecraft approached Saturn last July it found evidence that lightning on Saturn is roughly one million times stronger than lightning on Earth. “That’s just astonishing to me!” said University of Iowa Space Physicist Don Gurnett, who notes … Continue reading |
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Titan puzzles scientists November 29, 2004 by Wal Thornhill On October 26, NASA’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft swung by Titan at a distance of less than 1200 kilometers, the first of many fly-bys planned in the next few years. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the second largest moon in the … Continue reading |
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The True State of the Universe October 27, 2004 by Wal Thornhill “… almost the entire body of astronomers can go wrong in a way that, in later years, seems absurd. To hear scientists talk today, you would think the first moment in human history in which nonsensical views are not widely … Continue reading |
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Electrifying Saturn August 8, 2004 by Wal Thornhill From NASA and PhysOrg.com comes the following report: Cassini detects Lightning and Radiation at Saturn and Titan’s Glow The spacecraft’s radio and plasma wave science instrument detected radio waves generated by lightning. “We are detecting the same crackle and pop … Continue reading |
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Comets Impact Cosmology July 20, 2004 by Wal Thornhill “Comets are important, they could be the key to the universe …maybe.” – Burt Lancaster, in the movie Local Hero. From Nature, 5, 174, December 28, 1871: “Encke’s Comet and the Supposed Resisting Medium,” by Professor W. Stanley Jevons. “The … Continue reading |
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Cassini’s Homecoming June 19, 2004 by Wal Thornhill ”Nothing so evokes gasps of delight as Saturn’s ring. The reason I think, is a collision of the expected and the improbable. A ringed sphere is the archetypal planet of our childhood, familiar from a thousand comic strips, coloring books, … Continue reading |
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Electric Weather May 30, 2004 by Wal Thornhill The following excerpts come from a report that appeared in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) magazine, SPECTRUM, for April. The report demonstrates that when science has lost its way, engineers must use their intuition to make progress. … Continue reading |
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Electric Dust Devils April 25, 2004 by Wal Thornhill ‘.. it may sometimes be that not to know one thing that is wrong could be more important than knowing a hundred things that are right.’ – Halton Arp, Quasars, Redshifts & Controversies The electrical character of dust devils and … Continue reading |
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An Open Letter to Closed Minds April 12, 2004 by Wal Thornhill Everything astronomers can see, stretching out to distances of 10 billion light-years, emerged from an infinitesimal speck. - Martin Rees, Our Cosmic Habitat (2001). “A widely-accepted foundation stone of scientific logic involves a process of elimination, requiring all available possibilities … Continue reading |
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Mystery of Mars’ Polar Spirals March 30, 2004 by Wal Thornhill ‘Before each revolution, all the pegs seemed square and all the holes round. In each case, it was not until it was realized that one had to discard the whole frame of reference and seek another that answers came in … Continue reading |
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Black holes tear logic apart March 7, 2004 by Wal Thornhill “It seems that every practitioner of physics has had to wonder at some point why mathematics and physics have come to be so closely entwined. Opinions vary on the answer. ..Bertrand Russell acknowledged..”Physics is mathematical not because we know so … Continue reading |
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Opportunity Favors the Heretic February 4, 2004 by Wal Thornhill “.. modern science seems to have exploded into a multitude of highly specialised areas and distinct disciplines that may at times be interconnected, but that by and large ignore one another. There appears to be an overwhelming trend toward a … Continue reading |
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Spirit Chases a Martian Mirage January 23, 2004 by Wal Thornhill While this report was being written came worrying news that the Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit, is not functioning normally. On January 21, 2004 ground controllers were able to send commands to Spirit and received a simple signal acknowledging that the … Continue reading |
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Comet Wild 2 January 6, 2004 by Wal Thornhill ‘The remarkable properties of comets are not even remotely explicable by any of the numerous ad hoc assumptions of ‘modern’ comet theory.’ - Prof. R A Lyttleton, Journey to the Centre of Uncertainty, Speculations in Science & Technology, Vol. 8, … Continue reading |
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Ockham’s Beard January 3, 2004 by Wal Thornhill Mel Acheson’s thought provoking and entertaining “epistemological commercials” have enlivened the free Thoth email newsletter and many of our public meetings. I feel it is appropriate that I include, with permission, his most recent “commercial” at the beginning of this … Continue reading |
2003
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The Shiny Mountains of Venus December 16, 2003 by Wal Thornhill The astronomer Victor A. Firsoff in his book, The Solar Planets (1977), wrote: “I once described Earth and Venus as ‘non-identical twins.’ It used to be thought that their differences were more apparent than real. But in the words of … Continue reading |
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THE SUN — Our Variable Star November 9, 2003 by Wal Thornhill This article updated on 25 Nov 2003 “Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the growth in our understanding of the universe is that we understand anything at all.” - Martin Harwit, from a talk given at the American Physical Society’s … Continue reading |
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Comets & Lightning Jets October 19, 2003 by Wal Thornhill I recently picked up a second-hand book titled “The Big Splash” by Dr. Louis Frank of the University of Iowa. Although it was published in 1990, the issues it raised remain unresolved. The cover proclaims excitedly in large bold type: … Continue reading |
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Mysterious Mars August 27, 2003 by Wal Thornhill Today, 27 August, at 9.51 am GMT, Mars will be a mere 56 million kilometres from Earth, the closest it has been since 57,617 BC. The claim that Neanderthals 60 millennia ago witnessed a Mars approach similar to what we … Continue reading |
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Spiral Galaxies & Grand Canyons August 18, 2003 by Wal Thornhill The grandest canyon in the solar system is Valles Marineris on Mars. It stretches a third of the way around the planet. But what in heaven can spiral galaxies have to do with the geology of Mars? In October 2001, … Continue reading |
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Puzzling Star Stuff August 2, 2003 by Wal Thornhill “Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are.” In a report for the New Scientist of 26 July, titled ‘The Sun Catcher,’ Hazel Muir writes about the daring exploits required to retrieve samples of the Sun to be … Continue reading |
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Planet Birthing – more evidence July 24, 2003 by Wal Thornhill In my May news item I wrote, “It is far simpler and infinitely more efficient if planets are “born” at intervals by the electrical ejection of charged material from the similarly charged interiors of larger bodies – gas giants from … Continue reading |
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Squashed Star Flattens Solar Theory June 24, 2003 by Wal Thornhill The following report appeared in New Scientist for 12 June 2003: Flattest star puts astronomers in a spin Danny Penman The flattest star yet seen is forcing researchers to revise their ideas on the dynamics and structure of celestial bodies. … Continue reading |
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Planet Birthing May 25, 2003 by Wal Thornhill Dan Falk prefaced a recent news report in Nature, on the subject of planet formation, with these words: “Our knowledge of planets outside our Solar System has been transformed in the past few years. But these new-found worlds don’t look … Continue reading |
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SETI – The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence April 9, 2003 by Wal Thornhill “Next we come to a question that everyone, scientist and non-scientist alike, must have asked at some time. What is man’s place in the Universe?” - The Nature of the Universe, Fred Hoyle. In March this year 13,000 people from … Continue reading |
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Columbia: Questions of Some Gravity February 8, 2003 by Wal Thornhill This article contains updates added in April and June 2003 On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle, Columbia, met its fiery end in the dangerous manoeuvre of supersonic re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Sadly, the crew of seven was lost. … Continue reading |
2002
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Sunspot Mysteries November 30, 2002 by Wal Thornhill ‘If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.’ - Rene Descartes The following report appeared in SPACE.com: New Photos of Sun … Continue reading |
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The Remarkable Slowness of Light September 2, 2002 by Wal Thornhill “The more one reflects on the nature of light, matter and gravitation, the more he realizes that there are problems connected with them that are quite insoluble in terms of our current notions. But we no longer reflect intelligently on … Continue reading |
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Water on Mars? July 15, 2002 by Wal Thornhill Planetary scientists are busy looking for evidence of water on Mars in support of plans to send robotic and, eventually, manned missions to the red planet. Water is a key ingredient in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Some … Continue reading |
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Antigravity? May 21, 2002 by Wal Thornhill According to the physicist, Lee Smolin, cranks are just a fact of life for working physicists. “Several of us have speculated that there must be a particular psychosis that results in people believing that they have disproved relativity.” New Scientist, … Continue reading |
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A Mystery Solved – Welcome to the Electric Universe! March 20, 2002 by Wal Thornhill “We simply do not have a truly unified view of the world, one that paints an unambiguous picture of some overall scheme. …one invariably confronts a deep fissure that can be overcome only with revolutionary new ideas.” - Etienne Klein … Continue reading |
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The Balloon goes up over lightning! January 29, 2002 by Wal Thornhill In August 2001 a high-altitude balloon was sent aloft to ride far above the great storms of the mid-west USA. Researchers had sent the balloon, like a Dark Rider out of Tolkien, riding into the moonless night, seeking sprites, gnomes … Continue reading |
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Charge Separation in the Mind January 22, 2002 by Wal Thornhill “The operation of removing a problem from its traditional context and placing it into a new one, looking at it through glasses of a different color, as it were, has always seemed to me of the very essence of the … Continue reading |
2001
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MARS and the GRAND CANYON October 24, 2001 by Wal Thornhill “The ultimate objective of comparative planetology, it might be said, is something like a vast computer program into which we insert a few input parameters (perhaps the initial mass, composition and angular momentum of a protoplanet and the population of … Continue reading |
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Comet Borrelly rocks core scientific beliefs October 18, 2001 by Wal Thornhill [The blockquoted text in brown is from an original news story. The highlighted text is a statement of the "core beliefs" held by astronomers. The regular text is my commentary with short quotations in brown.] The above headline accompanied the … Continue reading |
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Solar neutrino puzzle is solved? August 13, 2001 by Wal Thornhill The Electric Universe model has made some capital from the fact that the key evidence for a nuclear engine in the Sun, the neutrino count, failed to live up to expectations. In Physics World, July 2001, [see http://physicsweb.org/article/world/14/7/10 ] an … Continue reading |
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Two Spacecraft Watch An Arc Welder on Io April 5, 2001 by Wal Thornhill MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION March 29, 2001 Original Caption Released with Image: Two tall volcanic plumes and the rings of red material they have deposited onto surrounding surface areas … Continue reading |
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Scientists fail to unravel the kinks in solar waves April 4, 2001 by Wal Thornhill NASA/JPL NEWS RELEASE Posted: March 29, 2001 Kinks in the Sun’s magnetic field have puzzled scientists since they first started studying the solar wind, and now researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have found the reason: they are … Continue reading |
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EROS not so Mysterious February 10, 2001 by Wal Thornhill The following message is from Reuters: On February 12, the world’s first spacecraft will land on an asteroid – Eros, named after the Greek god of love – and stream a series of photographs in nearly real time. That equates … Continue reading |
2000
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“Failed Star or Failed Science?” July 19, 2000 by Wal Thornhill A Brown Dwarf Solar Flare From NASA Science News for July 12, 2000 Astronomers were surprised when NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected an x-ray outburst from a failed star only 60 times more massive than Jupiter. NASA’s latest observatory, designed … Continue reading |
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“Science Heading for a BIG BANG” April 27, 2000 by Wal Thornhill Forget the glossy astronomy books and magazines – the Big Bang is pure fiction. The discoveries that prove it will also bring about the end of science-as-we-know-it. Of course, many books and articles have been published recently heralding the end … Continue reading |
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The impact of pseudo-science March 17, 2000 by Wal Thornhill This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of an astonishing and controversial book – Worlds in Collision. The provocatively titled 1950 book was written by Immanuel Velikovsky and caused an unprecedented furor in scientific circles. It led to … Continue reading |
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So NEAR, and yet so far from UNDERSTANDING February 13, 2000 by Wal Thornhill On Valentine’s Day, 2000, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft is is due, on its second attempt, to go into orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. It will be the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid. NEAR will examine the … Continue reading |
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Alien Skies February 11, 2000 by Wal Thornhill “Homo sapiens sapiens is not always as sapiens as he sapiently should be.” Professor Gus Nossall. Two Voyager spacecraft are carrying a message from the human race to the remote future, somewhere in the distant stars. Our faint hope is … Continue reading |
1999
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NASA’S Xmas Coloring Book December 22, 1999 by Wal Thornhill NASA have just released the first images from their Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1999, closest flyby of Io. See them at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/io [dead link 2012, try http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02519]. My earlier prediction that the so-called volcanos would be much hotter than the … Continue reading |
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Other stars, other worlds, other life? December 15, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University, Dr. S. Ross Taylor has concluded after a lifetime’s work on the formation of the solar system: “When the remote chances of developing a habitable planet are added to the chances of developing … Continue reading |
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MORE IO CLOSEUPS November 22, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Jupiter’s Moon Io: a Flashback to Earth’s Volcanic Past Excerpts From A NASA/JPL Press Release November 19, 1999 Jupiter’s fiery moon Io is providing scientists with a window on volcanic activity and colossal lava flows similar to those that raged … Continue reading |
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Strange Star or Strange Science? November 20, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Nowhere is the gravitational paradigm of cosmology shown to exhibit more strangeness than in compact high energy phenomena in deep space. A report in the journal Nature of 15 November proposes that a recently discovered star “is made of an … Continue reading |
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HAWAIIAN-STYLE VOLCANO ON IO? November 7, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Excerpts from a NASA/JPL Press Release November 5, 1999 New images from Galileo reveal unexpected details of the Prometheus volcano on Io including a caldera and lava flowing through fields of sulfur dioxide snow. It appears that the Prometheus volcano … Continue reading |
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CHANDRA VS. CHANDRA November 7, 1999 by Wal Thornhill NASA’s premier X-ray observatory was named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. He was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century. Early in his career he demonstrated … Continue reading |
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IT HAS TO BE MOONGLOW! November 5, 1999 by Wal Thornhill The region around the crater Aristarchus (at lower right) has been a focus for observers searching for transient lunar phenomena. This false-color mosaic was assembled from blue, red, and near-infrared images taken by the Clementine spacecraft and represents brightness ratios … Continue reading |
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GRAVITY vs PLASMA November 3, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Before leaping straight in to Mel Acheson’s Gravity vs Plasma view, I thought it would be appropriate to explain the difference between the 2 cosmologies. EXPLANATION: Accepted cosmology is based on the unique case of electrically neutral bodies embedded in … Continue reading |
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CLOSEST EVER PICTURE OF IO October 29, 1999 by Wal Thornhill From NASA News of 24 October 1999 The highest resolution image ever of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, (the black and white image at top) was taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft on Oct. 11, 1999, from an altitude of 617 kilometers … Continue reading |
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DYING STAR, OR SERIOUS ELECTRICAL FAULT? October 27, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Comment on NASA News of October 24, 1999. “The object shown in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a remarkable example of a star going through death throes just as it dramatically transforms itself from a normal red giant … Continue reading |
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JUPITER’S THUNDERBOLT October 21, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Why did the planetary gods dominate our imagination at the dawn of civilization? Yet nine out of ten people today could not identify bright Jupiter in the night sky. And another question that is never asked, what was really meant … Continue reading |
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SHOCKS FROM ETA CARINA October 12, 1999 by Wal Thornhill Excerpt from Space Science News: “Just three years ago the Hubble Space Telescope provided a dazzling image of a star that was blowing off massive quantities of material in a blast that looked like a supernova yet, mysteriously, wasn’t one. … Continue reading |
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THE BIG BANG NEVER WAS! October 11, 1999 by Wal Thornhill The CHANDRA X-Ray Observatory is fulfilling its promise. Modern cosmology is being found wanting with every new discovery. The reason is simple. The universe is governed by the powerful electric force, not gravity. So by detailed imaging in x-rays, Chandra … Continue reading |
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NASA risks Galileo spacecraft by FLYING A “KITE” AT IO! October 8, 1999 by Wal Thornhill JPL News wrote: “Galileo makes two daring passes less than 620 km above Io on October 11 and November 25, 1999. In November Galileo might even pass through the plume of Pillan Patera, making it the first spacecraft ever to … Continue reading |
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Chandra X-Ray Observatory discovers FLAMING COSMIC WHEEL! October 6, 1999 by Wal Thornhill 6 October 1999 NASA’s new Chandra X-Ray Observatory http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/snrg has returned an image of utmost importance in understanding the universe. “Stretching across forty light years of space, the multi-million degree source resembles a flaming cosmic wheel”. The Electric Universe provides … Continue reading |