MORE IO CLOSEUPS

Io closeup
Io closeup

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 on Earth eons ago, thanks to new pictures and data gathered by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.…


Strange Star or Strange Science?

Plasma focus
Plasma focus

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 exotic stuff called ‘strange matter’, never yet seen on Earth”. In other words, it may…


HAWAIIAN-STYLE VOLCANO ON IO?

Lightning strike on a golf course
Lightning strike on a golf course

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 on Io has characteristics remarkably similar to those of the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, although…


CHANDRA VS. CHANDRA

Centaurus A
Centaurus A

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 that there is an upper limit (now called the Chandrasekhar limit) to the mass of…


IT HAS TO BE MOONGLOW!

Aristarchus crater region
Aristarchus crater region

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 between the wavelengths. Images taken several weeks apart reveal a surface change in the cobra-head…


GRAVITY vs PLASMA

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 neutral interstellar gas and dust. It is derived from the very special physics that applies…