The iconic image of astronomy—a giant rock hurtles through space and crashes violently into a planet. However, laboratory experiments into electrical discharge have reproduced common planetary surface features which defy conventional meteor impact theory. In 1994, when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 approached Jupiter, and when Comet Siding Spring approached Mars in 2014, the observed actual interactions…
Writer, poet, and discourse analyst, Ghada Chehade, illustrates why cosmology matters beyond science—and how it has precipitated tectonic cultural and ideological shifts that have shaped and defined the course of history. Cosmological shifts are a product of their time, and often grow out of and/or reinforce philosophical and socio-political settings that benefit from or exploit…