Space

September 14th 2015, 09:50 GMT. A far spread out distortion of space crossed earth's path. The distortion had traveled at the speed of light for more than a billion years, all along the way spreading out spherically and diluting its energy density inv ...

Blog Post - Johannes Koelman - Feb 15 2016 - 7:11pm

First OS Contour Map For A Mars Region- With ExoMars 2018 Landing Ellipse In Oxia Planum Superimposed

The Ordnance Survey (national mapping agency for the UK) has just released their first map of a region on another planet. It's a high resolution relief shaded contour map, and includes the area of Mars where ExoMars will land in 2018. Here is a close ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 3 2016 - 10:45pm

The Mystery Of The 2013 Chelyabinsk Superbolide Remains

On February 15th, 2013, as the approach of asteroid (367943) Duende was being closely monitored, something far more alarming happened. Duende approached the Earth was expected to pass nearly 27,700 km above the Earth's surface, well inside the bound ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 16 2016 - 12:12pm

Can You Suggest A Second Earth Apart From Mars?

Yes, a thousand of them indeed. The asteroid belt, and Near Earth Asteroids. I don't mean living on them like the little prince: The Little Prince That's not very practical without an atmosphere. Nor living inside them as some suggest. But rathe ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 3 2016 - 10:43pm

Seasons On Mars- How Do They Compare With Earth?

Mars is Earth like in some ways, but in other ways it's very different with its global dust storms every two years, its thick sheets of dry ice at its ice caps in winter. Any fresh water is close to its very low boiling point in the near vacuum. And ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 4 2016 - 11:04am

The real reason why the KIC 8462852 comet hypothesis is dead

Back in January, Bradley Schaefer published a finding that promised to be a bombshell: KIC 8462852 had been dimming at a rate of nearly 20% per century since 1890 (Schaefer, 2016). The finding was widely reported as refutation of the comet family hypothes ...

Blog Post - Jose S - Mar 5 2016 - 3:25pm

Super Positive Outcomes For Enceladus, And Europa- And Sample Return Issues- Video Talks

This is a talk I gave last summer to a small conference "The Search for Extraterrestrial Life- Europa&Enceladus" in Oxford, summer 2015. It's about the idea that when searching for life in our solar system, we could find something that& ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 7 2016 - 12:04am

No, We Were Not Hit By A 500 Kilometer Asteroid On March 8th. Nor Will We Be Hit By Nibiru Any Time- It's BS!

This is another in my now rather frequent articles to reassure people who are panicking because of news stories, saying that there is a chance we will all die in a big future cataclysm. No, this is all total bullshit! (I can use the word bullshit because ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 9 2016 - 2:19am

No Simple Genetic Test To Separate Earth From Mars Life- Zubrin's Argument Examined

NASA hopes to go full speed ahead with its "Road to Mars" to land humans on the planet, and Elon Musk wants to build a city of a million on Mars by 2100, but it is rare for anyone in the debates to mention planetary protection. I think many assu ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 11 2016 - 12:19pm

Can We Risk Microbes From Human Crashes- On Mars? If Not, What Happens To Dreams To Colonize The Planet?

I wrote this soon after ExoMars's successful launch to Mars, 2015. Hurray! In the program about the mission, before and during the launch, the presenters talked about the care they take to sterilize the lander of microbes to protect Mars. And indeed, ...

Article - Robert Walker - Mar 21 2016 - 5:28am