Do We Live in a Giant Cosmic Bubble?
Earth may be trapped in an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly void of matter. Scientists say this condition could account for the apparent acceleration of the universe’s expansion, for which dark energy currently is the leading explanation.
Dark energy is the name given to the hypothetical force that could be drawing all the stuff in the universe outward at an ever-increasing rate. Current thinking is that 74 percent of the universe could be made up of this exotic dark energy, with another 21 percent being dark matter, and normal matter comprising the remaining 5 percent.
Until now, there has been no good way to choose between dark energy or the void explanation, but a new study outlines a potential test of the bubble scenario.
Stars Migrate Through Galaxies
About half the stars in our celestial neighborhood may have traveled great distances through the Milky Way, according to a new study, which suggests our sun may be one of them.
The planethood question got more interesting this week with the naming of yet another dwarf planet, Haumea. It’s traditional to name planets after mythological deities – and Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility, follows that formula.
. . .
The controversy came to a head in 2005 when Brown’s team found the object now known as Eris – a world like Pluto, only bigger and farther out.
Scientists Glimpse “Dark Flow” Lurking Beyond the Edge of the Universe
Distant clusters of galaxies are all shifting inexorably towards the same spot in the sky, beyond the boundary of what we can see, a baffling discovery by Nasa scientists that seems to challenge our understanding of the Big Bang.
Hottest Planet Ever Discovered
In the hunt for extrasolar planets, a new find is shattering records left and right.
A planet called WASP-12b is the hottest planet ever discovered (about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,200 degrees Celsius), and orbits its star faster and closer in than any other known world.
Electricity Found on Saturn’s Largest Moon Titan – Could it Spark Life?
But a new study reports faint signs of a natural electric field in Titan’s thick cloud cover that are similar to the energy radiated by lightning on Earth.
Liquid Mirror Telescopes on the Moon
A team of internationally renowned astronomers and opticians may have found a way to make “unbelievably large” telescopes on the Moon.
“It’s so simple,” says Ermanno F. Borra, physics professor at the Optics Laboratory of Laval University in Quebec, Canada. “Isaac Newton knew that any liquid, if put into a shallow container and set spinning, naturally assumes a parabolic shape—the same shape needed by a telescope mirror to bring starlight to a focus. This could be the key to making a giant lunar observatory.”
And The Number of Intelligent Civilizations in Our Galaxy Is. . .
31573.52
Our Solar System’s Young Twin has Two Asteroid Belts
Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three rings of material implies that unseen planets confine and shape them.
Theorists Tackle Universe’s “Coincidence Problem”
Australian scientists have come up with a simple solution to one of the deepest puzzles in our understanding of the cosmos — why life on Earth coincides with a momentous shift in the makeup of the universe.
Scientists studying the coded signals from the lander Phoenix on the planet’s arctic surface detected the snow falling lightly from clouds drifting across the sky some 2 1/2 miles above the spacecraft, said James Whiteway, an atmospheric scientist from York University in Canada.
“Nothing like this has ever been seen on Mars before,” he said.