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Astronomy

How to Avoid Dark Energy
March 15, 2008
Who needs dark energy?  Copernicus?  George Ellis (U. of Cape Town) said we could get rid of dark energy by throwing the Copernican Principle overboard.  Writing in Nature,1 he said that dark energy may simply be an artifact of the geometry of space-time.     Copernicus did not invent the Copernican Principle.  He was just […]
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Astronomy

Is Cosmology Getting Wimp-y?
February 28, 2008
Physics and astronomy are usually thought of as the “hard” sciences, where empiricism is king.  Read the following excerpts from a story on the BBC News science page with that in mind (suggestion: replace “dark matter” with “mysterious unknown stuff”). The first stars to appear in the Universe may have been powered by dark matter, […]
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Astronomy

Distant Galaxy Surprises Astronomers
February 19, 2008
Using the Hubble Space Telescope viewing a distant galaxy cluster as a gravitational lens, astronomers detected a new record-holder: a galaxy bright with stars almost as old as the big bang.  The story on Science Daily called this a galaxy, with redshift 7.6, a “strong contender for the galaxy distance record.”     According to […]
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Astronomy

Zatta Fact?  “Scientific Facts” Evolve
January 14, 2008
Every once in awhile it is good to be reminded that “scientific facts” are in a constant state of revision.  Here are some recent examples of scientists with surprised looks on their faces: Cholesterol for health:  Surprise, says EurekAlert: cholesterol may actually pose health benefits.  “… don’t push aside bacon and eggs just yet,” it […]
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Astronomy

The Stars That Shouldn’t Exist
November 25, 2007
Theories in astronomy are fun to model on paper with equations, but once in awhile they need to stand up to observations.  Phil Berardelli wrote for Science Now: It seems as though every time astronomers point their telescopes at the night sky, some weird new finding forces them to revamp their theories.  And so it […]
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Astronomy

Dust Became Knowledge
October 11, 2007
The Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week award goes to an Associated Press article reporting on a finding from the Spitzer Space Telescope.  It began in a very matter-of-fact manner, claiming that the one of the biggest questions of philosophy is being answered by dust.   Astronomers have taken a baby step in trying to […]
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Astronomy

Dark Matter Sheds Light on Invisible Stars: Come Again?
September 17, 2007
Can one unknown shed light on another unknown?  That’s what some UK astronomers seem to be saying.  Before describing their model, consider this conundrum with which they ended a story in the BBC News: “We don’t know what the dark matter is, we don’t know what the first stars are.  If we bring these two […]
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Astronomy

“We have no idea why these galaxies grew so large so soon”
August 11, 2007
Five full-sized galaxies have been detected at the edge of the visible universe, reported Science Now.  This continues a trend over the last few years where astronomers have been detecting old objects at young ages (e.g., 07/25/2007, 09/24/2006, 08/18/2006, 03/31/2006).   “The galaxies, which are forming stars very rapidly, are big for their age, meaning […]
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Astronomy

Four Evidences of Cosmic Youth
August 4, 2007
Astronomers and planetary scientists routinely talk in millions and billions of years.  Three recent science news reports raise questions about how to fit apparently young objects into a vast timeline.  Lunar burps:  The moon is passing gas, reported Science News).  This explains the long history of observations of lunar transients, or bright flashes observed from […]
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Astronomy

Stars Found Almost as Old as Universe
July 25, 2007
A new record was set by a Caltech team using the Keck telescopes on Hawaii: they detected a galaxy nearly as old as the universe.  The consensus age for the universe is 13.6 billion years.  The light from this galaxy, they claim, is over 13 billion years old – “a mere 500 million years after […]
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Geology

Lord Kelvin’s Core Values Defended
July 2, 2007
Myth: Lord Kelvin held back the progress of geology for 100 years by insisting the Earth was younger than geologists and evolutionists believed. Myth debunked here.
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Astronomy

Cosmic Star Formation: When Elegant Theories Are Wrong
June 30, 2007
An astronomer wrote about “cosmic train wrecks” in Science recently.1  Paolo Coppi (Yale) was speaking about galactic mergers, but he could have just as well been talking about current cosmological models.  Things once thought to be understood are coming in for new scrutiny, now that more powerful telescopes can peer deeper into the veiled hearts […]
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Astronomy

Think Fast: News Briefs
May 21, 2007
Of the many news items that cross the CEH desk, many are noteworthy but go unreported due to lack of time.  Here are a few that deserve honorable mention lest they pass into oblivion. Cosmology: Dark future – Several sources like Science Now and Space.com commented on the dark future of the universe if cosmic acceleration […]
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Astronomy

Cosmology: Crisis or Confidence?
April 13, 2007
What is it with cosmology these days?  On the one hand, astronomers seem more confident than ever.  They speak of this as the era of “precision cosmology,” when the only task remaining seems to be refining the decimal points; e.g., the first refinements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) won John Mather and George Smoot […]
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Astronomy

Dating a Star is Glamorous Only in Theory
January 30, 2007
Hollywood stars may be fickle, but so are great balls of fire in outer space when it comes to understanding them.  Some recent examples: Taking the pulse:  The Chandra X-ray Observatory wrote a glowing report about a “textbook supernova,” which is a nice pairing of observation and theory.  It added this caveat, though, about dating […]
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