VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Astronomy

Are There Limits to Scientific Speculation?  A Royal Case
May 2, 2010
Question: When does science become like a priesthood?  Answer: When its practitioners engage in speculation on big questions impossible to verify with empirical observations.  Is this what the chief astronomer in Britain is doing?     Sir Martin Rees certainly would not have thought of himself as a priest as he wrote an article for […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Man Will Never Fly (to the Stars)
March 13, 2010
It’s risky to say “never” in science.  The Man Will Never Fly Society had a short life.  However, an article on Space.com makes it seem a safe bet that, Star Trek notwithstanding, warp-speed flights to the stars are out of the question for humans.  “Warp speed will kill you,” the article announced; why?  Because interstellar […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Divining Violent gods as Natural Cosmic Creators
March 10, 2010
Ancient stargazers imagined the violent actions of gods in the heavens giving rise to the stars, earth and man.  Today’s secular astronomers engage in a similar kind of lore.  While not naming their gods after mythical heroes, they describe them as forces of nature whose violent clashes give rise to order and design.  Sometimes they […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Galaxy-Spangled Banner Unfurled
December 8, 2009
The Hubble team has unveiled a new deep field image of distant galaxies, the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field Infrared WFC3/IR.”  The image, available at the HubbleSite, was taken with the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) installed during the latest servicing mission.     It’s been 5 years since the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (03/09/2004; […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Is the Universe Evolving Upward?
November 13, 2009
It’s intuitively obvious that to get from a big bang to intelligent astronomers looking for evidence of the bang through telescopes, the amount of organization in the universe must increase over time dramatically.  Lately, astronomy has uncovered much more dynamism in space than previously recognized – but much of it seems destructive, not creative. Orion […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Cosmic Accounting Is Wildly Inaccurate
August 26, 2009
Counting faint celestial objects is admittedly hard, but the task should be within the capabilities of expert astronomers.  It is, after all, as simple as counting.  So much theoretical work relies on accurate counts of what’s out there, they need to get at least in the ballpark.  Recent indications hint that their counts have been […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Planet-Makers Ask Miracles to Evade Death Spiral
August 21, 2009
Remember the old artwork of planets gently forming out of dust orbiting a young star? That’s all gone. Reality has set it. Clumps of material a meter across need help – almost miraculous help – to avoid getting sucked into the star in a giant death spiral. If you don’t believe it, ask John Chambers […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Early Large Galaxies Stun Cosmologists
April 2, 2009
Cosmology has a kind of Cambrian Explosion of its own to grapple with.  Contrary to expectations, some of the earliest galaxies appear as large as current ones, if not larger.  Astronomers, using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii, examined five galaxy clusters with ages estimated at 5 billion years after the Big Bang.  Statements in a […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Star Children for Darwin
February 28, 2009
Why should we be looking for alien intelligence around other stars when it is right behind your eyeballs?  You may not have known that you are a star child, but that’s what a leading astronomer called you.  As a good star child, you need to pay tribute to Charles Darwin.     In New Scientist, […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Dating Stars as Models
January 12, 2009
Many have dreamed of dating a star, but the way astronomers do it is less glamorous.  For one thing, they need to know how old she is first, and how good a model she makes.  In a Perspectives piece for Science,1 David R. Soderblom of the Space Telescope Science Institute explained the requirements for stellar […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

2009 Is Looking Up
January 8, 2009
Astronomy is looking up this year; in fact, it’s looking heavenly.  The United Nations and the International Astronomical Union have designated 2009 the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009).  The IYA2009 website explains, The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) will be a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, highlighted by the […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Water, Water Everywhere
December 21, 2008
A press release from the Max Planck Institute says that water has been detected at a distant quasar 11.1 billion light-years away – the farthest detection of water yet.  “The water vapour is thought to exist in clouds of dust and gas that feed the supermassive black hole at the centre of the distant quasar,” […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

It Takes a Stellar Village
November 27, 2008
Do galaxies embark on a purpose-driven life?  The language in an article about galaxy evolution in Science Daily makes such seamless use of personal terms with natural processes, it’s hard to know where the data ends and the interpretation begins.     “Galaxy Zoo, which uses volunteers from the general public to classify galaxies, and […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

SETI Could Find Design in Neutrinos
October 12, 2008
Most of the scientists involved in SETI research are very antagonistic to Intelligent Design.  Nevertheless, they find the design inference perfectly “natural” when looking for ways to comb through natural phenomena for intelligently-designed signals.     Two new methods for detecting alien messages were reported by Science News in the Oct. 11 issue.1  Both involve […]
CONTINUE READING
Astronomy

Bangin’ Around to Get Something New Under the Sun
October 3, 2008
You’ve heard of the Big Bang, and the Cambrian Explosion.  Now, to get the solar system started, astronomers have added a Little Bang to move things along in the naturalistic path from nothing to everything.  Science Daily, Space.com and PhysOrg all reprinted a press release from the Carnegie Institution claiming that a nearby supernova led […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="25"]