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Saturns Titan Is Changing

May 10, 2011

The giant smog-shrouded moon of Saturn, Titan, is changing – both in situ and in the minds of planetary scientists. Several news stories show not only dynamic processes in play, but revolutions in what scientists think about the moon and its history. Readers will need to determine which ideas are solidly based on observational evidence. […]

Astronomy

Spiral Galaxy Upset

May 4, 2011

In 1964, C. C. Lin and Frank Shu looked at the galaxy’s curvaceous arms and said, “You are my density.” The density-wave theory of spiral arm formation was married to galactic astronomy for nearly a half century. Now, however, we are back to the future, where theories do not always fulfill their destiny. An upstart […]

Intelligent Design

SETI in Reverse

April 29, 2011

The SETI Institute has had to close down its search with the Allen Telescope Array (08/12/2010) due to lack of funds. But while incoming messages might be missed, outgoing messages are still en route. The Voyager record is approaching interstellar space. PhysOrg, Live Science and the BBC News all told about the budget […]

Cosmology

Was Einstein Wrong?

April 25, 2011

Relativity and quantum mechanics are among the weirdest ideas that educated people have taken seriously. They required suspending belief in the most intuitive concepts we have of time, space, and matter. But just because they appear to work does not necessarily mean they are true. In fact, physicists continue to beat on one or the […]

Astronomy

Upsets in Space

April 18, 2011

Three different astronomy teams have announced findings that upset long-held beliefs. What does this portend about the confidence we can have in other theories? Galaxy growth: direct challenge: “Galaxies are thought to develop by the gravitational attraction between and merger of smaller ‘sub-galaxies’, a process that standard cosmological ideas suggest should be ongoing,” announced the […]

Cell Biology

Complexity Appears Earlier than Thought

April 14, 2011

Widely-separate branches of science seem to converge on a common puzzle: complexity goes farther back than scientists expected – evolutionary scientists, that is. Cosmology: More evidence has come that galaxies formed very early. A mature galaxy detected through gravitational lensing was announced by the Hubble Telescope team, with an estimated redshift of 6.027. In the […]

Darwin and Evolution

Is This What Darwin Had in Mind?

April 10, 2011

Evolution is a word loosely used in science these days. Reporters and scientists talk about “the evolution of” this or that sometimes carelessly, without regard to how the explanation fits old Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Has the word evolution become a kind of catch-all hypothesis, for which rigor is no longer necessary? Survival of the discreetist: […]

Solar System

More Youth on Titan

April 9, 2011

Hopes that Saturn’s giant moon Titan might have volcanoes just dropped. A new paper in Icarus1 concludes Titan gets its geology from the outside, not the inside. If confirmed, it implies all the surface features were created by wind, impacts and weather – not by active geology. The hopeful cryovolcano announced last year (Sotra Facula, […]

Awards

Poison Comets Brought Life to Earth

April 5, 2011

You don’t drink formaldehyde; you stick dead things in it. Why on earth would some evolutionists claim that “Poison could have set the stage for the origins of life?” That’s exactly a headline on Science Daily and PhysOrg, with Live Science chiming in that the poisonous chemical has been “linked” to the origin of life […]

Philosophy of Science

Assuming Reality: Can Crater Dating Be Tested?

April 3, 2011

Two astronomers in Paris have come up with a new crater chronology for the moon and offered it as a way to date other objects in the inner solar system. Their paper in Icarus,1 however, assumes so many unobservable things, the reader may wonder if it talks about the true history of the moon or […]

Dumb Ideas

Imagining Worlds: Is It Science?

April 2, 2011

An entry on Space.com is almost pure speculation with no observation. Does it belong on a science news site? Reporter Clara Moskowitz gave Viorel Badescu [Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania] free rein to imagine life on free-floating planets (FFPs) – bodies wandering free in space after being abandoned, like wayward children, from their […]

Solar System

Its Raining Methane on Titans Dunes

March 18, 2011

Imagine a world where it rains liquid natural gas. That world is Titan, the Mercury-sized moon of Saturn. In Science this week,1 Cassini scientists reported large equatorial clouds over Titan’s vast dune fields, and a darkening of the surface after an apparent cloudburst. Since only hydrocarbons can be liquid at the temperatures there, and methane […]

Mind and Brain

If Pigs Have Wings, SETI Could Be Robots

March 11, 2011

The SETI program is still waiting to catch a sentient signal from deep space, but in the absence of data, people are free to speculate. Michael Dyer, a computer science professor at UCLA, is certain that the first aliens to visit Earth will be robots. He even attached a probability to it, according to Adam […]

Cosmology

Young Galaxy Cluster Already Mature

March 9, 2011

“Isn’t that special.” The remark, in common parlance, is a generic way of avoiding a judgment call. When astronomers were confronted with the sight of a galaxy too mature for its age, Space.com reported the response: “And that makes it special, researchers said.” The headline was, “Surprise! Ancient Galaxy Cluster Still Looks Young.” […]

Physics

Enceladus Geyser Heat Much Higher Than Thought Possible

March 7, 2011

The Enceladus problem – accounting for the heat source of a tiny moon of Saturn – just jumped by more than an order of magnitude. “Cassini Finds Enceladus Is a Powerhouse,” reported Jet Propulsion Laboratory today. “Heat output from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is much greater than was previously thought possible,” […]

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Saturns Titan Is Changing