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Enceladus Eruptions Caught on Camera

Enceladus, one of the small icy moons of Saturn, is undergoing eruptive activity right now.  Evidence from previous flybys has now been corroborated visually in stunning images that made the lead stories on NASA, JPL and Cassini.  Amateur enthusiasts were already expressing excitement at the images before the announcement (see Unmanned Spaceflight).  The complete set […]

ICR Challenges Validity of Radiometric Dating

acked out the facilities of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California Saturday.  Their frequent applause was not for contemporary musicians or a preacher, but for scientists.  Ten miles from their headquarters, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) had rented the large auditorium for the formal presentation of the results of its eight-year research […]

Grown Man in the Stellar Crib: Now What?

The cover of Science News has a strange cartoon explained on the inside in an article by Ron Cowen: Imagine peering into a nursery and seeing, among the cooing babies, a few that look like grown men.  That’s the startling situation that astronomers have stumbled upon as they’ve looked deep into space and thus back […]

Creation-Evolution Contest in Grand Canyon: New York Times Prints Eyewitness Report

New York Times reporter Jodi Wilgoren explored “parallel universes” along the Colorado River this summer (here for multimedia version).  She rode a raft with a creationist group led by Tom Vail for several days, then rode with another party led by evolutionist Eugenie Scott.  Her experiences with these two groups illustrated the stark contrast between […]

Spider Blood Survives 20 Million Years – So They Say

EurekAlert announced, “Spider blood found in 20 million year old fossil.”  Science Daily repeated the story.  The articles even tell how the spider died (it was climbing a tree and was struck on the head by fast-flowing sap).  The BBC News said, “Spider is ‘20 million years old.’” At least they put quotes around the […]

Do Dead Meteorites Tell Tales?

Several researchers lately have claimed that meteorites can tell us the history of our solar system.  How can this be? Messages from Heaven:  Richard Kerr in Science1 reported on work by Strom et al. in the same issue2 that the asteroid belt was the source of the so-called “late heavy bombardment” that is said to […]

Cosmic Baby Boom Becomes Baby Explosion

There has been a trend in deep space astronomy to find more and more mature-looking stars and galaxies farther back in time (04/06/2005, 03/10/2005, 07/08/2005).  That trend just doubled or tripled.  An announcement in Nature1 (see press release by European Southern Observatory), a thousand galaxies were found at distances corresponding to estimated ages of 9 […]

Grand Canyon Still an Unsolved Puzzle

Arguably the best-known geological landmark on the planet, Grand Canyon has been scrutinized and “geologized” for well over a century, yet remains an enigma, according to the title of a new book by James Lawrence Powell, Grand Canyon: Solving Earth’s Grandest Puzzle (Pi Press, 2005).  The book was reviewed by John C. Schmidt (Utah State) […]

Planets Can Form Rapidly

Observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope, announced in a JPL press release, “pose a challenge to existing theories of giant planet formation, especially those in which planets build up gradually over millions of years.”  Three young stars show clearings in dust disks surrounding them, suggesting that gas giant planets inhabit the clearings and must have […]

Floored of the Rings: Cassini Baffles Scientists at Saturn

For the past few months (02/28/2005), the Cassini spacecraft has had a ringside seat at Saturn, with high inclination orbits that have provided the best viewing angles since orbit insertion last year (07/01/2004).  Cassini scored, as it soared around and around the horde of ring particles, and poured its stored data toward waiting scientists at […]

“Marvelous Puzzle”: Enceladus’ South Pole Surface Less Than 1,000 Years Old

Enceladus, a moon of Saturn smaller than the British isles (comparison image), has a region at the south pole that is less than 1,000 years old, and maybe only 10 years old.  This conclusion, announced at Cassini science briefings in London August 30, is based on multi-instrument observations taken July 14 during the closest flyby […]

Meteorite Impacts Solar System Theories

A study partly funded by NASA and published in Nature1 has thrown a “monkey wrench” into theories of the origin of the solar system, according to a press release from the University of Toronto.  Small grains of minerals called chondrules in two meteorites are “young” – too young to have been formed in the assumed […]

Dinolava Theory Back in Eruption

Meteor impact or volcanic eruption?  Science Now reports that the volcano theory of dinosaur extinction has rejuvenated, challenging the long popularity of the Chicxulub impact hypothesis.     Notwithstanding all the dramatic animations on science documentaries of a cataclysmic meteor wiping out the dinosaurs, the article by Carolyn Gramling states that “Scientists have long wrangled […]

Planetary Wanderings

Here are news briefs that are out of this world: Death Star Sighted:  On August 2, the Cassini Spacecraft took the best-ever pictures of Mimas, the little moon of Saturn with a huge crater Herschel that makes it look like the Death Star from Star Wars.  Why this little moon should be one of the […]

New Planet Discovered Beyond Pluto; Another Has a Moon

A 10th planet, the biggest since Pluto was found 75 years ago, has been discovered.  Late Friday, a JPL press release announced the find made in January by Dr. Mike Brown of Caltech in research partly funded by NASA.  The planet, temporarily designated 2003 UB313 until a name is approved, is three times farther than […]
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