I’ve spent the last couple of days as a zombie due to the time change, but now that I feel like myself, I’ve got some catch-up posts to do. The first one has to do with today’s APOD. Can you spot the phoenix shape? It doesn’t mean anything special, it’s just the way our brains see the patterns of light from this gorgeous aurora in Iceland. Ionization of atmospheric gases from charged solar particles doesn’t sound as glamorous as ‘phoenix aurora,’ but I still appreciate the scientific beauty of it. Human beings are excellent at pattern recognition, and so we...
When Isaac Newton quantified gravity, his theory explained how everything in the world around us behaved in its presence. It opened a door to an understanding of something fundamental, yet elusive in explanation. Centuries later, Einstein came along and took a step back, finding a larger more comprehensive theory of gravity, one that explained the strange things that happen in the grand universe. His theory could even explain things that Newton’s theory of gravity could not, such as the odd orbit of Mercury around the Sun. But the greatest part of Einstein’s theory is that if you use it to...
When the Rosetta spacecraft entered orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, first images captured deep circular depressions among the other surface features. Now that the orbiter has taken significant observations of the comet’s surface, the science team has concluded that these depressions are actually sinkholes that form by the same processes that form sinkholes 500 Million kilometers away here on Earth. Sinkholes on Earth form when subsurface material is eroded away. Though not initially visible on the surface, the material falls deep underground leaving a circular cavern. Once enough material has eroded away, the top of the cavern collapses, leaving a large...
