Tag: NASA

Space & Time Posted on

NASA’s New Coronal Mass Ejection Close-Up Will Melt Your Brain

Image: Sunspot/NASA If one were to land on the Sun in some mythical spacecraft resistant to two million or so degrees Fahrenheit, they might be surprised at the temperatures encountered. Passing through the upper layers of said star, our solar passenger would find temperatures plummeting as they came closer and closer to the boiling plasma surface, from many millions of degrees in the Sun’s upper atmosphere to a mere 10,000 or so degrees Fahrenheit as they entered the Sun’s “interior.” As solar material is ejected from that interior, it gains energy and heats up as it moves outward into space. The atmospheric zones where this heating occurs are the chromosphere and the transition region. Together they form a volatile and rather mysterious zone of […] Read More

Science Posted on

Scientific Paradoxes are Omens of Advance

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” –Charles Darwin There are problems with science today, no doubt. With all the knowledge we’ve accumulated about the Universe, from the smallest subatomic scales to the farthest recesses of deep space, there are still realms and regimes where our best theories fail, where the predictions and the data don’t match, and where no known explanation is sufficient for the phenomena that shows up. Image credit: The Michelson-Morley interferometer, via University of Virginia. But this is where all the potential for scientific growth lives. Believe it or not, one of […] Read More

Parallel Universes Posted on

Are Parallel Universes Real?

Farnsworth: “There is it. The edge of the Universe!” Fry: “Far out. So there’s an infinite number of parallel Universes?” Farnsworth: “No, just the two.” Fry: “Oh, well, I’m sure that’s enough.” Bender: “I’m sick of parallel Bender lording his cowboy hat over me!” –Futurama Our existence here in this Universe is something that we know is rare, special, beautiful, and full of wonder. Image credit: Kelly Montgomery. Some things happen with amazing regularity and predictability: the occurrence of days-and-nights, the tides, the seasons, the motion of the heavenly bodies, and so much more. The physical laws that govern the Universe are very, very well understood, and that understanding has helped us construct a rather comprehensive view of exactly what our observable Universe consists […] Read More

Science Posted on

Our Star-Trek Future? NASA Scientists Engineering a Warp-Drive Solution for Faster-Than-Light Space Travel

Move over Star Trek! According to state-of-the art theory, a warp drive could cut the travel time between stars from tens of thousands of years to weeks or months. Harold G. White, a physicist and advanced propulsion engineer at NASA and other NASA engineers are trying to determine whether faster-than-light travel — warp drive — might someday be possible. The team has attempting to slightly warp the trajectory of a photon, changing the distance it travels in a certain area, and then observing the change with a device called an interferometer. “Space has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago,” said Dr. White, 43, who runs the research project told the New York Times. “And we know that when you look […] Read More

Consciousness Posted on

2013: The Great Stellar Scroll

By Larry Simmons “It’s not often that anyone from earth is allowed to take this trip,” a voice said. “We’ll bring you along, but because you were unscheduled, you won’t be able to make the jump in one stage.” Alec thought he had been asleep, but this was far too real to be called a dream. The voice continued: “Halfway through the trip we’ll have to drop you off for a few moments. The place where we’ll leave you will appear very strange, but you’ll be perfectly safe. Just be sure that you wait quietly, don’t move, don’t touch anything, and don’t speak to anyone you might see.” He didn’t really know why this amazing experience was happening to him. He had no idea […] Read More