Academic research is a driving force behind innovation in science, technology, and culture. The studies being conducted at the top universities today have the potential to yield new knowledge that could influence the day to day lives of millions or billions of people. While doctoral and post-doctoral studies can be a long, difficult path, the…
Bibliographic information: Nefs SV et al. 2012. Four ultra-short period eclipsing M-dwarf binaries in the WFCAM Transit Survey. Accepted for publication in Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.; arXiv:1206.1200v1 Astronomers working with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on Hawaii have discovered four pairs of stars that orbit each other in less than 4 hours. …
Long term predictions of changes in the earth’s orientation to VLBI sources have been historically unreliable. The IAU has found that current methods are “not consistent with dynamical theory”. Part of the problem appears to be that measurements of the precession observable are made to points outside the moving frame of the solar system yet…
– From Dave McComas, IBEX Principal Investigator Back in October 2009, we announced IBEX’s first major science results, including the observation of what has become known as the “IBEX Ribbon.” Since that time, IBEX has been detecting energetic neutral atoms coming from the boundary of our Solar System and from regions of our Earth’s magnetosphere,…
Several posters on the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum (BAUT) have expressed doubts about the non-conventional “binary model” of precession. The main critic is a poster that goes by the name of “Celestial Mechanic” (CM) who has called the binary model “rubbish, pure and simple”. While this is not the most constructive way to…
Ever since the Voyager 2 data confirmed the nonsymmetrical shape of the solar system scientists have pondered its cause (i). In summary, the edge of the heliosphere (the place where the solar wind slows to sub sonic speeds) appears to be 1.2 billion kilometers shorter on the south side of the solar system (and in…
Mysteriously, four spacecraft that flew past the Earth have each displayed unexpected anomalies in their motions. These newfound enigmas join the so-called “Pioneer anomaly” as hints that unexplained forces may appear to act on spacecraft. A decade ago, after rigorous analyses, anomalies were seen with the identical Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft as they hurtled…
The Voyager 2 spacecraft’s Plasma Science instrument, developed at MIT in the 1970s, has turned up surprising revelations about the boundary zone that marks the edge of the sun’s influence in space. The unexpected findings emerged in the last few weeks as the spacecraft traversed the termination shockwave formed when the flow of particles constantly…
By Walter Cruttenden, Author ‘Lost Star of Myth and Time’ Discoveries like the ancient Greek Antikythera computer (1500 years before the invention of precision geared devices) the Baghdad batteries (2000 years before Volta ‘invented’ the battery) or dental and brain surgery artifacts found in ancient Pakistan (8000 years out of historical sequence) appear ‘anomalous’…
