Category: Astronomy
Hubble’s Law name change urged, to recognize Big Bang pioneer, Fr. Georges Lemaitre
| November 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Big Bang, Cosmology, Intelligent Design |
Belgian priest Lemaitre apparently got the idea, which “underpins modern cosmology,” two years before Edwin Hubble: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recommends that the law now be known as the Hubble–Lemaître law. In the 1920s, the Belgian described in French how the expansion of the Universe would cause galaxies to move away from Earth at […]
Moonmoons
| October 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Physics |
You read the title right. Recently, some astronomers thought they had spotted an “exomoon,” a moon orbiting an exoplanet. There are, of course, bound to be some. But now Gizmodo introduces us to the concept of the moonmoon, a submoon orbiting a moon. One research team is taking on the possibility: The team’s short analysis […]
Astronomers: First possible exomoon is the size of Neptune, and orbiting a “Jupiter”
| October 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Exoplanets, Intelligent Design |
An MIT astronomer is 75% certain that an object previously suspected of being an Intro of exomoon (a moon orbiting an exoplanets) really is that: The first confirmed detection of an exomoon would mark a milestone in exploring planetary systems throughout the Galaxy. It would, among other things, allow scientists to test ideas of moon […]
“Compelling new evidence” claimed for comets generating phosphates for earliest life
| October 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
From ScienceDaily: Little was known about a key element in the building blocks, phosphates, until now. University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers, in collaboration with colleagues in France and Taiwan, provide compelling new evidence that this component for life was found to be generated in outer space and delivered to Earth in its first one […]
Rob Sheldon on the claimed need for new physics
| August 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Physics |
Why do computers mean we never have to be humble again? We asked our physics color commentator, Rob Sheldon, about the recent deflation of the “expanding blueberry muffin” picture of the universe. That is, as one astrophysicist puts it “Just as cosmological measurements have became so precise that the value of the Hubble constant was […]
“Expanding blueberry muffin” picture of the universe collapses
| August 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Physics |
And cosmologists race to win a “great cosmic bake-off” to produce a new one, says astrophysicist: Just as cosmological measurements have became so precise that the value of the Hubble constant was expected to be known once and for all, it has been found instead that things don’t make sense. Instead of one we now […]
New study: Yes, our sun IS peculiar
| August 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Physics |
Only 7-20% of the “solar twins were like the sun in composition and no exoplanets were found orbiting them. Although the report does not dwell on this, it implies that the number of truly Earth-like planets in our galaxy may be limited by the absence of sun-like stars.
From Cold Case Christianity: Is the Astronomy in the Book of Job Scientifically Consistent?
| July 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Intelligent Design, Religion |
From J. Warner Wallace at Cold Case Christianity: Yesterday I posted a number of scientific consistencies found in the Old Testament. While I think there are good reasons why God might not reveal advanced scientific details in Scripture, I do expect God’s Word to be scientifically consistent with the world we experience. One interesting scientific […]
All the aliens in one place at one time…
| July 1, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design |
Plus a bunch of useful stuff. In a month when we have been heard hearing about all things alien, from everything from it’s good news that they probably don’t exist through to they might be hoarding stars… here is a book that has it all in one place: From Sophia Centre press: An anthology of […]
Does an arrested galaxy violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
| June 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Physics |
“…stuck in an unproductive state of arrested development…” From Tim Collins at the Daily Mail: A rare galaxy stuck in a state of arrested development is providing scientists with a unique window into the early days of the universe. The unusual cosmic region has remained frozen for the past 10 billion years, producing no new […]
Our Milky Way galaxy is twice as large as previously thought?
| June 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Intelligent Design |
From Mara Johnson-Groh at Astronomy: Despite residing in it, it’s hard for us to know exactly how big the Milky Way is. But new research has found that our galaxy is bigger than previously thought. Using a large survey of stars instead of just models (as previous researchers did), astronomers have now determined the disk […]
Retro: Futurist Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) on the future of space exploration. Which is where we are living now.
| May 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Culture, Exoplanets, Geo-strategic issues, Intelligent Design |
Suzan Mazur has republished her wide-ranging interview with the Renaissance man (in an age of specialization), first published in Omni in 1981, at Oscillations. The interview as a whole offers insights on how space exploration was viewed back then (for example, habitable planets were not top of mind): Suzan Mazur: Since every last mineral can […]
“Complete surprise”: Stars are not necessarily born in the way we thought. Also, galaxies can form much faster than thought
| May 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Big Bang, Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Physics |
From Cardiff University at Eurekalert: The birth of stars from dense clouds of gas and dust may be happening in a completely unexpected way in our own galaxy and beyond. This is according to an international team of researchers, including scientists from Cardiff University, who have found that long-held assumptions about the relationship between the […]
“Opaque research” has some astronomers concerned.
| April 12, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology, Peer review |
From Sarah Wild at Physics Today: Irreproducibility and the black box nature of machine learning plague many fields of science, from Earth observation to drug discovery. But astronomy represents a notable case study because the quantity of data is burgeoning at an unprecedented rate. The installation of new data-churning telescopes, combined with marked improvements in […]
My conclusion (so far) on the suggested infinite past, beginningless physical world: not plausible, likely not possible, here’s why
One of the more astonishing points of debate that has come out at UD is that at least some defenders of the evolutionary materialistic view are prepared to argue for or assume as default that we have had a beginningless past for the physical world. This has come up several times in recent years and […]
“Alien Megastructure Is Not The Cause Of The Dimming Of Tabby’s Star ” (Design Inference filter in action; Sci Fi Fans disappointed)
According to SciTech Daily in a January 3, 2018 article, Tabby’s star, aka KIC 8462852, has had a mysterious brightening and dimming cycle. (Such a cycle, of course raises the interesting thought of the erection of a Dyson Sphere or a similar megastructure.) As the article reports: >>A team of more than 200 researchers, including […]
Newly discovered giant planet does not follow the rules
| November 4, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Exoplanets, Intelligent Design |
From Nicole Mortillaro at CBC: The star is a red M-dwarf, the most common star in our universe. But until now, it wasn’t believed that a gaseous planet of such a size, would ever exist orbiting this type of low-mass star. … The reason astronomers believed that a gas giant this large wasn’t capable of […]
Researchers: Hands-on tests contradict black hole model
| August 31, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Cosmology |
From ScienceDaily: A long-standing but unproven assumption about the X-ray spectra of black holes in space has been contradicted by hands-on experiments performed at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine. Z, the most energetic laboratory X-ray source on Earth, can duplicate the X-rays surrounding black holes that otherwise can be watched only from a great distance […]
Eclipse info and trivia
| August 21, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
Make it look like you are working… From Time and Date, how much eclipse you can see from where you live and the date of the next eclipse (moon). Here’s a compendium of historical eclipse information from LiveScience, including: One of the greatest eclipse observers in history was the Persian scholar Ibn al-Haytham, also known by […]
Is our current theory of Earth’s formation mistaken?
| August 19, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Intelligent Design, Physics |
From ScienceDaily: New geochemical research indicates that existing theories of the formation of the Earth may be mistaken. The results of experiments to show how zinc (Zn) relates to sulphur (S) under the conditions present at the time of the formation of the Earth more than 4 billion years ago, indicate that there is a […]
