Category: Astronomy
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 […]
New evidence of supernova shock wave as origin of our solar system
| August 4, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Intelligent Design, Physics |
From ScienceDaily: Because all the iron-60 from the Solar System’s formation has long since decayed, Telus’ research, published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, focused on its daughter product, nickel-60. The amount of nickel-60 found in meteorite samples — particularly in comparison to the amount of stable, “ordinary” iron-56 — can indicate how much iron-60 was […]
Textbook theory of moon’s origin is challenged
| August 4, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Physics |
From Rebecca Boyle at Quanta: Textbooks say that the moon was formed after a Mars-size mass smashed the young Earth. But new evidence has cast doubt on that story, leaving researchers to dream up new ways to get a giant rock into orbit. In the past five years, a bombardment of studies has exposed a […]
Is Mathematics a Natural Science? (Is that important?)
| July 11, 2017 | Posted by kairosfocus under Animal minds, Astronomy, brains and computation vs contemplation, Logic and First Principles of right reason, Mathematics |
In our time there is a tendency to treat Mathematics as though it is a natural science. This reflects in part the shift in meaning of the term Science in recent centuries, from knowledge and systematic bodies of more or less established knowledge, to the natural sciences based on inductive reasoning on observation and experiment. […]
Fred Hoyle thought that there is design in nature
| May 20, 2017 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Atheism, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
Science historian Michael Flannery offers a vid link below. He notes, Two things are important to bear in mind: first, nothing in Hoyle’s rejection bears upon a teleological universe (Hoyle’s steady state can–and did–coexist with a purposeful and intelligently guided universe); and second, Hoyle’s rejection of the big bang still allows him to have very […]
