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When orbits have been seen as being perturbed from the calculated orbit, hypothesizing a not (yet) seen object doing the perturbing has been, so far, a pretty good prediction, dating back to the discovery of Neptune based on the perturbations of the orbit of Uranus in 1846: https://earthsky.org/human-wor...

yes nutation due to mantle changes are part of it

https://earthsky.org/earth/ear...

An interesting aspect of this is that our solar system I think is in the part where the disc starts to bend, according to this diagram of where our solar system is in the galaxy...

Your mama's so fat she bent the galaxy.

An interesting aspect of this is that our solar system I think is in the part where the disc starts to bend, according to this diagram of where our solar system is in the galaxy...

It seems like it would be kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but maybe for some reason in the places where the gas discs of a universe start to bend, life it more likely for some reason. Or course, with a sample size of one you can't really extrapolate much - just seems like an interesting coincidence.

If I'm wrong about the location I would love to know more exactly where we are.

Evacuation indicates some bio-hazard, however the question would remain "why there",

Some Hazard for sure.... what the summary didn't say is they evacuated a bit more than the observatory.. They evacuated the entire mountain, including a post office, and residents having to leave their houses, according to this article.

The observatory has been closed – and residents and staff have been asked to stay off the mountain – since September 6. The statement said Sunspot Solar Observatory will transition back to regular operations as of Monday, September 17. The AURA statement said:

The residents that vacated their homes will be returning to the site, and all employees will return to work this week.

AURA has been cooperating with an on-going law enforcement investigation of criminal activity that occurred at Sacramento Peak. During this time, we became concerned that a suspect in the investigation potentially posed a threat to the safety of local staff and residents. For this reason, AURA temporarily vacated the facility and ceased science activities at this location.

The decision to vacate was based on the logistical challenges associated with protecting personnel at such a remote location, and the need for expeditious response to the potential threat.

AURA determined that moving the small number of on-site staff and residents off the mountain was the most prudent and effective action to ensure their safety.

In light of recent developments in the investigation, we have determined there is no risk to staff, and Sunspot Solar Observatory is transitioning back to regular operations as of September 17th.

I'm pretty sure that Stephen Hawking had some kind of ideas concerning the existence of black holes.

Hopefully we get more information about black holes later this year.

It's amazing to watch the 22-year time-lapse to see the orbits of the stars, and how fast S2 goes at closest approach. It's amazing to realize that it's only moving at around 3% of the speed of light ("only"). It's amazing to consider that the gravity of the black hole itself is so strong that something moving more than 33 times as fast as that star cannot escape from it.

First, there are no physics barriers to visiting other stars, purely engineering ones.

Engineering is applied physics so that statement is something of a tautology.

Second, many stars are relatively close together.

That statement is true in a sense but misleading. The fastest spacecraft we have ever launched will take tens of thousands of years to travel even the 4.3 light years to our nearest star. "Close" when you are talking about distances between stars is in reality still an almost unimaginably vast distance so close isn't really very close.

We see no attempts by anyone to apparently communicate with other civilizations

That seems like circular reasoning. You are saying we don't have evidence of other civilizations because we don't have evidence of them trying to communicate with each other. But since such evidence would constitute proof of their existence your reasoning seems to circle back on itself unless I misunderstand where you are going with this argument.

We also see no signs of any sort of megastructures like Ring Worlds and Dyson Spheres.

Why should we? We have no evidence or credible physics theory that such a structure is actually physically possible in real life. Heck, where would one get enough material to create such a structure? You could strip every planet in our solar system of every useful molecule and you still wouldn't have enough material to surround our star with a ring much less a sphere. Just because we can imagine something doesn't mean it's possible in the universe we actually live in.

That must have been some radical fisheye they had mounted, because Jupiter is roughly opposite the sun right now. The bright star near the sun would have been Venus.

Four planets were visible during the eclipse (in order of brightness): Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury.

The real doomsday scenario for climate change isn't some places becoming dryer, or wetter, or hotter, or colder, or fish and coral dying off, or sea levels rising and displacing coastal communities - it's changes in the composition of our atmosphere. 50 to 80% of the oxygen we breathe comes from oceanic phytoplankton. Imagine a scenario driven by climate change where increasing carbon dioxide dissolved into the oceans and creates carbonic acid, increasing the oceanic acidity level; then increased temperatures cause ice melts that mess up salinity levels of the ocean and disrupt the great conveyer belt; finally due to these disruptions the phytoplankton experiences a massive die-off and the atmospheric oxygen levels are reduced to levels similar to, say, the top of Everest today. NYC and London and Hong Kong being under meters of water would be a disaster, but wouldn't be unsurmountable. Humanity being unable to breathe could make us extinct. (Disclosure - I'm not climate or biology scientist. This is all just person supposition.)

they aren't making any more/there are NO "land factories"

Oh please... Tell that to China Dubai Iceland...

Loks like a cut and paste error from here:

http://earthsky.org/astronomy-...

"Its closest point will come on February 11, 2017 at around 8 UTC, at which time the comet will be 0.08 AU (7.4 million miles, about 12 million km, or some 30 times the moon’s distance) from the Earth. Will you see it? Well are you an experienced observer or astrophotographer, used to finding faint objects in the sky? If not, probably not."

Right, although Lewis Ashwal looks quite white to me. Oh, the wonders of being able to use a simple Google search...

There is a recently published new theory of gravity that doesn't need dark matter to explain the movement of stars. It does on the other hand need Einstein to be wrong: http://earthsky.org/space/erik... The article has a link to the actual paper.

BioSphere II was a poorly planned theme-park garden now owned by the University of Arizona.

Want to see what can be done if you really understand ecology and not just theme park construction? Look at Ascension Island. Joseph Hooker, with the aid of Charles Darwin and Kew gardens, built the ecosystem on the island out of completely foreign species. This cloud rainforest was built whole cloth on a bare lump of clinker sticking out of the ocean long before electrification.

The key difference is ocean.

Biosphere II was designed with almost no significant bodies of water containing phytoplankton, which produce up to 85% of all the oxygen. The facility has a glorified wake pool that would have fit in a large cities' water park. The planners put in 50% more grassland than synthetic ocean. Much of that 850m "ocean" is dedicated to a coral reef. Unsurprisingly, the oxygen levels crashed soon after closing the doors. Both times.

If one thing was unrealistic about O'Neil Colonies it was the sheer lack of mixing oceans in all the designs. Water is one of the most abundant substances outside the dry line in the Solar system. It's also a good radiation shield and has high thermal mass. The giant magic space windows that somehow didn't let in vast amounts of cosmic radiation were more realistic.

O'Neil also wrote about Bernal Spheres. These are slightly better, but have their own engineering challenges. Artists still show the interiors as if they were a cutout of a heavily populated Italian riverside. More relaistic would be 70-80% ocean with islands or peninsula. But in Bezo's case it's probably a matter of go big or go home. And the Island Three plans are certainly Big Homes.

http://earthsky.org/space/whoo...

During the leonid storm (2000? 2001?) I heard sounds which sounded like the sizzling sound described in that article but I thought i was imagining it because the metors were 100km or more over my head - way too far for any sound to be heard, let alone simultaneously with the event. It turns out that the sound is real and explainable. :)

This is an El Nino year, the higher surface temperature will release more oxygen from the ocean because gas solubility decreases with increasing temperature.

So this is just a preview of what we can expect as global temperatures continue to rise. Got it

-Most of the world's oxygen comes from the phytoplankton, and their population dynamics are remarkably challenging to model. However, if they are not dying en masse, then the oxygen production will remain about the same; some may be redistributed.

Nice use of a tautology to brush off a potential catastrophe. Paraphrasing "If no major disaster is happening to plankton things are pretty much the same...otherwise we're fucked cause our biggest source of oxygen is gone"

Your perspective is quite alarming!

Simple fact: Most of the oxygen you breath comes from the ocean.

Simpler Fact: Most of the life in the Oceans produces oxygen as a waste byproduct.

Simple fact: Most of the oxygen you breath comes from the ocean.

-The ocean is alkaline, which means that stronger base electrolytes (as compared to the weak carbonic acid) still dominate the charge balance.
-This is an El Nino year, the higher surface temperature will release more oxygen from the ocean because gas solubility decreases with increasing temperature.
-Most of the world's oxygen comes from the phytoplankton, and their population dynamics are remarkably challenging to model. However, if they are not dying en masse, then the oxygen production will remain about the same; some may be redistributed.
-The sky indeed is remaining above us, and not falling.

Please check your conspiracy theories at the door.

http://earthsky.org/space/can-...

Since we're on the subject of the Solar System a relatively rare phenomenon is occurring Jan. 20 to Feb. 20. All five of the easily visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) are visible together in the early morning sky. The last time that occurred was Dec./Jan. 2004/2005. They will be visible together again Aug. 13 to 19 but will be more easily seen in the Southern Hemisphere because Mercury and Venus will be difficult to see in the dusk sky.

Forbes is clinging desperately to relevance and their barbaric business model. The execs over there are getting worried about their bonuses. I didn't make it to the article before I threw up my hands in dismay. Here's a link to an earthsky article on the same subject. http://earthsky.org/space/how-...

I could make a star map with 6 random points on a drawing. http://earthsky.org/tonight/us... Well, that's 8 stars, but trim two off the dipper handle and you have a "star map" to Polaris. People only see the sky in 2 dimensions, and then, only the visible stars. So using 6 in a pattern found only once in the sky, with the finger pointed at the one you are supposed to go to would work just fine.

Of course there's the plot hole of the Engineers pointing them to a WMD manufacturing site where they weren't even there at the time (from all we can tell). But that drifts off to plot holes, not science holes. Why point out a military base to the group you are planning on attacking with it?

And yes, carbon dating wouldn't work off earth, unless you spent time to measure the local concentrations, but even that wouldn't work unless you knew more about where he came from, as a space traveler would be coming from one planet with one ratio of C14/16 to the planet with a different C14/16 ratio. Carbon dating presumes equilibrium at death, and linear decay after. That said, they would get a reading. It likely wouldn't be accurate, though it should be precise. And there's no reason to think that a reading of 2000 would be broken science, even if inaccurate. If it were last week, or 100,000 years, it wouldn't have mattered to the science. This can be easily put down to stupid characters. They have a carbon dater, but didn't bother to think about the accuracy before using it. They should have just left the "carbon" off the name of the dating technique, and they'd be fine.

And yes a DNA "match" would be silly. I don't "match" my family. So unless the sample they were comparing it with was the twin of the Engineer, it couldn't have been a full match. It could be called a "match" to have it have the same number of chromosomes, with DNA composed of the same base pairs, while being 1-2% different such that they still see us as monkeys.

The surgery wasn't realtime. We can assume it took longer than depicted on screen, and we didn't see all of it. They did repair the underlying tissue, and rehydrate her with fresh plasma, we just didn't see it.

The proof? She was running around fighting squids and engineers shortly after. As you say, it must be done, the difference is, you assume it wasn't and complain, when you could just as easily assume it was, and have no complaint. That makes your complaint trivial and superficial.

That's the least of our problems. Two major astronomical events will happen in four billion years (give or take): the sun will become a red giant and the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.

... a half way decent viewing site should let you see ~5000 stars ...

Recent data suggests there are between 5000 and 6000 stars visible to the naked eye in both hemispheres, so any one person could only see at most about 2500-3000 at a time, and some of those would be obscured by haze at the horizon.

Nevertheless, a heck of a lot more than 50.

This is an unusual event because its part of a series of 4 lunar eclipses in a row (in subsequent 6 full moon cycles), a tetrad which occurs once per 33 years on average. The term 'blood moon' is sometimes used for a lunar eclipse, but it's been popularised for this tetrad by John Hagee to promote his book and claim that it means the end of the world.

Indeed it does originate from a long time ago. There's this quote from the bible, Joel 2:31 (Common English Bible):
" The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.".

Or it could also be a reference to the folklore name 'red moon'. Every full moon has a 'cutsie, abstract, or dramatic name' which predates modern astronomy.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-...

Not to be confused with the spectacular comet Lovejoy (2011). Both were discovered by the same guy so bear his name.

Lovejoy (2013) isn't as bright (barely visible to the naked eye), but should be easily visible with binoculars. It made its closest approach to Earth on Nov 19 and will reach perihelion (closest approach to the sun) Dec 25. It's fairly high up in the Northern hemisphere sky right now.
http://earthsky.org/space/how-to-see-comet-lovejoy-c2013-r1-charts-photos

I have heard some serious claims that life is pretty ubiquitous in space dust but its not commonly accepted or known about. See conspiracy. There's now been several meteors that have made noise in the scientific community which are still hotly debated by people that care to. There has also been interesting spectroscopy from mars. The scientific data from viking is still interpretable as proof for life rather then dis-proof. Its just not enough data to say "Yes life for sure". Tons of blogs and articles roaming the interwebs.

http://earthsky.org/space/did-the-viking-landers-find-life-on-mars-in-1976 illustrates what I am trying to say.

I think we won't know until theres a few hundred thousand of us all working and living in space and at that point knowledge like this will be common because the level of data collection and interaction amongst humanity will be great enough to overcome any obstacles.

Yeah, that'll work

Incredibly harsh environment for earth-like life and seemingly nothing to eat, but those are a priori arguments. Not science.

The Viking labeled release experiment

may have already found life life on Mars back in 1976.
Maybe.

Consensus science (taking a vote of scientist opinions) says no, but scientific method says quite possibly yes. I'm usually on the side of the skeptics, but in this case I certainly wouldn't rule out microbial life. It might help if we actually went looking for it again directly as we did with Viking. Maybe send a microscope robot and some more yummy broth for those hungry little Martians.

Take a read, & think about 2029 + 2036 -> http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-apophis-due-to-pass-close-in-2029

APK

P.S.=> Yes, there's daily life to concern yourself with, however - I just thought I'd "toss this one into the mix" to see how it "stirs up the sauce" in this article's comments...

... apk

Include Cybermen and/or Daleks, and we're one brain-snatching away from three different sci-fi universes colliding with reality.

It hasn't started raining Daleks yet, but does Betelgeuse throwing fireballs at us this weekend count?

http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo
There was almost a million km more ice over last winter than there was in the previous low year of 2007.

There was also an exceptionally strong summer storm this year in early August (the time when ice is thinnest) that led to a lot of ice breaking up - hence the relative ice low.
http://earthsky.org/earth/powerful-summer-storm-in-arctic-reduces-sea-ice-even-more

Result is an at least 30 year low, but it is pretty consistent with the 60 year AMO/PDO ocean cycle:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif

So it doesn't actually look like this is a "death spiral" at least in the short term, more like a bit of seasonal variability in an otherwise 5 year upwards trend.

Sure about that? Betelgeuse could go supernova any minute. It's farther out though at 640 ly.

Found an informative link on this:

http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2012-da14-will-pass-very-close-to-earth-in-2013

And a funny one, is this a spoof site?

http://christwire.org/2012/03/asteroid-2012-da14-set-to-strike-earth-gays-are-to-blame/

LOL XD

You're right, it's methane and ethane. Gasoline has octane. It's possible to convert methane to octane and other hydrocarbon chains.

The interesting part is that the hydrocarbons could be used for plastics production as well as fuel. There's also a nearby source of oxygen and jets of water in space. The Saturn system is much more interesting than Mars.

Americans in general are painfully ignorant of modern diesel technology, which is a shame.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. Until recently, U.S. fuel wasn't compatible with modern diesel tech that needs ultra-low-sulfur fuel.
2. Some European countries until recently had a preferential tax rate on diesel, which had the effect of subsidizing the development of modern diesel tech.
3. Minnesota. Unlike much of Europe, which is warmed by ocean currents, a large part of mainland United States and especially Canada have to deal with average high temperatures below 0 deg C for a significant part of the year. Diesel engines are harder to start in cold weather.

Recent legislation has solved #1 and (indirectly) #2, but #3 will continue to be a problem until global warming sets in.

Yes, and one of the reasons for those predictions was in fact the natural cycle of hurricanes, mentioned here, and explained away here (note that Christopher Landsea actually thought there was no evidence for linking hurricanes with global warming when he withdrew from the IPCC in 2005).

Speaking of solar energy, Dr Brewer of VA Tech developed a renewable hydrogen system that is inexpensive and activated by sunlight.

http://www.earthsky.org/shows/show.php?date=200604 13

Lots of showers throughout the year, although the Perseids is generally the best.
The Leonids, Geminids, and Orionids are the next biggest showers. You can find out here:

Meteor Shower article.

Obviously the best out there for new music is The Indie Sermons of the Rt. Rev Fischer (RSS).

More seriously there are some from a non-geek perspective (it's good to get out a bit):

Dreadful Snake Radio (RSS
A middle aged former musician turned corporate guy. He mixes his love of folk/blues in with his world travels. It is a little "what I did today" but what he does daily is amazing. Everything from podcasting while doing a 5k with his son, while biking in Beijing, at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, to Church (state sponsored) in Beijing on Christmas.

Rocket Boom
Just great. (actually a video cast)

Earth & Sky (RSS)
A great public radio science show. It is not always just new science, it is a lot of explanations that you have probably always been curious about. And it is the best way to stay up to date on cool science events (eclipses, meteor showers, that kind of thing)