The nearly simultaneous and completely coincidental occurrences of a near miss by an asteroid and the biggest meteor to hit the Earth in more than a century have prompted a lot of questions. There is so much that is fascinating…
Year: 2013
Close Only Counts In Horseshoes
At about 2:30 p.m. EST on February 15th, 2013, a 50 meter (150 feet) diameter asteroid will approach within 28,000 km (17,000 miles) of the Earth, traveling at about 8 km/s (18,000 mph). Should you be worried? That depends on…
A Pattern And A Puzzle
In my previous post, I talked about the strong evidence for the presence of water ice in permanently shaded crater floors around the north pole of Mercury. Part of the evidence for this was the thermal modeling of surface and…
Ice On A Sun-Scorched Planet
The universe is full of surprises. More than once I have read an article about a new discovery and told myself something like this: “That can’t be right! They must have messed up somewhere, and we’ll read about how in…
Comets of 2013
Many of the patterns of astronomy are so regular that we quite literally set our clocks by them. Our notions of time are tied to the regular cycles of day and night and of the yearly seasons, all of which…
The “What Ifs?” of Science Fiction
If someone were to ask people who have one way or another made a career out of science or technology what they read in their childhood, the chances are very good that the common thread would be science fiction. I…
Top