Salem-News.com Astronomy articles

Einstein on Mars: Seven minutes of terror

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.

(Calgary, Alberta) - Woody Allen: “The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind—a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house.”

On August 6 a new NASA Rover, Curiosity—officially the Mars Science Laboratory—landed on Mars. The landing was, by necessity, entirely automated because Mars is too far away for Earth-control.

Astrophysicist: Giant Spaceships are Orbiting Mars

Alien spaceships the size of small moons orbiting Mars?

(CHICAGO) - Dr. Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky calculated the orbital motion of Martian satellite Phobos and came to the jaw-dropping conclusion that the moon is artificial, hollow, and basically a titanic spaceship.

He's world-renown for co-authoring, "Intelligent Life in the Universe" with the late Carl Sagan.

Mystery of Two Suns in Chinese Sky Leaves Scientists Puzzled

The phenomena over China is something so rare that science has not had the opportunity to fully investigate its properties.

(CHICAGO) - A rare meteorological event occurring over the Chinese skies has left scientists scratching their heads. Two brilliant suns suddenly appeared in the sky.

One sun, the normal, bright cheerful one that warms the Earth and lights the countryside continued to slide towards the horizon as dusk approached. The other "sun" suddenly flared to life.

Strange, Gigantic Sublunar Chamber Found on Moon

No one really knows, but the consensus of scientific thought is that the chambers, caves and deep holes have been formed mostly by ancient lava domes and flows.

(CHICAGO) - The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced the discovery of a "giant underground chamber" not far from the Lunar equator. The mysterious chamber is located in the Oceanus Procellarum region of the Moon.

The gigantic, sublunar cavern was spotted by India's Chandrayaan-1 space probe.

The Greatest Star Discovery

Most of the exoplanets that have been discovered are Jupiter-like gas giants.

(LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.) - Perhaps the greatest scientific discovery in the last 15 years has been the identification of planets revolving around stars outside our solar system. Over 500 extrasolar planets or exoplanets have been discovered orbiting nearby stars.

Virtually everywhere astronomers look carefully at nearby stars, planets are observed.

There`s Life on Mars: Famous Scientist Accuses NASA of Hiding Data

(CHICAGO ) - World renowned astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe is spitting mad. The eminent scientist recently reiterated the charge he made against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration back in 2008.

"The discovery of liquid water on Mars combined with earlier discoveries of organic substances in a meteorite that came from Mars, and also of methane in the Martian atmosphere all point to the existence of life—contemporary life—on the Red Planet," the scientist asserted.

NASA Announces Moon `Swimming` With Water - Moonbases Next

Even a lunar soil that contained as little as 1 percent water ice would be sufficient to support the plans to construct lunar bases.

(CHICAGO) - NASA today released data that the Moon has at least enough water to fill 1,500 swimming pools.

Although there'll be no rush by pool manufacturers to fill the lunar void—the Moon is virtually airless and its surface pressure is zero; but the presence of water does pave the way for colonization.

Scientist Declares Alien Signal Sent From Extrasolar Planet Gliese 581g

Professor Steven Vogt of the Carnegie Institution says 40 billion planets may have life or be developing life.

(CHICAGO) - Ragbir Bhathal, an astrophysicist at the University of Western Sydney claims the light pulses he detected in December 2008 is from the region of space where the extrasolar planet Gliese 581g orbits a red dwarf star.

Recently, Gliese 581g was declared 100 percent certain to have life. Now the question has been raised, is it intelligent life?

The Planets: Finding Uranus

This is a particularly easy time to find Uranus because it is in a field where there are few other stars to cause confusion.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - The solar system has eight “official” planets although some still consider Pluto to be a planet. Looking only at the “official” list, from the Sun outwards, there is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. All eight are readily visible to the naked eye or binoculars

Right now Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn are too close to the Sun to be visible. Venus is bright enough so that if you know where to look it can be spotted with the naked eye during the day.

Mars Hoax

‘NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN’

(NASA) - For the seventh year in a row, the Mars Hoax is infecting email boxes around the world. Passed from one reader to another, the message states that on August 27th Mars will approach Earth and swell to the size of a full Moon. "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN," the email declares -- always in caps.

The hoax began in 2003 when on August 27th Mars came within 56 million km of Earth the nearest it has been in 60,000 years.