Scientists have labeled nine objects in our solar system as dwarf planets, or petite-sized planets that have not cleared their orbits. Pluto is one, and Ceres in the asteroid belt is another. Quaoar is also a dwarf planet. Astronomers discovered it out beyond Neptune’s orbit in 2002. Then, in 2007, they discovered that Quaoar has a moon, which they named Weywot. On February 8, 2023, ESA announced a surprise discovery: Quaoar has a ring! And, it’s rather far away from the dwarf planet. According to theory, at the ring’s distance, it should instead have formed into another moon. Why didn’t it?

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The region of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, where temperatures can reach over 1.1 million degrees Celsius, has enormous, massive holes all over it, according to recent research by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Your worries are valid, and the enormous solar holes can affect Earth because they have ejected streams of gaseous material that are on their way to the planet soon. What’s causing the sun to have such large holes in it and how can they affect the planet’s inhabitants? Also, is our sun dying?

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Here is presented the widely dismissed account that probably sometime in the mid-11th century, Danish Vikings from Schleswig and the Danelaw (as ascertained from runic rock inscriptions) arrived at Santos in Brazil and proceeded inland to Paraguay. From a fortified hill near the Brazilian border, they occupied a defensive position for some part of two centuries, keeping watch on a nearby small mountain. It has been reported that in the 20th century, beneath the mountain under observation, was discovered a large area whose walls and roof are built of concrete unknown to science and cannot be opened but are believed to conceal a network of tunnels. The following unravels the story presented by just a few advocates, of Vikings in South America. Like so many of these tales, it needs further investigation to enable verification, but nonetheless, it provides food for thought.

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Annular solar eclipse of October 14, 2023

Viewers along a narrow path in North, Central and South America will see the annular solar eclipse of October 14, 2023. At mid-eclipse, the moon – in a distant part of its orbit – will pass directly in front of the sun. But the sun – slightly larger in the sky on that day than the moon – will appear as a bright ring, or annulus, around the moon. A fascinating event you won’t want to miss! Read about the October 14, 2023, eclipse.

Hybrid Solar Eclipse on April 20, 2023

When and where to watch: A hybrid solar eclipse will be visible in Australia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia (West Papua and Papua) on April 20, 2023. At the same time, a partial solar eclipse will be visible in southeast Asia, East Indies, Australia, Philippines and New Zealand. The partial eclipse beings at 1:34 UTC and ends at 6:59 UTC. The central (hybrid) eclipse begins at 2:37 UTC and ends at 5:56 UTC.  See the path of this month’s solar eclipse.

Link contributed by Gene Savoy, Jr.

Earth’s interior is a far from quiet place. Deep below our surface activities, the planet rumbles with activity, from plate tectonics to convection currents that circulate through the hot magmatic fluids far underneath the crust.

Now scientists studying satellite data of Earth have identified something inside Earth we’ve never seen before: a new type of magnetic wave that sweeps around the surface of our planet’s core, every seven years.

This discovery could offer insight into how Earth’s magnetic field is generated, and provide clues of our planet’s thermal history and evolution – that is, the gradual cooling of the planetary interior.

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Many of us were probably still figuring out how to use the copier on our third day of an internship. Well, when 17-year-old Wolf Cukier interned at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the summer of 2019, he was already assigned with some serious tasks. Among them was examining variations in star brightness captured by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). And as if that weren’t impressive enough, he even managed to discover planet TOI 1338b, as it is known now, only three days into his internship.

This exoplanet is currently the only known planet in the TOI 1338 system. It lies in the constellation Pictor, about 1,300 lightyears away from Earth.

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We define a day as 86,400 seconds, or 24 hours – the time it takes for Earth to rotate once. However, the Earth doesn’t rotate perfectly uniformly. Usually, the Earth’s rotation is actually slowing down so that the length of the day increases by about 1.8 milliseconds per century, on average. This means that 600 million years ago a day lasted only 21 hours.

The variation in day length is due to several factors, including the tidal effects of the Moon and Sun, core-mantle coupling inside the Earth, and the overall distribution of mass on the planet. Seismic activity, glaciation, the weather, the oceans and the Earth’s magnetic field may also affect the length of the day.

In 2020 scientists made a startling discovery. They found that, instead of slowing down, the Earth has started to spin faster. It is now spinning faster than at any time in the last 50 years. In fact, the shortest 28 days on record all occurred during 2020.

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Night sky lovers can typically spot a smattering of a few planets, but in late March, a stunning visual takes shape when five planets line up beneath the moon in a display sometimes called a planetary parade or alignment.

Onlookers will be able to catch the best glimpse of the alignment — which will include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus — on Tuesday evening, just after sunset. Much of the display will become visible on Friday and will continue to be so over the next couple of weeks, according to Cameron Hummels, a computational astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology.

Read the entire article here.

link submitted by Gene Savoy Jr.

Here’s aп iпtrigυiпg idea. What if yoυ were iпformed that everythiпg iп yoυr life was pre-plaппed? Eveп crazier, what if yoυr history, preseпt, aпd fυtυre are all takiпg place right пow?

Aп iпcredible пew theory established as the “block υпiverse” theory asserts that time does пot actυally “flow like a river”; rather, everythiпg is ever-preseпt.

Dr. Bradford Skow, a philosophy professor at the Massachυsetts Iпstitυte of Techпology, proposes that if we “look dowп” oп the cosmos as if it were a piece of paper, we woυld see time stretched oυt iп all directioпs, jυst as we perceive space at aпy giveп time.

Is it possible that we oпly see time as esseпtially liпear becaυse that is what oυr hυmaп braiпs are capable of compreheпdiпg?

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It was the middle of winter under a moody Alaskan sky. On one side stretched the flat expanse of the Colville River. On the other, a soaring cliff face of frozen pewter-grey rock, backing onto hundreds of miles of desolate tundra.

Armed with an ice-axe and crampons, buffeted by frigid Arctic winds in temperatures that hovered around -28C (-20F), Pat Druckenmiller was searching for something special.

It was 2021 and just getting to the cliff had been an extreme expedition. In this remote northerly corner of Alaska, there are no roads, so the palaeontologist and colleagues from the University of Alaska travelled to the site on snow scooters, then set up a camp nearby. It was so cold, each tent was equipped with its own wood-burning stove. For the coming weeks, the team would be constantly battling frostbite – “we had some close calls,” says Druckenmiller – rockfalls, and hungry polar bears. But it was worth it.

Read the entire article posted here.