The Extinction Protocol, 7/31/13

Scientists have discovered that our solar system is very unique. Earth is located in a star system that is by no means the norm in space. As a matter of fact, our solar system appears to be the exception. A stunning exception, in the way it’s laid out to actually foster the very conditions on Earth which makes life possible. In the universe at large, chaos, explosions, and mind-bending collisions between massive celestial bodies appear to be commonplace. After you watch this video, you may never see our little blue planet quite the same again.

Universe Today, 7/18/13, Jason Major

Collisions of neutron stars produce powerful gamma-ray bursts – and heavy elements like gold (Image credit: Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital, Inc.)

Nasa, 7/11/13

It has long been assumed that our solar system, like a comet, has a tail. Just as any object moving through another medium – for example, a meteor traveling through Earth’s atmosphere – causes the particles to form a stream trailing off behind it. But the tail of our solar bubble, called the heliosphere, has never actually been observed, until now.

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has mapped the boundaries of the tail of the heliosphere, something that has never before been possible. Scientists describe this tail, called the heliotail, in detail in a paper published on July 10, 2013, in The Astrophysical Journal. By combining observations from the first three years of IBEX imagery, the team mapped out a tail that shows a combination of fast and slow moving particles. There are two lobes of slower particles on the sides, faster particles above and below, with the entire structure twisted, as it experiences the pushing and pulling of magnetic fields outside the solar system.

Accuweather.com - 7/8/13

Though only about dozen potentially habitable exoplanets have been detected so far, scientists say the universe should be teeming with alien worlds that could support life. The Milky Way alone may host 60 billion such planets around faint red dwarf stars, a new estimate suggests.

Based on data from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, scientists have predicted that there should be one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf, the most common type of star. But a group of researchers has now doubled that estimate after considering how cloud cover might help an alien planet support life.

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EarthSky.org, 7/4/13

Before sunrise or after sunset, you might be gazing skyward and notice that there are beams of light that appear to be shooting out from horizon, or down from the clouds. These are crepuscular rays, sometimes called sunrays. They are beautiful, mysterious and very noticeable.

Crepuscular rays are columns of sunlit air, streaming through gaps in clouds or other objects (for example, mountain peaks). Darker cloud-shadowed regions lie between the sunlit columns. These rays are really parallel to each other. But they appear to diverge, much as a road that looks narrow in the distance appears wide beneath your feet.

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