time travel, parallel universes, and other useful illusions
I’ve mentioned our sun’s destructive potential at least twice here at Stranger Dimensions, highlighting the fiery menace in The Ends Of The World: Solar Flares. Even earlier this month, some were worrying about what would happen when the sun’s most active area turned in our direction. Nothing horrible occurred in the days before and after …
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit Sparks, Oklahoma on Sunday, November 6, another in an odd series of quakes that have increased in number since February 2010, and the largest recorded earthquake in Oklahoma history. Three sections of Route 62 buckled as a result, and the earthquake could be felt “in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, northern Texas …
Continue reading “Oklahoma Earthquake: Twitter Users Report “Roaring” Noise”
The above is a fantastic time-lapse video of our planet taken by the crews of expeditions 28 and 29 aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The largest artificial body in low-Earth orbit, the International Space Station, or ISS, can often be seen with the naked eye. I know, because I’ve seen it. According to Wikipedia, …
Continue reading “A Time-Lapse View of Earth Aboard the International Space Station”
It’s unlikely that solar flares will ever kill us. That may be an odd way to begin an “Ends of the World” post, but it’s true: so long as the Earth’s magnetosphere remains stable, we’re fine. Then again, that’s the catch, isn’t it?
The first humans to travel to Mars returned Friday after an 18-month voyage. Of course, it was all just pretend. For 520 days, astronauts in Moscow took part in an experiment to study how a mission to the red planet would affect human physiology and mental well-being. They spent the “trip” completely isolated from the …
Continue reading “Astronauts Return Home From Mars Simulation”
In five days, what has been called a “benevolent monster” will turn to face Earth. A region of the sun containing “dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths,” will, like the Death Star taking aim at the Rebel Alliance’s base at Yavin IV, slowly point toward our planet within the …
Asteroid 2005 YU55 will make an extraordinarily close flyby of Earth on November 8, 2011, passing right inside our moon’s orbit at a distance of only about 200,000 miles. The asteroid, which is roughly 1,300 feet wide (not much in comparison to the doom-maker 433 Eros, which is 8 miles, or 42,240 feet, wide), won’t impact …
Continue reading “Asteroid 2005 YU55, Coming Toward An Earth Near You”