At http://phys.org/print272565880.html ... we learn that supercomputer simulation has revealed that dim supernovae are duds - like penny bangers that crack with a wimper instead of a thud.
Astronomy news
Solar activity over a number of years
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/11/solar-activity-past-present-future/ ... is a post by Dr Leif Svalgaard, solar scientist and presumably an establishment figure but one that has taken part in the climate science debate over a number of years. The article is potentially important but has not been universally received with relish. A head of steam has in recent years got heavily puffed up over the possibility we are on the verge of a cooling episode - the opposite of global warming.
Energetic Dark Energy
At http://phys.org/print271939550.html ... dark energy remains hypothetical, used to explain the expanding universe, and other anomalies of the universe. Scientists are divided. Is it static or is it energetic? It seems dark energy may have some dynamism after all, according to a paper in Physical Research Letters by a group of Chinese, UK and Canadian researchers.
Tilting Earth
At http://phys.org/print271928022.html ... what would happen if the Earth's axis suddenly tilted? Geological records, apparently, record large shifts in tilt on several occasions throughout the history of the planet - affecting climate and sea levels. This sounds almost as if it came from the pages of SIS but no, it is from researchers at Harvard. Yes, Harvard - and Caltech.
Swallowing the Stars
At http://phys.org/print271445295.html ... according to Big Bang theory and a computer simulation of the evolving universe the rate of formation of new stars has declined and will continue to decline if the pattern generated by their computer model is to be taken at face value (published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society).
Lightning and the cult of the heavenly twins
This is posted in astronomy because it is assumed that at some point in the past the heavenly twins are derived from a real phenomenon rather than the dubious source of pre-Jewish and pre-Christian religion, as evidenced by the fact they had developed into protective deities rather than their subjective origin as destructive features of the natural world.
That man Eddy again ... and was Ptolemy a fraud?
I've been flicking through the archive of the late Janek Pietron and have come across some interesting papers that he stored for future reference. In a review of EC Krupps, In Search of Ancient Astronomies, published in the journal Archaeoastronomy (see http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/journal.html#vol1 or www.shpltd.co.uk/aa.html) in 1978, Eddy is mentioned in an overview of Native American archaeoastronomy north of Mexico. The reviewer, Ronald Hicks of Ball State University, generally finds his work agreeable.
The Sword of Orion
At http://phys.org/print270970024.html ... astrophysicists have investigated a cluster of oddly behaving stars in the Sword of Orion - by using, in their words, 'sophisticated computer modelling programmes'. The Orion Nebular Cluster, as the anomaly is known, they have determined, may be held together by the pull of a black hole that their models indicate is up to 200 times the mass of the Sun.
Asteroid Investigations
Japanese scientists propose in the journal Nature Geoscience that a large asteroid struck the Moon in the remote past and created the geological feature known as Oceanus Procellarum (or in common speak, Ocean of Storms). This large basin has a flattened feature stretching 1800 miles and it is being suggested it came about as a result of a collision. Over time, subsequent asteroid and meteorite strikes have blurred he edges of the impact zone - see http://phys.org/print270928754.html
The Sun and the Climate Part Two
In response to the Oct 22nd posting, The Sun and the Climate, the mathematical explanation of Bode's Law may actually have already been worked out - by Robert Bass. He was due to speak at the SIS conference on 'Cosmic Catastrophes - Asteroids, Comets and Planets' held at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge in 2007, in order to present his explanation of the Titus-Bode Law. Unfortunately he had to withdraw and we never learnt what it was.