Physical Science

An astronomical phenomenon that was once revered by cultures and feared by many, a solar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon and Planet Earth are in perfect alignment, with the Moon crossing the surface of the Sun, forming a shadow…
Read more

NASA’s Constellation program was designed to carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and eventually to the moon and to Mars. The program to date has consisted of development on the Aries I launch vehicle and the…
Read more

Comprising some 98% of the solid matter of its own solar system, the Sun is undisputed lord of its demesne. From a distance of nearly 150 million kilometers, we have estimated its diameter to be approaching 1 400 000 kilometers….
Read more

Although the search for extrasolar planets (planets orbiting other stars) has yielded many scientific curiosities in the form of so-called “hot Jupiters” and super-Earths, the ultimate goal of this research is to find Earth-like planets: rocky planets that are small…
Read more

No one has a clear plan for a Mission to Mars?.America has lost its vision for space exploration?Our space program has lost its way?Not at all! Americans to Mars 101… a new game plan!Without regard to a why, when and…
Read more

Any basic study of the solar system eventually finds an apparent paradox: very large planets spin faster than very small ones. Venus has a stunning 243-day-long rotation (it takes 243 days on Earth for just one day to pass on…
Read more

“You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind, in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my…
Read more

What is a religious belief system? A religious belief system is an organized attempt to explain the world, good and bad, through a belief in something other than the self or the natural unfolding of events. Such belief systems will…
Read more

Solar astronomy is the scientific study of the star nearest us, our sun. The word ‘solar’ comes from the Latin word ‘solaris’/’sol’ (‘sun’), and the word ‘astronomy’ comes from the Greek ‘astron’ (star) and ‘nomos’ (law). As nearly as we…
Read more

When, in their eternal movement through the vast wastelands of space, one celestial body comes between two other such bodies, completely or partially obscuring the direct view that would normally exist between the two, we say that there is an…
Read more