Suppose, just suppose, we found life on Mars: microscopic critters happily wiggling and metabolizing under the polar ice, or swimming around in an underground pool of water on the warm flanks of Olympus Mons. What would we find when we examined them close up? In particular, how would they reproduce? Would they be like life […]
Space
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Einstein, Newton andthe Eclipse of 1919
Britain launched two expeditions to observe the total eclipse of May 29, 1919. One was from Greenwich Observatory, under the direction of the British Astronomer Royal Frank Dyson. “He was at that time very skeptical about [Einstein’s] theory, though deeply interested in it; and he realized its very great importance,” wrote Arthur Eddington, director of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Einstein, Newton and the Eclipse of 1919
This is the tale of the high-stakes test of scientific theories that made headlines around the world nearly 100 years ago in the aftermath of World War I, linking the lives of two pacifists on opposing sides of the conflict: German-born theoretician Albert Einstein and English astronomer Arthur Eddington. Einstein, already famous for his groundbreaking […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Comet ISON: Coming Our Way
Predicting whether an incoming comet will be spectacular or not, especially when it’s a first-timer, is a risky business. I got my start writing science columns when the editor of our then-local paper called me in early 1986. “I understand Comet Halley is on its way here, and I’d like a story about what it’s […]