pale blue dot
The blue whale (scientific name: Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti). Up to 31 meters (102 feet) in length and 190 tonnes (210 short tons) in weight, it is the largest extant animal and also is the heaviest known to have existed. But it’s hard to conceptualize how big …
Continue reading “Blue whale facts: How big is the blue whale?”
I recently saw a question on Quora and it was like that: “Why is it called the ‘theory of evolution’ but the ‘law of gravity’?” This question is strongly related to a common misconception about evolution: “It is just a theory” – creationists always say “Evolution is just a theory”.
The Moon is the Earth’s only natural satellite. It is also the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits. It formed about 4.51 billion years ago from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a …
Continue reading “Earth without Moon: what would it be like?”
By studying lunar craters, scientists have discovered that asteroid impacts became more frequent about 290 million years ago. So was just a matter of time for dinosaurs to become extinct.
We only see one side of the moon, because it is tidally locked to the planet Earth (tidal locking the situation when an object’s orbital period matches its rotational period). What if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun?
What if the Earth’s history (our planet’s age is approximately 4.54 billion years), compressed into just one year? @YearOnEarth just did that. At midnight on the 31st of December, Chris Jennings started a little project for the incoming year: tweeting the entirety of the geological history of the Earth, compressed into one year. The result …
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What would convince you that aliens existed? The question came up recently at a conference on astrobiology, held at Stanford University in California. Several ideas were tossed around – unusual gases in a planet’s atmosphere, strange heat gradients on its surface. But none felt persuasive. Finally, one scientist offered the solution: a photograph. There was …
Continue reading “Proof of life: how would we recognize an alien if we saw one?”
If you are one among the many who have watched the movie Rio and have fallen in love with the adorable lead named Blu, then I have some terrible news for you! As of this date, the Spix’s Macaw has been declared “extinct as in wild”.
For centuries, humans have endeavoured to discover and describe the sum of Earth’s biological diversity. Scientists and naturalists have catalogued species from all continents and oceans, from the depths of Earth’s crust to the highest mountains, and from the most remote jungles to our most populated cities. This grand effort sheds light on the forms …
Continue reading “There are more microbial species on Earth than stars in the galaxy”
I stumbled upon an amazing web page showing what did ancient Earth look like. On the “Dinosaur Pictures and Facts” web page (dinosaurpictures.org), there’s also an interactive animation. On this page, you can either select the years (i.e. 600 million years ago) or jump to a particular event (i.e. first multicellular life) and see how ancient …
