Perhaps this should be taken to the global warming thread?

26406 This also really puts into perspective the challenges for the LIGO gravitational wave detector here in Washington. Such waves are likely a serious issue.  I was seeing ground movement of about 20-30 µm, and that might be a few orders of magnitude more than what LIGO detects. 34 m/s sustained ...

26287 I heard that it was felt on seismographs as far away as London? It was certainly measured by infrasound detectors several 1000 km away.  It was also recorded by seismometers, which detected the blast wave hitting the ground.  This was a pretty weak signal, but still detectable by the most sen...

Oops.  Does this work?: Oumuamua again

A single airburst, which would appear pretty spherical, doesn't stop the object and meteorites drizzle down at terminal velocity at that point.  Meteorites, unless their weight is in the tonnes, will lose their cosmic velocity and basically freefall before reaching ground, but if the airburst is abo...

26261 I've never really understood the microscopic black hole proposal for the Tunguska event.  Not only why did it not get noticed exiting the other side of Earth (depositing that much energy through a whole column of ocean would definitely be noticed), but why did it not leave a channel of melted...

26240 I remember when a micro black hole was being floated about as a theory behind the Tunguska event! «Was the Tungus Event due to a Black Hole?» Nature, vol. 245, 14. september 1973, pp. 88-89. Paywalled, but the idea might have been to explain why no meteorites were found.  A black hole, howeve...

A major storm system, giving hurricane force winds in some places, has since yesterday swept over northern Norway and Svalbard.  Here in Oslo its direct effect was just some mild Foehn winds last night.  My seismometer, however, has drowned in noise from a million waves crashing into the coast a 100...

Here's Newton's take on the cause of gravity: Translated: Hitherto we have explain’d the phænomena of the heavens and of our sea, by the power of  Gravity, but have not yet assign’d the cause of this power. This is certain, that it must proceed from  a cause that penetrates to the very centers of th...

The great filter argument often goes like this: Since we've found absolutely no evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy or universe, there must be some kind of great filter which makes such intelligent life highly unlikely to evolve or last.  So if life, past or present, on Mars is foun...

26128 So they might have gotten to North America well before Columbus but encountered resistance and left? It's a fact.  It was known from the sagas, but not verified before excavations led by Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad at  L'Anse aux Meadows  in the 60's.  I visited that place in 1999.  Reconstr...

26115 What was their political system? The Norse had a kind of parliament called  "thing" .  Most converted to Christianity in the 11th century, so after this the church also had power. 26115 Didn't the Vikings have some kind of navigational stone they used during their voyages? You're th...

I'm not an expert.  Roughly equivalent to the Inuits sounds right.  I guess they had fire, but perhaps not oil lamps.  The Norse settlements lasted 500 years or so, but the reasons why they were abandoned are not clear.  Cooling climate is often cited, but it's probably more complicated.  I think i...

longname wrote:

Qr Bbpost then there's a slim chance life might exist on in around gas giants.

Sagan hypothesised the existence of floaters, sinkers and hunters in such atmospheres, possibly reaching sizes in the kilometers.