Exciting Stuff on Earth and in Space

Large holes of ground continue to disappear into the depths of Earth somewhere in Siberia.  There were many hypothesis behind the sudden collapse of ground - ranging from nuclear testing to the end of the world.  Check out more on iflscience!

The Mars' Rover, Curiosity, recorded a long burst of methane that lasted about 2 months.  Methane is a molecule that points to either 1)  the existence of hydrothermal systems or 2) some bacteria or alien cows farting.  It's an exciting development that may point to life on Mars.  Current life.

Curiosity, the rover, takes a selfie

Nacho Average Cheese.  The oldest piece of cheese has been found.  Using dating techniques that we will study in 2 months from now, the cheese, from 1615 BC, was discovered in clumps on mummies of Bronze Age people buried under wooden boats wrapped in cowhide.  This burial ritual created a vacuum packing effect that's better than our ziplock bag in our kitchens!  Read some more here on popscience.

I shall end off this post with a tremendous video from NASA.  NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory released time lapse videos of extreme violet, ultraviolet, and visible light.  We get to see solar flares and prominences up close and personal:

Welcome, Class of 2015

Whoa, another Earth-like planet was discovered, and some NASA scientists say it has probable life!  It is 'only' about 500 ly away from us, and its orbit is in the 'habitable' zone, a similar distance as we are away from the sun!    Check out the video below for further details.

A question was asked to me the other day - how do super massive black holes come into existence? Well, one way for a black hole to be a billion times bigger than our sun, is to merge black holes, of course!  Behold, a simulation of two merging black holes.

Oh my - some research into Einstein's equation has some scientists claiming that there was no big bang and that this universe has always existed.  Their math has the universe at a finite size, and thus an infinite age.  We will see how much traction this gets, if other scientists jump on board or find some error in their assumptions, or even their math!  Read more here at phys.org.  

The big four of Jupiter's moons were on display last month.  Take a look at this spectacular footage. Make sure you don't mistake the shadows on Jupiter for moons!  Read more at one of the more popular space blogs, Bad Astronomy. 

With so many questions in class regarding dark matter, I just wanted to post this oldie from popular science that really showcases how hard our scientists are at work trying to find dark matter.

An amazing animated GIF showcasing the powers of our current telescopes shows the pillars in monkey head nebula.  It starts with the constellations we see in the night sky, and demonstrates how far back in space/time we're able to see.  It's beautiful and really a sight to take in.  

Ok - now it's your turn to blog!  Find ONE topic and start going in depth.  Good luck!