What are the coolest scientific anomalies on Earth?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Holy fuck this thread. You fuckers have angered me beyond belief.

To seriously answer the question.

LIFE.

How the fuck is life itself not a scientific anomaly? After decades of searching we haven't even found basic proof that it exists anywhere else, even planets where water has or does exist (Mars.)

Universe is a pretty big place. Our decades of searching haven't even scratched the surface.

It's like being alone in your bedroom and declaring yourself the only life on earth.

[Puupi]

How the fuck is life itself not a scientific anomaly? After decades of searching we haven't even found basic proof that it exists anywhere else, even planets where water has or does exist (Mars.)

To be fair we haven't even really searched for life yet. Considering the size of the universe, sending couple of very limited (in terms of analyzing stuff to find stuff that is life according to our standards) probes to the Moon and Mars isn't that much of "searching".

[tumppu]

Flat, hollow, and expanding!

Well, at least Finland is increasing its land area every year, even without wars of conquest :P

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Well, at least Finland is increasing its land area every year, even without wars of conquest :P

Well, given a chance...Putin would be a big reversal on that

[zorkuus]

How the fuck is life itself not a scientific anomaly?

What anomaly? We have plenty of it here on earth.

After decades of searching we haven't even found basic proof that it exists anywhere else, even planets where water has or does exist (Mars.)

Oh that...
We haven't even scratched the surface yet in terms of searching for life on other planets. The sample size is too small to make conclusions either way.

[Gamdwelf]

What anomaly? We have plenty of it here on earth.

Oh that...
We haven't even scratched the surface yet in terms of searching for life on other planets. The sample size is too small to make conclusions either way.

Where the martians at?

[Yvaelle]

Holy fuck this thread. You fuckers have angered me beyond belief.

To seriously answer the question.

LIFE.

How the fuck is life itself not a scientific anomaly? After decades of searching we haven't even found basic proof that it exists anywhere else, even planets where water has or does exist (Mars.)

We haven't begun searching for life yet properly, let alone been doing it for decades. The rovers probably couldn't detect life unless it walked up to them and brushed up against the camera - and Mars is far and away the closest thing we have done to proper searching.

With the exception of a few special tricks, we are basically unable to confirm the presence water on any object beyond our own solar system. We can conclude that it's in the liquid water zone from its star, but that doesn't indicate it actually has liquid water on it. Kepler is really the only planet-finding device we have, and it was only launched in 2009, and it's basically not good enough to spot relatively tiny objects like Earth, unless it happens to pass in front of a nearby sun, or with the help of a lensing effects, or so on. Frankly it's miraculous and a credit to the diligence and efforts of the scientific community that we have found as many as we have.

The year to really watch out for though, in terms of finding extrasolar planets, is 2018 - and it's right around the corner now. That's the year both JWST, which is NASA's best new device, and CHEOPS - which is the ESA's best new device - both become active. Together they should be able to spot Earth's straight out, and potentially even their atmospheric composition under the right conditions - that would allows us to be like, "oh, that planet is in the liquid water zone, has a blue surface, and has clouds in the atmosphere, now that's an Earth!" - rather than today where we're like, "well - it's a rock, within an order of magnitude of the dimensions of earth, in the liquid water zone - so... maybe habitable?

Let's put it this way - if we had a mirror civilization orbiting our closest star - looking right back at us with our own tech - we wouldn't see each other today. That'll change by the end of 2018.

Edit: We would hear each other, because we would be in each other's radiosphere - but we wouldn't see each other - which is the key for finding Earths beyond our radiosphere, or finding uninhabited Earths within our radiosphere.

[Paula Deen]

Universe is a pretty big place. Our decades of searching haven't even scratched the surface.

It's like being alone in your bedroom and declaring yourself the only life on earth.

When you were little the bedroom was the universe.

[Puupi]

When you were little the bedroom was the universe.

Case in point.

[Powerogue]

it's not really the strongest cure, and sometimes it doesn't work at all.

but the fact that it does work sometimes is strange, honestly. it makes you wonder about human consciousness and how we perceive reality and effect it. if someone could will away their sickness by simply believing it's been cured, maybe it actually did go away. maybe we're connected to reality in a way that can't be measured, or just can't be measured yet. able to effect reality through some kind of fundamental connection to the fabric of existence.

And once we harness our hidden potential, PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!!!



Richard Dawkins just had it backwards! God isn't a delusion. Delusion will make us gods!

[Kathandira]

Where the martians at?

There is a bit of assumption there that we honestly cannot answer.

May Martians aren't intelligent enough for such travel, much like us. Maybe they aren't capable of using tools as it is not a necessary part of their evolutionary path. Maybe they can travel far distances, but just aren't interested in us as we have nothing to offer them.

There are many reasons to consider, but none can be claimed as fact.

[Molis]

I saw Total Recall. I know what is under the surface of Mars.

[Teebone]

Aww, Earth? Earth is so boring. I love space stuff. Wait! I got one:

The Black Knight Satellite!



I didn't want to post a video as a lot of them jump to 'Alien' 'It's 13000 years old!' and 'Tesla Discovered it!' a bit too quickly. Still, it's fascinating. Even if it were some sort of insulating material or other debris the shape itself just beacons the imagination.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

When you were little the bedroom was the universe.

That just proves my point.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Probably not the coolest, but I always liked the unusual ways bismut crystals form:

[Puupi]

I saw Total Recall. I know what is under the surface of Mars.

Probably not the coolest, but I always liked the unusual ways bismut crystals form:

That's like Tetris rock!

[Akka]

Holy fuck this thread. You fuckers have angered me beyond belief.

To seriously answer the question.

LIFE.

How the fuck is life itself not a scientific anomaly? After decades of searching we haven't even found basic proof that it exists anywhere else, even planets where water has or does exist (Mars.)

Well, on the other hand it's not like we can actually see anything beyond our most extremely close neighbourhood with enough precision to have even a tiny idea if it actually harbours likfe

[zorkuus]

Where the martians at?

I'm guessing Venus.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

I think you all have said interesting things but Egypt dwarfs all of what you've said.

[Baneth]

South Atlantic Anomaly (AKA bermuda triangle of space)

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is an area where the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 kilometres (120 mi). This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of radiation.

The effect is caused by the non-concentricity of the Earth and its magnetic dipole. The SAA is the near-Earth region where the Earth's magnetic field is weakest relative to an idealized Earth-centered dipole field.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is of great significance to astronomical satellites and other spacecraft that orbit the Earth at several hundred kilometers altitude; these orbits take satellites through the anomaly periodically, exposing them to several minutes of strong radiation, caused by the trapped protons in the inner Van Allen belt. The International Space Station, orbiting with an inclination of 51.6°, requires extra shielding to deal with this problem. The Hubble Space Telescope does not take observations while passing through the SAA. Astronauts are also affected by this region, which is said to be the cause of peculiar "shooting stars" (phosphenes) seen in the visual field of astronauts, an effect termed the cosmic ray visual phenomena. Passing through the South Atlantic Anomaly is thought to be the reason for the early failures of the Globalstar network's satellites.

The PAMELA experiment, while passing through the SAA, detected antiproton levels that were orders of magnitude higher than expected. This suggests the Van Allen belt confines antiparticles produced by the interaction of the Earth's upper atmosphere with cosmic rays.

NASA has reported that modern laptops have crashed when Space Shuttle flights passed through the anomaly.

In October 2012, the SpaceX CRS-1 Dragon spacecraft attached to the International Space Station experienced a transient problem as it passed through the anomaly.

The SAA is believed to have started a series of events leading to the destruction of the Hitomi, Japan's most powerful X-ray observatory. The anomaly transiently disabled a direction-finding mechanism, causing the satellite to rely solely on gyroscopes that were not working properly, after which it spun itself apart.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ed-detail.html

It gets even more strange when you add in the fact that nazis were thought to have escaped to south america, and the supposed "nazi base" in the south pole.