Browsing: Nature

A Brief History On September 3, 1976, an American Viking 2 spacecraft landed on the surface of Mars.  People have always dreamed of a Mars space expedition, and although this effort did not land any humans on the Red Planet, the fact that the US was able to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars certainly made the prospect of someday landing people on Mars more likely. Digging Deeper Viking 2 landed in an area called Utopia Planitia and was actually the second American spacecraft to land on Mars, the first being Viking 1, on July 20, 1976.  The first Earth…

A Brief History On August 20, 1858, naturalist Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, the change of organisms over time through mutation and natural selection, in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Digging Deeper While we generally think of Darwin as the man that came up with the idea of “evolution,” there were other scientists at the time that also came to a similar conclusion, including fellow British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, whose work was published at the same time and in the same publication as Darwin’s. While most serious scientists today accept Darwin’s…

A Brief History On August 18, 2019, about 100 environmentally concerned citizens, including government officials and activists, held a funeral for the Okjökull glacier in Iceland. Digging Deeper The glacier, a large landbound ice formation, once covered about 6 square miles, but had completely melted away, presumably due to global climate change.  Located northeast of Reykjavík, the end of the glacier often called “the Ok glacier” actually came in 2014, so the 2019 funeral was perhaps a bit late. The gone but not forgotten glacier is memorialized on a metal plaque placed in its honor that bears the inscription (in…

A Brief History On August 6, 1996, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States announced that a piece of a meteorite believed to have originated on Mars known as Allan Hills 84001 contained traces of extraterrestrial life. Digging Deeper The meteorite, found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica back in 1984, contained fossils of  bacteria, which implies that such life had existed on Mars when the chunk of rock broke off and made its journey to Earth. Of course, the world took this news with enormous interest, and even President Clinton dedicated a speech about the discovery. …

A Brief History On July 19, 64 AD, the Roman night was interrupted by the beginning of what became known as The Great Fire of Rome. Digging Deeper The fire started in the Circus Maximus where Romans held chariot races.  It spread and burned for 6 days before Romans could bring the blaze under control, but as often happens, the flames reignited and a larger blaze began!  3 more days of flames, and two thirds of Rome was burned to the ground. Emperor Nero blamed the Christians, and began a program of repression against Christians, but many of his enemies…