MPJ

Just like a single ant who's lost in the large expanse of Brazilian Casino Beach ( Praia do Cassino , 250km in length, considered to be the largest beach on Earth), and felt as small as possible in surrounding space, we humans are experiencing similar sensation when it comes to space and especially time. But, contrary to ants, we have the ultimate tool, called science, that is allowing us to see beyond the horizon. If we could place ourselves in ant's shoes, we would find clues and evidence all around us and, metaphorically speaking, no matter of large quantities of sand grains, we would know that we were on the beach. And with time, when it comes to history of life, all the clues lie in fossil records of coral reefs. The main study, performed by J.E.N. Veron in his publication " A Reef in Time ", identified five periods in Earth's history with major extinction of corals that built reefs. In all five periods, fossil records of the reefs needed millions of ...

Do you know what one significant difference is between Uranus and all the other planets in the solar system? Unlike the other seven planets, which, more or less, rotate in a "normal" up-down position (or down-up in the case of Venus), Uranus is quite abnormal. Its north-south pole rotational axis lies almost in the ecliptic because it is tilted by 97.8 degrees and rotates in an almost vertical direction toward the orbiting plane. In simple words, Uranus is one giant rolling ball where, if you are located on its pole, you would be experiencing only one day and one night during its 84-year-long orbit, while if you are settled near the equator, thanks to the ultra-fast rotation time (for a giant planet) of 17 hours, you would be experiencing fast switching between day and night, and during both solstices, the Sun would always be on the horizon. Thanks to this strange position of Uranus' axis (probably due to some cosmic collision that happened in the early solar system), the...