science news - Stephen Ornes

Fast, mysterious clouds swarm around our galaxy

The Milky Way’s forecast: mostly cloudy. But the origin of these cosmic clouds is unclear Beyond the bright swirling arms of our Milky Way galaxy, something enormous, mysterious and shadowy barrels toward us. It’s called Smith’s Cloud. And it isn’t like any cloud you’ve seen before. From head to tail, it extends more than 11,000 light-years.

$See how fractals forever changed math and science$

See how fractals forever changed math and science

Features, Math stories / Stephen Ornes

Fifty years ago, “fractal” was born. In a 1975 book, the Polish-French-American mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot coined the term to describe a family of rough, fragmented shapes that fall outside the boundaries of conventional geometry. Mathematicians had been describing these types of shapes since the late 19th century. But by giving them a name — derived from fractus,

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