Extraterrestrial Speak

2012-01-26T13:01:00.000-06:00

2012-01-24T07:27:00.001-06:00

http://www.solarsystemscope.com/

Saturn's moons Dione, Prometheus, Epimetheus and a Pandora twist

2012-01-23T17:07:00.000-06:00

A motley crew of Greek gods having earned Saturnian moon names, three are shown in the picture. Dione, the big moon and Epimetheus and Prometheus. Too bad the stars are missing, not captured by Cassini, otherwise the view would be too much for mere immortals stuck in 3D mode to bear, well if you happened to be there, that is. Dione, mother of Aphrodite and a Uranus taboo, and Epimetheus and the Pandora plague, what would we do without interesting Greek gods to breath intrigue into our planetary system.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/nasa-handout-photo-saturns-moon-dione-photo-204042137.html

Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings in this NASA handout photo dated December 12, 2011. This encounter was the spacecraft's closest pass of the moon's surface.

http://365pwords.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/prometheus-epimetheus-and-pandora-a-tale-for-dark-times/

Posted on December 13, 2008 by?

I loved spending the night at Karen Dickovics’ house back in 3rd grade because her dad was a great storyteller. The Greek myths were his specialty. He’d turn out the lights and spin the fantastic tales of the gods and goddesses up on Mt. Olympus. Better than any soap opera.
I much prefer this creation story to the one about Adam & Eve:

In the earliest days, it is said that the Gods fought constantly.Their fights raged not only on Mt Olympus but all over the earth, which they had turned into a barren wasteland.
Zeus, who was the king of the Gods, thought it was time to do better by Earth and give her some living creatures. He called in two especially creative gods, the brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus. He said, “OK guys – get down there, find yourselves a nice muddy river bank and use that clay to make some creatures… Oh and while you’re at it, give them some of these…” and he handed them a generous collection of talents and skills and tools – which they were to give to their new earthly creations.
So the two brothers went down from the gods’ home on Mt. Olympus to the Earth. They found themselves a river with excellent clay banks and set about their work. Epimetheus quickly slapped together all kinds of animals – some tiny, some huge, some with feathers, some with scales, some with long necks, some with strong legs.
Prometheus worked much more slowly and carefully because he was modeling men … in the shape of the gods. Because Epimetheus finished his job before Prometheus did, he was first to dip into the bag of gifts Zeus had sent for their creations. Wouldn’t you know, he gave his animals all the best gifts in the bag. Some of the animals got the gift of speed so they could run really fast. He gave others the gift of flying thru the air, some the gift of breathing and swimming underwater. He also gave many of them thick coats to keep them warm in winter.
Prometheus was left with little to give the men he’d made. He felt really bad because they couldn’t run as fast as the animals, nor could they smell or see as well. Worst of all, they were so naked they were freeezing.
He went back to Zeus and asked him if at the least he might be able to share the gods’ sacred fire with his shivering creations. But Zeus said, “No way Jose. Or whatever your name is. If your people get fire they’ll become too powerful.”
Because Prometheus couldn’t bear to see his people suffering, he decided to steal fire, even though he knew he’d get hell from Zeus when he found out.
He went up to Mt. Olympus and while the gods were sleeping, he took a glowing ember from the sacred hearth. He hid it in a hollow fennel stalk, which he pretended was a walking stick and carefully snuck down to earth with it.
The men of earth were so happy – at last they could be warm. They could have light after the sun went down and they could make tools. Instead of ripping at raw meat they could eat barbecued shish-kabob.
Zeus was furious when he first saw the fires on earth – furious with Prometheus and furious with the men below. They already looked like smaller versions of the gods – he didn’t want them to have god-like powers too!
To punish Prometheus Zeus had him chained him to a huge rock way off in the high and lonely Caucasus Mountains for hundreds of years. But that is a story for another day.
With Prometheus out of the way, Zeus turned his attention to punishing the happy-go-lucky men of the earth.
You remember Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother? Well, he was now living on earth among men. (I forgot to say that up to now there were no women on earth.) So Zeus had a beautiful young woman named Pandora created out of clay and brought her down to keep Epimetheus company.
Epimetheus was ecstatic. Life was finally perfect, as far as he was concerned. And for awhile the couple was ever so happy with their perfect life.
But as Zeus had anticipated, Pandora soon got bored with a life in which everything was perfect.
The next time Epimetheus came up for a visit to Mt. Olympus Zeus gave him a gift to bring Pandora. It was a beautiful chest. Perfect for a coffee table; cheaper than Ikea. “Give this to Pandora with my love,” Zeus said, “but tell her that under NO circumstances should she open the lid.”
Of course, Pandora LOVED the box, and promised Epimetheus never ever to open it. However, she couldn’t help but notice that Zeus had not put a lock on it… Hmmm. Maybe someday when Epi was out with the guys??
Indeed one day Epimetheus went off to drink mead with his buddies, leaving Pandora alone with the box. And of course we know what she did as soon as Epimetheus was out of sight.
She opened the box.
The instant she lifted the lid, Zeus’s revenge was complete. All the miseries of this human life flew out – all manner of poxes and plagues, pain and poverty, anger and hate, jealousy and sadness.
Pandora was horrified and tried to shut the lid but it was too late. The afflictions were off and gone to the four corners of the Earth and there was no getting them back. She finally got the lid back down and just sat on the box in abject misery, wondering what to do.
It was then she heard a whimper and a scratching from inside the box, and a voice pleading “Let me out!!”
At this point, she thought, what did one more affliction matter?? So she opened the lid again and lucky for us all, out flew HOPE.

Delta IV Night Launch

2012-01-20T15:05:00.000-06:00

Stars and reaching out into space has a relaxing homey feel to it. And to think all that magic of space is only a few miles up, and then awe fills the soul, and you know the illusions back on earth are just that, ball and chain illusions.

Lou

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-733721?hpt=hp_bn1

CNN PRODUCER NOTE MrDemil was at a camera viewing site on Kennedy Space Center last night for the launch of the Delta IV rocket. 'I've seen quite a few [launches] out here. It was crystal clear skies. There's not a lot of light pollution in the cape area. The star field is very pretty. I was focused on getting the launch and the starry sky. ... It was just a beautiful spectrum last night,' he said. MrDemil works at the Space Center.
- zdan, CNN iReport producer

2012-01-18T08:58:00.000-06:00

Nice view of some Nazca Lines, oh, and you never know what you might find in the clouds, a Milton type just goofing around. Those in the aircraft don't remember or even know that they had tea and crumpets with an extraterrestrial dude.

Lou

Russian space probe crashes to Earth

2012-01-16T08:45:00.001-06:00

Dozens of probes and secret ships sent to Mars have bit the dust, to put it mildly. Mars isn't known as a war planet for nothing. The fact that a few American obscure missions were allowed should pose intriguing questions.

Lou

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46005190/ns/technology_and_science-space/

A failed probe that was designed to travel to a moon of Mars but got stuck in Earth orbit has crashed into the Pacific Ocean, Russian officials said Sunday.
The unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe was one of the heaviest and most toxic space derelicts ever to crash to Earth, but there were no reports of injury or damage. There's a good chance that no one actually saw the spacecraft's fiery plunge.

"Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean," the RIA-Novosti news service quoted Alexei Zolotukhin, a spokesman for Russia's aerospace defense forces, as saying. The debris zone was said to be 775 miles (1,250 kilometers) west of Wellington Island in the South Pacific. Re-entry was estimated to occur at about 12:45 p.m. ET, based on the data received by the Russians.
In a Twitter update, the European Space Agency said several sources confirmed that estimate but added that experts were still checking the details. A later RIA-Novosti report quoted an unnamed source as saying the probe may have continued farther along its orbital track and crashed in Brazil or into the Atlantic Ocean.
Russia's Roscosmos space agency predicted that only between 20 and 30 fragments of the Phobos probe with a total weight of up to 440 pounds (200 kilograms) would survive the re-entry and plummet to Earth. Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office, agreed with that assessment, adding that about 100 metric tons of space junk fall on Earth every year.
"This is 200 kilograms out of these 100 tons," he told The Associated Press.
Thousands of pieces of derelict space vehicles orbit Earth, occasionally posing danger to astronauts and satellites in orbit, but as far as is known, no one has ever been hurt by falling space debris.
Phobos-Grunt weighed 13.5 metric tons (14.9 English tons), and that included a load of 11 metric tons (12 tons) of highly toxic rocket fuel intended for the long journey to the Martian moon of Phobos. It was left unused as the probe got stuck in orbit around Earth shortly after its Nov. 9 launch.
Roscosmos said all of the fuel would burn up on re-entry, a forecast Klinkrad said was supported by calculations done by NASA and ESA.
The space era has seen far larger spacecraft crash. NASA's Skylab space station that went down in 1979 weighed 85 tons (77 metric tons), and Russia's Mir space station that deorbited in 2001 weighed about 143 tons (130 metric tons). Their descent fueled fears around the world, but the wreckage of both fell far away from populated areas.
The $170 million Phobos-Grunt mission was Russia's most expensive and the most ambitious interplanetary endeavor since Soviet times. The spacecraft was intended to land on the crater-dented, potato-shaped Martian moon, collect soil samples and fly them back to Earth, giving scientists precious materials that could shed more light on the genesis of the solar system.

Russia's space chief has acknowledged the Phobos-Grunt mission was ill-prepared, but said that Roscosmos had to give it the go-ahead so as not to miss the limited Earth-to-Mars launch window.
Its predecessor, Mars-96, which was built by the same Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin company, also suffered an engine failure and crashed shortly after its launch in 1996. Its crash drew strong international fears because there were 7 ounces (200 grams) of plutonium onboard. The craft eventually showered its fragments over the Chile-Bolivia border in the Andes Mountains, and the pieces were never recovered.
The worst-ever radiation spill from a derelict space vehicle came in January 1978 when the nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite crashed over northwestern Canada. The Soviets claimed that the craft completely burned up on re-entry, but a massive recovery effort by Canadian authorities recovered a dozen fragments, most of which were radioactive.
Phobos-Grunt also contained a tiny quantity of radioactive cobalt-57 in one of its instruments, but Roscosmos said it posed no threat of radioactive contamination.
The spacecraft also carried a small cylinder with a collection of microbes as part of an experiment by the California-based Planetary Society that designed to explore whether they can survive interplanetary travel. The cylinder was attached to a capsule that was supposed to deliver Phobos ground samples back to Earth.
It's not clear whether or not that capsule could have survived re-entry, but there's virtually no chance that it will ever be found.

Russia Accuses the U.S. of a Secret Mars Plot

2012-01-12T16:00:00.000-06:00

Nothing like a good old cold war in space to get countries off the ground and into space. America has hotels on Mars and a thing or two on Phobos, sure they are secret, not even Americans know about them. So what else is new.

Lou

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2104251,00.html?hpt=hp_t3

Oh Russia, you used to do paranoia so much better. The Evil Empire got its name in part because of its nasty post–World War II habit of gathering up little, nearby countries — countries that didn't strictly want to be gathered up — in order to build a buffer on its western flank. That was un-neighborly, but at least understandable. You try living next to Germany for the first half of the 20th century and see if you don't double-lock the door.

But the Cold War is over, Germany's been housebroken, and there's less need than ever to see hostile foreigners lurking behind every bush. You wouldn't have known that this week, however, listening to Vladimir Popovkin, director of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

It's been a bad couple of months for Roscosmos, ever since an ambitious Russian Mars probe was launched on Nov. 9, headed to the Martian moon Phobos to collect and return a sample of extraterrestrial rock and soil. The ship, named Phobos-Grunt (or Ground) fell a wee bit short of its target, never making it out of Earth's orbit after an upper stage booster failed. Now, as all things stranded in low Earth orbit must, the probe is headed home, set to re-enter the atmosphere and break apart sometime between Jan. 14 and 16. The best estimate so far is that the precise moment of impact will be 1:18 p.m., Moscow time, on Jan. 15, and the precise place will be the Indian Ocean. (See "Can Russia Fix Its Crippled Mars Probe in Time?")

In announcing this news on Tuesday, however, Popovkin couldn't resist deflecting the blame for the mission's failure, suggesting — with an exquisite lack of subtlety — that the mission may have been sabotaged by another country (America, we're looking at you) using an antisatellite weapon. "We don't want to accuse anybody," Popovkin said, accusing somebody, "but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now." In case you were wondering, that's Russian for "I'm just sayin'."

O.K., so what exactly is Popovkin's claim? It's true that when Russian spacecraft fail very early in their missions — just as they're getting their footing in orbit — the problems often occur when craft are flying over the western hemisphere, where any imagined skeet-shooting from the U.S. could take place. "The frequent failure of our space launches," he told the newspaper Izvestia, "which occur at a time when they are flying over the part of the Earth not visible from Russia, where we do not see the spacecraft and do not receive telemetric information, are not clear to us."

Maybe, but they should be. It's a basic rule of orbital mechanics that if you want to adjust your flight path when you're on one side of the planet, you have to begin the maneuver while you're still on the other side. Accelerate when you're over the western hemisphere and your altitude will increase by the time you're over the eastern. Decelerate and you'll be flying lower half a revolution later. By definition, Russia's key early maneuvers in any flight must thus take place while they're flying through our orbital neighborhood — just as ours take place while we're flying through theirs.

None of that means we're responsible for the breakdowns — or that we'd even have the technical capability for such meddling. That didn't stop another Russian official, Nikolai Rodinov, who once oversaw the country's strategic early warning system, from suggesting that powerful electromagnetic impulses — a nicely vague but just-plausible-enough weapon — were to blame. (See TIME's photo-essay "Russia Launches a Manned Rocket in a Snowstorm.")

It's worth noting that the U.S. would have nothing to gain and a whole lot to lose by monkeying around with a Russian Mars probe — especially since we're now dependent on Roscosmos rockets to ferry us to the NASA-built International Space Station. Offend our designated driver and we could be left without a lift. It's worth noting, too, that Roscosmos hardly needs us to help them not get to Mars. Since 1960, Russia has launched 19 missions to the Red Planet and has had precisely 19 partial or total failures. Five missions did achieve a portion of their goals — putting a Martian satellite in orbit but failing to get a lander to the surface, for example — but none have been unalloyed triumphs. The U.S. has had its own Martian disasters in the past, but it's had a six-mission winning streak going since 2001, with a seventh Mars ship on the way now.

The loss of Phobos-Grunt is equally big for space science as a whole. A sample return mission has been in NASA's long-term plans for years, but budget constraints have caused the agency to postpone the project repeatedly. Space watchers in both the U.S. and Russia were rooting for this mission to succeed — as was China, which had a small Martian orbiter riding along. All of that will crash and burn — literally — within a few days. Traveling to Mars has always been a very, very hard thing to do, and it will continue to be. You don't need an imaginary U.S. plot to make that so.

Read more:

'Fat' galaxy cluster discovered 7 billion light-years away

2012-01-10T14:56:00.000-06:00

Cosmologists can't get their head around an infinite universe, infinite doesn't compute on their scientific calculators or super computers. Therefore they have the best job security in the galaxy, spending trillions looking for Hobbs and his side kick Boson. Astronauts and Scientists have the best jobs period. Am I jealous, envious? Darn tootin!

Lou

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/10/fat-galaxy-discovered-7-billion-light-years-away/?hpt=hp_c2

The largest galaxy cluster ever seen in the distant universe has been spotted by an international team of scientists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile.

Researchers have named this cluster "El Gordo," Spanish for "the fat one." It is located 7 billion light-years away from our planet.

Galaxy clusters are held together by gravity, and are the largest structures in the universe. Scientists are interested in using these clusters to study mysterious phenomena called dark matter and dark energy, which collectively make up about 95% of the universe. That's right – all the material that we see and know so well is only 5% of the universe we inhabit.
Dark matter doesn't emit or absorb light; dark energy is thought to be responsible for the expansion of the universe. The formation of galaxy clusters like El Gordo depends on the amounts of dark matter and dark energy, so it may hold clues to these phenomena.
El Gordo is made up of two separate galaxy subclusters that are colliding at several million kilometers per hour, the European Southern Observatory said.

China reveals its space ambitions for next five years

2011-12-29T14:40:00.000-06:00

There is a heck of a lot of space up in space, plenty of room for everyone to get in on the fun and games. Competition is a good incentive to get the balls rolling upwards.

Lou

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45815940?

BEIJING — China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum.

China has already said its eventual goals are to have a space station and put an astronaut on the moon. It has made methodical progress with its ambitious lunar and human spaceflight programs, but its latest five-year plan beginning next year signals an acceleration.
By the end of 2016, China will launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and ship freighters, and make technological preparations for the construction of space stations, according to the white paper setting out China's space progress and future missions.
China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in space technology and experience.
The country will continue exploring the moon using probes, start gathering samples of the moon's surface, and "push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun."
It will use spacecraft to study the properties of black holes and begin monitoring space debris and small near-Earth celestial bodies and build a system to protect spacecraft from debris.
The paper also says China will improve its launch vehicles, improve its communications, broadcasting and meteorological satellites and develop a global satellite navigation system, intended to rival the United States' dominant global positioning system (GPS) network.

China places great emphasis on the development of its space industry, which is seen as a symbol of national prestige.

Its space principles — including peaceful development, enhancing international cooperation and deep space exploration — are largely unchanged from its previous two documents detailing the progress of China's space missions, released in 2000 and 2006.
In 2003, China became the third country behind the U.S. and Russia to launch a man into space and, five years later, completed a spacewalk. Toward the end of this year, it demonstrated automated docking between its Shenzhou 8 craft and the Tiangong 1 module, which will form part of a future space laboratory.

In 2007, it launched its first lunar probe, Chang'e-1, which orbited the moon, collecting data and a complete map of the moon.
Since 2006, China's Long March rockets have successfully launched 67 times, sending 79 spacecraft into orbit.
Some elements of China's program, notably the firing of a ground-based missile into one of its dead satellites four years ago, have alarmed American officials and others who say such moves could set off a race to militarize space. That the program is run by the military has made the U.S. reluctant to cooperate with China in space, even though the latter insists its program is purely for peaceful ends.
"China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes weaponization or any arms race in outer space," Thursday's white paper states.
The Chinese government's policy is to "reinforce" space cooperation with developing countries and "value" space cooperation with developed countries. The paper lists cooperation between China and countries including Russia, Brazil, France and Britain, and says of the United States: NASA's director visited China "and the two sides will continue to make dialogue regarding the space field."

2011 Was the Year of the Restless Sun

2011-12-29T12:12:00.000-06:00

The sun, the creator of all we see around us in this solar system, a mystery beyond human comprehension will forever keep its secrets. Humans will never know "anything" about that magical beast and heavenly delight that brings sunshine into our lives. And yet, the sun will expire and die, but we mere-immortals, mostly clueless of all the magic within our very souls, will live on forever.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/2011-restless-sun-130503012.html

After five years of surprising quiet, the sun roared to life in 2011.

Our star erupted with numerous strong flares and waves of charged particles. Many researchers predict the surge will culminate in a peak in the sun's 11-year activity cycle in 2013.

This year also marked several key advances in scientists' understanding of the dynamics driving our favorite star. Here are some of the solar highlights of 2011:

Solar flares and CMEs

Having been relatively quiet since 2005, the sun spouted off a number of powerful flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) this year.

CMEs are made up of massive clouds of plasma that are sent streaking through space in any direction at several million mph. When these clouds are aimed at Earth, they can spawn geomagnetic storms that wreak havoc with GPS signals, radio communications and power grids. [Photos of Solar Flares & Storms]

"We are getting more CMEs and starting to get some more-energetic CME/flare combinations," Terry Kucera, deputy project scientist with NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, told SPACE.com via email.

Scientists classify strong solar flares in three categories: C, M and X, with the X-class being the most powerful. So far in 2011, eight X-class flares have been observed.

The largest solar flare in more than four years exploded from the sun in August. The blast wasn't directed at Earth, instead jettisoning into space.

Our planet had not been as lucky on Valentine's Day. The first wave of radiation reached Earth eight minutes after a big flare and CME, disrupting radio communications and GPS systems.

The particles from the ejection arrived a day or so later, triggering dramatic northern lights displays and spawning a geomagnetic storm that caused further radio interruptions.

In March, a solar storm created the fastest-traveling CME seen in six years. A wave of particles racing at 5 million mph (8 million kph) shot into space away from Earth.

Similarly, around Labor Day in September, the sun erupted with several CMEs and solar flares, including an X-class outburst Sept. 6.

But Kucera said her favorite eruption occurred on June 7: a medium-size solar flare, a minor radiation storm and a unique CME from an active sunspot region.
"A lot of cool, dense material didn't make it out and fell back to the sun," she said.
The spectacle of plasma crashing backing into our star had never been seen before.
"It was amazing to look at," Kucera said.

C. Alex Young, senior support scientist with SOHO and NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), agreed, calling it "the top natural event" of 2011.

"More than likely, such an event has occurred, but never before would we have seen it in such detail," he told SPACE.com by email.

All of these active eruptions are considered normal for this level of solar activity.

"During solar minimum, there is an average of one CME every five days, and during solar maximum the average is around three per day," Young said.
Kamikaze comets
A number of comets crashed into the sun in 2011, and on July 6 scientists captured one such death dive in its entirety for the first time ever.

The observations, made by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, should improve scientists' understanding of comet composition, researchers have said. [Video: Comet Dives Into Sun During Solar Eruption]

Sometimes daredevil comets survive their ordeals against all odds. In December, Comet Lovejoy had a close encounter with the sun that experts thought would be fatal. It passed within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of the solar surface — but re-emerged on the sun's other side and zipped off into space.

Lovejoy is part of a group known as Kreutz sungrazers. Most of these comets are thought to come from a single giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago. They are named for the 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first showed that such comets are related.
"Seeing a comet enter the million degree solar corona with an extreme-ultraviolate imager (SDO), then to see one enter and exit is so cool!" Young said.

A year of advances
The year also brought a greater understanding of what's happening on the sun.

At the start of the year, NASA's twin Stereo probes took up their positions on the side of the sun farthest from Earth, allowing solar scientists to view that previously hidden surface.

"This is fantastic," Young said. "With SOHO, SDO, and Stereo, we really see the sun with a completeness like never before."
Solar researchers now have their eyes on the entire star, meaning it will have a harder time surprising us. Scientists can identify active sunspots, which may birth intense flares and potentially damaging CMEs, on the "back" side of the sun before they rotate around to face Earth.
In January, astronomers reported using the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft and the Japanese satellite Hinode to image and measure giant plumes of gas zooming up from the sun's surface. Known as spicules, these fountains were found to be hotter than previously observed, which means they could be a significant cause of the heating of the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona.
Images of 191 solar flares by SDO also helped a separate group of astronomers make some new inferences about the sun. Many of the images showed a delayed brightening, or a "late phase," minutes to hours after the peak. Because they were not connected with another X-ray burst, these late phases had managed to escape scientists' notice in the past.
Analysis of a year's worth of images revealed that solar flares generally release more energy than was realized.
The solar activity is likely to continue increasing until 2013 or so, Kucera said.
Young agrees.

"With the increased activity and the great data we have from SDO, Stereo, SOHO, and more, 2012 should be a very exciting year in solar physics."

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

NASA probes to arrive at the moon over New Year's

2011-12-29T11:32:00.000-06:00

To say the least, the moon is a fantastic wonderland getaway for the privileged few that get to play up there, especially on the dark side, the side humans aren't allowed to see with their home based telescopes. The side facing Earth has plenty of hidden activity too. The moon is not two moons that merged eons in the past as suggested by this article.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-probes-arrive-moon-over-years-202554468.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The New Year's countdown to the moon has begun.

NASA said Wednesday that its twin spacecraft were on course to arrive back-to-back at the moon after a 3½-month journey.

"We're on our way there," said project manager David Lehman of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $496 million mission.

The Grail probes — short for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory — won't land on the lunar surface. Instead, they were poised to slip into orbit to study the uneven lunar gravity field.

Grail-A was scheduled to arrive on New Year's Eve, followed by Grail-B on New Year's Day.

Lehman said team members won't celebrate until both probes are safely in orbit.

It's been a long voyage for the near-identical Grail spacecraft, which traveled more than 2½ million miles (3.22 million kilometers) since launching in September. Though the moon is relatively close at about 250,000 miles (402317.35 kilometers)away, Grail took a roundabout way to save on costs by launching on a small rocket.

Once at the moon, the probes will spend the next two months tweaking their positions before they start collecting data in March. The pair will fly in formation at an altitude of 34 miles (54.72 kilometers) above the surface, with an average separation of 124 miles (199.55 kilometers).

The mission's chief scientist, Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said many aspects of the moon remain a mystery despite being well studied.

"We actually know more about Mars ... than we do about our own moon," Zuber said.

One puzzle scientists hope to solve is why the moon's far side is more hilly than the side that always faces Earth. Research published earlier this year suggested that Earth once had dual moons that collided and formed the moon that people gaze at today.

Despite the wealth of new knowledge expected from the mission, NASA has no near-term plans to send astronauts back to the moon. The Obama administration last year nixed the idea in favor of landing astronauts on an asteroid and eventually Mars.

Space idea factory & brainstorming school

2011-12-27T10:26:00.000-06:00

When humans get off their butts and get serious about space exploration much of the economic and racial problems plaguing the planet will melt away. Replaced with increased prosperity on Earth and fun times in space.

Lou

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/27/space-idea-factory-brainstorming-school/?hpt=hp_c2

You might call it an idea factory for space exploration. A unique program at the University of Southern California asks students at the Graduate Space Concepts Studio of the Department of Astronautical Engineering to dream up humanity’s next big space adventure.

Program graduates include George Whitesides, a top exec at commercial space outfit Virgin Galactic. Others have worked at SpaceX, NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin joined graduates this month to unveil their amazing ideas. Here are just a few:

Make nuclear fuel in space: Nuclear power may be the best viable solution for long-distance space travel. But where should the nuclear fuel be produced? Grad student Jake Dodd proposes a system to create it in space. This would avoid risks posed by creating it on Earth and use rockets to launch radioactive fuel through the atmosphere. Dodd named his idea SNAP: Space-based Nuclear Activision Plant. From a constant position in space, SNAP would “ingest fertile materials shipped from Earth, transmute them into useable nuclear fuels, and aid in the manufacture and distribution of space based nuclear fuel,” Dodd said. He suggests that SNAP might use nuclear power technologies such as molten salt reactors or nuclear-pumped lasers.
Build an industrial research park on the moon: The U.S. – especially the private sector – could provide communications, navigation and lunar ground infrastructure for China, India and other nations to send their own vehicles to the moon and back.
Use the space station to build space ships: Use the International Space Station as a scaffold to build the next-generation lunar orbiting station. Use the lunar station to develop and build a manned spacecraft called the Cosmic Mariner, which would journey to targets like Mars, the asteroid belt and the outer planets.
Build orbiting “filling stations” for rockets: Rockets could fill up at these floating “gas stations” so they could use their powerful engines to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere instead of the traditional method of “falling” through the atmosphere at high speeds.
Commercial astronauts build energy satellites: The private sector and NASA should develop a commercial astronaut corps program to start training crew who can go out on weekly missions to build, among other projects, satellites that would create microwave energy from the continually available sunlight and beam it to Earth. Such projects would create high-paying jobs and help bolster the sagging world economy.

This spring, development of the lunar research park idea will be shared with USC’s School of Architecture in a special graduate study topic called “Moon Studio.”

Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed

2011-12-26T08:55:00.000-06:00

They were and are keeping an eye on some other unspeakable stuff too...Aliens from space! Oh the horror, they do exist. That part remains top secret.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/decades-later-cold-war-secret-revealed-152207569.html
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored.

They spoke in code.

Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names.

At one point in the 1970s there were more than 1,000 people in the Danbury area working on The Secret. And though they worked long hours under intense deadlines, sometimes missing family holidays and anniversaries, they could tell no one — not even their wives and children — what they did.

They were engineers, scientists, draftsmen and inventors — "real cloak-and-dagger guys," says Fred Marra, 78, with a hearty laugh.

He is sitting in the food court at the Danbury Fair mall, where a group of retired co-workers from the former Perkin-Elmer Corp. gather for a weekly coffee. Gray-haired now and hard of hearing, they have been meeting here for 18 years. They while away a few hours nattering about golf and politics, ailments and grandchildren. But until recently, they were forbidden to speak about the greatest achievement of their professional lives.

"Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says, gleefully exhaling the word that stills feels almost treasonous to utter in public.

It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971 to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles of film and sophisticated cameras that orbited the earth snapping vast, panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential foes. The film was shot back through the earth's atmosphere in buckets that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes snagged them with grappling hooks.

The scale, ambition and sheer ingenuity of Hexagon KH-9 was breathtaking. The fact that 19 out of 20 launches were successful (the final mission blew up because the booster rockets failed) is astonishing.
So too is the human tale of the 45-year-old secret that many took to their graves.

Hexagon was declassified in September. Finally Marra, Newton and others can tell the world what they worked on all those years at "the office."

"My name is Al Gayhart and I built spy satellites for a living," announced the 64-year-old retired engineer to the stunned bartender in his local tavern as soon as he learned of the declassification. He proudly repeats the line any chance he gets.
"It was intensely demanding, thrilling and the greatest experience of my life," says Gayhart, who was hired straight from college and was one of the youngest members of the Hexagon "brotherhood".

He describes the white-hot excitement as teams pored over hand-drawings and worked on endless technical problems, using "slide-rules and advanced degrees" (there were no computers), knowing they were part of such a complicated space project. The intensity would increase as launch deadlines loomed and on the days when "the customer" — the CIA and later the Air Force — came for briefings. On at least one occasion, former President George H.W. Bush, who was then CIA director, flew into Danbury for a tour of the plant.

Though other companies were part of the project — Eastman Kodak made the film and Lockheed Corp. built the satellite — the cameras and optics systems were all made at Perkin-Elmer, then the biggest employer in Danbury.

"There were many days we arrived in the dark and left in the dark," says retired engineer Paul Brickmeier, 70.
He recalls the very first briefing on Hexagon after Perkin-Elmer was awarded the top secret contract in 1966. Looking around the room at his 30 or so colleagues, Brickmeier thought, "How on Earth is this going to be possible?"
One thing that made it possible was a hiring frenzy that attracted the attention of top engineers from around the Northeast. Perkin-Elmer also commissioned a new 270,000-square-foot building for Hexagon — the boxy one on the hill.
Waiting for clearance was a surreal experience as family members, neighbors and former employers were grilled by the FBI, and potential hires were questioned about everything from their gambling habits to their sexuality.
"They wanted to make sure we couldn't be bribed," Marra says.
Clearance could take up to a year. During that time, employees worked on relatively minor tasks in a building dubbed "the mushroom tank" — so named because everyone was in the dark about what they had actually been hired for.
Joseph Prusak, 76, spent six months in the tank. When he was finally briefed on Hexagon, Prusak, who had worked as an engineer on earlier civil space projects, wondered if he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
"I thought they were crazy," he says. "They envisaged a satellite that was 60-foot long and 30,000 pounds and supplying film at speeds of 200 inches per second. The precision and complexity blew my mind."
Several years later, after numerous successful launches, he was shown what Hexagon was capable of — an image of his own house in suburban Fairfield.
"This was light years before Google Earth," Prusak said. "And we could clearly see the pool in my backyard."
There had been earlier space spy satellites — Corona and Gambit. But neither had the resolution or sophistication of Hexagon, which took close-range pictures of Soviet missiles, submarine pens and air bases, even entire battalions on war exercises.

According to the National Reconnaissance Office, a single Hexagon frame covered a ground distance of 370 nautical miles, about the distance from Washington to Cincinnati. Early Hexagons averaged 124 days in space, but as the satellites became more sophisticated, later missions lasted twice as long.

"At the height of the Cold War, our ability to receive this kind of technical intelligence was incredible," says space historian Dwayne Day. "We needed to know what they were doing and where they were doing it, and in particular if they were preparing to invade Western Europe. Hexagon created a tremendous amount of stability because it meant American decision makers were not operating in the dark."
Among other successes, Hexagon is credited with providing crucial information for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
From the outset, secrecy was a huge concern, especially in Danbury, where the intense activity of a relatively small company that had just been awarded a massive contract (the amount was not declassified) made it obvious that something big was going on. Inside the plant, it was impossible to disguise the gigantic vacuum thermal chamber where cameras were tested in extreme conditions that simulated space. There was also a "shake, rattle and roll room" to simulate conditions during launch.
"The question became, how do you hide an elephant?" a National Reconnaissance Office report stated at the time. It decided on a simple response: "What elephant?" Employees were told to ignore any questions from the media, and never confirm the slightest detail about what they worked on.
But it was impossible to conceal the launches at Vandenberg Air Force base in California, and aviation magazines made several references to "Big Bird." In 1975, a "60 Minutes" television piece on space reconnaissance described an "Alice in Wonderland" world, where American and Soviet intelligence officials knew of each other's "eyes in the sky" — and other nations did, too — but no one confirmed the programs or spoke about them publicly.
For employees at Perkin-Elmer, the vow of secrecy was considered a mark of honor.
"We were like the guys who worked on the first atom bomb," said Oscar Berendsohn, 87, who helped design the optics system. "It was more than a sworn oath. We had been entrusted with the security of the country. What greater trust is there?"
Even wives — who couldn't contact their husbands or know of their whereabouts when they were traveling — for the most part accepted the secrecy. They knew the jobs were highly classified. They knew not to ask questions.
"We were born into the World War II generation," says Linda Bronico, whose husband, Al, told her only that he was building test consoles and cables. "We all knew the slogan 'loose lips sink ships.'"
And Perkin-Elmer was considered a prized place to work, with good salaries and benefits, golf and softball leagues, lavish summer picnics (the company would hire an entire amusement park for employees and their families) and dazzling children's Christmas parties.
"We loved it," Marra says. "It was our life."
For Marra and his former co-workers, sharing that life and their long-held secret has unleashed a jumble of emotions, from pride to nostalgia to relief — and in some cases, grief.

The city's mayor, Mark Boughton, only discovered that his father had worked on Hexagon when he was invited to speak at an October reunion ceremony on the grounds of the former plant. His father, Donald Boughton, also a former mayor, was too ill to attend and died a few days later.

Boughton said for years he and his siblings would pester his father — a draftsman — about what he did. Eventually they realized that the topic was off limits.
"Learning about Hexagon makes me view him completely differently," Boughton says. "He was more than just my Dad with the hair-trigger temper and passionate opinions about everything. He was a Cold War warrior doing something incredibly important for our nation."
For Betty Osterweis the ceremony was bittersweet, too. Not only did she learn about the mystery of her late husband's professional life. She also learned about his final moments.
"All these years," she said, "I had wondered what exactly had happened" on that terrible day in 1987 when she received a phone call saying her 53-year-old husband, Henry Osterweis, a contract negotiator, had suffered a heart attack on the job. At the reunion she met former co-workers who could offer some comfort that the end had been quick.
Standing in the grounds of her late husband's workplace, listening to the tributes, her son and daughter and grandchildren by her side, Osterweis was overwhelmed by the enormity of it all — the sacrifice, the secrecy, the pride.

"To know that this was more than just a company selling widgets ... that he was negotiating contracts for our country's freedom and security," she said.

"What a secret. And what a legacy."

___

Helen O'Neill is a New York-based national writer for The Associated Press. She can be reached at features(at)ap.org.

@yahoonews

2011-12-24T12:51:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I will post a UFO incident sent to me:

We came face to face with something very special.
My goal is for all people, and scientific organizations to announce this event.
In this situation I do not want to create a sensation or benefit from, or speculation.
Looking for scientific facts

Best Regards,
Celalettin Karagül

I experienced that day, and the environment, Turkish and in English translation as I would like to write in more detail.

information on environmental and INDIVIDUAL

I live in Istanbul,46 years old,computer programmer,university graduate,
Medipro Software company manager.

My uncle lives in a village in the remote areas in Kastamonu.
56 years old, primary school graduates.

Write next to her on holidays to visit for a week and go to stay alone with nature.

My interest in UFOs after the incident that occurred in my live.

UFO no idea if my uncle who live permanently in a non-farming people in that village.

ANDIRAZ name of the village, the nearest settlement with a population of 4600 there is a small town 55 km away

up to 300 people can go to the summer population of this village, about 90 real-indigenous population

The purpose of any vehicle carrying people to come here just to bring income to the village.

At other times, the vehicle does not pass this way to the village.

Geographical location of the village 70-80 km long, is painted in the valley at an altitude of 1250 at the foot of the mountains ILGAZ.

Only in this village illuminates the sky, moon and stars at night.

Milky Way very clearly visible here.

Development of the event

Was in July of 2008,
On a summer night and the stars right out of the village had gone to walk around at 23:30.

Drew attention to the direction of a light orange-sized North
Up to 30 minutes away from the village in a mountainous area, we continued to walk.

Valleys formed by streams from the top to cut off our path from time to time.
Our field of vision up to 1-2 meters, coming down in such situations.
At the time, could not even see the northern lights pee.

In this way, we passed two river bed and took about 5 minutes

Then both our view ahead opened and re-entered the north-light body.

But after that moment, a very interesting chain of events began.
He has reached the size of the illuminated object at a time months.
Color and shape as the moon looked a lot.

Then he rolled down the hill body,
has returned to the pit, sat down on the following

Become the largest paintings depicted here as I have reached.
For a while stopped for 5-6 seconds.
Much closer to the ground as we landed almost shocked.
At the same time we could see the top of the mountain.
Too strong a light ring around on the spot to spread a variety of colors caught my attention.
Then he rose and moved 300 meters from the northern line.
(If you would beat up the hill in front elevation)
Immediately after sliding in the direction of south-east came upon us.

I saw this time was 4-5 seconds under full upon us.
Two of these rings have impressed me the red ring and have a depth of
Do you not remember the exact way out in the rings with oval eyes were green and blue light.
Here's something interesting in the body than if it had something running towards me.
Pull me towards him, I got the feeling even for a moment.

Hunting rifle hanging on my shoulder with my hand went reflexively created by fear.
I did not see that moment again and then pee.
According to the testimony of his uncle was standing in front of me a full body that appear on our north-east went missing over the last hill.

UFO

Google earth

I_have_seen_in_the_province_ufo

Last_place_seen_from_the_standing_point_of_view

ufo_motion

***************************************

O gün yaşadıklarımı ve çevreyi, türkçe ve ingilizce çeviri olarak daha detaylı bir şekilde yazmak istiyorum.

*çevre ve kişesel bilgiler

Ben İstanbul'da yaşıyorum,46 yaşındayım,bilgisayar programcısıyım,
üniversite mezunuyum,Medipro Software firmasında yöneticiyim.

Dayım ise kastamonu da ücra bir köyde yaşıyor.
56 yaşında,ilkokul mezunu.

Yaz tatillerimde bir haftalığına onun yanına ziyaret ve doğa ile baş başa kalmak için giderim.

Benim UFO ilgim bu yaşadığımız olaydan sonra meydana geldi.

Dayım ise UFO konusunda hiçbir fikri olmayan çiftcilik yapan o köyde sürekli yaşayan bir kişi.

ANDIRAZ köyün adı,en yakın yerleşim yeri 4600 nüfuslu küçük bir kasaba oraya 55 km uzaklıkta

bu köyün nüfusu ise yazın 300 kişiye kadar çıkabiliyor, gerçek yerli nüfus 90 civarında

Buraya herhangi bir taşıt sadece köye gelme amacı taşıyan kişileri getirmek için gelir.

Diğer zamanlarda taşıt geçmez bu köyün yollarından.

Köyün coğrafi konumu 70-80 km uzunluğunda Boyalı vadisi içinde ILGAZ dağlarının eteğinde 1250 rakımda dır.

Geceleri bu köyü sadece gökyüzündeki ay ve yıldızlar aydınlatır.

Samanyolu burada çok net görünür.

*Olayın Gelişimi

2008 yılı temmuz ayı idi ,
Açık ve yıldızlı bir yaz gecesi saat 23:30 civarında yürüyüş için köyün dışına doğru çıkmıştık.

Kuzey doğrultusundaki portakal büyüklüğündeki bir ışık dikkatimizi çekmişti
30 dakika kadar dağlık bir alanda köyden uzaklaşarak,yürümeye devam ettik.

Yolumuz yukardan gelen derelerin oluşturduğu vadilerle zaman zaman kesiliyordu.
Böyle durumlarda görüş alanımız 1-2 metreye kadar iniyordu.
O zamanlar kuzeydeki ışıklı cisimide göremiyorduk.

Bu şekilde iki tane dere yatağından geçtik 5 dakika kadar sürdü

Sonra hem önümüz açıldı hem kuzeydeki ışıklı cisim görüş alanımıza tekrar girdi.

Fakat o andan sonra çok ilginç olaylar zinciri başladı.

O Işıklı cisim bir anda ay büyüklüğüne ulaştı.

Renk ve şekil olarak da aya çok benziyordu.

Sonra o cisim tepeden aşağı yuvarlanarak,dönerek geldi ve aşağıdaki çukurun üstüne oturdu.

Burada en büyük haline ulaştı resimlerde tasvir ettiğim gibi.
Bir süre 5-6 saniye durdu.

Yere çok yaklaşması bizi şoke etti nerdeyse indi gibi.

Aynı zamanda dağın üst kısmını görebiliyorduk.

Durduğu yerde çok kuvvetli çeşitli renklerden oluşan bir ışık halkası yayması dikkatimiz çekti.

Sonra biraz yükseldi ve kuzey doğrultusunda 300 metre hareket etti.

(Eğer yükselmese önündeki tepeye çarpardı)

Hemen peşinden güney doğu yönünde kayarak üstümüze geldi.

Üstümüzde 4-5 saniye kaldı bu sefer tam altından görüyordum.
Beni etkileyen iki tane kırmızı halka ve bu halkalar arasında bir derinlik olması
Halkaların içinde mi dışında mı tam hatırlayamıyorum oval şekilde yeşil ve mavi şekilde ışıklı gözler vardı.
Burda dikkatimi çeken bir şey daha sanki cisim den bana doğru akan bir şey vardı.
Hatta bir an beni kendisine doğru çekecek hissi aldım.
Korkunun yarattığı refleksle elim omzumda asılı olan av tüfeğime gitti.
Ben o andan sonra cisimi tekrar göremedim.
Dayım tam karşımda duruyordu onun ifadesine göre cisim kuzey doğu tarafımızda görünen en son tepenin üzerinden kayıp gitmiş.

Station Commander Captures Unprecedented View of Comet

2011-12-24T09:16:00.001-06:00

International Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured spectacular imagery of Comet Lovejoy as seen from about 240 miles above the Earth’s horizon on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Burbank described seeing the comet as “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space,” in an interview with WDIV-TV in Detroit.

I sent the drawing above that I made about the space shuttle and the mission to fix the Hubble telescope to the The Kansas City Star newspaper. They published it on December 19, 1993.

The point I was making was that working in space is not work at all, it's play, fun, and a supernatural adventure...And some very lucky people are paid to do that so-called work for a living...and what a living it is.

Lou

Earth has more than one moon, astronomers confirm

2011-12-23T08:56:00.000-06:00

Earth gets mooned twice, how nice. It's amazing how much we humans don't know what is going on in our backyard, a few miles above the Earth, yet we think we have an inkling of what is going on with the furthest planets, and other star systems in this galaxy.

We get mooned more than twice in any given month, more like dozens of times by rocky and not so rocky things that can go bump in the night...sky.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/earth-more-one-moon-astronomers-confirm-200222677.html

Researchers at Cornell University say that what we know as the Moon is in fact not the only one orbiting our planet at any given time. Smaller objects regularly inhabit the Earth's orbit, usually leaving after a few months to continue on their celestial journeys.

The discovery is considered a major breakthrough for space research because scientists had been working toward visiting asteroids outside of Earth's orbit for research. While these temporary moons are too small for a shuttle landing, they are prime for research from a relatively close distance.

However, it's still to be determined whether the announcement will capture the public's attention like previously revealed New Moons. Either way, it should be a decidedly more pleasant experience for all involved.

The new paper titled "The population of natural Earth satellites," from Cornell University's Mikael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillon and Robert Jedicke states that these "secret moons" enter and exit the Earth's orbit without notice.

"At any given time, there should be at least one natural Earth satellite of 1-meter diameter orbiting the Earth," Granvik writes.

Scientists have confirmed at least one such temporary moon, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona in 2006.

"Our results are consistent with the single known natural [temporarily-captured orbiter] 2006 RH120, a few-meter diameter object that was captured for about a year starting in June 2006," the report says.

Possible UFO in Kansas mystery solved

2011-12-21T11:46:00.002-06:00

I said many moons ago that most people will be acclimated to believe that UFOs are only military aircraft/drones. This is a great example. Yes, that is a military drone on the truck bed as the ones pictured on the right X-47B unmanned drones built by NorthropGrumman. NorthropGrumman hasn't admitted to receiving any extraterrestrial technology, and that's good enough for most people.

It's now safe for the people to go back to sleep and forget about all that UFO nonsense.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/did-military-haul-ufo-kansas-150544531.html

Residents of Cowley County, Kansas caused a sensation last week when they captured video of the military towing a concealed object on a flatbed truck down US Highway 77. It wasn't long before a wave of speculation hit, claiming the object was a UFO.
Depending on the angle from which you spotted it, the 30 foot-wide mysterious craft appeared to be saucer-shaped. It was so large that local law enforcement had to remove roadside signage so it could pass through. But it was covered in a tightly concealed tarp, making any further examination impossible.

However, as Gizmodo points out, the craft does not technically meet the definition of UFO. For starters, even if it were an alien craft, the object was not flying. And more important, it's no longer unidentified.

Local sheriff Don Read announced that the tarp was in fact covering a flying object, but one of decidedly Earthly origins. More specifically, it was a drone aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman. After Read's disclosure, Northrop Grumman senior manager of public relations Brooks McKinney stepped forward to provide more details, telling Life's Little Mysteries that the "UFO" is a X-47B unmanned combat drone designed to operate from aircraft carriers. It was headed to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.
Drone technology, or Unmanned Systems (UMS) have become so commonplace, that Northrop Grumman has a section dedicated to them on its public website. There's even a page for the X-47B itself.

"Clearly people are interested in what's going through town. It's unusual to see a shrink-wrapped aircraft, especially one with that shape," McKinney said.

"We built two for the Navy, they were being tested at Edwards Air Force Base [in California] since March. One is on its way to Maryland, and the other will remain in California."

And the reason they weren't actually flying the high-tech aircraft was even simpler. "It's difficult to fly an unmanned drone through commercial airspace," McKinney said.

Finally, the question "What's the matter with Kansas?" can be answered: A painful lack of alien spaceships.

COMET LOVEJOY SURVIVES

2011-12-16T15:22:00.000-06:00

A small icy comet the size of two football stadiums my arse. NASA would sell us the Brooklyn Bridge too, but you can only sell that Bridge so many times...then again everyone is buying this story.

Here's what really happened, Milton got into the Christmas eggnog...again.

Lou

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Incredibly, sungrazing Comet Lovejoy has survived its close encounter with the sun. Lovejoy flew only 140,000 km over the stellar surface during the early hours of Dec. 16th. Experts expected the icy sundiver to be destroyed. Instead, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the comet emerging from perihelion (closest approach) apparently intact:

Comet Lovejoy began the week as a chunk of dusty, rocky ice more than 200 meters in diameter. No one can say how much of the comet's core remains intact or how long it will hang together after the searing heat of perihelion. "There is still a possibility that Comet Lovejoy will start to fragment," says researcher Karl Battams in a NASA news release. "It’s been through a tremendously traumatic event; structurally, it could be extremely weak."

God particle’ coming into focus

2011-12-12T22:05:00.000-06:00

There is no god particle, also known as Higgs boson. It's understandable that scientists have to justify billions of dollars spent on their search, and they do find useful stuff now and then, but they can't find something that doesn't exist.

Lou

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/12/god-particle-coming-into-focus/?hpt=hp_c2

Gossip isn’t just for teenage girls – scientists spread rumors, too. Physicists are giddy about an announcement that will come from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on Tuesday at 8 a.m. EST, although the details remain tantalizingly secret.

The word on the street is that scientists will unveil the first hints of the Higgs boson, also called the "God particle" in popular culture. This unimaginably small particle has never been detected, but would explain several unsolved mysteries about the universe – for instance, why building blocks of our world have mass.

But listen to Tuesday’s revelations with caution – there’s not enough data to make definitive statements yet about the Higgs, said Joe Incandela, the spokesperson for the Large Hadron Collider's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment as of January.
Finding evidence of the Higgs would be a “very wonderful success of science and of people for four centuries,” said Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics. And it would be a big payoff from CERN's $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, which smashes particles at unprecedented energies in an attempt to detect signatures of even smaller, more transitory particles that would help fill in gaps in the current thinking about the way the universe works.
This collider was set up to examine some of the fundamental questions about the universe that remain unknown: What happened right after the Big Bang? Why is gravity so weak? Are there extra dimensions, or is this it? Where did dark matter and dark energy come from?
Incandela compared the hunt for the Higgs to using binoculars. A year ago, scientists’ vision of the Higgs was very blurry; a year from now, something will come into focus. At this point, they are somewhere in between.
“For us, that’s a big deal. Even just to know we’re this close,” Incandela said. “A year from now, we’ll have enough data to make a definitive statement, one way or the other.”
Thousands of scientists worldwide collaborate on work related to the LHC, which is located 328 feet underground in a 17-mile tunnel. It produces 600 million particle collisions per second. The two general-purpose experiments at the collider are ATLAS and CMS; scientists from both collaborations are expected to deliver news about the Higgs on Tuesday.
ATLAS weighs about 7,700 tons, and has calorimeters to measure energy of particles and tracking detectors to record momentum in its huge magnet system. CMS is even heavier at 13,000 tons, and has a 43-foot-long superconducting solenoid magnet to measure particle momentum. The cylindrical coil of superconducting cable of CMS generates a magnetic field 100,000 times that of the Earth, CERN says.
In searching for the Higgs boson, scientists are using these detectors to look at 42 possible scenarios by which the Higgs would have decayed, Incandela said. That means a lot of people looking at a lot of data, and still more data is needed for firmer conclusions.
The LHC has already set its own world records for intensity of particle beams. In the next year, the collision rates in the LHC will be even higher, with energies up to 8 TeV (in 2011 it was 7 TeV), giving much more data to work with, Incandela said. The collider is currently on a break, but will resume research in April.
The Standard Model of physics, the best description scientists have for the world at a scale smaller than atoms, cannot completely describe the way the universe operates. Finding the Higgs boson would help explain the origin of mass, but that’s not the whole story for explaining all of subatomic physics, either.
That’s why physicists have come up with other theories – albeit untested – to describe the universe. What Incandela calls the “most complete and beautiful extension of the Standard Model” is a theory called supersymmetry, which can be represented in many different ways. In fact, supersymmetry predicts the existence at least five different Higgs, two of which have charge and three are neutral, Incandela said. The one physicists would most likely see is the lightest one, which is thought to be similar to what’s predicted in the Standard Model.
An extension of supersymmetry, called string theory, can also benefit from hints of the Higgs boson, says Kane. In this school of thought, extremely small vibrating loops called strings make up the universe. Kane recently co-authored a study showing how the Higgs boson is required for string theory, and predicting that the signal of this particle is around 125 GeV.
Even if that prediction pans out, though, it doesn’t mean string theory or supersymmetry is necessarily true, since there are many ways to arrive at a Higgs boson with a similar mass, physicists say. There are also several variations of string theory. And no experiments have validated these ideas yet, although proponents hope the LHC will deliver more evidence.
Still, Kane and colleagues are excited to hear what the experiments have found out about the Higgs.
“I don’t think there’s any question of it going away or being too weak to be important,” Kane says of the Higgs boson. “So, be ready.”
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NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone

2011-12-05T16:48:00.001-06:00

One down a few billion similar planets to go...find. They are out there, and filled with humans just like us, with shopping malls and everything else that makes life worth living, or whatever. Granted, a disappointing thought, but there are far more exiting planets out there too.

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescope-confirms-alien-planet-habitable-zone-162005358.html

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).

The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.

"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.

Kepler-22b's radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius).

Hunting down alien planets

The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, might be able to

Kepler detects alien planets using what's called the "transit method." It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — the star from Earth's perspective, blocking a fraction of the star's light.

The finds graduate from "candidates" to full-fledged planets after follow-up observations confirm that they're not false alarms. This process, which is usually done with large, ground-based telescopes, can take about a year.

The Kepler team released data from its first 13 months of operation back in February, announcing that the instrument had detected 1,235 planet candidates, including 54 in the habitable zone and 68 that are roughly Earth-size.

Of the total 2,326 candidate planets that Kepler has found to date, 207 are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, falling into the "super-Earth" category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48.

To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument's discoveries should end up being the real deal.

More discoveries to come

The newfound 1,094 planet candidates are the fruit of Kepler's labors during its first 16 months of science work, from May 2009 to September 2010. And they won't be the last of the prolific instrument's discoveries.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

Mission scientists still need to analyze data from the last two years and on into the future. Kepler will be making observations for a while yet to come; its nominal mission is set to end in November 2012, but the Kepler team is preparing a proposal to extend the instrument's operations for another year or more.

Kepler's finds should only get more exciting as time goes on, researchers say.

"We're pushing down to smaller planets and longer orbital periods," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at Ames.

To flag a potential planet, the instrument generally needs to witness three transits. Planets that make three transits in just a few months must be pretty close to their parent stars; as a result, many of the alien worlds Kepler spotted early on have been blisteringly hot places that aren't great candidates for harboring life as we know it.

Given more time, however, a wealth of more distantly orbiting — and perhaps more Earth-like — exoplanets should open up to Kepler. If intelligent aliens were studying our solar system with their own version of Kepler, after all, it would take them three years to detect our home planet.

"We are getting very close," Batalha said. "We are homing in on the truly Earth-size, habitable planets."

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com

New Study Throws Dark Matter Finding Into Question

2011-12-01T22:52:00.001-06:00

It's amazing how many people make a good living searching for non-existent stuff like Dark Matter.

Maybe they should look for something more tangible, like extraterrestrials. Many scientists already know ETs exists, they don't want the general public to know, might interfere with their research on Dark Matter, and the illusive (also non-existent god particle, Higgs boson) .

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/study-throws-dark-matter-finding-225403213.html

A new study of dark matter, the mysterious hidden stuff thought to pervade the universe, casts doubt on a previous finding that offered hope that dark matter had finally been seen.

In 2008, a European-Russian satellite called Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light nuclei Astrophysics (PAMELA) discovered a strange overabundance of particles called positrons, which are the antimatter counterpart to electrons. Matter and antimatter, which have the same mass but opposite charges, destroy one another when they meet.

According to theory, when a particle of dark matter collides with its antiparticle, they annihilate, unleashing a burst of energy and exotic particles. Dark matter is thought to make up 98 percent of all matter in the universe and 23 percent of its total mass and energy. Scientists have yet to directly detect invisible dark matter, but its existence is inferred based its gravitational pull on regular matter.

The positrons found by PAMELA were thought to be the products of dark matter annihilation with antimatter, and scientists were hopeful that the tantalizing discovery could prove the existence of the elusive dark matter.

But a new study has raised more questions about PAMELA's discovery. Researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University in California confirmed the overabundance of positrons, but when they did not see a sudden drop-off of this excess beyond a certain energy level, they knew something was wrong.

"If the antimatter we measure is coming from the annihilation of dark matter particles, then the positron excess should drop off fairly suddenly at an energy level that corresponds with the mass of the dark matter particle," study co-author Stefan Funk, an assistant professor of physics at Stanford University, said in a statement.

Rather, Funk and his colleague, Justin Vandenbroucke, found that the number of positrons continued to increase in line with the level of energy. [7 Surprising Things About the Universe]

"Some have concluded that this altogether rules out dark matter as a source of the antimatter we're measuring," Funk said. "At the very least this means that if the positrons are coming from dark matter annihilation, then dark matter particles must have a higher mass than allowed by the PAMELA measurement."

But the results are not necessarily a definitive strike against the finding, the researchers said.

"We're taking an observational point of view and simply reporting the data that we observe," Vandenbroucke said. "However, I know that articles are already appearing that say our result likely

rules out the dark matter interpretation. Personally, I think that is too strong of an interpretation."

Additional observations will be needed to settle the debate, the researchers said. One instrument in particular, the antimatter-hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), is expected to yield helpful results.

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour carried the AMS experiment to the International Space Station in May, where it was installed on the exterior of the complex. It has been operating ever since. This detector should be able to collect more precise data at higher energies, Vandenbroucke said.

"AMS has a very large magnet in its detector and so can naturally and very easily distinguish between electrons and positrons," Funk said. "That experiment will most likely be able to make a final statement on this. It's something we are all eagerly awaiting."

Funk and Vandenbroucke used NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which studies the highest energy forms of light. Since the telescope is designed to detect neutral light particles, called photons, it does not have a magnet to separate negatively charged electrons and positively charged positrons.

The researchers were forced to improvise, but luckily a natural magnet exists close to home: Earth. The planet's magnetic field naturally bends the paths of charged particles that almost continuously rain from space, they explained.

The scientists then studied geophysical maps of Earth and calculated how the planet filters out charged particles seen by the telescope, in a novel approach at the intersection of astrophysics and geophysics.

"The big takeaway here is how valuable it is to measure and understand the world around us in as many ways as possible," Vandenbroucke said. "Once you have this basic scientific knowledge, it's often surprising how that knowledge can be useful."

The researchers detailed their results in a paper submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

Extra Giant Planet May Have Dwelled in Our Solar System

2011-11-18T09:09:00.001-06:00

Scientists are starting to put a few pieces of the puzzle together about how the solar system works, but they are not yet ready to make the big leap into the fact that all planets were born and spit out of the sun into the solar system, and beyond. lol

Lou

http://news.yahoo.com/extra-giant-planet-may-dwelled-solar-system-125402924.html

Within our solar system, an extra giant planet, or possibly two, might once have accompanied Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.

Computer models showing how our solar system formed suggested the planets once gravitationally slung one another across space, only settling into their current orbits over the course of billions of years.

During more than 6,000 simulations of this planetary scattering phase, planetary scientist David Nesvorny at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., found that a solar system that began with four giant planets only had a 2.5 percent chance of leading to the orbits presently seen now. These systems would be too violent in their youth to end up resembling ours, most likely resulting in systems that have less than four giants over time, Nesvorny found.

Instead, a model about 10 times more likely at matching our current solar system began with five giants, including a now lost world comparable in mass to Uranus and Neptune. This extra planet may have been an "ice giant" rich in icy matter just like Uranus and Neptune, Nesvorny explained.

The computer model allowed Nesvorny to create a video of the potential extra planet's departure from our solar system.

When the solar system was about 600 million years old, it underwent a major period of instability that scattered the giant planets and smaller worlds, researchers said. Eventually, gravitational encounters with Jupiter would have flung the mystery world to interstellar space about 4 billion years ago.

As fantastic as these findings might sound, a large number of free-floating worlds have recently been discovered in interstellar space, Nesvorny noted. As such, the ejection of planets from solar systems might be common.

"The work raises interesting questions about the early history of the outer solar system," Nesvorny told SPACE.com. "For example, traditionally, most research was focused on the giant planets, their satellites, Kuiper belt objects, and their interaction — that's what we have in the outer solar system now. But how about Mars to super-Earth-size bodies? Have such objects formed on the outer solar system and were eliminated later? If not, then why?"

"This is just a beginning," Nesvorny said. "It will need quite a lot of work to see if there actually was the fifth planet. I am not fully convinced myself."

Nesvorny's research is detailed online in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

New York to LA in less than 12 minutes

2011-08-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

Once again, CNN forgot to mention the source or give credit for this watered-down ET technology given to humans via the military.

Dark Fireworks on the Sun June 7, 2011

2011-07-13T08:15:00.004-05:00

On June 7, 2011, the same day this video was taken, I said that something would happen in June. This is only part of what took place. NASA hasn't released the pictures of the stuff that didn't fall back into the sun. They waited more than a month to release this little bit of info.

Spaceweather.com July 11, 2011

On June 7, 2011, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a flash of X-rays coming from the western edge of the solar disk. Registering only "M" (for medium) on the Richter scale of solar flares, the blast at first appeared to be a run-of-the-mill eruption--that is, until researchers looked at the movies.

"We'd never seen anything like it," says Alex Young, a solar physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Half of the sun appeared to be blowing itself to bits."

NASA has just released new high-resolution videos of the event recorded by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The videos are large, typically 50 MB to 100 MB, but worth the wait to download. Click on the arrow to launch the first movie, then scroll down for commentary:

"IN terms of raw power, this really was just a medium-sized eruption," says Young, "but it had a uniquely dramatic appearance caused by all the inky-dark material. We don't usually see that."

Solar physicist Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC calls it a case of "dark fireworks."

"The blast was triggered by an unstable magnetic filament near the sun's surface," he explains. "That filament was loaded down with cool1 plasma, which exploded in a spray of dark blobs and streamers."

The plasma blobs were as big as planets, many larger than Earth. They rose and fell ballistically, moving under the influence of the sun's gravity like balls tossed in the air, exploding "like bombs" when they hit the stellar surface.

Some blobs, however, were more like guided missiles. "In the movies we can see material 'grabbed' by magnetic fields and funneled toward sunspot groups hundreds of thousands of kilometers away," notes Young.

SDO also detected a shadowy shock wave issuing from the blast site. The 'solar tsunami' propagated more than halfway across the sun, visibly shaking filaments and loops of magnetism en route. [91 MB Quicktime]

Long-range action has become a key theme of solar physics since SDO was launched in 2010. The observatory frequently sees explosions in one part of the sun affecting other parts. Sometimes one explosion will trigger another ... and another ... with a domino sequence of flares going off all around the star.

"The June 7th blast didn't seem to trigger any big secondary explosions, but it was certainly felt far and wide," says Young.

It's tempting to look at the movies and conclude that most of the exploded material fell back--but that wouldn't be true, according to Vourlidas. "The blast also propelled a significant coronal mass ejection (CME) out of the sun's atmosphere."

He estimates that the cloud massed about 4.5 x1015 grams, placing it in the top 5% of all CMEs recorded in the Space Age. For comparison, the most massive CME ever recorded was 1016 grams, only a factor of ~2 greater than the June 7th cloud.2 The amount of material that fell back to the sun on June 7th was approximately equal to the amount that flew away, Vourlidas says.

As remarkable as the June 7th eruption seems to be, Young says it might not be so rare. "In fact," he says, "it might be downright common."

Before SDO, space-based observatories observed the sun with relatively slow cadences and/or limited fields of view. They could have easily missed the majesty of such an explosion, catching only a single off-center snapshot at the beginning or end of the blast to hint at what actually happened.

Earth-sized Fireball

2011-05-06T17:37:00.000-05:00

A FIREBALL THE SIZE OF EARTH: "When the sun rose on May 2nd, I was surprised to see a fully detached fireball prominence at the southwestern edge of the solar disk," reports amateur astronomer Jan Timmermans of Valkenswaard, The Netherlands. "Just imagine, a ball of fire with the size of the Earth thrown high in the solar skies!" "I was stunned," he continues. "The prominence was rather faint, so I had to use a lot of gain to capture it, hence the noise: 'more gain = more grain.' But I am pleased that I captured it!"