Testing …....................
Another Ghost Post…...........................
4 years ago
he little matchstick-like objects, neatly lined up like colouring pencils in their box, are in fact LHC magnets seen from the air. These particular ones are being stored at Point 19 just alongside SM18, the magnet assembly and testing hall, which can be seen on the right of the picture. On the right in the background, is the Meyrin site.
This remarkable aerial photograph bears witness to the excellent progress of LHC magnet production. The 1000 mark for the delivery of the main magnets has just been passed (800 dipole magnets and 200 short straight sections). “A total of 1650 main magnets are required”, explains Lucio Rossio, the Head of the Magnets and Superconductors Group (AT-MAS), “I can therefore confirm that production will be completed on schedule in October 2006.”
This second aerial photograph shows one of the two storage areas on the Prévessin site. By looking closely, you can make out the big crane which is about to transport a dipole magnet. Just behind this row of dipole magnets are the dipole cold masses waiting to be inserted into their blue cryostats. Lined up at the bottom of the picture you can see the short straight sections, consisting of the main quadrupoles and other corrector magnets.
4 years ago
Radiation threat follows tsunami
HIGHLY toxic waste washed on to Somalia’s coastline by the December tsumani has spawned illnesses with symptoms like radioactive exposure in villagers along the shore of the shattered African nation.
Toxic waste spawning radioactive diseases in Somalia coastline: UN
Fri Mar 4,12:31 PM ET Health – AFP
NAIROBI (AFP) – Highly toxic waste washed on to Somali’s coastline by last December’s tsumani has spawned illnesses with symptoms like radioactive exposure in villagers along the shore of the shattered African nation, the UN Environment Programme said.
4 years ago
Millions live on hazardous coasts Governments see need to create evacuation plans
By Randolph E. Schmid , Associated Press
More than half of all Americans now live on or near a coast, a major evacuation worry in case of hurricanes, tsunamis or other natural disasters.
One possible answer: vertical evacuations that could send people fleeing upward in high-rise buildings rather than away from a stormy coast.
Coastal growth also poses environmental and economic challenges to local governments, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
4 years ago
Warm Weather, Festivities Greet Start of Iditarod
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Seventy-nine mushers and their dog teams started the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Saturday on a layer of rapidly melting snow that was trucked in overnight to cover downtown Anchorage streets.
4 years ago
SNIP
March 6, 2005
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers
Reports have reached us today that the Franz Josef Land archipelago Region of Russia, and in the Arctic Circle, has been stricken by a series of powerful earthquakes. The Seismic Network of the Russian Academy of Sciences is currently estimating the largest of these events to be over 6.0 magnitude event, and covering an area of the Arctic Regions of tens of thousands of square kilometers.
Occurring also with these events in a symbiotic relationship, with the depth of 33 kilometers being the common factor, was another earthquake event in the Quebec Region of Canada, and as reported by the Seismic Network of the Russian Academy of Sciences as having over a 5.0 magnitude.
These shallow focus earthquakes, of depths less than 75 km, are of great concern to Russian scientists because of their great potential for harm, and also as foretellers of larger events to come.
The significance of these current events lie in the fact that great the great instability in the Eurasian Plate, and caused by the magnitude 9.3 event, and as reported by the UPI News Service, “The main earthquake —a magnitude 9.3 event and the second-strongest ever recorded — unleashed tsunamis that killed nearly 300,000 people in coastal areas as far away as Sri Lanka and India.”, of December 26, 2004 on this plates southern boundary, is now being transferred to its northern (frontal) boundary where it meets the North American Plate in the Franz Josef Land archipelago.
Dr. G.P. Avetisov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, in his report to the United States scientific organization National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and titled “Seismically active zones of the Arctic”, has said, “It is noteworthy that the disturbed mid-oceanic seismic belt is colinear with Eurasian submeridional Franz-Victoria and Saint Anna offshore troughs. These troughs show a few earthquakes magnitude up to 6.5 on their intersection with the continental slope.”
The relationship therefore between these two earthquake events in Arctic Russia and Quebec Canada can not be underestimated because, and as stated by the Canadian Governments Natural Resources Ministry, “Canada east of the Cordillera, extending north from the United States border to the Arctic Ocean, comprises about two-thirds of the stable craton of the North American plate.”
END SNIP
cont…
4 years ago
Swarm of Small Quakes off Oregon Coast
NEWPORT, Ore. (AP) _ An earthquake “swarm’‘ that began last weekend has resulted in thousands of small earthquakes off the Oregon coast in recent days but the size of the quakes did not pose any tsunami threat, officials said.
4 years ago
Over 3000 Earthquakes within 72 Hours off NW Coast
by Mitch Battros – ECTV
This story has caught fire. Seismologist and Geologist are rushing in from all over the world to witness this event. At this time the only press release is “Don’t worry; the earthquakes are not large enough to create a tsunami.”
That being said, the excitement is more about witnessing a growing “volcano” right off the coast of Vancouver Island. A scientific SWAT team from Seattle is sailing this afternoon for a spot off the coast of Vancouver Island, where they suspect an underwater eruption is under way.
“We really don’t know what to expect,” said Edward Baker, an oceanographer at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “If we’re very lucky, we may get pictures of brand-new lava on the seafloor.”
This news release began as a slow simmer, and has now picked up speed and a whole lot of attention, and rightfully so. Recent studies of past earthquakes indicate a natural cyclical pattern. Although it may be a natural periodic occurrence, no one knows exactly when, how and where the next round of seismic events will unfold. It appears the most vulnerable areas are U.S. Midwest (New Madrid), eastern Canada, Australia and Germany.
In a recent Smithsonian Institute article reports: “Three hundred years of tectonic pressure has now built up since the 1700 tsunami occurred. A recent study estimates that 10 million people on the U.S. West Coast would be affected by a Cascadia subduction-zone quake. Today, the shaking from a quake of the same magnitude would damage 200 highway bridges, put Pacific ports out of business for months, and generate shock waves capable of toppling tall buildings and long bridges in Seattle and Portland.”
Early this morning I received an email from H.C. who is one of our ECTV subscribers with a link to the PNSN (Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network). Looks like there is another round of earthquake swarms in progress! Below are the links to the seismographs.
**I will just conclude with saying “I have a feeling this story is just beginning”.
4 years ago
MoD study reveals potential impact of nuclear sub accident
THOUSANDS of people could be contaminated with radio activity in breach of safe limits if there was an accident on a nuclear submarine at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, an assessment by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveals.
4 years ago
More damage than a nuclear bomb
FLORENCE – On the open ocean, you won’t even feel it. Not the magnitude 9 earthquake radiating from two tectonic plates that merge just off the Pacific Coast; not the resulting tsunami, traveling at jetliner speeds. As the quake wreaks havoc on land, rattling buildings and bridges into pieces, triggering massive landslides and turning soil into quicksand, the wave will silently surge toward shore like any other.But as the wave strikes the shallows, it rises up, transforming itself from a barely detectable swell to a 50-, 80-, maybe even a 100-foot wave in some places. The tsunami will powerfully meet whatever dares confront it – homes, automobiles, people – with chaotic force.
As it encounters obstacles, the wave will create swells that crash north, south and back toward the sea. On land, the tsunami will surge toward low-lying areas, adding uprooted trees, dock pilings and cars to its arsenal and mangling or killing anyone who can’t get out of the way.
Then it will happen again. And again. The waves will diminish in speed and force, but grow more deadly as people on the coast assume the threat has passed – when, in reality, the ocean will simply be gathering more weaponry in the cars, refrigerators, broken houses and propane tanks it earlier dragged into the water.
4 years ago
4 years ago
Evidence of extreme disturbance in Earth’s core. Can earth explode?
Geologists in India and the rest of the world are receiving signals
of a very disturbed mantel and core of the earth. According to some
computer models, the outer core and the mantel is getting extremely
heated. This can cause extreme tension on the earth’s crust and the
tectonic plates.
The net result can be increased earthquakes and volcanoes. The
reports coming from every continent says that the volcanoes, geysers
and mud volcanoes all are ready to explode.
According to the scientists the mantel viscosity is going down due to
increased temperature. The outer core is showing sign molecular
agitation. The inner core is also showing strange signs.
According to some contemporary geosciences theories, the Earth’s iron
core formed with a large share of radioactive uranium, which combined
with sulfur to make an ultra-dense compound. The uranium settled to
the center of the core, where it eventually formed a mass big enough
to sustain a supercritical nuclear reactor. Not just that, but it
functions as a breeder reactor, creating more nuclear fuel than it
burns. This provides the energy needed to generate the geomagnetic
field. That is in essence is the theory geomagnetism and gravity.
If that reactor for some reason is disturbed, it can cause major
problems and eventually explode.
But scientists believe the chances of that are very remote though not
impossible. There are evidences in our solar system that an extra
planet did explode and caused major problems for the Earth and Mars
millions of years back.
We can get very little clue on what is happening in the inner core.
The mantel is what we can get a feel for. And nothing is possible to
investigate without proper data.
4 years ago
EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS TRIGGERED BY STAR-QUAKES?
Computer models are showing an interesting relationship between star-quakes and earthquakes. Supernova, star-quakes and similar burst of energy in the Universe triggers earthquakes and tsunamis.
According to researchers, most of the large earthquakes and Tsunamis happened when there was a burst of energy somewhere in the cosmos.
According to BBC, Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy released in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000 light-years away.
SNIP
4 years ago
Many in India getting ready for the coming upheaval of 2012 –will we survive?
The way we live and our perception about life, death and happiness will not be the same after December 2012
The recent Tsunami may be a forewarning of what might be on the way.
4 years ago
CAN OCEANS LEAK INTO SPACE BY ALTERING GRAVITY AND MANIPULATING EARTH’S ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD?
Ever since electricity was tamed in the 19th century, the idea of manipulating gravity by altering an electromagnetic field has been the subject of intriguing experiments and occasional bursts of irrational exuberance. Physicists insist that because gravity is a basic force of nature, constructing an antigravity machine is theoretically impossible. But recently, and not without some reluctance, they have begun to consider another possibility. Several highly respected physicists say it might be possible to construct a force-field machine that acts on all matter in a way that is similar to gravity. Strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be an antigravity machine. But by exerting an attractive or repulsive force on all matter, it would be the functional equivalent of the impossible machine.
While an operational device is at least five years in the future, developers of what can be loosely termed a force-field machine say it has cleared major theoretical hurdles. To demonstrate their claim, they invited POPULAR MECHANICS to visit their Huntsville, Ala., laboratory to see the most important component of their proof-of-concept demonstrator. It is a 12-in.-dia. high-temperature superconducting disc (HTSD). When the force-field machine is complete, a bowling ball placed anywhere above this disc, which resembles a clutch plate, will stay exactly where you left it.
Everyone knows that gravity is the glue that keeps our feet on the ground and the planets on their orbits. It operates on every single molecule and atom in our bodies. Physicists define gravity as the attractive force between two masses. They also say it is the weakest and most pervasive of the four basic forces of nature. The others are the strong force and weak force that operate within the atomic nucleus and the electromagnetic force that explains everything from refrigerator magnets to light bulbs, telecommunications to chemistry.
Machines that use electromagnetism to defy gravity have a checkered history. In 1911, Edward S. Farrow, a New York engineer, staged public demonstrations of a weight-reducing device he called a condensing dynamo. In all likelihood it was no more than an electromagnet, a small version of the behemoths that lift wrecks into junkyard crushers. Earlier this year, BAE Systems, a major British aerospace company, announced that it had taken up the gravity quest with an initiative called Project Greenglow. The mainstream physics community immediately dropped a load of wet blankets on the defense contractor, claiming it was wasting money on a bad idea.
The Einstein Connection
Prospects for the Alabama HTSD are attracting serious attention because this particular disc was fabricated by Ning Li, one of the world’s leading scientists. In the 1980s, Li predicted that if a time-varying magnetic field were applied to superconductor ions trapped in a lattice structure, the ions would absorb enormous amounts of energy. Confined in the lattice, the ions would begin to rapidly spin, causing each to create a minuscule gravitational field.
To understand how an HTSD is critical to the construction of a force-field machine, it’s useful to know something about an unusual state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. In our day-to-day lives we encounter three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. In the laboratory it is possible to create another state of matter in which all the atoms are aligned in a way that makes them behave as if they were one single atom. This novel state of matter is named after Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose who predicted its existence decades ago.
In an HTSD, the tiny gravitational effect of each individual atom is multiplied by the billions of atoms in the disc. Using about one kilowatt of electricity, Li says, her device could potentially produce a force field that would effectively neutralize gravity above a 1-ft.-dia. region extending from the surface of the planet to outer space.
AC Gravity
“The first thing to understand about Li’s device is that it is neither an antigravity machine nor a gravitational shield,” says Jonathan Campbell, a scientist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center who has worked with Li. “It does not modify gravity, rather it produces a gravity-like field that may be either attractive or repulsive.” Li describes her device as a method of generating a never-before-seen force field that acts on matter in a way that is similar to gravity. Since it may be either repulsive or attractive she calls it “AC gravity.” “It adds to, or counteracts, or re-directs gravity,” explains Larry Smalley, the former chairman of the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) physics department. “Basically, you are adding a couple of vectors to zero it [gravity] out or enhance it.”
Although he didn’t call it AC gravity, Einstein’s theory of relativity predicts this effect. All objects produce gravito-magnetic energy, the amount of force proportional to its mass and acceleration. Li says that the main reason this energy has never been detected is that the Earth spins very slowly and the field’s strength decreases rapidly as you move away from the center of the planet. The first measurements are expected to be made by NASA’s Gravity Probe B experiment, which is planned for launch in 2002.
Beginning with the most basic law of physics—force = mass x acceleration—Li reasoned that it would be possible to perform the same experiment here on Earth, using ions locked in a lattice structure inside a superconductor. When an ion rotates around a magnetic field, the mass goes along for the ride. This, according to Einstein, should produce a gravito-magnetic field.
Unlike the planet, ions have a minuscule mass. But also unlike the Earth, they spin their little hearts out, rotating more than a quadrillion times a second, compared with the planet’s once-a-day rotation. Li calculates this movement will compensate for the small mass of the ions.
Li explains that as the ions spin they also create a gravito-electric field perpendicular to their spin axis. In nature, this field is unobserved because the ions are randomly arranged, thus causing their tiny gravito-electric fields to cancel out one another. In a Bose-Einstein condensate, where all ions behave as one, something very different occurs.
Li says that if the ions in an HTSD are aligned by a magnetic field, the gravito-electric fields they create should also align. Build a large enough disc and the cumulative field should be measurable. Build a larger disc and the force field above it should be controllable. “It’s a gravity-like force you can point in any direction,” says Campbell. “It could be used in space to protect the international space station against impacts by small meteoroids and orbital debris.”
Concept To Machine
Although Li’s theory has passed through the scientific quality-control process called peer review and an HTSD has been constructed, important technical unknowns remain. This summer, Li left UAH. She and several colleagues are striking out on their own to commercialize devices based on her theory and a proprietary HTSD fabrication technique.
Li’s next step is to raise the several million dollars needed to build the induction motor that individually spins the ions in the HTSD. “It will take at least two years to simulate the machine on a computer,” says Smalley, who plans to join Li’s as-yet-unnamed company after he retires from UAH. “We want to avoid the situation that occurred in fusion where extremely expensive reactors were built, turned on, and didn’t work as intended because of unforeseen plasma instabilities.” Li says she has turned down several offers for financial backing. It is less about money than control. “Investors want control over the technology,” she says. “This is too important. It should belong to all the American people.”
BY JIM WILSON
Photo by Philip Gentry
Ever since electricity was tamed in the 19th century, the idea of manipulating gravity by altering an electromagnetic field has been the subject of intriguing experiments and occasional bursts of irrational exuberance. Physicists insist that because gravity is a basic force of nature, constructing an antigravity machine is theoretically impossible. But recently, and not without some reluctance, they have begun to consider another possibility. Several highly respected physicists say it might be possible to construct a force-field machine that acts on all matter in a way that is similar to gravity. Strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be an antigravity machine. But by exerting an attractive or repulsive force on all matter, it would be the functional equivalent of the impossible machine.
While an operational device is at least five years in the future, developers of what can be loosely termed a force-field machine say it has cleared major theoretical hurdles. To demonstrate their claim, they invited POPULAR MECHANICS to visit their Huntsville, Ala., laboratory to see the most important component of their proof-of-concept demonstrator. It is a 12-in.-dia. high-temperature superconducting disc (HTSD). When the force-field machine is complete, a bowling ball placed anywhere above this disc, which resembles a clutch plate, will stay exactly where you left it.
4 years ago
4 years ago
Clock ticking on fusion decision
The multi-billion-euro reactor will produce energy from nuclear reactions like the ones that power the Sun.
4 years ago
Super Volcano Will Challenge Civilization, Geologists Warn
The eruption of a super volcano “sooner or later” will chill the planet and threaten human civilization, British scientists warned Tuesday.
And now the bad news: There’s not much anyone can do about it.
Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia.
“Super-eruptions are up to hundreds of times larger than these,” said Stephen Self of the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) Open University.
4 years ago
No Ghosts, Says Phuket Tourism Association
From Santha Oorjitham
PHUKET, March 8 (Bernama) — “If ghosts are real and exist, the spirits have already gone to heaven or where they belong,” insisted Phuket Tourism Association (PTA) president Pattanapong Aikwanich.
He was addressing a group of Malaysian travel agents and journalists who arrived on the first Star Cruise voyage to Phuket after a temporary suspension following the Dec 26 tsunami.
4 years ago
THINGS BREAKIN’ LOOSE ALL OVER THE WORLD PIC
Hi, Folks … just trying to get a grip on the number of earth shaking and mountain fuming, pluming events that have been swirling around in the news over the past several days … sometimes it’s hard to keep track of it all and try to get some sort of coherent sense of the big picture here!
In the apt words of one of the recent posts though, it would seem ‘things are figgin’ to blow’ (or something like that!) *“The reports coming from every continent says that the volcanoes, geysers and mud volcanoes all are ready to explode.”
Let’s see, in just two weeks time here’s what’s broken loose around the world …
1- 03/09 – Mount Saint Helens Erupted At 5:30 PM, 03/08/05
2- 03/09 – Russian Skies Filled With Ash From Erupting Volcano
3- 03/09 – Hawaii’s Volcanic Big Island Jolted By A 4.2 Quake
4- 03/08 – Powerful Category 5 Cyclone Bears Down On Australia
5- 03/08 – 2nd Significant Quake Rattles Quebec In Less Than A Week
6- 03/06 – Strong 5.9 Quake Rocks High-Rise Buildings In Taiwan
7- 03/06 – Seafloor Earthquakes Signal Eruption Off Vancouver Island
8- 03/06 – Oregon Coast Shaking, 1,500 Swarm Quakes Within 36 Hours
9- 03/06 – Rare Swarm Quakes Shaking Severnaya Zemlya, North Pole
10-03/06 – Erupting Alaska Volcano Creates Hazards For Pilots
11-03/01 – Significant Swarm Quakes Shaking Vancouver Island
12-02/26 – Russian Volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka Continues To Erupt
13-02/23 – Kamchatka Volcano Erupts, Melts Ancient Glacier
*************************************************
4 years ago
SCIENTISTS UNLOCK METEOR MYSTERY
Planetary scientists believe a rock that smashed into Arizona 49,000 years ago with the power of more than 150 Hiroshima bombs was just a fragment of a space goliath.
In a study published on Thursday, the scientists believe they have resolved an enduring puzzle about the meteor crater located near Flagstaff in the Arizona desert. It is one of the most-studied impact sites in the world.
By some calculations, the rock — an asteroid or a comet that crossed Earth’s path — should have hit the ground at 45,000 miles per hour, for it left a huge crater 0.75 miles across and 500 feet deep.
If so, the high-velocity collision should have released so much heat that the iron-rich impacting rock itself, or at least part of it, should have melted in a flash. But no substantial signs of melted mineral have ever been found there.
4 years ago
ENTIRE EARTH SHAKEN -MASSIVE INTERNAL INSTABILITY...
Entire Earth Shaken As Massive Internal Instability and World Weather Chaos Continue
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers
Grave news has reached us today from Russian scientists that the earth is experience an increasing amount of instability in its crust, even to its very core, and as the increasing amount of cosmic energy blasts begin to weaken our planets magnetic field.
Simultaneous (in geological terms) eruptions of the Mount Saint Helens, United States, Western Coastal Region and Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Russia, Kamchatka Region, volcanoes have been followed by an extremely rare antipode earthquake occurring in the Pacific Oceans Hawaii Islands and South Africa.
Of the South African event we can read from the Australian Newspaper, The Herald Sun, and which says, “An earthquake measuring about 5.0 on the Richter scale hit a gold mining area of South Africa today, injuring dozens of people and trapping 42 miners as tunnels collapsed deep underground. The quake, which jolted buildings as far away as Johannesburg, injured 23 miners at DRDGOLD’s North West mines, and others in Stilfontein. There is quite serious damage …”
Of the Klyuchevskaya Sopka event we can read from the Indian News Service New Kerala, “The highest Russian volcano, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, spewed rock and lava from its crater Monday, a local news agency reported. Rock fragments blew 880 yards above the crater of the volcano on Kamchatka, the peninsula separating the Okhotsk and Bering seas in the eastern part of the country, the ITAR-TASS news agency said. A column of steam with ash rose 4.8 miles above sea level and the lava stream coming down the western slope melted the glacier.”
Of the Mount Saint Helens event we read from the Australian News Service, “Restive US volcano Mount St. Helens has erupted, sending a plume of smoke and ash nearly 11,000m into the air, officials said.”
4 years ago
4 years ago
4 years ago
METEOR SIGHTINGS OVER SEATTLE?
This seems to be developing, but Komo news is soliciting videos or pics of a meteor…
SEATTLE – A flaming object was spotted streaking through the night sky across Western Oregon, Washington and reportedly as far south as northern California.
Hundreds of Washington residents called the KOMO news desk to report seeing a bright green object streak across the sky just before 8 p.m.
Summer Jensen of Portland said she was sitting in her living room with her father when she saw the flash of light outside and rushed to see what it was.
She said the object appeared to be moving slowly compared to a typical meteor, or “shooting star.”
Callers as far north as Vancouver, British Columbia reported seeing the flash.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle said the description was consistent with a meteor hitting the upper levels of the Earth’s atmosphere. They do not believe the object made it to the ground.
KOMO NEWS ALERT: If you have video or pictures of the meteor please call us at 206-404-4145 or e-mail us at tips@komo4news.com
4 years ago
SEATTLE REGION EARTHQUAKE MINUTES BEFORE METEOR FLASH
MINOR EARTHQUAKE REPORTED NORTH OF OLYMPIA
March 12, 2005 11:58 PM CST
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A minor earthquake with a magnitude of 3.3 was reported Saturday night 15 miles north of here at 7:37 p.m.
4 years ago
A METEOR, AN OUTAGE, A QUAKE, ALL IN ONE NIGHT
By ATHIMA CHANSANCHAI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Washington residents who looked up at the sky Saturday night saw a great ball of fire ignite the sky. When they went back inside their homes, some of them found only darkness — and no power.
Seattle utilities officials said it was just a coincidence.
“The power outages that affected the Queen Anne and Magnolia areas had nothing to do with any other phenomena,” Sharon Bennett, spokeswoman for Seattle City Light, said yesterday.
Also unrelated to the fireball was the small earthquake that struck the Olympia area Saturday night, experts said….
4 years ago
“THREE MAJOR FIREBALL SEATTLE
Recent”:http://www.komotv.com/stories/35704.htm
4 years ago
SEATTLE FIREBALL, QUAKE, POWER OUTAGE
Unknowcountry’s Seattle correspondent reports that a fireball moved slowly over the city at 7:47 PM last night. According to the US Geologic Survey, the area had experienced an earthquake rated at 3.3 on the Richter scale nine minutes earlier at 7:38. At 7:48PM, parts of downtown Seattle experienced a brief power outage.
The Pacific Northwest Seismographic Network centered the quake 15 miles from Olympia and 16 miles in depth. Local residents felt the quake. Local media are reporting the quake and the fireball as unrelated events, and the power outage has not reached local news.
We note, also, that there was an earthquake swarm in the Endeavour segment of the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of Oregon last week that sent scientists searching the area for possible volcanic activity along the fracture. Earthquake swarms along the Juan de Fuca Ridge are not unusual. In 2001, a swarm resulted in sea water being drawn into crevasses in the plate for more than a year. The sea floor has numerous inflow and outflow points, but the process by which the water moves in and out of ocean floor formations is not well understood. So far, scientists have not reported the results of studies of the most recent quake swarm.
Prior to the great quake that shook the Indian Ocean on December 26, Unknowncountry reported numerous incidents of fireballs and other unusual aerial phenomena throughout South Asia. Some of the most spectacular of these events took place in Indonesia, China and Australia.
4 years ago
Part of Salem Mall shut down Sunday by power outage
SALEM, Ore. – Shoppers at Salem Center shopping mall on Sunday were surprised to find half the shops closed because of a power outage.
4 years ago
Meteor lights up sky on Canada’s West Coast in array of bright colours
VICTORIA (CP) – Hundreds of residents on Canada’s West Coast witnessed quite the spectacle on the weekend as they watched the sky light up momentarily in hues of pink and yellow.
Experts agreed it likely was a meteorite that streaked across the sky Saturday night around 7:40 p.m. Pacific standard time.
4 years ago
PORTLAND, ORE. – Dozens of residents in the Pacific Northwest reported seeing a bright streak of light as it flashed across the sky, startling witnesses from southern Oregon to the Seattle area, according to officials.
ADVERTISEMENT
Scientists said the flaming object was probably a meteor, and that it likely disintegrated before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.
4 years ago
Bright Light over Pacific Northwest Likely a Meteor
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — Dozens of residents in the Pacific Northwest reported seeing a bright streak of light as it flashed across the sky, startling witnesses from southern Oregon to the Seattle area, officials said.
Scientists said the flaming object was probably a meteor, and that it likely disintegrated before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.
4 years ago
Lasting only a few seconds, the large fireball was different than most shooting stars in its brightness and colors, causing some to wonder if it were possibly an incoming missile and bomb.
4 years ago
Meteor video could fetch paycheck
A Talent woman whose children videotaped a flaming object in the sky Saturday figures it could be riches from heaven.
Seppie Greico, 39, fielded several calls Sunday from regional television producers eager to buy scarce footage of what scientists say was probably a meteor that streaked across the Northwest skies.
“Ain’t nobody else got video of it,” said Greico, who added that network representatives were offering “hundreds of dollars” for her video.
“This thing was seen all the way to Canada,” she said.
4 years ago
Escape All These Things — Studies on End Times Bible Prophecy
We’ve been hit before…
...and we will be hit again.
Science and the Bible agree, it’s just a matter of time before the next big one hits us.
But only the Bible reveals how and where to be safe when it happens. Find out how to survive now.
Scientists know that with many large asteroids and comets crossing Earth’s orbit, it’s just a matter of time before we encounter one large enough to unravel our fragile civilization. It will not be the first time that Earth’s destiny has been altered this way. Scientists believe that a five-mile wide asteroid is responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs (they even found a matching crater on the Yucatan peninsula). When such a large asteroid impacts the Earth it can send enough dust into the upper atmosphere to block the Sun, causing a “nuclear winter” that lasts up to two years or more. One can easily imagine how hard it would be to find enough food to survive under those conditions. But there is little chance this will happen in our lifetime, right?
4 years ago
Six-year-old North Bend resident Nathan Midyette thought a green flash of light he saw in the sky on Saturday night was the superhero, “The Atom,” from a television cartoon show.
As it turned out, the flaming object was a meteor that startled many people from Southern Oregon to Seattle as it streaked across the night sky. Scientists said the meteor likely disintegrated before fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.
“It was the best birthday present ever,” said Nathan’s mother, Trish Hermann.
4 years ago
Was the December 26, 2004 Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami Caused by a Stellar Explosion 45,000 Light Years Away?
Sound Crazy? Read Carefully Below.
Gamma Ray Bursts, Gravity Waves, and Earthquakes
On December 26, 2004 a magnitude 9.3 earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sumatra in Malaysia. It caused a powerful tsunami which devastated coastal regions of many countries leaving over 240,000 people either dead or missing. It was the worst tsunami to affect this area since the explosion of Krakatoa. The earthquake that produced it was so strong that it exceeded by a factor of 10 the next most powerful earthquake to occur in the past 25 years.• Indonesian 9.3 Richter earthquake: December 26, 2004 at 00 hours 58 minutes (Universal Time)
It is then with some alarm that we learn that just 44.6 hours later gamma ray telescopes orbiting the Earth picked up the arrival of the brightest gamma ray burst ever recorded!
• Gamma ray burst arrival: December 27, 2004 at 21 hours 36 minutes (Universal Time)
4 years ago
LAB-MADE FIREBALL MAY BE A BLACK HOLE
A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.
It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together at near light speeds.
Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show that the core of the fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole.
His work has been published on the pre-print website arxiv.org and is reported in New Scientist magazine.
When the gold nuclei smash into each other they are broken down into particles called quarks and gluons.
These form a ball of plasma about 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun. This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the beam collisions.
But Nastase, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says there is something unusual about it.
Ten times as many jets were being absorbed by the fireball as were predicted by calculations.
The Brown researcher thinks the particles are disappearing into the fireball’s core and reappearing as thermal radiation, just as matter is thought to fall into a black hole and come out as “Hawking” radiation.
However, even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.
4 years ago
LHC MAGNETS: THE GREAT METEOR DESCENT
In my opinion, there are some research projects that our Earth Mother may not be able to tolerate very well, and this could be one of them.
What the consequences may be of the use of such powerful magnets underneath Mother Earth’s surface are unknown, and more than likely, unpredictable.
=======================================================
INTERACTIONS.ORG
Source: CERN
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 7 March 2005
LHC magnets: the great descent
The first superconducting magnet for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was lowered into the accelerator tunnel at 2.00 p.m. on Monday, 7th March. This is the first of the 1232 dipole magnets for the future collider, which measures 27 km in circumference and is scheduled to be commissioned in 2007. The date was thus a key one for CERN since the delivery of the 15 metre long dipole magnet weighing 35 tonnes to its final location marks the start of LHC installation.
The LHC will consist predominantly of superconducting dipole magnets, which are the most complex components of the machine. Their superconducting coil allows them to convey extremely high currents without any loss of energy. They are therefore able to produce very high magnetic fields in order to bend the trajectory of the protons that are accelerated at a speed close to the speed of light. The LHC will thus be the world’s most powerful accelerator.
(snip)
To reach the superconducting state, the magnets have to be cooled to a temperature of -271°C, close to absolute zero. If the LHC had been made of conventional magnets, it would have needed to be 120 km long to achieve the same energies and its electricity consumption would have been phenomenal.
These superconducting magnets will all be lowered 50 metres down below the earth’s surface via a specially made shaft of oval cross-section. They will then be conveyed through a transfer tunnel to the LHC tunnel, which lies at a depth varying between 50 and 150 metres. Vehicles travelling at 3 km an hour have been specially designed to deliver the magnets to their final destination.
(snip)
Once in position, the magnets will be connected to the cryogenic system to form a large string operating in superfluid helium, which will maintain the accelerator at a temperature close to absolute zero.
The lowering of this first magnet into the tunnel coincides with another milestone for CERN, namely completion of the delivery of half the superconducting dipole magnets. A total of 616 magnets have been delivered to date, and the same number are due to arrive by autumn 2006. The manufacture of these superconducting magnets represents a huge technical and industrial challenge both for CERN and for European industry. 7000 kilometres of niobium-titanium superconducting cable have had to be produced to make them. Around a hundred companies in Europe are manufacturing the magnet components, and three companies, Babcock Noell Nuclear in Germany, Alstom in France, and Ansaldo in Italy, are responsible for their assembly.
(end snip)
4 years ago
TSUNAMI QUAKE SHIFTED 7 INDIAN ISLANDS
Tsunami quake shifted seven Indian islands
Agence France-Presse
New Delhi, March 16, 2005|20:53 IST
Three popular beach resorts were among seven islands on India’s Andamans archipelago that shifted southwestwards when a giant earthquake hit on December 26, geologists said on Wednesday.
The state-run Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) found six inhabited islands and one that boasts a volcano moved “a few metres” after the undersea quake that measured 9.3 on the Richter Scale triggered deadly tsunamis.
“Preliminary estimates from the GPS (global positioning satellite systems) survey around Andaman and Nicobar suggest the islands have shifted southwestward by a few metres,” CESS seismologist CP Rajendran told reporters.
“Also some parts of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands subsided and some got uplifted,” the study said, adding that eastern districts of the Andamanese capital Port Blair sank deeper into the sea after the tremors shook the 550 black volcanic rock islands.
In contrast, the western coast of the North Sentinel Island, home to Stone Age tribal aborigines, rose by half a metre.
More than 2,000 people died and 5,640 others are still listed as missing on the archipelago.
The tsunamis killed more than 16,000 people in India and more than 273,000 around the Indian Ocean region, from Indonesia to East Africa.
The giant waves also wiped out 23,9000 homes, wrecked 84,000 boats and destroyed 22,750 hectares (56,216 acres) of crops in India, Home Minister of State S Regupathy told Parliament on Wednesday
4 years ago
SUPER POWERS, SUPER WARS AND EXTERMINATION reading at: http://www.xeeatwelve.com/articles/super_powers.html
An excellent article about what is coming:
Super Powers, Super Wars and Extermination
by
Amitakh Stanford
Republished from http://www.xeeatwelve.com with permission.
17th March 2005
Last year, after the Sacred Drumming, I mentioned that after the Four Elements were released there would be anomalies regarding weather and other fields affected by the Four Elements. The Four Elements have been symbolically released now and they are no longer totally bound by the “chains” that the Cosmic had imposed upon them. While many of the weather anomalies have probably not been reported, a few oddities have made it into the mainstream media.
Recently, some cyclones have been rotating in unexpected directions. For example: Northern Hemisphere storms have been observed rotating clockwise around the eye instead of the usual anti-clockwise circulation; inverted rainbows have been sighted in the U.S.A.; double rainbows, with green on the far end of the spectrum on both rainbows, have also been spotted in Australia; “cyclonic” rains have fallen on windless days; and many other oddities of temperature, precipitation, wind etc. are becoming common occurrences.
Earthquakes are spreading around the globe, even in places that are not earthquake prone. Volcanoes are becoming active all around the world; “extinct” ones are re-awakening. Fires are behaving in ways unlike anything ever before observed. Glaciers are retreating at breakneck speed. Some scientists are now noticing that while daytime temperatures are relatively close to those of the past, night-time temperatures are rising dramatically. The night-time temperature rises are most likely due to increased inner earth temperatures, which would seem to negate the so-called greenhouse effect that most scientists are suggesting is a major cause of global warming. As I explained in The Hollow Earth’s Cubed Suns, the Earth is heating up very quickly from the inside and it is becoming uninhabitable for the inner-Earth dwellers.
UFO sightings are becoming common occurrences throughout the world, as had been expected. Of recent, many UFO battles have been observed in the skies. These will soon become more open and more difficult for the traditional media to ignore, scoff at or deny.
China will become the main world power. The alien consciousnesses that are now occupying the human bodies in China are the same consciousnesses that were occupying bodies in the U.S.A. up to, and especially during, the Clinton administration….....
4 years ago
CENSORED (?) CNN REPORT ON THAT ASTEROID NEAR-MISS .
The March 21, 2004 CNN report on the “closest asteroid fly-by ever recorded” is no longer online. But here’s an archived copy of it.
I find it interesting that this report was deleted by CNN not long after it was posted. I doubt that articles about Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez, or Brad Pitt & Jennifer Anniston, would so quickly be removed from their online archives.
4 years ago
POPCORN THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE
GREETINGS:
A variation on the Big Bang theory of the universe
(***SNIP***)
The Big Bang theory describes the universe as having formed from a tremendous explosion. The matter and energy released from this explosion evolved into the present stars and galaxies. Edwin Hubble provided the foundation for the Big Bang theory by showing that the universe is expanding from a common origin. This theory in turn spawned an analogous theory called the Big Crunch theory, which proposes that gravity in a closed universe will eventually pull all this material back together to recreate this original massive dense object. When scientist looked for evidence to support the Big Crunch theory, what they discovered was that the stars and galaxies instead of slowing down were actually accelerating outward from the origin. As a result, the existence of invisible dark matter, whose gravitational force caused this acceleration, was theorized. In order to understand the structure of the universe, it is important to understand the evolutionary cycle of a black hole. A black hole forms at the end of the life of a very massive star. When a large star has burnt all its fuel, it explodes into a supernova. The material that remains collapses down to an extremely dense object, known as a neutron star. If the neutron star is large, it becomes a black hole. A black hole produces a gravitational force so strong that it fractures atomic structure. A black hole can become very large with the mass of million or more suns. These can be found at the center of galaxies. Now we’ll examine the other extreme of the universe: the subatomic world. The classical “atomic…..
rest at the link.
4 years ago
bump
4 years ago
Former Military Air Traffic Controller Claims Comet Collision with Earth on May 25, 2006
CAN YOU SAY WORMWOOD? KEALAKEKUA, Hawaii, April 13 /U.S. Newswire/ — Eric Julien, a former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, has completed a study of the comet 73P Schwassmann- Wachmann and declared that a fragment is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around May 25, 2006.
Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system’s ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the “Missing Earth” crop circle was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies. He links this crop circle to May 25, 2006, and identifies the comet Schwassmann-Wachman as the subject of higher intelligence communications.
Using NASA simulations of the comet’s path, Julien concludes that impact is likely around May 25 precisely when the comet crosses the Earth’s ecliptic plane. While the first fragment will cross at approximately 10 million miles, lagging fragments threaten to collide. While astronomers have stated that the comet poses no direct threat, Julien argues that some fragments are too small to observe. Astronomers have predicted possible meteor showers indicating some cometary debris will enter the atmosphere.
Julien argues that the kinetic energy of even a ‘car sized’ fragment will impact the Earth with devastating effect. He concludes the May 25 event is tied in to the Bush administration’s policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences. Regarding its importance, Julien declares: “we have to save lives when we have such information to share with the public”. He further claims it important “to preserve all data, historical artifacts and precious material in the event of such a collision.” Julien predicts that the comet collision will occur in the Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, and generates 200 meter waves. Julien concludes that “each person with this information has to take responsibility to warn potential victims.”
His article, May 25, 2006: The Day of Destiny is available at
4 years ago
Tsunami risk of asteroid strikes revealed
18:18 12 May 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht
The researchers modelled the asteroid impact believed to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs – this frame shows tsunami wave heights 4 hours after the impact of the 10-kilomtre-wide asteroid (Image: Steve Ward)Related Articles
Tsunamis triggered by asteroid impacts cause a disaster similar to the 2004 Asian tsunami once every 6000 years on average, according to the first detailed analysis of their effects.
Researchers have assumed that tsunamis would make ocean impacts more deadly than those on land. But Steve Chesley at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and Steve Ward at the University of California at Santa Cruz, both in the US, are the first to quantify the risks.
The pair first calculated the chance of various size asteroids reaching the Earth’s surface, and then modelled the tsunamis that would result for asteroids that hit the oceans.
For example, the model shows that waves radiating from the impact of a 300-metre-wide asteroid would carry 300 times more energy than the 2004 Asian tsunami. You can view movies of impact simulations in the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific (all in .mov format).
Fifty million people
To accurately assess the overall impact-tsunami risks, the analysis included the full range of asteroid sizes, including the smallest asteroids capable of penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere. These are between 60 and 100 metres, depending on their composition.
The most common asteroids, between 100 m and 400 m, would yield tsunami waves up to 10 m when they arrived at the coast. A total of about 50 million coastal residents are vulnerable to such waves, though no single impact would affect them all. The researchers predict a tsunami-generating impact should occur about once every 6000 years, and would on average affect over one million people and cause $110 billion in property damage.
The study also showed that asteroid impacts in the 300-metre class might be similar to the huge tsunamis thrown up when massive chunks of rock break from the sides of volcanoes and fall into the ocean. These events are also thought to occur roughly once every 6000 years.
The analysis confirms suspicions that tsunamis are the biggest risk posed by asteroid impacts. The risks from climate effects of big impacts – through dust and smoke that blocks out the Sun – are about two-thirds that of tsunamis, while those of land impacts are about one-third of the tsunami risk.
Hurricane aspects
“There still are a lot of uncertainties,” Chesley cautions. The solar system’s population of 100 m to 400 m asteroids is poorly known, as are coastal population distributions. A big question is how the waves would behave when they reach the shore; successive wave peaks are much closer together in asteroid tsunamis than in earthquake tsunamis (see a simulation of an asteroid hitting the water, here).
But the ultimate uncertainty is when and where an asteroid might hit. “Asteroids sprinkle down pretty much at random,” says Ward, “They don’t pick out California or Florida.”
And, like hurricanes, location is the key. Hurricane Katrina became America’s worst natural disaster in living memory not because it was the biggest storm, but because it made a direct hit on vulnerable New Orleans.
But while hurricanes are difficult to predict, they do follow the same general paths. Asteroids come out of the blue – literally
4 years ago
METEOR COUNT TO HIGH TO COUNT NOW!
Something to worry about? Kent said we were not out of this yet. Been heavy for over three hours now.
4 years ago
Meteoritt slo ned i Norge
Ildkulen suste over himmelen og traff bakken med en intenst drønn som ristet hus og vekket folk.
Nina Lødemel
METEORITTER Meteorsteiner kommer inn i Jordens atmosfære med enorm hastighet, gjerne rundt eller over 100 000 km/t. Steinene har svært stor bevegelsesenergi og blir kraftig oppvarmet av luftmotstanden på sin ferd gjennom atmosfæren. Overflaten kommer gjerne opp i 5000 grader og fordamper. Dette forårsaker lysfenomenet vi kjenner som en meteor sett fra bakken. Små partikler brenner helt opp, men jo større de er jo lenger ned klarer de å trenge og jo sterkere lyser de. Dersom partiklene er så store at de lyser minst 100 ganger sterkere enn fullmånen, kan de overleve ned til bakken slik at vi kan finne dem som meteoritter. Kilde: astronomi.no
Les også
Institutt for teoretisk astrofysikk (ekstern, åpnes i nytt vindu)
Sprengkraften til meteoritten kan ha vært like stor som ved Hiroshima-bomben.
Natt til onsdag klokken 02.05 kunne de som bor i nordlige deler av Troms og vestlige deler av Finnmark observere en ekstrem ildkule som reiste over himmelen på noen sekunder.
Noen få minutter etter var det mulig å høre et drønn. NORSAR registrerte en kraftig lyd klokken 02.13.25 på sin stasjon i Karasjok.
Vitne til meteoritten
Bonden Peter Bruvold var ute på gården sin på Lyngseidet fordi hesten Virika skulle føde sitt første føll.
- Jeg så et kraftig lysglimt på himmelen, så ble det et lys som hadde et haleheng med røyk, sier Bruvold til Aftenposten.no.
Etter å ha tatt bilde fortsatte Bruvold å stelle med dyrene, før han hørte en enormt drønn.
- Syv minutter etter hørte jeg drønnet. Det hørtes ut som når du sprenger en solid ladning med dynamitt en kilometer unna. Vi følte det på kroppen selv om det ikke satt i jorda, sier Bruvold.
Hus ristet
Astronomene gleder seg over fenomenet.
- Det var rystelser i bakken, et hus ristet og en gardin ble blåst inn i huset, sier astronom Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard til Aftenposten.no.
Han forteller at meteoritten kunne sees i et område på flere hundre kilometer til tross for at det er midnattsol i området nå.
Klikk her for større kart
NORSAR registrerte et kraftig lydfenomen på sin målestasjon i Karasjok. De registrerte også seismiske forstyrrelser, som er de samme signalene som registreres ved et jordskjelv.
Meteoritten skal ha truffet fjellsiden i Reisadalen i Nord-Troms.
Eksepsjonelt
- Dette er helt eksepsjonelt. Jeg kan ikke forestille meg at vi har hatt et så voldsomt meteorittnedslag i Norge i moderne tid. Hvis meteoritten er så stor som det kan virke kan vi sammenligne dette med Hiroshima-bomben. Meteoritten er så klart ikke radioaktiv, men i sprengkraft kan vi kanskje sammenligne den med bomben, sier Røed Ødegaard.
I Nordreisa gikk det til og med et steinras etter nedslaget.
- Vi er ikke bombesikre på at raset har noe med nedslaget å gjøre, men det skal vi prøve å finne ut av.
Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard tror at meteoritten er en enorm stein.
4 years ago
Hey never, I found this and I didn’t knwo where else to post it.
4 years ago
Thatz Kool as Hell….....................
4 years ago
New Cosmic Defense Idea/ Fight Asteroids with Asteroids
In a Space Age version of fighting fire with fire, French scientists have suggested using one asteroid to destroy another rather than letting Earth get pummeled.
The offbeat plan is intentionally incomplete and would allow the planet to be showered by fragments. But it might be better than a civilization-ending whack.No asteroids are presently known to be on collision courses with Earth. But existing holes in the ground suggest that inevitably one will eventually be found. There is no firm plan for how to deflect or destroy an incoming asteroid, though scientists have pondered firing rockets at them, moving them gently with solar sails, or nudging them with nuclear explosions.
Lock and load
The new idea is to capture a relatively small asteroid—perhaps 100 feet (30 meters) wide—by sending a robot to it.
The robot would heave material from the asteroid’s surface into space, and the reaction force would gradually direct the asteroid to a Lagrange point, one of a handful of nodes along Earth’s orbit where the gravity of Earth and the Sun balance out. Scientists know that object can be kept stable at a Lagrange point with little or no energy.
The captured rocky weapon would be held there, traveling around the Sun ahead of or behind the Earth, held until needed.
Then, if a large asteroid threatens to hit us, the small one is moved into its path, using the same heaving technique. The rocks collide, and the big one is broken into somewhat less harmless bits.
The collision disperses the fragments of the incoming asteroid, so that not all of them hit the planet.
But …
Depending on the relative masses of the two objects, between 10 and 20 percent of the incoming asteroid mass would still hit, “but the fragments would be dispersed all over the Earth and, hopefully, none would be large enough to reach the ground with a large remaining destructive power,” said Didier Massonnet of the CNES research center in France.
Massonnet and colleague Benoit Meyssignac say the collision should be engineered to occur at least 620,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from Earth and would take about eight months to execute from the Lagrange point.
The plan is detailed in the July-September, 2006 issue of the journal Acta Astronautica. The researchers first floated it at a scientific conference last fall.
One small asteroid that could fit the bill already been identified; it is called 2000 SG344, and Massonnet suspects there are many others that would work.
Fuel for thought
The researchers admit their entire scheme is not quite ready for prime time.
“We are more confident in our capability to capture the asteroid than in our capability to redirect it to an incoming body,” Massonnet told SPACE.com. “The scenario of this last stage requires further studies on the very unstable trajectories which will be required.”
Meanwhile, there is another aspect to the plan that could make it appealing.
Material mined from a small, nearby asteroid could provide liquid oxygen for other space missions more efficiently than mining it from the Moon, which other researchers have proposed. Liquid oxygen could be used as fuel at a cosmic gas station that would allow spacecraft to be launched from Earth with much smaller tanks and therefore more cheaply.
4 years ago
Earth changed after Sumatra quake
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 3 (UPI) — U.S. scientists say they’ve determined Earth’s gravity changed as a result of the giant 2004 Sumatran earthquake.
The discovery marked the first time scientists have used satellite data to detect changes in the Earth’s surface caused by a massive earthquake.
The discovery signifies a new use for data from NASA satellites and offers a possible new approach to understanding how earthquakes work.
The 9.1-magnitude December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in the Indian Ocean produced a tsunami that killed approximately 230,000 people, while displacing more than 1 million others.
The event followed the slipping of two continental plates under the seafloor that raised ocean bed in the region by several feet for thousands of square miles.
“The earthquake changed the gravity in that part of the world in two ways that we were able to detect,” said Shin-Chan Han, a research scientist at Ohio State University. He and colleagues determined the quake triggered the massive uplift of the seafloor, changing the geometry of the region and altering previous global positioning satellite measurements of the area. And the density of the rock beneath the seafloor shifted, producing detectable gravity changes.
3 years ago
STRONG INCREASE IN SOLAR ACTIVITY CONFIRMED
——————————
Ilya Usoskin (Geophysical Observatory, University of Oulu, Finland) and his colleagues have investigated the solar activity over the past centuries. Their study is to be published this week in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. They compare the amount of Titanium 44 in nineteen meteorites that have fallen to the Earth over the past 240 years. Their work confirms that the solar activity has increased strongly during the 20th century. They also find that the Sun has been particularly active in the past few decades.
I. Usoksin and his colleagues have used meteorites to reconstruct past solar activity. Studying the earlier activity of our Sun is one of the oldest astrophysical projects, as astronomers began recording the number of sunspots to trace the Sun’s magnetic activity four hundred years ago.
The international team examined a set of nineteen meteorites whose dates of fall are precisely known, and measured the amount of radioactive isotope Titanium 44 in these meteorites. Titanium 44 is produced by the cosmic rays in the meteorites while they are outside the Earth’s atmosphere. After the meteorite has fallen, it stops producing this isotope. By measuring the Titanium 44 in these meteorites, they are able to determine the level of solar activity at the time the meteorite fell.
Past solar activity is reconstructed with this technique in an independent way, that is, one not affected by terrestrial effects. How high the solar activity was at a given epoch was previously known from measuring the concentration of cosmogenic isotopes
produced at that time. But most of the isotopes found on the Earth – in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets or in tree rings, for instance – are also affected by terrestrial processes, in these examples related to the Earth’s magnetic field and climate.
3 years ago
Warning centre reports tsunami after Samoa quake
A strong earthquake near Samoa in the South Pacific is believed to have generated a tsunami.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii says an earthquake in the Samoan islands region has generated a tsunami.
“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” says a warning on the centre’s website.
It warns that it may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicentre.
“For those areas, when no major waves are observed for two hours after the estimated time of arrival or damaging waves have not occurred for at least two hours, then local authorities can assume the threat has passed,” it says.
It says the tsunami waves were measured at Pago Pago at 07:00 GMT (5:00pm AEST), and they were eight centimetres from middle to crest. They were 10 minutes apart.
It says no tsunami threat exists for other coastal areas in the Pacific, although some other areas may experience small sea level changes.
The US Geological Survey says the quake had a magnitude of 6.7. It says the earthquake struck 195 kilometres east south-east of Hihifo, Tonga, and 290 kilometres south south-west of Pago Pago, American Samoa.
3 years ago
Moon and rain could mean quakes
A full moon may have triggered the Indian Ocean earthquake that caused the tsunami on 26 December 2004, a new study concludes.Between October 2004 and August 2005 Robin Crockett from the University of Northampton, UK, and his colleagues monitored tremors and collected tidal data along the Java/Sumatra trench. They found that major quakes were 86 per cent more likely around new and full moons, when tides are at their greatest.
“At new and full moons the biggest mass of water is being loaded and unloaded at the plate boundary,” Crockett says. That might be the final push that initiates a quake.
Meanwhile Sebastian Hainzl from the University of Potsdam, Germany, and his colleagues have noticed that rain can also trigger quakes. In 2002 they monitored tremors, rainfall and groundwater pressure in south-east Germany.
They found that water from a heavy rainstorm can reach spots underground where masses of rock are trying to move past each other but are stuck together by friction. The water can ease the friction, releasing pent-up tension so that the rocks jerk past each other and initiate tremors as deep as 4 kilometres underground
2 years ago
No comments:
Post a Comment