Blog Archives - Ascension Now

GIGANTIC SPRITES OVER THE USA:

26/6/2014

With the arrival of summer, thunderstorm activity is underway across the USA. We all know what comes out of the bottom of thunderstorms: lightning. Lesser known is what comes out of the top: sprites. "Lately there has been a bumper crop of sprites," reports Thomas Ashcraft, a longtime observer of the phenomenon. "Here is one of the largest' 'jellyfish' sprites I have captured in the last four years." The cluster shot up from western Oklahoma on June 23, so large that it was visible from Ashcraft's observatory in New Mexico 289 miles away: (see video at : http://vimeo.com/99060196)

"According to my measurements, it was 40 miles tall and 46 miles wide. This sprite would dwarf Mt. Everest!" he exclaims.

Also in New Mexico, Jan Curtis saw a cluster of red sprites just one night later, June 24. "I've always wanted to capture these elusive atmospheric phenomena and last night I was finally successful."

Although sprites have been seen for at least a century, most scientists did not believe they existed until after 1989 when sprites were photographed by cameras onboard the space shuttle. Now "sprite chasers" regularly photograph the upward bolts from their own homes.

Ashcraft explains how he does it: "My method for photographing sprites is fairly simple. First I check for strong thunderstorms within 500 miles using regional radar maps accessible on the Internet. There must be a locally clear sky to image above the distant storm clouds. Then I aim my cameras out over the direction of the thunderstorms (which will be hot red or purple on the radar maps) and shoot continuous DSLR exposures. I usually shoot continuous 2 second exposures but if there is no moon then I will shoot up to 4 second exposures. Then I run through all the photographs and if I am lucky some sprites will be there. It might take hundreds to usually thousands of exposures so be prepared for many shutter clicks. I use a modified near infrared DLSR but any DLSR will capture sprites. Note that it does require persistence and a little bit of luck."

Inhabiting the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere alongside meteors, noctilucent clouds and some auroras, sprites are a true space weather phenomenon. Now is a good time to see them. www.spaceweather.com

Possible evidence found of a correction needed to speed of light

26/6/2014

Kimberly Ruble : Guardian Liberty Voice : Wed, 25 Jun 2014

There may have been evidence found of a correction needed to change what Einstein predicted as the speed of light. When astronomers first happened to see light from a supernova arrive 7.7 hours after neutrinos from the same occurrence, they disregarded the evidence. That was probably not a good idea because now it is believed that the speed of light may actually be slower than Einstein projected.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, 1987, a neutrino sensor located deep below a mountain in the north of Italy started to pick up a rapid explosion of neutrinos. Three hours after this, neutrino sensors at two other sites also picked up parallel bursts.

About five hours after the second event, astronomers who were examining a large Magellan cloud which orbits the galaxy, happened to notice the startling enhancement of a blue supergiant star known as Sanduleak-69 202, as it became a supernova. Since that time, its name has changed to SN 1987a, and it would become one of the most broadly studied supernovas in space history. Yet there continues to be a large mystery linked with SN 1987a that astrophysicists have basically ignored : the two neutrino bursts separated by the span of several hours.

Both neutrinos and photons travel at the speed of light and therefore should arrive somewhere at the same time, all things being equal. The mystery is what caused such a huge delay between the first eruption of neutrinos and the onset of the optical photons.

Read more at : http://www.sott.net/article/280952-Evidence-of-a-correction-needed-to-change-speed-of-light-possibly-found

NASA acknowledging Electric Universe?

26/6/2014

NASA acknowledging Electric Universe?: New NASA model gives glimpse into the invisible world of electric asteroids
phys.org
Wed, 25 Jun 2014 17:23 CDT

© NASA This is a concept image of an astronaut preparing to take samples from a captured asteroid. The sun is in the background; NASA wants to know more about electrical activity generated by the interaction of solar wind and radiation with asteroids.

Space may appear empty - a soundless vacuum, but it's not an absolute void. It flows with electric activity that is not visible to our eyes. NASA is developing plans to send humans to an asteroid, and wants to know more about the electrical environment explorers will encounter there.

A solar wind blown from the surface of the sun at about a million miles per hour flows around all solar system objects, forming swirling eddies and vortices in its wake. Magnetic fields carried by the solar wind warp, twist, and snap as they slam into the magnetic fields around other objects in our solar system, blasting particles to millions of miles per hour and sending electric currents surging in magnetic storms that, around Earth, can damage sensitive technology like satellites and power grids.

On airless objects like moons and asteroids, sunlight ejects negatively charged electrons from matter, giving sunlit areas a strong positive electric charge. The solar wind is an electrically conducting gas called plasma where matter has been torn apart into electrons, which are relatively light, and positively charged ions, which are thousands of times more massive. While areas in sunlight can charge positive, areas in shadow get a strong negative charge when electrons in the solar wind rush in ahead of heavier ions to fill voids created as the solar wind flows by. The surface of Earth is shielded from the direct effects of this activity by our planet's magnetic field, but airless objects without strong repelling magnetic fields, like small asteroids, have no protection from electrical activity in space.

NASA-sponsored researchers funded by the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) (formerly the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI)) have developed a new computer model that can predict and visualize the interaction between the solar wind, solar radiation, and the surface of asteroids in unprecedented detail.

Read more at : http://www.sott.net/article/280953-NASA-acknowledging-Electric-Universe-New-NASA-model-gives-glimpse-into-the-invisible-world-of-electric-asteroids

Much larger solar corona than previously observed

26/6/2014

Much larger solar corona than previously observed Karen C. Fox
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Wed, 25 Jun 2014 22:45 CDT

© NASA/STEREO
Scientists used these observations of the sun's atmosphere (the bright light of the sun itself is blocked
by the black circle at the middle) from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory on Aug. 5, 2007,
to define the outer limits of the solar atmosphere, the corona.

Surrounding the sun is a vast atmosphere of solar particles, through which magnetic fields swarm, solar flares erupt, and gigantic columns of material rise, fall and jostle each other around. Now, using NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, scientists have found that this atmosphere, called the corona, is even larger than thought, extending out some 5 million miles above the sun's surface -- the equivalent of 12 solar radii. This information has implications for NASA's upcoming Solar Probe Plus mission, due to launch in 2018 and go closer to the sun than any man-made technology ever has before.

These STEREO observations provide the first direct measurements of the inner boundary of the heliosphere -- the giant bubble sparsely filled with solar particles that surrounds the sun and all the planets. Combined with measurements from Voyager 1 of the outer boundary of the heliosphere, we have now defined the extent of this entire local bubble.

"We've tracked sound-like waves through the outer corona and used these to map the atmosphere," said Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "We can't hear the sounds directly through the vacuum of space, but with careful analysis we can see them rippling through the corona."

The results were published in The Astrophysical Journal on May 12, 2014. The researchers studied waves known as magnetosonic waves, and they are a hybrid of sound waves and magnetic waves called Alfven waves. Unlike sound waves on Earth, which oscillate several hundred times per second, these waves oscillate about once every four hours -- and are about 10 times the length of Earth.

Read the rest of the article at : http://www.sott.net/article/280960-Much-larger-solar-corona-than-previously-observed

[Solstice] Triple rings around the sun

23/6/2014

Regular sky watchers are accustomed to seeing rings of light around the sun. Called "ice halos," they form when sunlight shines through ice crystals in high clouds. Usually these rings appear one at a time. On June 21st, Jun Lao of Mason, Ohio, saw three at once:

"It was about 4 p.m. EDT in the greater Cincinnati area when I imaged what I first thought was a regular halo, but was surprised to see three concentric halos!" says Lao. "The sky had a light cloud layer, and I suspect these multiple halos were caused by pyramidal ice crystals."

Indeed, they were. Ordinary sun halos are produced by crystals shaped like pencils and flat plates. On rare occasions, however, the sky fills with pyramidal crystals. They look like two pyramids glued together, base-to-base. The pyramid-tips are sometimes truncated, and sometimes the two pyramids are separated by an intervening prism section, creating 18 different variations with up to 20 sides. Such a complicated crystalline form can produce multiple halos during the same display.

These multiple halos are sometimes called "odd-radius halos." However, as atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley points out, "Odd radius halos are perhaps not so 'odd' or rare as usually thought. Make a point of routinely searching for them."
http://spaceweather.com/

Summer Solstice

21/6/2014

Today is the June solstice. At 6:51 a.m. EDT on June 21st, the sun reached its northernmost point on the celestial sphere (+23.5o declination) marking the start of summer and the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, it is the start of winter and the shortest day. Either way, happy solstice! http://spaceweather.com/

Spirit woke me at 3.45 am this morning (UK time) to see the summer solstice sunrise. This was long before the sun actually rose in my location, but it enabled me to see Venus - the morning star - shining very brightly in the light of the sun (still below the horizon for me), and the crescent moon glowing golden through the trees at the bottom of my garden.

It was a fabulous early morning with clear skies, not a breath of wind and the birds singing their hearts out. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the changing colours of the sky and the dimming brightness of Venus before the sun appeared in all its glory.

I wouldn't have missed this for the world. Thank you Spirit.

Love, Light, peace and healing to all.
Messenger Spirit

Read also : http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/june-gateway-meeting-the-ultimate-guide.html

MESOSPHERIC GRAVITY WAVES:

18/6/2014

Some thunderstorms are so powerful that they create ripples in the atmosphere 80 to 90 km high, at the edge of space itself. In satellite images such storms look like a giant atmospheric bulls-eye. It turns out these ripples are also visible from the ground. Amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recently photographed them over New Mexico:

"Over the past few years I have been photographing sprites above distant thunderstorms using an infrared camera," says Ashcraft. "It turns out that the strong thunderstorm systems that generate sprites often also perturb the mesosphere and create gravity waves."

"This near infrared image from June 05, 2014, shows gravity waves above a powerful thunderstorm cell over western Kansas. The storm was about three hundred miles away from my observatory so the thunderstorm itself was below my horizon."

"There are many stills of this phenomenon but not many time-lapses that show their complex motions," he says. "I posted a movie extract of the storm on vimeo. Note also the sprites that pop up sporadically."

"The mesosphere is not well studied and it holds much Nature yet to be discovered," concludes Ashcraft. "To me it is a vast ecological zone full of beauty." http://spaceweather.com/

SUMMER SUN HALO:

18/6/2014

Around the northern hemisphere, sky watchers are starting to report a rainbow-colored sun halo that appears almost-exclusively during summer: the circumhorizon arc. "I saw one on June 13th. It was very bright," says Michail Anastasio, who snapped this picture from the cockpit of a plane flying 20,000 feet over Singapore:

Nicknamed the "fire rainbow" because of its fiery rainbow colors, this apparition in fact has nothing to do with either fire or rainbows. It is caused by sunlight refracting through plate-shaped ice crystals in cirrus clouds. The geometry of the refraction requires that the sun be high in the sky (above 58o), which explains why this is a summertime phenomenon.

June and July are the best months to see circumhorizon arcs. Look for them circling the horizon sometimes in patches, sometimes not, always brightly decorated with pure and well separated prismatic colors. You'll know it when you see it.

http://spaceweather.com/

Matter will be created from light within a year, claim scientists

14/6/2014

Ian Sample : The Guardian, UK : 18 May 2014

In theory light and matter are interchangeable [Einstein], but a practical demonstration was thought to be impossible.

Researchers have worked out how to make matter from pure light and are drawing up plans to demonstrate the feat within the next 12 months.

The theory underpinning the idea was first described 80 years ago by two physicists who later worked on the first atomic bomb. At the time they considered the conversion of light into matter impossible in a laboratory. But in a report published on Sunday, physicists at Imperial College London claim to have cracked the problem using high-powered lasers and other equipment now available to scientists.

"We have shown in principle how you can make matter from light" said Steven Rose at Imperial. "If you do this experiment, you will be taking light and turning it into matter."

The scientists are not on the verge of a machine that can create everyday objects from a sudden blast of laser energy. The kind of matter they aim to make comes in the form of subatomic particles invisible to the naked eye.

The original idea was written down by two US physicists, Gregory Breit and John Wheeler, in 1934. They worked out that - very rarely - two particles of light, or photons, could combine to produce an electron and its antimatter equivalent, a positron. Electrons are particles of matter that form the outer shells of atoms in the everyday objects around us. But Breit and Wheeler had no expectations that their theory would be proved any time soon. In their study, the physicists noted that the process was so rare and hard to produce that it would be "hopeless to try to observe the pair formation in laboratory experiments".

Oliver Pike, the lead researcher on the study, said the process was one of the most elegant demonstrations of Einstein's famous relationship that shows matter and energy are interchangeable currencies. "The Breit-Wheeler process is the simplest way matter can be made from light and one of the purest demonstrations of E=mc2," he said.

Writing in the journal Nature Photonics the scientists describe how they could turn light into matter through a number of separate steps.

The process is one of the most spectacular predictions of a theory called quantum electrodynamics (QED) that was developed in the run up to the second world war. "You might call it the most dramatic consequence of QED and it clearly shows that light and matter are interchangeable," Rose told the Guardian.

Andrei Seryi, director of the John Adams Institute at Oxford University, said: "It's breathtaking to think that things we thought are not connected, can in fact be converted to each other: matter and energy, particles and light. Would we be able in the future to convert energy into time and vice versa?"

Read more at : Nature Photonics or : http://www.sott.net/article/279347-Matter-will-be-created-from-light-within-a-year-claim-scientists

Earth's largest water reservoir is found trapped in rock 400 miles under the surface

14/6/2014

Mark Prigg : Daily Mail, UK : Thu, 12 Jun 2014

The presence of liquid water on the surface is what makes our 'blue planet' habitable, and scientists have long been trying to figure out just how much water may be cycling between Earth's surface and interior reservoirs through plate tectonics. They now believe reservoirs 400 miles under the surface hold the key.

* Ingredients for water are bound up in rock deep in the Earth's mantle
* Scientists claim the find may represent the planet's largest water reservoir
* It is believed to cover most of the U.S - 400 miles below the surface
* Researchers will now carry out further tests to discover if the water wraps around the entire planet

The Earth's largest expanse of water isn't on the surface of the planet, but instead is buried deep within its mantle, researchers have found. They claim the ingredients for water are bound up in deep rocks, and scientists believe the discovery may represent the planet's largest water reservoir. Deep pockets of magma were found using seismic waves beneath North America, and this magma is said to be a clear sign of water. So far, researchers claim they only have evidence the water sits beneath the U.S., but they plan to carry out further tests to see if it wraps around the entire planet.

The presence of liquid water on the surface is what makes our 'blue planet' habitable, and scientists have long been trying to figure out just how much water may be cycling between Earth's surface and interior reservoirs through plate tectonics.

Northwestern geophysicist Steve Jacobsen and University of New Mexico seismologist Brandon Schmandt say the findings, to be published June 13 in the journal Science, will aid scientists in understanding how the Earth formed, what its current composition and inner workings are and how much water is trapped in mantle rock.

'Geological processes on the Earth's surface, such as earthquakes or erupting volcanoes, are an expression of what is going on inside the Earth, out of our sight,' said Jacobsen, a co-author of the paper 'I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. 'Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades.'

Scientists have long speculated that water is trapped in a rocky layer of the Earth's mantle located between the lower mantle and upper mantle, at depths between 250 miles and 410 miles. Jacobsen and Schmandt are the first to provide direct evidence that there may be water in this area of the mantle, known as the 'transition zone,' on a regional scale. The region extends across most of the interior of the United States.

Schmandt and Jacobsen's findings build on a discovery reported in March in the journal Nature in which scientists discovered a piece of the mineral ringwoodite inside a diamond brought up from a depth of 400 miles by a volcano in Brazil. That tiny piece of ringwoodite - the only sample in existence from within the Earth - contained a surprising amount of water bound in solid form in the mineral.
Source: Science

Read the whole story at : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2656635/Forget-Oceans-researchers-Earths-biggest-water-reservoir-BENEATH-United-States.html
or http://www.sott.net/article/280395-Earths-largest-water-reservoir-is-found-trapped-in-rock-400-miles-under-the-surface

"We do not seem to have the correct theory of gravity" says professor

13/6/2014

Phys Org : Wed, 11 Jun 2014

© NASA, Holland Ford (JHU), the ACS Science Team and ESA

Material stripped from a galaxy during its collision with a smaller galaxy (seen in the upper left corner of the larger interaction partner) forms a long tidal tail. Young blue stars, star clusters and tidal dwarf galaxies are born in these tidal debris. These objects move in a common direction within a plane defined by the orientation and motion of their tidal tail. A similar galaxy interaction might have occurred in the Local Group in the past, which could explain the distribution of dwarf galaxies in co-rotating planes.

Satellite dwarf galaxies at the edges of the Milky Way and neighboring Andromeda defy the accepted model of galaxy formation, and recent attempts to pigeon-hole them into the model are flawed, an international team of scientists reports.

The mismatch raises questions about the accuracy of the standard model of cosmology, which is the widely accepted paradigm for the origin and evolution of the universe, the astrophysicists say.

A preprint of the research paper, accepted for publication by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is online here.

The standard model, also called the "lambda cold dark matter model," says that satellite dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way and Andromeda are expected to behave a certain way: The galaxies would form in halos of dark matter, be widely distributed and would have to move in random directions, said Marcel Pawlowski, a postdoctoral researcher in the astronomy department at Case Western Reserve University and lead author of the new study.

"But what astronomers see is different," Pawlowski said. "We see the satellite galaxies are in a huge disk and moving in the same direction within this disk, like the planets in our solar system moving in a thin plane in one direction around the sun. That's unexpected and could be a real problem."

"There's a very serious conflict, and the repercussion is we do not seem to have the correct theory of gravity" said Pavel Kroupa, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Bonn in Germany.

Read more at : http://www.sott.net/article/280362-We-do-not-seem-to-have-the-correct-theory-of-gravity-says-professor

Our only real hope .....

12/6/2014

A radical inner transformation
and rise to a new level of consciousness
might be the only real hope we have
in the current global crisis
brought on by the dominance of the
Western mechanistic paradigm.

- Stanislav Grof

Sun erupts with 3rd massive solar flare in 2 days

11/6/2014

The sun is hitting its stride. Earth's closest star shot off yet another powerful solar flare today (June 11) after producing a pair of major solar storms Tuesday. The X1-class flare reached its peak at 5:06 a.m. EDT (0906 GMT) and came from Region 2087 near the southeastern limb of the sun's disk, the same region of the star that produced the two powerful solar flares yesterday. NASA captured an amazing video of the X1 solar flare using its space-based Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Today's solar tempest did cause a brief radio blackout on Earth, but officials with the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center based in Boulder, Colorado, don't think that the flare has an associated coronal mass ejection - a burst of hot plasma sent out from the sun during some solar flares. While officials with the SWPC didn't initially think that Tuesday's flares produced a coronal mass ejection - a burst of plasma associated with some solar flares - later analysis shows that the flares did produced two CMEs. The first solar flare produced a relatively small CME, with the second merging with it shortly after, according to astronomer Tony Phillips at spaceweather.com. The CME is expected to give Earth a glancing blow, when it reaches our part of the solar system Friday (June 13). It's possible that the incoming CME could create polar geomagnetic storms, according to Phillips.

The sun is in the active phase of its 11-year solar cycle, called Solar Cycle 24. NASA officials now think the sun is in its maximum, which they have dubbed the "mini max". Although the sun's activity is on the upswing, this solar max is still quite weak by comparison to other solar maximums on record, NASA officials have said. Scientists expected that the solar maximum (the peak in the sun's activity for the cycle) would occur in 2013.

© NASA/SDO
Three X-class flares erupted from the left side of the sun June 10-11, 2014. These images are from NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory and show light in a blend of two ultraviolet wavelengths: 171 and 131 angstroms.

"It's back," Dean Pesnell, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a NASA statement Tuesday (June 10) on the sun's weather cycle. "Solar max has arrived."

Wednesday's solar flare is the eighth documented X-flare shot out from the sun in 2014. The most powerful flare of the year - a monster X4.9-class flare - occurred in February. X2 flares are two times as intense as X1 flares. If aimed toward Earth, X-flares can damage the planet's power grids and put satellites and astronauts in space in danger.

The sun also shoots out other, less powerful classes of solar flares. M-class flares can produce incredible auroras, and our nearest star also emits weaker C-class flares.

NASA has a fleet of sun-monitoring satellites in orbit today. The Solar Dynamics Observatory, the space agency's twin STEREO probes and the joint U.S.-European SOHO spacecraft all keep watch on the sun from space.

http://www.sott.net/article/280320-Sun-erupts-with-3rd-massive-solar-flare-in-2-days

Sun-powered collapsible woven refugee shelters help bring dignity to displaced

11/6/2014

Tafline Laylin : Green Prophet : Thu, 06 Mar 2014

More than 40 million people worldwide have been displaced from their homes and left to find shelter in strange lands. Maybe they find a tarp, or a tent, but their quality of life almost always remains dismal.

To close this gap in need, Jordanian-Canadian architect and designer Abeer Seikaly designed a new kind of shelter. One that allows refugees to rebuild their lives with dignity.

Seikaly, now living in Amman, Jordan is well poised to design a dwelling for refugees given that her ancestors in Jordan probably toggled between nomadic and sheltered life in the desert for centuries. "The movement of people across the earth led to the discovery of new territories as well as the creation of new communities among strangers forming towns, cities, and nations," writes Seikaly in her design brief. "Navigating this duality between exploration and settlement, movement and stillness is a fundamental essence of what it means to be human."

The outer solar-powered skin absorbs solar energy that is then converted into usable electricity, while the inner skin provides pockets for storage - particularly at the lower half of the shelters. And a water storage tank on the top of the tent allows people to take quick showers. Water rises to the storage tank via a thermosiphoning system and a drainage system ensures that the tent is not flooded.

Read more at : http://www.sott.net/article/280295-Sun-powered-collapsible-woven-refugee-shelters-help-bring-dignity-to-the-displaced

Edgar Cayce on Human Origins - From Spirit to Flesh to Divine Union

6/6/2014

Edgar Cayce on Human Origins
By Kevin Williams

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/cayce03.html#a13

See also : http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/human-origins.html