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COMET RENDEZVOUS--TODAY! The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe has reached comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and is maneuvering to go into orbit around the comet's core. This is an historic event. After Rosetta goes into orbit, it will follow the comet around the sun, observing its activity from point-blank range for more than a year. Moreover, in November, Rosetta will drop a lander onto the comet's strange surface. Today's events are being streamed live by the ESA. A video from ESA shows that Rosetta was programmed to match velocities with the comet's core and maneuver to within 30 km of the comet's surface, where the weak gravity of 67P could capture the spacecraft. Going into orbit around a comet is a historic moment in the history of space exploration. Good luck to the Rosetta team as they attempt this unprecedented feat.
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Solar Earthquake Trigger? -- Suspicious0bservers News Published on 3 Aug 2014
www.Suspicious0bservers.org : www.ObservatoryProject.com Does the Sun Trigger Large Earthquakes? Article Release: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/su... Download: https://docs.google.com/a/suspicious0... Are you new here? Valuable Info: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=... Comet Siding Spring: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... Sun Series: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=... Climate Change: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=... NuStar: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nus... NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is only a year away from Pluto. Researchers are buzzing with anticipation as humankind prepares to encounter a new world for the first time in decades. Get the full story and a video from Science@NASA.
http://spaceweather.com/ 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 NASA's AIM spacecraft is discovering surprising "teleconnections" in Earth's atmosphere that link weather and climate across vast distances. Strange but true: The ground temperature in Indianapolis is correlated with the frequency of noctilucent clouds over Antarctica. Get the full story and a video from Science@NASA (video shown below). http://spaceweather.com/ ScienceCasts: Unexpected Teleconnections in Noctilucent Clouds NASA's Cassini spacecraft has photographed a small icy object forming at the edge of Saturn's rings. Informally named "Peggy," it may be a new moon caught in the act of genesis. Get the full story from Science@NASA.
China's lunar rover, the "Jade Rabbit", is awake and communicating with Earth. The rover had recently hunkered down to survive its third night on the Moon. Mission controllers weren't sure the Jade Rabbit could survive as darkness fell for two weeks and temperatures plunged as low as -170 C. But survive it did, although the rover can no longer move. Stuck in place, Jade Rabbit continues to gather data about its surroundings in Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows). The mission was designed to last only 3 months, so every byte that comes back now is a bonus. [more] www.spaceweather.com
Yesterday, NASA announced a breakthrough addition to the catalog of new planets. Researchers using Kepler have confirmed 715 new worlds, almost quadrupling the number of planets previously confirmed by the planet-hunting spacecraft. Some of the planets are similar in size to Earth and orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars. Read more here: http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-mission-announces-a-planet-bonanza/#.Uw-pSM472So ScienceCasts: A Sudden Multiplication of Planets STRONG M-FLARE: Big sunspot AR1967 unleashed a strong M6-class solar flare on Jan. 30th at approximately 1617 UTC. The explosion, which may be seen at the end of this movie of today's solar eclipse, hurled a CME into space. Radio emissions from shock waves preceding the CME suggest that it could be leaving the sun faster than 2100 km/s (4.7 million mph). Stay tuned for updates about this potentially significant event. LUNAR TRANSIT OF THE SUN: Earlier today, the Moon eclipsed the sun. No one on Earth saw it. The "lunar transit" was only visible from space. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the whole thing from geosynchronous orbit: At maximum eclipse as much as 90% of the sun was covered. SDO is solar powered, but it did not "brown out" because mission controllers put an extra charge on the spacecraft's batteries ahead of time.
Every year, SDO observes multiple lunar transits. This one, lasting almost 2.5 hours, was the longest in the history of the spacecraft's 4 year mission. www.spaceweather.com Image courtesy of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25384057 China's moon rover, the Jade Rabbit, which made an historic landing in Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows) on Dec. 14th, is in trouble. Night is falling over the rover's landing site, and the rover should be going into hibernation to preserve power. China's space agency is reporting, however, that a "mechanical anomaly" may be interfering with the hibernation process. If so, the Jade Rabbit might not survive the extreme cold (-180 C) it is about to experience during two weeks of lunar night. Even if the rover fails, the mission is a success for China, which has joined the exclusive club of nations that have landed on the Moon.
www.spaceweather.com January 18, 2014 – SPACE – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) is teaming up with a company that manufactures fishing equipment to create a net that will sweep the heavens of the man-made debris orbiting our planet. The first test of the equipment is scheduled to start in late February, when a rocket will be launched and a satellite developed by researchers at Kagawa University will be deployed. Once in orbit, the satellite is designed to unreel a wire net some 300 metres long that will then generate a magnetic field and – theoretically – attract some of the debris that is circulating beyond our atmosphere.
And there is a growing need for outer space to undergo a good clean-up, with experts estimating that 100 million bits of man-made junk are zipping around the earth. Of that total, some 22,000 are believed to measure 10 cm or larger and are therefore considered dangerous. The majority of the debris is in a band between 700 kilometers and 1,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet, mostly parts of obsolescent and degrading satellites and rockets. Out of control and impossible to accurately monitor, even the smallest piece of detritus – a single bolt, for example – could have a catastrophic result if it collides with a functioning satellite or the International Space Station, which has a permanent human crew aboard. A recent study in the U.S. suggested that a collision between two satellites could trigger an “uncontrolled chain reaction” that could destroy the communications network on earth. “We started work on this project about five years ago and we are all excited to see the outcome of this first test,” Koji Ozaki, the engineer who heads the development team at Hiroshima-based Nitto Seimo, told the South China Morning Post. The net is a mere 30cm wide when it is unspooled and made of three strong and very flexible lengths of metal fiber, Ozaki said. Taking advantage of the company’s experience in the fishing industry, a net measuring 1 kilometer long has already been fabricated at Nitto Seimo’s factory. “Fishing nets need to be extremely strong because they need to be able to hold a large number of fish, but our tether does not have to be that strong,” he said. “It is more important that it is flexible.” Reports first emerged about the project three years ago, but there were no confirmations about it being tested. The upcoming test is designed to confirm that when a magnetic field is passed through the net, it is able to attract pieces of orbiting debris. Gradually, over the space of about one year, the net and the junk that it has collected will descend closer to Earth and burn up in the frictional heat generated when it reaches the atmosphere. In the future, Jaxa plans to use space craft to attach nets to larger pieces of space junk – rocket engines or satellites that are no longer operational – and let gravity and the atmosphere complete the task of eradicating the threat. Jaxa is planning further trials next year and a functioning system could be deployed as early as 2019. –SCMP Published on 7 Jan 2014
Website: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org Blog: http://www.suspicious0bserverscollect... (Click Daily News for all the Charts/Interactives) Major Warnings/Alerts: https://twitter.com/TheRealS0s Today's Featured Links: Fermi Gamma Lensing: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/januar... Brazil Flooding: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD... Where to See Antares Rocket: http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/... Mine Landslide Quake: http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/m... Intellicast Current Temps: http://www.intellicast.com/National/T... Original music by NEMES1S Christmas is over, but the amazing "Christmas conjunction" is still underway. As seen from NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft, the three planets Venus, Earth and Jupiter are clustered in a circle barely 2 degrees wide. The spacecraft's Heliospheric Imager took this picture on Dec. 26th: Because of the holidays, this conjunction in space raises comparisons to a famous Christmas conjunction on Earth. According to some scholars, the Star of Bethlehem might have been a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky, merged, would have made a spectacle so amazing that we still talk about it ~2000 years later.
Unlike conjunctions of the distant past, this one includes our home planet. STEREO-B is located on the far side of the sun where it can look back and see Earth along with other worlds in the Solar System. From STEREO-B's point of view, Jupiter and Venus about 0.5 degrees apart. That is not nearly as tight as the putative Star of Bethlehem conjunction when those two planets were separated by as little as 6 arcseconds (0.00166 degrees). Nevertheless, the Christmas conjunction of 2013 is special because it includes Earth--the first time in history [a photograph of] such a conjunction is possible. Happy holidays from STEREO! www.spaceweather.com According to some scholars, the Star of Bethlehem might have been a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky, merged, would have made a spectacle of Biblical proportions. This Christmas, NASA's STEREO-B probe is observing a conjunction of three planets--Venus, Earth and Jupiter. UPDATED: Instead of Jupiter and Venus merging, however, the combined planets are Jupiter and Earth: Unlike conjunctions of the distant past, this one includes our home planet. STEREO-B is located on the far side of the sun where it can look back and see Earth along with other worlds in the Solar System. Only NASA's twin STEREO probes, equipped with their high dynamic-range Heliospheric Imagers, can witness this kind of conjunction. From STEREO-B's point of view, Earth and Jupiter are less than 0.5 degrees apart, while all three planets fit in a circle 3 degrees in diameter. This meeting is not nearly as tight as the putative Star of Bethlehem conjunction ~2000 years ago. At that time Venus and Jupiter could have been as little as 6 arcseconds (0.00166 degrees) apart. Nevertheless, the ongoing conjunction is still a beauty. Stay tuned for updates as the three planets converge. UPDATE: From STEREO-B's point of view, Earth and Jupiter are so close together that the spacecraft's Heliospheric Imager can barely tell the two apart. Venus is only 2 degrees from the Earth-Jupiter pair, so this is actually a 3-way conjunction. www.spaceweather.com Notes: [Messenger Spirit] In ancient Mesopotamia the planets were seen as gods in their own right. The planet Jupiter was known as Neberu (Nibiru?) and associated with the god Marduk. He was the patron god of Babylon, and considered equivalent to the older Sumerian god Enlil, the king of the gods, and hence associated with rulership and wisdom. In the Jewish cabbala, Jupiter is the fourth sphere, Mercy (Chesed). Chesed also lies on the pillar of creation between Chokmah (pure creative power) and Netzach (individualised images), representing archetypal ideas. _http://www.skyscript.co.uk/jupitermyth.html Venus in myth is the goddess of love. In the Jewish Cabbala, Venus is the seventh sphere: Victory or Netzach. Situated at the base of the pillar of action, Netzach manifests the creative power in emotion and instinct, and all human creativity, both sexual and imaginative The latter includes the arts, and also the god-forms of polytheism, created by man in his own image, yet nevertheless reflecting something of the nature of the universe. Both desire and imagination are to some extent superficial. The term 'glamour' originally meant a magic illusion cast upon something, and the victory of Netzach involves triumphing over the glamour of its outer manifestations to reach that which they symbolise. An ancient text calls Netzach the Hidden Intelligence, "because its brilliant outpouring is received by those spiritual virtues which are seen, in the ecstasy of faith, only by the initiated".
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/venusmyth.html On Dec. 19th, the European Space Agency launched one of the most ambitious astronomy missions ever: GAIA, an observatory that will survey more than one billion stars in the Milky Way. By the time GAIA's five year mission is over, astronomers will be able to build the first accurate three-dimensional map of celestial objects in our home galaxy. GAIA will do its work from the L2 Lagrange point approximately 1.5 million km from Earth. On Dec. 20th, amateur astronomer Dave Eagle of Higham Ferrers UK observed the spacecraft hurtling toward that distant station: "It was great to see the spacecraft in the exact position predicted, near the shield of Orion," says Eagle. "After watching the launch live on the Web in the morning, I was glad to be able to track it down and wish it well in its coming mission. It was much brighter than I expected, so its newly deployed Sun shield is doing a great job." Once it reaches its L2 parking orbit and begins observing, GAIA will log the position, brightness and color of every star that falls within its field of view. By repeating these observations throughout its mission, astronomers will be able to calculate the distance, speed and direction of motion of each star GAIA sees, chart variations in their brightness, and determine whether they have nearby companions. This kind of detailed information about the Milky Way is unprecedented and may lead to important new discoveries about the evolution and structure of our galaxy. For updates about GAIA, stay tuned to the ESA. www.spaceweather.com |
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