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Anomalies hint at magnetic pole flip
19:00 10 April 02
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
The Earth's magnetic poles might be starting to flip say
researchers who have seen strange anomalies in our planet's
magnetic field.
The magnetic field is created by the flow of molten iron inside
the Earth's core. These circulation patterns are affected by the
planet's rotation, so the field normally aligns with the Earth's
axis - forming the north and south poles.
But the way minerals are aligned in ancient rock shows that the
planet's magnetic dipole occasionally disappears altogether,
leaving a much more complicated field with many poles all over
the planet. When the dipole comes back into force, the north
and south poles can swap places.
The last reversal happened about 780,000 years ago, over a
period of several thousand years. Now Gauthier Hulot from the
Institute of Earth Sciences in Paris and his colleagues think
they have spotted early signs of another reversal.
South African anomaly
They used data from the Ørsted satellite to study strange
variations in the Earth's magnetic field. In particular, one large
patch under South Africa is pointing in the opposite direction
from the rest of the Earth's field and has been growing for
hundreds of years.
The anomalies have already reduced the overall strength of the
planet's magnetic field by about 10 per cent. If they continue to
grow at the same rate, the Earth's dipole will disappear within
just two millennia.
But Ørsted is the first satellite to take a snapshot of the Earth's
magnetic field for 20 years, and such scant data makes it
difficult to predict future shifts.
"We can't really tell what will happen," says Hulot. "But we speculate that we're in an unusual situation that might be related to a reversal."
Journal reference: Nature (vol 416, p 620)
Nicola Jones
(
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992152)
____________________
(What could be headed our way?)
NASA DETECTS ONE OF CLOSEST AND BRIGHTEST GAMMA RAY BURSTS
BBSNews - 2003-04-01 -- The Universe clearly works weekends; delivering one of the brightest and closest gamma ray
bursts yet on Saturday, March 29, at 6:37 a.m. EST.
NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) detected the burst, signaling the birth of a black hole, in the constellation Leo.
For more than 30 seconds, the burst out shone the entire Universe in gamma rays, and its afterglow was still over a trillion
times brighter than the sun two hours later. This was the brightest burst yet detected by HETE and is in the top one percent
of all bursts in terms of intrinsic brightness. Within seconds, HETE nailed down a location and subsequently relayed the
coordinates to the astronomy community, allowing hundreds of scientists and amateur astronomers to join the observation,
from Australia to Finland and across the ocean to America. Observations continue to pour in as scientists attempt to unravel
what caused the burst. The region is still too bright to determine which galaxy this burst came from.
"This was our biggest one ever, and it didn't get away," said Dr. George Ricker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Cambridge, Mass., and principal investigator for the HETE mission. "With scores of observations now completed and
more on the way, we should get a rather clear picture of what triggered this burst."
Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the Universe; likely caused by the death of a massive star, in which
the core implodes to form a black hole. Bursts appear to occur randomly, and few last more than a minute, making them
hard to study.
HETE detects the fleeting gamma ray and X-ray portions of these bursts, and its prompt localization enables scientists to
study the burst afterglow, which can linger from days to weeks in optical light and radio waves. Most bursts originate in the
early universe, traveling upwards of 10 billion years at light speed to reach us.
The burst on March 29 was named GRB 030329. Both the burst and its afterglow were brilliant. The burst poured out a
thousand trillion, trillion times the gamma rays seen in a solar flare. When measured more than one hour after the burst,
the afterglow was still about as bright as a 12th magnitude star. This means it was only about 10 to 100 times dimmer than
what can be seen with the naked eye, visible with backyard telescopes. At its peak, the afterglow may have been visible to
the naked eye.
The burst originated approximately two billion light years from Earth, which is relatively close. The GRB 030329 redshift
measurement was 0.168, making this the second closest burst with a known redshift measurement. (Redshift is a
measurement of how light from distant regions of the Universe is "shifted" to lower energy as the Universe expands; the
greater the redshift, the greater the distance from Earth.) "Few amateur astronomers are treated to an event that originated
billions of light years away," said Ricker.
...
(http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-04-01a.html)
____________________
EARTH'S LITTLE BROTHER FOUND
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC
October 21, 2002
Astronomers have discovered the first object ever that is in a companion
orbit to the Earth.
Asteroid 2002 AA29 is only about 100 metres wide and never comes closer than
3.6 million miles to our planet.
But it shares the Earth's orbit around the Sun, at first on one side of the
Earth and then escaping to travel along our planet's path around the Sun
until it encounters the Earth from the other side. Then it goes back again.
Researchers are speculating that 2002 AA29 could be visited by astronauts or
used to understand the threat to our planet posed by such rocks from space.
2002 AA29 was discovered by the linear automated sky survey project on 9
January 2002.
Martin Connors of Athabaseca University in Canada writes in the journal
Meteoritics and Planetary Science that it, "moves in a very Earth-like
orbit," and is the "first true co-orbital object of Earth."
General Simon Worden of the United States Space Command described it as a
"near Earth object that is close to being trapped by the Earth as a second
natural satellite".
According to Helena Morais of the University of Lisbon and Allesandro
Morbidelli of the University of Nice, writing in a paper to be published in
the journal, Icarus: "2002 AA29 seems to be in a temporary horseshoe-like
orbit with the Earth."
This puts 2002 AA29 is in the same class as 3753 Cruithne, a similar rocky
body in a horseshoe orbit around the Earth.
But astronomers classify 2002 AA29 as the first real co-orbital body found
associated with the Earth because it more completely shares the Earth's path
around the Sun.
Co-orbiting asteroids have been found around other planets.
Over 1,200 so called "Trojans" have been found moving either ahead or behind
Jupiter.
Eight such objects have been found associated with Mars.
But despite detailed searches no one has yet found any Trojan objects near
the Earth.
It is clear that 2002 AA29 was discovered by accident at a time when it was
at one end of its horseshoe orbit and, being at its closest to the Earth,
was bright enough to be detected in an automated sky survey.
Detailed observations of its trajectory through space show that 2002 AA29
will reach its minimum close approach to the Earth -- 12 times the distance
between Earth and the Moon -- at 1900 GMT on 8 January 2003.
Thereafter it will travel ahead of the Earth moving faster than our planet
does, until after 95 years it will catch up with the other side of the Earth
and then reverse its motion.
Analysis of 2002 AA29's motions have revealed a remarkable event that
happens to it every few thousand years.
In 550AD, and again in 2600AD and 3880AD, for a while it will become a true
satellite of our planet, in effect Earth's second moon, although technically
it will remain under the gravitational control of the Sun.
It remains a second moon to Earth for about 50 years until it escapes.
Although only about 100 metres across 2002 AA29 may play a role in the
manned exploration of space out of all proportion to its size.
Already researchers are speculating that it could be visited by an unmanned
spaceprobe or even become the first object after the Moon to be stepped on
by astronauts.
The object could tell us a lot about the composition of asteroids.
Some have speculated that it could be nudged into a permanent Earth orbit
where it could be studied at greater length.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2347663.stm
)
____________________
EARTH'S NEW 'MOON' IS SPACE JUNK
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC
Thursday, 12 September, 2002
So, it looks like Earth does not have a new "moon" after all.
The latest analysis of the mysterious object called J002E3 suggests it could
well be a leftover Saturn V rocket component from one of the Apollo lunar
missions.
The suspicious, fast-moving object was discovered on 3 September by Bill
Yeung from his observatory in Arizona, US. Initial orbit calculations
indicated that it was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and in orbit
around the Earth.
At first, astronomers were not sure whether the object was a passing chunk
of rock that was captured by the Earth's gravity, or a piece of space junk.
Now the mystery may have been solved thanks to a retrospective analysis of
its movement through space. The object is most likely from the Apollo 12
mission, launched on 14 November 1969.
Returned to sender
It seems that the object was in orbit around the Sun until April of this
year when it was captured by the Earth's gravity. The capture occurred when
the object passed near the Earth's L1 Lagrange point, a region of space
where the gravity of the Earth and Sun approximately cancel.
J002E3 is the first known case of an object being captured by the Earth,
although Jupiter has been known to capture comets in the same way.
The most recent analysis of J002E3's pre-capture orbit about the Sun shows
that it was always inside the Earth's orbit, and that it may have come
within the Earth's vicinity in the early 1970s or late 1960s.
This suggests that J002E3 was very likely orbiting the Earth during this
period before escaping into solar orbit.
Experts say that it is likely that this object is one of the Apollo Saturn
rocket's third stages. The brightness of J002E3 seems to match the expected
brightness of such a component.
Analysis of J002E3's orbit suggests that there is a chance of it impacting
the Moon in 2003, and an outside possibility of it burning up in the Earth's
atmosphere sometime in the next decade or so.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2253385.stm
)
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INTERPLANETARY SUPERHIGHWAY MAKES SPACE TRAVEL SIMPLER
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Martha J. Heil
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-0850)
A "freeway" through the solar system resembling a vast array of virtual
winding tunnels and conduits around the Sun and planets, discovered by an
engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., can slash
the amount of fuel needed for future space missions.
Called the Interplanetary Superhighway, the system was calculated by Martin
Lo, who used his theory to design the flight path for NASA's Genesis
mission, which is currently using this "freeway in space" on its mission to
collect solar wind particles for return to Earth.
Most missions are designed to take advantage of the way gravity pulls on a
spacecraft when it swings by a body such as a planet or moon. Lo's theory
mixes in another factor, the Sun's pull on the planets or a planet's pull on
its nearby moons. Forces from many directions nearly cancel each other out,
leaving paths through the gravity fields in which spacecraft can travel.
Each planet and moon has five locations in space called Lagrange points,
where one body's gravity balances another's. Spacecraft can orbit there
while burning very little fuel. To find the Interplanetary Superhighway, Lo
mapped all the possible flight paths among the Lagrange points, varying the
distance the spacecraft would go and how fast or slow it would travel. Like
threads twisted together to form a rope, the possible flight paths formed
tubes in space. Lo plans to map out these tubes for the whole solar system.
Lo has turned the theory of the Interplanetary Superhighway into a tool for
mission design called "LTool," using models developed at Purdue University,
West Lafayette, Ind. The new LTool designed the flight path for the Genesis
mission, the first space mission to use the theory of the Interplanetary
Superhighway. Genesis launched in August 2001.
The flight path was designed for the spacecraft to leave Earth and travel to
orbit the Lagrange point. After five loops around this Lagrange point, the
spacecraft will fall out of orbit without any maneuvers and then loop around
Earth to a Lagrange point on the opposite side of the planet. Finally, it
will return to Earth's upper atmosphere to drop off its samples of solar
wind in the Utah desert, at the Air Force's Utah Testing and Training Range.
"Genesis wouldn't need to use any fuel at all in a perfect world," Lo said.
"But since we can't control the many variables that occur throughout the
mission, we have to make some corrections as Genesis completes its loops
around a Lagrange point of Earth. The savings on the fuel translates into a
better and cheaper mission."
"It has been exciting and challenging to develop this field. Our work on the
Genesis mission is definitely a high point," said Kathleen Howell,
co-creator of LTool, and a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at
Purdue. "The theory has been known for some time, but this is the first time
it has been applied to a space mission."
"For all missions going to a Lagrange point, LTool will speed up
computations," Lo said. "Designing the Genesis spacecraft's flight path with
traditional methods used to take eight weeks, but now we can design a new
flight path in less than a day -- we have redesigned a whole mission in a
week."
Lo envisions a place to construct and service science platforms around one
of the Moon's Lagrange points. Since the Lagrange points are landmarks for
the Interplanetary Superhighway, spacecraft could easily be shunted to and
from the station for repair. A team at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston,
working with the NASA Exploration Team (NEXT), proposes to someday use the
Interplanetary Superhighway for future human space missions.
"Lo's work has led to breakthroughs in simplifying mission concepts for
human and robotic exploration beyond low-Earth orbit," said Doug Cooke,
manager of the Advanced Development office at Johnson. "These
simplifications result in fewer space vehicles needed for a broad range of
mission options."
Lo's and Howell's work on the Interplanetary Superhighway for space mission
design was nominated for an annual Discover Innovation Award by Discover
magazine editors and an outside panel of experts.
Spacecraft are not the only users of the Interplanetary Superhighway:
asteroids and comets are known to travel on it. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
collided with Jupiter when it took an off-ramp toward the giant gas planet.
Scientists think the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs could have followed
Genesis' flight path -- an iridium deposit at the crash site shows the
asteroid traveled fairly slowly. Just what we might expect from an asteroid
on the Interplanetary Superhighway, Lo said.
(http://www.genesismission.org)
____________________
January 22, 2002
Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
SCIENTISTS have found the first evidence that a devastating
meteor impact in the Middle East might have triggered the
mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years
ago.
Studies of satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a
two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears
all the hallmarks of an impact crater. If confirmed, it
would point to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with
the violence equivalent to hundreds of nuclear bombs.
Today's crater lies on what would have been shallow sea
4,000 years ago, and any impact would have caused
devastating fires and flooding.
The catastrophic effect of these could explain the mystery
of why so many early cultures went into sudden decline
around 2300 BC.
They include the demise of the Akkad culture of central
Iraq, with its mysterious semi-mythological emperor Sargon;
the end of the fifth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom,
following the building of the Great Pyramids and the sudden
disappearance of hundreds of early settlements in the Holy
Land.
Until now, archaeologists have put forward a host of
separate explanations for these events, from local wars to
environmental changes. Recently, some astronomers have
suggested that meteor impacts could explain such historical
mysteries.
The crater's faint outline was found by Dr Sharad Master, a
geologist at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
on satellite images of the Al 'Amarah region, about 10 miles
north-west of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates and
home of the Marsh Arabs.
"It was a purely accidental discovery," Dr Master told The
Telegraph last week. "I was reading a magazine article about
the canal-building projects of Saddam Hussein, and there was
a photograph showing lots of formations - one of which was
very, very circular."
Detailed analysis of other satellite images taken since the
mid-1980s showed that for many years the crater contained a
small lake.
The draining of the region, as part of Saddam's campaign
against the Marsh Arabs, has since caused the lake to
recede, revealing a ring-like ridge inside the larger
bowl-like depression - a classic feature of meteor impact
craters.
The crater also appears to be, in geological terms, very
recent. Dr Master said: "The sediments in this region are
very young, so whatever caused the crater-like structure, it
must have happened within the past 6,000 years."
Reporting his finding in the latest issue of the journal
Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Dr Master suggests that a
recent meteor impact is the most plausible explanation for
the structure.
A survey of the crater itself could reveal tell-tale melted
rock. "If we could find fragments of impact glass, we could
date them using radioactive dating techniques," he said.
A date of around 2300 BC for the impact may also cast new
light on the legend of Gilgamesh, dating from the same
period. The legend talks of "the Seven Judges of Hell", who
raised their torches, lighting the land with flame, and a
storm that turned day into night, "smashed the land like a
cup", and flooded the area.
The discovery of the crater has sparked great interest among
scientists.
Dr Benny Peiser, who lectures on the effects of meteor
impacts at John Moores University, Liverpool, said it was
one of the most significant discoveries in recent years and
would corroborate research he and others have done.
He said that craters recently found in Argentina date from
around the same period - suggesting that the Earth may have
been hit by a shower of large meteors at about the same
time.
(http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3B$sessionid$41ZD1XYAAA5OLQFIQ
MGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wmet04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/04/ix
homef.html%5C)
Links of interest:
1. I got my paperback copy of Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" about ten years ago in a second-hand bookstore and I paid 50 cents for it. Nowadays it's well-nigh impossible to find any books by him, never mind in this price range. Amazon had some reissued works but they were sold out immediately and seem to be completely out-of-stock at this time. Making inquiries at second-hand bookstores brings the price of between $100-200 for a hardcover edition. Seeing it is so hard to find a copy I would recommend the following instead:
Cataclysm : Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B. C. by D. S. Allan, J. B. Delair. My review of the book:
This book is absolutely chock full of scientific evidence that helps explain the earthly changes forecast in
the book of Revelation. All the natural phenomena related in the last book of the Bible finds its counterpart in the ancient earthly
record and is a matter of "been there, done that" as far as the earth is concerned. You can't explain away the residual evidence of
a cataclysmic event in the past so it's not too far-fetched to imagine it happening again. The most unbelievable aspect of this
research is that more people have not been exposed to it.
I would like to type all of the book "Worlds in Collision" and put it with the rest of the ebooks on the website but I know that would be a huge copyright violation. If anyone knows of how to get permission to do this, please email me.
2. Worlds in Collision, Part Two, Chapters 1, 2, 5, excerpts of 3, 8, 9
Worlds in Collision, Chapter 3
3. Velikovsky: Bonds of the Past 1972 movie by Henry Zemel.
4. Please see excerpts from "The Prophecy Trilogy" by Anthony Larson:
And the Moon Shall Turn to Blood
And the Earth Shall Reel To and Fro
And There Shall Be a New Heaven and a New Earth
5. Do a Google search with the words "catastrophism" and "velikovsky" which will give you more than enough reading material on this subject.
6. Do a Google search with the words "planet x" as your query.
7. Listen to http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/ radio program on Planet X. A few things to consider: he seems to have a huge chip on his shoulder and is having a war with NASA which he spends a lot of time talking about; his philosophy of life does not seem to include the Bible—seems to be a humanist who thinks people can change the world; he believes the Heaven's Gate people were murdered; secular commentary. I have his book "Planet-X, Comets & Earth Changes" but the jury is still out.
8. Please see Hail, Hale-Bopp!.
9. Books online by Donald W. Patten on catastrophism:
The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch
The Mars-Earth Wars
Catastrophism and the Old Testament (The Mars-Earth Conflicts)
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