2012
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GALEX spots Space Nasties



Astronomers know that space entities can unleash flares, but they haven't been watching them long enough to know the maximum possible intensity. Consider this, on Earth we have super-volcanoes, and we have tsunamis - but they don't happen every decade or even every century...so being zapped from outer space is quite a possibility, based on what has not been observed yet
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite inadvertently picked up an assortment of astronomical goodies in our solar neighborhood while surveying distant galaxies in ultraviolet light. The satellite's large field of view, 1.5° of sky, catches many nearby objects that unexpectedly flare and glow in this high-energy part of the spectrum.... including an exciting flare in a red-dwarf star whose brightness increased more than 10,000 times!

"We can create a movie of how a star brightens with time," says Welsh. And that's just what GALEX did. On April 20, 2004, the 13th-magnitude star, GJ 3685A, situated 45 light-years away in the constellation Virgo, erupted in a massive UV flash — brightening by 12 magnitudes in ultraviolet light. The movie, edited from about 20 minutes of data, shows that the red dwarf ignited not once, but twice. Through the events the star gave off more than one million times the energy of a typical solar flare. This flare was an extremely energetic case; most red dwarfs caught by GALEX have an average UV brightening of about 5 magnitudes.



Source: Sky and Telescope

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Aliens visiting in 2012



More "news" from a journalist in India:

This Star Cluster is the densest part of the Universe. M15 Star Cluster is also the source of largest density of Black Holes and gateway to many other Universes. This is also the source of huge concentration of dark matters....

UFO researchers now believe that the aliens from this star cluster who visit us regularly will finally in 2012 expose themselves to us. They are preparing for the totally astounding event for a long time.



Source: India Daily


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New, Powerful Object in Galactic Centre


This could be the culprit responsible for 2012. Being an unknown type, it is capable of anything, including hurling a galactic wave our way at a predicatble time...

A mystery object near the centre of our galaxy is sending out powerful pulses of radio waves. It is unlike any known source.

A team of astronomers led by Scott Hyman of Sweet Briar College, Virginia, detected the mysterious source using the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico. The pulses are coming from a spot just to one side of the galactic centre. Each pulse lasts about 10 minutes, and they repeat regularly every 77 minutes. If, as the researchers think, the source is near the centre of the Milky Way, it would be one of the most powerful emitters in the galaxy. The shape and timing of the pulses rules out most known sources, such as radio pulsars (Nature, vol 434, p 50).

The object could be a magnetar - a neutron star with an ultra-strong magnetic field. "Magnetars store plenty of energy to power the observed outbursts," says Hyman. Or it may be something entirely new. To find out more, the team is studying it using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, and hopes to use NASA's Chandra space telescope to see if it is also spitting out X-rays.



Source: New Scientist

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Speeding Star helps prove Black Hole


A star is speeding at over 1.5 million mph through the center of our galaxy appears to indicate that there really is a black hole there. Basically you would need a black hole to generate such a speed...

The gravitational pull of a black hole thought to exist there is likely responsible for the extreme velocity of the star, swinging it around the center of the Milky Way. A companion star may once have traveled with the speeding star and contributed to its velocity before being trapped by the black hole.

The first-of-its-kind finding not only confirms an earlier theory about the existence of such speeding stars, but also reinforces the notion that the Milky Way spins around a black hole, said Warren Brown, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a member of the team that discovered the star.



Source: Wired


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Like a swarm of mosquitos




...there may be as many as 20,000 stellar-mass black holes lurking within a three-light-year-wide sphere surrounding the 3-million-solar-mass behemoth in our galactic center.

Stellar-mass black holes, which contain roughly 5 to 20 solar masses, often give themselves away when they are part of closely separated binary systems. Infalling matter from their companion star piles up in a hot accretion disk, which can produce outbursts of X-rays.

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Muno's team caught seven of these outbursts over the past five years. Each was found within 75 light-years of the Milky Way's center, and surprisingly, four of them occurred within just 3 light-years of the core.

Given the known X-ray behavior of these objects, this high spatial density suggests there are tens of thousands of black holes swarming in that small region of space — some 20 times more holes than expected.



Source: Sky and Telescope


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No astronomical basis to Dec 21 2012


An article at Astronomy Answers points out that there is nothing astronomically special about the Mayan calendar end-date - and I agree wholeheartedly. Not only are there no special or unusual alignments happening in our galaxy, even if there were, I doubt they could affect anything.

They state that following are all false:

The Sun is then in conjunction with the intersection of the ecliptic and the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years.

The Sun is then in conjunction with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years.

The vernal equinox then crosses the center line of the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years.

These conjunctions happen at sunrise.

The planets are then in remarkable positions.

We cross the plane of the Milky Way to the other side then.

The Mayas knew the precession of the equinoxes and knew that five times the period of 13 baktuns of the Long Count was equal to the period of the precession of the equinoxes. The Mayas designed their calendar just so that the Long Count would restart on 21 December 2012, because they knew that that would be a special day.

The Mayas used amazingly accurate astronomical knowledge to make their calendar, and that is why even nowadays special things happen in the sky when the date in their calendar is round.

The only part of the article I disagree with is:

To predict the date of the southern solstice accurately 2367 years into the future, the Central-Americans of the 4th century BC must have had records of accurate observations of solstices and equinoxes, but there are no indications whatsoever for this. I therefore think that the fact that the beginning of a new period in the Long Count in 2012 falls on the day of a solstice is a coincidence.

In my opinion, it is the year 2012 that is important, but they deliberately used the Winter Solstice date - the most grim day of the year - to let us know that something bad will occur.

Source: Astronomy Answers


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Einstein's TimeWarp proven




Yet another prediction by Einstein's general theory of relativity seems to be holding true: a rotating body, such as Earth, should slightly twist the space in which it is embedded. Two physicists who have been tracking satellites orbiting Earth claim to have made the first reliable measurement of this effect.


Source: Sky & Telescope


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Scientists Say Supernova Is Imminent


Technology like NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2) might be vital in allowing us to know when to run and hide - that is, if the authorities are kind enough to let us know...



Three powerful recent blasts from three wholly different regions in space have left scientists scrambling. The blasts, which lasted only a few seconds, might be early alert systems for star explosions called supernovae, which could start appearing any day.

The first two blasts, called X-ray flashes, occurred on September 12 and 16. These were followed by a more powerful burst on September 24. The burst seems to be on the cusp between an X-ray flash and a full-fledged gamma ray burst, a discovery interesting in its own right.

Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known other than the Big Bang. Many appear to be caused by the death of a massive star collapsing into a black hole. Others might be from merging black holes or neutron stars. In either case, the event likely produces twin, narrow jets in opposite directions, which carry off tremendous amounts of energy. If one of jets points to Earth, we see this energy as a gamma ray burst.

The lower-energy X-ray flashes might be gamma ray bursts viewed slightly off angle from the jet direction, somewhat similar to how a flashlight is less blinding when viewed at an angle. The majority of light particles from X-ray flashes, called photons, are X-rays, energetic, but not quite as powerful as gamma rays. Both types of bursts last only a few milliseconds to about a minute.



Source: NASA

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Galactic Centre: 100-million-degree Celsius


Yet the boffins don't know why... and when they work it out, it might be too late...



NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed new evidence that extremely hot gas exists in a large region at the center of the Milky Way. The intensity and spectrum of the high-energy X-rays produced by this gas present a puzzle as to how it is being heated.

...an irregular, diffuse glow from a 10-million-degree Celsius gas cloud, embedded in a glow of higher-energy X-rays with a spectrum characteristic of 100-million-degree gas.

"The best explanation for the Chandra data is that the high-energy X-rays come from an extremely hot gas cloud, ...This would mean that there is a significant shortcoming in our understanding of heat sources in the center of our Galaxy."

"There is no known class of objects that could account for such a large number of high-energy X-ray sources at the Galactic center," said Fred Baganoff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, a coauthor of the study.



Source: Chandra@Harvard


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Our Moon wobbling?


Our moon has a habit of always looking the same to us, because it rotates in time with Earth's rotation, and we never see the "dark side".

I don't know if the folk at this forum are reliable, but if they are, then something mighty scary is happening...

to my surprise the moon had rotated another 10-12 degrees clockwise on its axis. No one seems to have noticed this but me. In a series of posts I will post the original photos I had posted, along with those that have been adjusted to demonstrate the rotation I have observed.


Source: Rumor Mill News

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Saturn's Days are Shortening!


It's hardly surprising that this hasn't been more widely reported, fot it's quite scary to know that something in our solar system is undergoing a lot of change, and we don't why!

Because Saturn's clouds offer no way to gauge the planet's true spin rate, scientists instead rely on periodic bursts of long-wavelength radio energy linked to Saturn's magnetic field and, by implication, its deep interior. These bursts were detected as early as April 2003, and they show that the planet spins once every 10 hours, 45 minutes, and 45 seconds. But that's about 6 minutes slower than the rate clocked when the Voyager spacecraft called on the ringed giant in 1980 and 1981. Donald S. Gurnett (University of Iowa) says he and other members of the Cassini Radio Plasma Wave Science team have no idea why Saturn has slowed down.



Source: Sky & Telescope

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Venus Transit tommorrow


And again in 2012 - more here

Source: The Age

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Redshift wrong


A scientist named Halton Alp has been saying for years that redshift, the technique used to measure the distance of stars from Earth, is caused by more than just velocity. So, quasars that look like they are part of a cluster, are part of it, whereas orthodox scientists say it only looks like belongs there, but is actually twice as far away.

He has been shunned by orthodox science:

One would at least expect the "powers that be" to immediately turn the Chandra X-ray orbiting telescope, the Hubble space telescope, and all the big land based telescopes toward Arp's exciting discoveries in order to either confirm or disprove them once and for all. Instead, these objects have been completely excluded from examination. Official photographs are routinely cropped to exclude them. Those familiar with the Galileo story will remember the priests who refused to look through his telescope.


But if he is right it means two things:

  • Big Bang is wrong, and the universe is not expanding
  • Some space nasties are much closer to Earth than stated
Source: Electric Cosmos

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Niribu: Could this be it?


A distant planet that orbits the sun has been found. It is about the size of pluto and makes a orbit every 10,000 years. The scientists said this discovery was unexpected and they have never seen anything like it before

It sits in a part of the solar system that some astronomers had thought empty. It is redder and brighter than anything astronomers have seen in the outer solar system, and scientists don't know why.

Could this be evidence of a planet that could hit us sometime around 2012?


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Saturn's Crazy X-Rays


Jupiter has x-rays coming out of the north and south poles, but Chandra has discovered that Saturn beams them out from the equator. Scientists are puzzled.

"Chandra's image shows that the X-rays are concentrated near Saturn's equator, a surprising result since Jupiter's X-ray emission is mainly concentrated near the poles. Existing theories cannot easily explain the intensity or distribution of Saturn's X-rays."

Sources: Harvard + AstroBio

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Most luminous star discovered


LBV 1806-20 is at least 5 million times brighter than the sun -- in the night sky. Dust particles between Earth and the star block out all of its visible light. Whereas the sun is located only 8.3 light minutes from Earth, the bright star is 45,000 light years away, on the other side of the galaxy.

Luminous blue variable stars are extremely large, with LBV 1806-20 probably at least 150 times larger than the sun. The stars are also extremely young by stellar time. LBV 1806-20 is estimated at less than 2 million years old. The sun in our solar system, by contrast, is 5 billion years old. Typical stars, such as the sun, live 10 billion years.

LBVs have “short and troubled lives,” as Eikenberry put it, because “the more mass you have, the more nuclear fuel you have, the faster you burn it up. They start blowing themselves to bits.”

All very informative, but what I find interesting is that the previous record holder, another of these "luminous blue variables" that have short lives and then blow up, the Pistol Star, can be found in the center of our galaxy, a spot where I expect the big nasty to come from in 2012, if a big nasty is what really hits us. More on the Pistol Star later.

Source: Universe Today

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Russian scientist says planets' atmospheres are changing


This is the Russian perspective on earth changes Hard facts that are going unreported in America The atmospheres of the planets are changing Dr. Dmitriev's work shows that the planets themselves are changing. They are undergoing changes in their atmospheres For example the Martian atmosphere is getting sizably thicker than it was before. The Mars observer probe in 1997 lost one of its mirrors, which caused it to crash, because the atmosphere was about twice as dense as they calculated, and basically the wind on that little mirror was so high that it blew it right off the device.

Earth's moon is growing an atmosphere Also, the moon is growing an atmosphere that's made up of a compound Dmitriev refers to as ''Natrium.'' Dmitriev says that, around the moon, there is this 6,000-kilometer-deep layer of Natrium that wasn't there before.

And we're having this kind of change in Earth's atmosphere in the upper levels, where HO gas is forming that wasn't there before; it simply did not exist in the quantity that it does now. It's not related to global warming and it's not related to CFCs or fluorocarbon emissions or any of that stuff. It's just showing up.

Magnetic fields and brightness of the planets are changing. The planets are experiencing sizable changes in their overall brightness. Venus, for example, is showing us marked increases in its overall brightness.

Jupiter has gotten to have such a high energetic charge that there is actually a visible tube of ionizing radiation that's formed between its moon, Io.

You can actually see the luminous energy tube in photographs that have been taken more recently.

And the planets are having a change in their fields. The magnetic fields are becoming stronger.

Jupiter's magnetic field has more than doubled. Uranus's magnetic field is changing. Neptune's magnetic field is increasing. These planets are becoming brighter. Their magnetic field strength is getting higher.

Their atmospheric qualities are changing.

Uranus and Neptune appear to have had recent pole shifts. When the Voyager 2 space probe flew past Uranus and Neptune, the apparent north and south magnetic poles were sizably offset from where the rotational pole was. In one case, it was 50 degrees off, and in the other case the difference was around 40 degrees, both of which are pretty big changes.

The overall changes could essentially be broken down into three categories: Energy field changes, luminosity changes, and atmospheric changes.

Overall volcanic activity has increased 500 percent since 1975 On the Earth, we're seeing the changes even more completely.

For example, Michael Mandeville has done research that has shown that the overall volcanic activity on the Earth since 1875 has increased by roughly 500 percent. The overall earthquake activity has increased by 400 percent just since 1973.

Natural disasters increased 410 percent between 1963 and 1993 Dr. Dmitriev did a very elaborate calculation of natural disasters. He showed that if you compare the years 1963 through 1993, the overall amount of natural disasters of all different kinds - whether you are talking hurricanes, typhoons, mud slides, tidal waves, you name it - have increased by 410 percent.

The Sun's magnetic field increased by 230 percent since 1901 There's a study by Dr. Mike Lockwood from Rutherford Appleton National Laboratories in California, who has been investigating the Sun. He has discovered that since 1901, the overall magnetic field of the Sun has become 230 percent stronger than it was before.

More than just Earth Changes So, all in all, what we're seeing is a lot more than just what they call Earth Changes. Some people get into the idea that there is an interaction between the Earth and the Sun that's going on here.

Very, very few people are aware of the work that is being done in the Russian National Academy of Sciences in Siberia, specifically in Novosibirsk, where they are doing this research. They've come to the conclusion that the only possible thing that could be causing this energetic change all throughout the Solar System is that we are moving into an area of energy that is different - that is higher.

The glowing plasma at the leading edge of our Solar System has recently increased 1000 percent Now, check this out. The Sun itself has a magnetic field, of course, and that magnetic field creates an egg around the Solar System, which is known as the heliosphere. The heliosphere is shaped like a teardrop, with the long and thin end of the drop pointing in the opposite direction from the direction that we're traveling. It's just like a comet, where the tail is always pointing away from the Sun.

The Russians have looked at the leading edge of this heliosphere, and they have observed glowing, excited plasma energy there. This plasma energy used to be 10 astronomical units deep (an astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, 93,000,000 miles). So ten astronomical units represents the normal thickness of this glowing energy that we used to see at the front end of the Solar System.

Today, that glowing plasma has gone to 100 astronomical units deep.

Although Dmitriev's paper does not give an exact timeline, we can assume that this increase happened in the same 1963 to 1993 period as the increase he found in natural disasters. Whenever it happened, that's a 1,000 percent increase in the overall brightness of the energy at the front end of the Solar System.

And this means that the Solar System itself is moving into an area where the energy is more highly charged.

That higher-charged energy is in turn exciting the plasma and causing more of it to form, so you see more luminosity, more brightness. This energy is then flowing into the Sun, which in turn emits the energy and spreads it out along its equatorial plane, which is called the Ecliptic.

This in turn is saturating interplanetary space, which causes the solar emissions to travel more quickly and charge up the energy on the planets.

And this is conscious energy that is changing how the planet works, how it functions, and what kind of life it supports. The harmonics of the DNA spiral itself are altering. That's the real, hidden cause of spontaneous mass evolutions in previous epochs of time.

All this is happening all at the same time, and it's all working up to a crescendo where there is going to be a sudden shift.

In other words, we will get to the point where we are so far into the new level of energy that there will be a sudden expansion of the basic harmonic wavelengths that the Sun emits as it radiates energy out of itself. This increase in energy emission will change the basic nature of all matter in the Solar System. The planets are pushed slightly farther away from the Sun and the atoms and molecules that make them up actually expand in terms of their physical size.


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Ice confirmed on Mars


Although this is what scientists have long thought of to be true, the Mars Express has just confirmed the existance of water ice on Mars' poles. It has also found canals which are believed to be long dried rivers, but they cannot be sure.

What this could mean for 2012? It is possible that there was once life on this desolate red planet. I don't think I need to point out the signifigance beetween this and possible 2012 scenarios.

Source: Space.com

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Microquasars


I still haven't got my head around whether AGNs (active galactic nuclei) can go undetected or not... but it's quite possible that a microquasar might sneek up and zap us in 2012:

" Astronomers are keenly interested in SS 433 because it seems to be a miniature, million-times-scaled-down version of the engines that power quasars and other active galactic nuclei. This bizarre system consists of a fairly normal star and an extremely dense object — either a neutron star or a black hole — that orbit each other every 13 days. A stream of gas is spilling from the "normal" star into the dense companions's deep gravitational field, where it swirls into a hot, brilliantly glowing disk. Somehow, much of the material in the disk ends up within two narrow, oppositely directed jets that shoot away from the collapsed object at a quarter the speed of light. "

(jets that could do serious damage to life on our planet...)

Source: Sky and Telescope

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A planet that heats a sun!


Bizarre, but true.

The star is in Sagittarius. The planet is almost the size of Jupiter, but is 20 times closer to the star than we are to the sun.

It is on a three day orbit, and as it orbits, a geomagnetic storm or hotspot trails it on the star's surface. The star has a 9 day rotation.

Source: Reuters

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