Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Meteor Was 'Probably Small Piece of Asteroid'


Dozens of people reported observing a dazzling, bright light, or lights, streaking across the sky Wednesday night over Arizona and Southern California in what authorities said were likely meteor sightings.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office fielded more than a dozen such calls on Wednesday, and sheriff's deputies at Deer Valley Airport in north Phoenix reported a sighting themselves, an agency spokesman, Lieutenant Justin Griffin, said.

The deputies described it as greenish light moving across the sky from north to south, he told Reuters.

"It took an unusually long time to get across the sky," Griffin said. "It's like a meteor. It's not like we had any flying objects with little green men or anything like that."

Sergeant Steve Martos of the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement sent to media outlets that his agency received four calls "regarding the light in the sky," adding that "Our air unit, myself and other officers observed it as well.

"We all made our wishes and went back to work. Nothing more to report. Have a safe night," his message concluded.

The Federal Aviation Administration began receiving reports from the public at about 7:30 p.m. local time, with sightings from Los Angeles and the desert resort of Palm Springs more than 100 miles to the east, as well as from Phoenix, according to an official at the FAA's Los Angeles operations office.

"It could be meteors," said the official, who declined to be identified. An FAA spokesman for the Western-Pacific region, Ian Gregor, declined to comment except to say it was "not an aircraft issue."

The director of the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles said witnesses were probably seeing "a piece of interplanetary debris" that "passed through the Earth's atmosphere and burned up."

The public "saw something that was at a very high altitude, just a piece of rock or maybe a grain of sand as it hit the atmosphere," Ed Krupp said in an interview with local TV station KCAL9.

The American Meteor Society reported that two known meteor showers are active this week, the Iota Cassiopeiids and the Epsilon Perseids, which peaked on September 12 and 10, respectively. But the organization said that bright moonlight would obscure viewing for all but the brightest of heavenly fireballs this week.

The sightings on Wednesday caused a stir on Twitter, with one observer reporting, "I saw a lot of red in it from my vantage point in Phoenix, as well as the blue and green tail."

Another tweeted, "It was CRAZY! Green and going fast & then it just burned out." - foxnews

-----


Reported meteor was probably small piece of asteroid, expert says

The fireball seen streaking across the southwestern U.S. sky Wednesday night probably incinerated before striking the ground, an expert told The Times.

Thousands of people from Phoenix to Los Angeles reported seeing what they believed was a bright-green meteor.

But the object was probably a "near-earth asteroid" no bigger than a basketball, said Don Yeomans, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory Fellow who manages NASA's Near Earth Object Program.

"It's sort of Mother Nature's shot across the bow," he said. "It's an impressive light show, one of Mother Nature's best."

Yeomans said any object smaller than 30 meters isn't going to cause damage on the ground.

"No one should be concerned," he said. "We basically ran it over."

He said NASA officials checked to ensure that the object was not a wayward spacecraft. "We are fairly confident," Yeomans said, "that it was not a spacecraft or space junk."

Typically, he said, pieces of asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere but go unseen because they are over the ocean.

"They are not as uncommon as you think," he said. - latimesblogs

NOTE: it must have been a helluva show...I received 15 emails in regard to the sightings. Lon


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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

SETI Interrupted....ET Call Back Later

discovery - The SETI Institute is suspending its search for extraterrestrial radio beacons using its most advanced alien signal-seeking tool while it hunts for new sources of funding.

The privately financed group, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been using an array of radio telescopes at Hat Creek Observatory, about 300 miles north of San Francisco, since October 2007, to study stars for non-naturally occurring radio signals that could indicate the presence of a technologically advanced civilization beyond Earth.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen provided an initial $25 million for the project, which is known as the Allen Telescope Array. The network eventually is intended to have 350 telescopes. The University of California at Berkeley, the National Science Foundation and several corporate and individual donors provided operating funds.

Budget cutbacks by the state of California and the NSF, however, have hit the project hard. Not only was the expansion postponed, now the search for ET itself is on hold.

In a blog post on Friday, astronomer Franck Marchis, who is not involved in SETI research but who works at institutes that are, disclosed that operations of the Allen Telescope Array have been suspended.

In addition to SETI work, the observatory shutdown impacts mainstream radio astronomy projects, such as a survey of extragalactic radio sources.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. Since 2009, writes Marchis, the Air Force has been looking at using the Allen Telescope Array to keep track of orbital debris whizzing around the planet.

Writes Marchis:

The future of the ATA may depend of the US Air Force program. Unfortunately, because of the recent federal finance turmoil, no clear decision has been taken with enough time to keep the observatory running. Since April 15, the observatory is in hibernation. All the equipments have been taken care of to make sure that they do not deteriorate over time.

-----

SETI Institute suspends search for alien signals

sfgate - State and federal budget cuts have forced astronomers operating the 42 telescopes at UC Berkeley's famed Hat Creek Radio Astronomy Laboratory to suspend their search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

SETI Institute astronomer Jill Tarter said Tuesday the entire laboratory in the remote Lassen National Forest near Redding is being "placed in hibernation" because $2.5 million in funds from the National Science Foundation and from UC's astronomy budget have dried up.

Other money expected from the Air Force for tracking orbital debris and satellites in space is awaiting congressional budget action, said Jack Welch, an astronomy professor at the UC Berkeley graduate school and a former director of the radio astronomy laboratory.

The suspension is a blow to the SETI Institute, whose astronomers have been seeking signs of life in distant space for more than 30 years. In recent years, the telescopes have cost about $1.5 million a year to operate, and another $1 million has gone to the SETI search, Tarter said.

The half-dozen UC scientists who use the Hat Creek telescopes remotely from their on-campus office computers can move their research efforts to radio telescope sites elsewhere, "but only with difficulty," said Leo Blitz, the lab's current director.

Leaders of NASA's Kepler spacecraft have detected 1,235 distant stars that might hold earthlike planets in "habitable zones," and the craft is now scanning 146,000 "candidate stars" that might also hold such planets.

Tarter said SETI astronomers who have joined the hunt with the telescopes at Hat Creek will have to cancel their work on the Kepler project.

"The Kepler mission for the first time has made people really understand that planets far away really might be very much like Earth and hold life - perhaps even civilizations - and that's what the SETI search is all about," Tarter said.

The telescopes and all the other equipment at the Hat Creek laboratory are being held in a "safe mode," ready to be started up again if money ever becomes available, said Tom Pierson, executive director of the SETI Institute.

"We're hoping to raise at least $5 million to return to full operations and assure the future of the telescopes," Tarter said.

The Allen Telescope Array was initially financed with an $11 million grant from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It is planned to include a total of 350 6-meter telescopes, all arrayed in a pattern and operated simultaneously to scan across distant space.

Then advanced computers at the lab would analyze apparently random radio noise that might just turn out to be alien signals from unknown beings on distant planets that have yet to be found.


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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Top Astronomers Give Bleak Outlook to Mankind's Survival

STV - The end of the world is nigh. That's what top astronomers will claim during a debate to end the 2011 Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, believes civilisation has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving to 2100 without suffering a man-made catastrophe.

And the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Professor John Brown, has an equally bleak outlook, fearing a random event from outer space is the most likely cause of our demise.

They will take to the stage to put forward their stark predictions in the discussion "Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Threats to Earth".

Despite having widely differing views, these two titans of astronomy between them offer global warming, over-population, terrorism, an asteroid falling to earth and a solar blast as potential reasons to panic.

Prof Brown told the Scotsman: "The threats Lord Rees and myself will be talking about are dangerous in different ways.

"Asteroids fall to earth on average 10-100 million years apart. It's been 65 million years since the last one, so one could happen next week to 60 million years from now.

"The probability in our lifetime is very small, making it low risk, high consequence.

"There's more risk of a solar blast than an giant asteroid falling, but it would not have such high consequences."

Lord Rees said: "We can't rule out by mid-century a global political realignment heading to a stand-off between new superpowers, that could be handled less well or less luckily than the Cuban missile crisis was.

"Moreover, al-Qaeda-style terrorists might some day acquire a nuclear weapon.

"If they did, they would willingly detonate it in a city, killing tens of thousands of along with themselves, and millions would acclaim them as heroes."

-----

Going Out With a Big Bang

scotsman - Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, will set out his view that human civilisation has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving until 2100 without suffering a catastrophic event. He will be joined in a discussion with Professor John Brown, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, in a session cheerfully entitled: Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Threats to Earth.

Four years ago the world was brought face to face with a phenomenon that the author Nicholas Taleb described as a "Black Swan event": a once-in-a-century financial crash. The banking crisis woke us up to the dangers of dismissing seemingly rare Black Swan events. But now, with barely four months of the year gone, we have had a massive earthquake in Japan, unpredicted turmoil in the Middle East and soaring oil prices.

Prof Brown's assessment that while giant asteroids crashing to earth are on average 60 to 100 million years apart, the last one was 65 million years ago "so one could happen in the next week, or 60 million years from now". A narrowing of this risk span would surely be welcome. But on second thoughts, would it really?


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Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Dogon Nommos: Amphibious Gods from Sirius


I received the following email on Friday from JKH of Goodland, Kansas:

I have emailed you before about things I've seen, but I'd like to see if you know anything about something I read years ago.

It was about the Dogon tribe in Africa, and their "history sticks". I saved the link on an old computer, but it is not functioning at the moment. I started out on some site about conspiracy theorists, but ran across the article about the Dogons. One of those "you can't stop reading" type things. Was about 10am when I started...in May...and next thing I knew the sun was going down.

Anyway, long story short, they were told by "the alien fish people" about 2 stars near Sirius (that have been confirmed by science about 5000 years after the history sticks that have the info), which the fish people were from a planet near them, and they were returning. Anyway, this isn't something to really post, but it was an amazing read, and if you've never heard of it, you might try and find it.


Well, I enjoy a challenge...so I went digging.

**********


The Dogon people are a reclusive tribe of cave and hillside-dwelling farming people inhabiting a sparse, rocky plateau in southeastern Mali, West Africa. They live in the Homburi Mountains near Timbuktu. Isolated topographically and culturally from the outside world for countless centuries, they may well appear on first sight to be exceedingly unlikely receptacles of highly advanced astronomical knowledge ­ which only goes to show just how easily we can be deceived by outward appearances.

They are believed to be of Egyptian descent. After living in Libya for a time, they settled in Mali, West Africa, bringing with them astronomy legends dating from before 3200 BCE.

At the center of their religious teachings is knowledge about a star that is invisible to the eye and so difficult to observe (even through a telescope) that no photographs were taken of it until 1970. The Dogon say they received their knowledge by visitors to the earth from another star system.

The star they describe is Sirius B. Its existence was first suspected by Western astronomers in 1844, when irregularities were detected in the movement of Sirius. It was supposed that Sirius must be affected by a second star, and in 1862 a faint companion star was finally detected. Sirius B is a white dwarf that, although small and faint, is extremely dense and heavy enough to exert an influence on Sirius A.

The Dogon name for Sirius B (Po Tolo) consists of the word for star (tolo) and "po," the name of the smallest seed known to them. By this name they describe the star's smallness...it is, they say, "the smallest thing there is." They also claim that it is "the heaviest star," and white. The Dogon thus attribute to Sirius B its three principle properties as a white dwarf: small, heavy, white.

They go on to say that it has an is elliptical orbit, with Sirius A at one foci of the ellipse (as it is), that the orbital period is 50 years (the actual figure is 50.04 +/- 0.09 years), and that the star rotates on its own axis (it does). The Dogon also describe a third star in the Sirius system, called "Emme Ya" ("Sorghum Female"). In orbit around this star, they say, is a single satellite. To date, Emme Ya has not been identified by astronomers.

In addition to their knowledge of Sirius B, the Dogon mythology includes Saturn's rings, and Jupiter's four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius, and Venus, and have long known that planets orbit the sun.

The Dogon say their astronomical knowledge was given to them by the Nommos, amphibious beings sent to earth from Sirius for the benefit of mankind. The name comes from a Dogon word meaning "to make one drink," and the Nommos are also called Masters of the Water, the Monitors, and the Teachers.


The Nommos were more fishlike than human, and had to live in water. They were saviors and spiritual guardians: "The Nommo divided his body among men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe "had drunk of his body," the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings."

The Nommo was crucified and resurrected and in the future will again visit the earth, this time in human form. Later he will assume his amphibious form and will rule the world from the waters.

Dogon mythology is known only by a number of their priests, and is a complex system of knowledge. Such carefully guarded secrets would not be divulged to friendly strangers very easily. If the star Emme Ya is eventually discovered in the Sirius system, this would give considerably weight to the Dogon's story.

The first Western scientists to visit and study the Dogon people were French anthropologists Drs Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who initially made contact with them in 1931, and continued to research them for the next three decades, culminating in a detailed study conducted between 1946-1950. During their work, these anthropologists documented the traditional mythology and sacred beliefs of the Dogon.

"Several specialists now claim they have found the long-sought "final evidence" of visits made to earth by ancient astronauts. The myths of the Dogon tribesmen of Mall, West Africa, contain astronomical knowledge which the native people could have neither learned by themselves nor guessed. Obviously, the researchers say, some more advanced civilization told them. These fascinating Dogon legends speak of Jupiter's four moons and Saturn's rings, which were not seen by human beings until the invention of the telescope. They speak of the star Sirius and of a pair of invisible companions. One of them circles Sirius every fifty years, the legends declare, and is made of a metal that is the heaviest thing in the universe. Astronomers have discovered that such an object (called "Sirius-B") does exist but only the most sophisticated and sensitive instruments...unavailable, of course, to the Dogons -- can detect it." from "The Sirius Mystery", by James Oberg


THE NOMMOS

The Dogon tells the legend of the Nommos, awful-looking beings who arrived in a vessel along with fire and thunder.

After they arrived here, they put out a reservoir of water onto the Earth then dove into the water.

There are references in the oral traditions, drawings and cuneiform tablets of the Dogons, to human looking beings who have feet but who are portrayed as having a large fish skin running down their bodies.

The Nommos were more fishlike than human, and had to live in water. They were saviors and spiritual guardians: "The Nommo divided his body among men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe "had drunk of his body," the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings."

The Nommo was crucified and resurrected and in the future will again visit the Earth, this time in human form. Later he will assume his amphibious form and will rule the world from the waters.

Dogon mythology is known only by a number of their priests, and is a complex system of knowledge. Such carefully guarded secrets would not be divulged to friendly strangers very easily. If the star Emme Ya is eventually discovered in the Sirius system, this would give considerably weight to the Dogon's story.

The Nommos, who could live on land but dwelled mostly in the sea, were part fish, like merfolk (mermaids and mermen).

It was from the Nommos that the Dogon claimed their knowledge of the heavens.


Carl Sagan concluded that the Dogon could not have acquired their knowledge without contact with an advanced technological civilization. He suggests, however, that that civilization was terrestrial rather than extraterrestrial. Western Africa has had many visitors from technological societies located on planet Earth. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. As Sagan noted, if a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920s and 1930s, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the centre of Dogon mythology.

In 1966, Robert Temple, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the author of several books, happened to read some of the Griaule material on Dogon Cosmology, and in 1968 he obtained an English translation of Le Renard Pale. He became interested in the question of how the isolated Dogon could have known for hundreds of years that Sirius, one of the brightest stars in the sky, has an invisible companion, Sirius B. Sirius B, a type of star called a white dwarf, is so small that it cannot be seen without a telescope. It was completely unknown to astronomers until 1862, when the American astronomer Alvan Clark managed to see it for the first time. Sirius B, like all white dwarf stars, is composed of densely packed matter that, if it is not the heaviest matter in the universe, is very close to it. It was not discovered until around 1926 that white dwarves are so heavy that a cubic meter of one may weigh as much as 20,000 tons. It was also discovered that Sirius B orbits Sirius A in an elliptical orbit that takes 50 years to complete. Sirius B was finally photographed in 1970.


How did the Dogon know about Sirius B, when they had no telescopes? How, for that matter, did they know that Saturn has rings, that the moon is dry and barren, and that Jupiter has four large moons? These four moons of Jupiter are called Galilean, because Galileo was the first to see them when he pointed his telescope at Jupiter. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings are only visible through a telescope.

As Temple read Graiule's material on the Dogon, he found that their mythology traced their origins back to the Nommo, the human-fish creatures from their creation myths. Temple related these creatures to Oannes of Sumerian mythology who was also a half-fish, half-human creature who brought civilization to an ancient people. Further, Temple found links with Egyptian and Greek mythology. He wrote a book about his interpretation of the Dogon beliefs, called The Sirius Mystery, which was published in the 1970s. In the book, Temple contends that the Nommo were extraterrestrials who came to Earth from a planet in the Sirius system. They visited the Dogon, the Babylonians, and possibly the Egyptians, and the astronomical knowledge of the Dogon came from this contact.

NOTE: (Benest, Daniel and Duvent, J.L. "Is Sirius a Triple Star?" ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS. (Volume 299, 1995) pp. 621-628) - In 1995, these two French astronomers published the results of years of study, stating that a small, red-dwarf star seems to exist in the Sirius star system. They have detected a peturbation in the orbit that cannot be explained by any other means.

Video Playlist: The Dogon Code

The Dogon Tribe Africa & Sirius Amphibians

Here is a link referencing the Dogon culture and region in gallery for, - Dogon Culture / Region and a past auction of Dogon art - illustrations - Art of the Dogon

Sources:
www.crystalinks.com
Benest, Daniel and Duvent, J.L. - "Is Sirius a Triple Star?" ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS. (Volume 299, 1995) pp. 621-628
www.ufoevidence.org
Temple, Robert - "The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago"
news.nationalgeographic.com
dogon1114121351.tribe.net
www.halexandria.org
sacredsites.com/africa
Oberg, James - "The Sirius Mystery"
www.bbc.co.uk