Weaving Fringe Back Together

Jan 16, 2012; 3:31 PM ET

A little tough to understand, but this diagram shows where the solar eclipse in May of 2012 can be experienced

An annular solar eclipse will take place on May 20, 2012 with a magnitude of 0.9439. For more about what the magnitude of a solar eclipse is, please click here. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most but not all of the Sun’s light. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region thousands of kilometres wide.

The annular phase will be visible from the Chinese coast, the south of Japan, and the western part of the United States and Canada. Cities such as Albuquerque, New Mexico and Redding, Ca. will see this eclipse. Guangzhou, China, Tokyo and Albuquerque will be on the central path. Its maximum will occur in the North Pacific, south of the Aleutian islands for 5 min and 46.3 s, and finish in the western United States.

It will be the first central eclipse of the 21st century in the Lower 48, and also the first annular eclipse visible here since the solar eclipse of May 10, 1994.

AccuWeather.com – Astronomy | Solar Eclipse visible in the western US in May.

Public release date: 24-Apr-2006

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (April 24, 2006) – The Binary Research Institute (BRI) has found that orbital characteristics of the recently discovered planetoid, “Sedna”, demonstrate the possibility that our sun might be part of a binary star system. A binary star system consists of two stars gravitationally bound orbiting a common center of mass. Once thought to be highly unusual, such systems are now considered to be common in the Milky Way galaxy.

Walter Cruttenden at BRI, Professor Richard Muller at UC Berkeley, Dr. Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana, amongst several others, have long speculated on the possibility that our sun might have an as yet undiscovered companion. Most of the evidence has been statistical rather than physical. The recent discovery of Sedna, a small planet like object first detected by Cal Tech astronomer Dr. Michael Brown, provides what could be indirect physical evidence of a solar companion. Matching the recent findings by Dr. Brown, showing that Sedna moves in a highly unusual elliptical orbit, Cruttenden has determined that Sedna moves in resonance with previously published orbital data for a hypothetical companion star.

In the May 2006 issue of Discover, Dr. Brown stated: “Sedna shouldn’t be there. There’s no way to put Sedna where it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the sun, but it never goes far enough away from the sun to be affected by other stars… Sedna is stuck, frozen in place; there’s no way to move it, basically there’s no way to put it there – unless it formed there. But it’s in a very elliptical orbit like that. It simply can’t be there. There’s no possible way – except it is. So how, then?”

“I’m thinking it was placed there in the earliest history of the solar system. I’m thinking it could have gotten there if there used to be stars a lot closer than they are now and those stars affected Sedna on the outer part of its orbit and then later on moved away. So I call Sedna a fossil record of the earliest solar system. Eventually, when other fossil records are found, Sedna will help tell us how the sun formed and the number of stars that were close to the sun when it formed.”

Walter Cruttenden agrees that Sedna’s highly elliptical orbit is very unusual, but noted that the orbit period of 12,000 years is in neat resonance with the expected orbit periodicity of a companion star as outlined in several prior papers. Consequently, Cruttenden believes that Sedna’s unusual orbit is something indicative of the current solar system configuration, not merely a historical record. “It is hard to imagine that Sedna would retain its highly elliptical orbit pattern since the beginning of the solar system billions of years ago. Because eccentricity would likely fade with time, it is logical to assume Sedna is telling us something about current, albeit unexpected solar system forces, most probably a companion star”.

Outside of a few popular articles, and Cruttenden’s book “Lost Star of Myth and Time”, which outlines historical references and the modern search for the elusive companion, the possibility of a binary partner star to our sun has been left to the halls of academia. But with Dr. Brown’s recent discoveries of Sedna and Xena, (now confirmed to be larger than Pluto), and timing observations like Cruttenden’s, the search for a companion star may be gaining momentum.

Contact: Heidi Hall
heidihallmedia@hotmail.com
949-399-0314
Binary Research Institute

###

Evidence mounts for sun’s companion star.

23 March 2012 Last updated at 08:15 ET
By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

Dawn’s view of the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta

The giant asteroid Vesta possesses many features usually associated with rocky planets like Earth, according to data from a Nasa probe.

Vesta has been viewed as a massive asteroid, but after studying the surface in detail, scientists are describing it as “transitional”.

The Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting Vesta – one of the Solar System’s most primitive objects – since July 2011.

They have documented many unexpected features on its battered surface.

Mission scientists presented their latest results at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.

Dawn’s principal investigator, Christopher T Russell, told the meeting that the science team found it hard not to refer to the object as a planet.

He said the rounded asteroid showed evidence of geological processes that characterise rocky worlds like Earth and the Moon.

Getting hammered

Vesta is the second most massive of the asteroids, measuring some 530km (330mi) in diameter. It is dominated by a huge crater called Rheasilvia and bears many other scars left by the hammering it has received at the hands of other asteroid belt denizens.

One important transitional feature of Vesta can be found in its topography, or elevation. Vertical elevation on the Moon or Mars might reach tens of kilometres, but these objects are also very large.

“This means the topography is about 1% of the radius,” Dr Ralf Jaumann, from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), told BBC News, “If you go to Vesta, it is 15%, and if you go to the largest outer asteroid – Lutetia – it is 40%.”

In short, this mathematical relationship between topography and radius (half an object’s diameter), puts Vesta in an intermediate position between small asteroids and rocky planets.

Another aspect concerns the way its surface has been modified, or “processed”, by the many collisions. This is evident in dark material that can be seen in images of its terrain.

The dark material seems to be related to impacts and their aftermath. Scientists think carbon-rich asteroids could have hit Vesta at speeds low enough to produce some of the smaller deposits without blasting away the surface.

Higher-speed asteroids could also have collided with Vesta’s surface and melted the volcanic basaltic crust, darkening existing surface material.

Scientists are confident there has been volcanism on the asteroid during its history. This is because there are hundreds of pieces of Vesta sitting in museums around the world.

They form a particular class of meteorite called the HEDs; more of these objects have fallen to Earth than all the meteorites from the Moon and Mars put together. Studies of HED meteorites have revealed telling chemical signatures of volcanic activity.

Major cover-up

Dave Williams, from Arizona State University, told BBC News: “We know [from the HED meteorites] there were lava flows at some point in history, so I expected there to be at least a few lava flows, maybe a few channels, shields or cones. Looking at all the images in places that have been illuminated thus far, we don’t see any evidence of that.

“That’s because of all the impact processing over Solar System history. It has destroyed all the evidence.”

Mission scientist Brett Denevi, from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, explained why she thought some of the collisions that have pounded Vesta were intense enough to melt its surface.

Referring to observations of a crater called Marcia, in Vesta’s northern hemisphere, Dr Denevi commented: “We think what we’re seeing here is at least a portion of this target rock has melted and flowed. The impact velocities were high enough – at least in this one case.”

She added: “Impact melt hasn’t really been observed on asteroids before. It wasn’t really expected because the speed of collisions in the asteroid belt are pretty low compared with the inner Solar System. So it wasn’t known whether you’d have enough energy to melt the target rock.”

Dawn is set to depart Vesta for an even bigger object – the spherical “dwarf planet” Ceres – in August for an arrival in 2015.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter

BBC News – Giant asteroid Vesta ‘resembles planet’.

Michael Breen

Brown Dwarf star in our solar system orbiting around the Sun.

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m winding down from the work week by surfing my usual news sites when I came across the headline Earth under attack from Death Star. Well that piqued my attention, so I click on the link and check it out. These were words that jumped out at me immediately – “The brown dwarf star (five times the size of Jupiter), which scientists have named Nemesis is believed to be orbiting around our sun”. Wow, now that’s news. A brown dwarf star in our solar system huh? That’s a bit of a game changer. So now we are living a binary star system? That’s taking duality to another level. I’ve linked to all the relevant content if you’re unfamiliar with this, but many of you might react in a similar way to me.

[...]

The Binary Research Institute is an organisation in the US that has been studying the effects on earth from the precession of the equinox. They have spent a great deal of time and money researching the binary solar system theory – Brown Dwarf and all. I highly recommend you checking it out for yourself.

[...]

On 21st December 2012 at 11:11am GMT the sun will align perfectly with the galactic plane (or equator) of the Milky Way galaxy. Essentially the sun will fill the eye of the galaxy. This event, according to the ancient Mayan civilisation, represents the end of one age and the beginning of another, while astrologers are referring to this event as the Cardinal T-square. At the same time the earth’s wobble will position our planet in such a way where the north node pole will be directly aimed towards the sign of Capricorn at zero degrees – the Age of Aquarius? There’s just so much going on at this time in the heavens that can’t be ignored. Brown Dwarf or not, things could get interesting.

[...]

Brown dwarf star in our solar system | Michael Breen | Karmic Ecology.

MONDAY, 02 APRIL 2012 11:48

The increasing number of natural disasters worldwide has become the subject of much debate and forecasts among scientists. The last global catastrophic event on a planetary scale which humanity still remembers thanks to the Old Testament is the Flood. A fundamental book by famous scientists Victor Khain and Elchin Khalilov titled “Cyclicity of geodynamic processes: its possible nature” refers to amazing geological facts that reveal the exact date of the Flood. Below is quoted a small part of the section describing the geological interpretation of this event.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, large landslides and rock falls, volcanic eruptions, particularly violent hurricanes are certainly geological hazards. They take thousands, occasionally tens and even hundreds of thousands of human lives, and it is not surprising that a special international program is dedicated to forecasting hazardous situations and possible mitigation of their consequences.

Evidently, the most violent catastrophe in the recent history of Earth has been the one described in the Old Testament as the Deluge. For a long time, until the appearance in the 1820s of works by English geologists W. Buckland and A. Sedgwick, this event was regarded as a real one and the entire history of Earth was divided into two eras: before and after the Deluge. However, the views of “diluvianists” as they were called (“diluvio” is Latin for flood) were later rejected and even ridiculed. Nowadays it turns out that there is much truth in the Old Testament writings. Austrian scientists from the Vienna University Edith Cristian Tollman and Alexander Tollman have published a serious research (Cristian-Tollman and Tollman) in which, based on analysis of different sources, the precise date of this event is established: September 23, 9545 ВС, i.e., the beginning of the Holocene.

The event itself interpreted as collision of Earth with a comet main fragments of which fell into the ocean triggered an earthquake of enormous proportion, violent volcano eruptions, huge tsunami waves, global-scale hurricanes and rainfall, sharp temperature rise, forest fires, and overall darkening followed by cooling (of the “nuclear winter” type). The Deluge caused extinction of a number of species of the then-existing terrestrial fauna including mammoths, while primitive humans survived only in caves. One of evidences of that event is the rain-like precipitation of rounded tektites over a vast area covering Asia, Australia, Southern India, and Madagascar. The age of tektite-bearing layers in Vietnam (about 10 thousand years, Izokh, 1991) coincides with the timing of the “flood” established by the Tollmans according to other data: annual tree rings, sharp increase in the acid content in the Greenland ice cover, time of mammoth extinction in Siberia.

There is every reason to suggest that similar hazards triggered by collisions with comets (like the Tunguska event) or by falling of large meteorites (asteroids) have repeatedly occurred in earlier geological era, causing “great extinctions” of fauna and flora. The list of natural disasters of purely terrestrial origin should be complemented with those related to the space-earth interactions.

So, the data on current geological processes, both endogenic and exogenic, shows that they develop in a continuous-intermittent manner and their slow smooth course is interrupted by sharp accelerations, the effect of which during short time intervals is much greater than that of slow changes occurring during much longer time intervals separating those accelerations*

_____________________________________________________
* Khain V.E., Khalilov E.N. CYCLICITY IN GEODYNAMIC PROCESSES: ITS POSSIBLE NATURE – Moscow: Scientific World, 2009. – 520 p. ISBN 978-5-91522-082-8

Exact Date Of Deluge Established By Scientists.

Posted 8/18/2008 11:32 AM

By SPACE.com Staff

By A. Becker and the SDSS

The comet-like object SQ372 changes positions as it moves in its orbit, while the positions of the stars that are much farther away stay fixed. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey showed the object on October 21 (top), 23 (middle) and 28 (bottom).

A huge comet-like object has been spotted inside the orbit of Neptune. The object, at least 30 miles wide, is on the return leg of a 22,500-year journey around the sun, astronomers announced today.

Catalogued as 2006 SQ372, the interloper is just over two billion miles (3.2 billion km) from Earth, though its elongated trek takes it to a distance of 150 billion miles (241 billion km), or nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the sun.

SDSS: See the odd orbit of the solar system object

The only known object with a comparable orbit is Sedna — a distant, Pluto-like dwarf planet discovered in 2003. But 2006 SQ372′s travels take it more than 1.5 times farther from the sun. Its diameter is estimated at 30 to 60 miles (50 to 100 km).

“It’s basically a comet, but it never gets close enough to the sun to develop a long, bright tail of evaporated gas and dust,” said Andrew Becker of the University of Washington. Comet tails form when solar energy boils material off a comet.

The object is not a threat to Earth, which is good. A comet that size would cause global devastation. The space rock that contributed to the demise of dinosaurs 65 million years ago was about 6 miles (10 km) wide. The comet Hale-Bopp, which put on a spectacular display in the late 1990s, is about 31 miles (50 km) in diameter. Yet many comets are just a mile or two wide.

Becker’s team found 2006 SQ372 by applying a computer searching algorithm to data taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS II), which is tasked with finding supernova explosions billions of light-years away to measure the expansion of the universe. In the survey, the Apache Point Observatory telescope scanned the same long stripe of sky, an area 1,000 times larger than the full moon in the sky, every clear night in the fall of 2005, 2006 and 2007.

As to how 2006 SQ372 got its unusual orbit, University of Washington graduate student Nathan Kaib, another member of the discovery team, has some ideas based on his computer simulations of the object.

“It could have formed, like Pluto, in the belt of icy debris beyond Neptune, then been kicked to large distance by a gravitational encounter with Neptune or Uranus,” Kaib said. “However, we think it is more probable that SQ372 comes from the inner edge of the Oort Cloud.”

The Oort Cloud is a huge spherical cloud surrounding the solar system. It extends about 18 trillion miles (30 trillion kilometers) from the sun and was first proposed in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort.

The discovery was reported today in Chicago, at an international symposium titled “The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Asteroids to Cosmology.” The researchers plan to submit details of the finding for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Copyright 2007, SPACE.com Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Huge comet-like object takes 22,500-year journey around the sun – USATODAY.com.