ImaginativePRO Blog

UNIV OF MICHIGAN SCIENTISTS INVENT 'PERFECT BLACK' COATING MADE WITH CARBON NANOTUBES THAT MAKES THINGS INVISIBLE

A nanotube coating would allow a plane to absorb a radar beam, making it undetectable.

A new nanostructured coating could be used to make paints for stealth aircraft that can't be seen at night and that are undetectable by radar at any time of day. The coating, made of carbon nanotubes, can be used to cloak an object in utter darkness, making it indistinguishable from the night sky.

Carbon nanotubes have many superlative properties, including excellent strength and electrical conductivity. They are also the blackest known material. The long straws of pure carbon, each just a few nanometers in diameter, absorb a broad spectrum of light—from radio waves through visible light through the ultraviolet—almost perfectly. Researchers are taking advantage of this perfect absorbance in highly sensitive imaging sensors and other prototype devices.

L. Jay Guo, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, realized it could be useful as a kind of camouflage. Stealth aircraft, he notes, are often painted black or dark blue to hide them from view.

Guo's group grew sparse forests of vertical carbon nanotubes on the surface of various three-dimensional objects, including a silicon wafer patterned with the shape of a tiny tank. The nanotubes make the objects appear completely flat and black, and they disappear against a black background. The nanotube-coated objects neither reflect nor scatter light.

Internal structure of a carbon nanotube coating which can absorb light (Click Image To Enlarge)

This effect works, Guo says, because the nanotubes are perfectly absorbing, and because when they are grown with some space between them, as in his experiments, their index of refraction is nearly identical to that of the surrounding air. This means that light won't scatter out of the nanotubes without being absorbed. The work is described in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Carbon nanotube fibre highly magnified (Click Image To Enlarge)

Guo says if an airplane painted with the nanotube coating were hit with a radar beam, nothing at all would bounce back, and it would appear as if nothing were there.

Ray Baughman, director of the MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas says. 

"This type of cloaking is very interesting, especially since they have demonstrated operation in air."

Baughman recently demonstrated that nanotubes can form an invisibility cloak when they're heated up under water. The heat from a sheet of nanotubes affects the optical properties of the surrounding water, creating the illusion of invisibility.

Invisibility cloaks shield objects by manipulating incident light so that it simply flows around them. Materials that can achieve this must be made very painstakingly and typically only work with a very narrow spectrum of light—say, microwaves, or red or green light. Nanotubes are relatively easy to make, and work across a broad spectrum.

However, it's not yet practical to grow forests of nanotubes on the surface of an airplane directly—growing such forests is a high-temperature, high-pressure process done in chambers much smaller than an airplane. But Guo says it should be possible to grow the nanotubes on the surface of tiny particles which can then be suspended in paint.

COMMENTARY:   The 70-micron coating, or carbon nanotube carpet, is about half the thickness of a sheet of paper. It absorbs 99.9 percent of the light that hits it, researchers say.

Jay Guo, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and principal investigator said.

"You could use it to completely hide any 3D attributes of an object. It's not cloaking, as the object can still cast a shadow. But if you put an object on a black background, then with this coating, it could really become invisible."

To demonstrate this concept, the researchers made a raised, microscopic tank shape on a piece of silicon. They then grew the carbon nanotube carpet on top of the entire silicon chip. In photos taken through an optical microscope, they show that the tank is imperceptible. As a control, they did this again, carving out a rectangle that was not coated with carbon nanotubes. The rectangle is visible on this chip, but the tank remains hidden.

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Here's how the new coating works: Human eyes perceive an object based on how it reflects or scatters light. The "refractive index" of this new coating is similar to that of air, meaning light traveling through air doesn't scatter or reflect when it hits the coating.

It's well known that carbon nanotubes are capable of absorbing light, but the researchers were able to push it to such a high percentage by spacing them just right.

The "perfect black" material Guo's team created for this coating has a host of varied applications. It could possibly be used in display screens for ultra-high contrast and a crisper picture. It holds promise as solar heating device. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is using a similar material to absorb infrared light and measure the amount of heat it can generate.

The coating could inspire a new type of camouflaging paint for stealth aircraft. Today's stealth planes use shape to scatter electromagnetic waves and avoid detection, and this scheme could actually absorb the waves.

"The carbon nanotube forest can absorb very wide range of electromagnetic wave from ultraviolet up to terahertz," Guo said, "and in principle it can be applied to an arbitrary sized object."

Just how large an object? Guo suggested an intriguing possibility—perhaps entire planets or even stars.

Guo said.  

"Since deep space itself is a perfect dark background, if a planet or star were surrounded by a thick, sooty atmosphere of light-absorbing carbon nanomaterial gases, it would become invisible due to the same principle.  It would become totally dark to our instruments that rely on the detection of electromagnetic waves. Could this explain some of the missing matter in the universe?"

X-rays or gamma rays would be able to penetrate through the hypothetical "dark veil" Guo proposes. Or, objects behind such veils would cast a shadow by distant stars behind them.

The paper is called "Low density carbon nanotube forest as an index-matched and near perfect absorption coating." Other co-authors are electrical engineering post-doc Haofei Shiand Ph.D. student Hyoung Won Baac and mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Jong Ok. The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property, and is seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.

In conclusion, this presents serious national security issues if the formula for the nanotube pure black coating ever gets into the wrong hands.  I have a feeling that the U.S. military, CIA, and FBI are already all over this technology for their warmongering and spying activities, and making sure nobody other countries, including our allies get their hands on it. 

World's Largest Nanotube Manufacturing Plant Announced 

CNano Technology (CNano), founded in 2007 to change the economics of producing a wide range of applications based on extremely pure carbon nanotubes, announced today at NT09: Tenth International Conference on the Science and Application of Nanotubes, that it has successfully scaled up its manufacturing technology to reach the world's largest production capacity of 500 tons per year for multiple wall carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotube products are already in evaluation with selected customers in several markets that include electronics, automotive and energy storage.

Xindi Wu, President and CEO of CNano said.

"This manufacturing capability is an important milestone in the drive to meet current and future customer supply demands. The production line validates our technology at a much larger scale while providing a reliable large volume supply source for customers utilizing the unique properties of carbon nanotubes in their products."

CNano proprietary manufacturing technology enables large scale production at a lower cost structure than other commercial nanotube manufacturing processes. The growing list of commercial applications for carbon nanotubes includes conductive plastics for electronics and automotive, structural composites for sporting goods and aerospace, conductive coatings for displays and aerospace and electrodes for batteries and super capacitors among others.

Tom Baruch, founder and managing director of CMEA Capital, who serves as chairman of CNano said.

"CNano has achieved a truly significant milestone. CNano can now bring mass produced nano materials to market at the right price. The company has broken through a barrier that has existed in this market up until now. They have successfully scaled the manufacturing process for making carbon nanotubes. This now makes their unique combination of elevated mechanical properties and low electrical resistivity available at the low cost necessary for adoption in large consumer and industrial markets." 

Peter Liu, Chairman of WI Harper said.

"CNano's management has brought high quality US-style manufacturing into China, tapping the best from both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Through its large scale production of carbon nanotubes, we expect to see more applications that will be feasible that leverage the highly unique properties of this material." 

Purnesh Seegopaul, Partner at Pangaea Ventures added.

"This major capacity expansion not only validates CNano's differentiated low cost production capabilities but also now resolves market concerns on price and high volume supply." 

CNano platform production technology also facilitates the production of other types of carbon nanotubes. The Company plans to further leverage the 500 ton plant for additional products to be rolled out in the near future.

Courtesy of an article dated December 5, 2011 appearing in Innovation Daily and an article dated June 23, 2009 appearing in Azonano.com 

NASA DISCOVERS EVIDENCE OF A NEW PLANET CALLED TYCHE, BUT IT IS 1.35 TRILLION MILES FROM THE SUN, IS THIS NIBIRU?

A new possible planet has been found by NASA right here in our own solar system. The possible planet Tyche (pronounced “tie-key”) is believed to be a gas giant located some 1.35 trillion miles from the Sun. If this planet is in fact a planet could it possibly be the infamous planet X otherwise known as Nibiru?

 

Below is a simulation based on research of brown dwarf stars spawned by a heavy interest in a possible galactic body closer to us than we might ever imagine.  If this is Tyche a.ka. Planet X or Nibiru, or whatever it is if it ever discovered, it will be closer to us than proxima centauri and on a friendly orbit.

 

Astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette study comet movements and were the first to find the planet by noticing the unusual patterns of comets in the area that seemed to be affected by a large mass swaying them in different directions. This really isn’t a brand new discovery as Matese and Whitmire have been trying to come up with the evidence of the possible Planet X since 1999 so after ten years of compiled evidence they think they may have enough to convince the rest of the scientific community.

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Tyche is believed to be the size of four Jupiters, comprised of helium and hydrogen, and orbits our sun at a distance of 15,000AU (one AU, or Astronomical Unit, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun (93 million miles), 15,000AU is roughly 1/4th of a light year).  This orbit puts it well within the boundaries of the Oort Cloud — a cloud of debris orbiting our sun with a radius of one light year — where long-term comets (those with an orbit greater than 200 years) originate.

NASA scientists believe that Tyche aka Nibiru is an enormous rogue gas giant planet that is 1.3 trillion miles from the Sun and crosses the Oort Cloud an area where billions of comets originate.

NASA’s WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which scans the sky in infrared has been scanning the sky’s mapping out hundreds of millions of objects producing millions of images might soon be pointed in that direction to see if it can pick up the distant planet. If found it will make Tyche our 9th planet.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will scan the entire sky in infrared light, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images.

The real question here is, is this the ancient planet Nibiru our planet X? Scientists say that if the planet does exist it’s probably not originally from our solar system but probably broke out of it’s original one and somehow got caught up in our suns gravitational pull. Making it “alien” to our own solar system. Could this planet once have harbored intelligent life? When it broke off did they have to leave the planet before everyone froze to death and they are the one’s visiting Earth on a regular basis?

It could be years before we find out if Tyche is even a planet at all and probably many, many more before we can determine if life had ever existed on the planet. The next thing to figure out is the orbit of the planet. Nibiru is said to come in and out coming close to Earth. Could this really be that planet?

COMMENTARY:   I have a feeling that Tyche will be discovered soon with all the deep space orbitors we have launched into space.   If Tyche turns out to be a brown dwarf star, it might not even be very visible, but appear as a very small "white speck" in an infrared image by NASA’s WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer).  

Tyche has already been the subject of numerous conspiracy theorists who claim that it is a "rogue star" that will wipeout the Earth's protective magnetic layer that protects us from solar flares and solar radiation, tilt the Earth's axis or shift the magnetic poles, and cause the end of the world in 2012 as predicted in the Mayan Calender.  

Even I had some fun with some of those conspiracy theories with some gangbuster blog posts, when I announced in a blog post dated September 26, 2011, that there would be an extinction-level event because Earth would be hit by comet Elenin.   In another blog post dated August 9, 2o11, I asked the question: "Is Comet Elenin on a collision course with Earth? Separating Fact From Fiction."  

In a blog post dated November 8, 2011, I fictioinalized what might have happened to Earth if asteroid 2005 YU55, which passed right by Earth at a distance of only 201,000 miles on November 8, 2011, had actually hit Earth.   Asteroid 2005 YU55 returns for a second time in 2025, and it will pass even closer (watch out), and then for a third time on April 13, 2036. That's the date that has scientists very worried, because it might actually hit us. (Oh, shit)  

On September 29, 2011, NASA conducted a panel discussion by NASA's Neowise Team that operates the WISE deep space observer, and because of its infra-red telescope, has discovered and tracked several near-Earth objects or asteroids that might present a danger to our planet. Included in the video is a discussion from a caller inquiring about Planet X or Nibiru.  Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE Principal Investigator for JPL/NASA, and if I may say so a bonafide NASA babe, tells a caller asking about Planet X:

"Yes... this is Amy Mainzer and I'm happy to answer this one... Planet X is not coming to get us! 

 

In any event, Tyche a.k.a. Nibiru or Planet X, or whatever the object turns out to be, let's just hope that it never poses a danger to Earth or any of the other planets in our solar system.  

Courtesy of an article dated February 16, 2011 appearing in Alien-UFO-Research

MANKIND HAS BEEN ON EARTH FOR ONLY 2 MILLION YEARS, BUT WE HAVE MADE A MASSIVE IMPACT ON EARTH, IN GLOWING MAPS

Anthropocene map of India and Asia (Click Image To Enlarge)

Whether it’s building cities, railroads, or even power lines, our interconnected world has a heavy footprint on the rest of the environment. These mind-blowing renderings by the cartographers at Globaïa show the awe-inspiring power of human ingenuity.

We’re a very young species in geological terms. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Homo sapiens didn’t show up until 2 million years ago. But in our short stint so far—and especially since the industrial revolution—humans have changed the planet’s ecosystem in profound ways. We’ve built sprawling megacities and transportation networks to connect them, altered the composition of the atmosphere and the ocean, and even—gulp—changed the climate.

The Entire World (Click Image To Enlarge)

Some scientists think this epoch of human influence deserves its own geologic name, like the Pliestocene or the Pliocene. In 2000, the Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen proposed calling it the Anthropocene. Next summer, the International Commission on Stratigraphy may make that label official.

U.S and Canada (Click Image to Enlarge)

Japan and China (Click Image To Enlarge)

Meanwhile, Globaïa, an educational organization that aims, among other things, to promote “a better understanding of big history,” recently created a series of stunning maps to help us all wrap our heads around what this era looks like. Globaïa calls the project “A Cartography of the Anthropocene.”

Anthropocene Mapping from Globaïa on Vimeo.

 

The maps were created by anthropologist Felix Pharand-Deschenes, using data from a variety of government agencies. They tend to focus on our cities and the transportation and communication networks that serve as civilization’s nerve fibers and arteries. Several of them show roads, shipping lines, and airline routes. Others show the world’s energy infrastructure: the transmission cables and underwater pipelines that keep our lights on. (Note how much sparser they are in Africa.)

Western Europe and Euro-Asia (Click Image To Enlarge)

In addition to the maps we’ve featured here, the Globaïa site has many more. The project also includes an alarming collection of charts that illustrate the rapid expansion of human influence by many different measures, from the rise of shrimp farming to the proliferation of McDonald’s restaurants.

Looking at civilization this way is both daunting (how can we ever stop climate change?) and a little awe-inspiring. We humans are not just another species. We’re an incredibly disruptive force, for better or worse.

COMMENTARY:   You can tell a lot about how developed a country is by how bright they look from outer space. Poor China and India.  Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

Courtesy of an article dated November 14, 2011 appearing in Fast Company   

ASTEROID 2005 YU55 MISSED EARTH, BUT WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF IT HIT US, PURDUE UNIVERSITY SCIENTISTS HAVE THE ANSWERS

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is the size of an aircraft carrier and flew past Earth the morning of November 8, 2011.  NASA scientists and astronomers throughout the world said there was no danger of asteroid 2005 YU%% hitting the planet, but a Purdue University asteroid impact expert says that if a similar-sized object actually hit the Earth, it would result in a 4,000-megaton blast, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake and, should if it struck in the deep ocean, would cause a 70-foot-high tsunami wave 60 miles from the splashdown site.

NASA scientists reported this morning that asteroid 2005 YU55 passed between the orbits of the Earth and the Moon and came within 201,000 miles of Earth on its closest approach.

Jay Melosh, an expert in impact cratering and a distinguished professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, physics, and aerospace engineering at Purdue University, said the asteroid's orbit and trajectory meant there was zero chance of an impact.  Melosh said.

“What is unique about this asteroid flyby is that we were aware of it well in advance.  Before about 1980 we wouldn’t know about an asteroid of this size until it was already making a close pass, but now it is unlikely that such an asteroid will approach the Earth without our knowledge.”  

NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, or NEO, celebrated a milestone earlier this year by announcing that current search programs have discovered more than 90 percent of near-Earth objects more than six-tenths of a mile in diameter.  A larger number of smaller objects have yet to be found, however.  At the end of August 2011, NEO had discovered over 8,000 near-Earth objects.  Over 450 of known near-Earth asteroids discovered to date are 1 kilometer in size or greater.

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Spacewatch, a program created to discover and track all large asteroids crossing the Earth’s orbit, discovered YU55 in 2005.  This close approach had been expected since then, he said.

Melosh used the asteroid impact effects calculator he developed to estimate what would happen if the asteroid, which is a quarter mile in diameter, hit the Earth. The calculator, "Impact: Earth!" allows anyone to calculate potential comet or asteroid damage. 

Users first enter a few parameters, such as:

• Diameter of the approaching object. 
• Density of the object. 
• Velocity of the object. 
• Angle of entry.
• Impact point on Earth. 

The site then estimates the consequences of its impact, including the atmospheric blast wave, ground shaking, size of tsunami generated, fireball expansion, distribution of debris and size of the crater produced. The calculator is available at http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth

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For example, YU55 would strike with a velocity of 11 miles per second. Although it would begin to disintegrate as it passed through the atmosphere, the fragments would strike in a compact cluster that would blast out a crater 4 miles in diameter and 1,700 feet deep, Melosh said. Sixty miles away from the impact site the heat from the fireball would cause extensive first-degree skin burns, the seismic shaking would knock down chimneys and the blast wave would shatter glass windows.  

If YU55 were to strike a large city like Chicago, it would obliterate the entire city and leave few survivors.  Fortunately, the chance of a large impact targeted on a city is very small, he said.

According to NASA, the last time an asteroid this size came close to Earth was in 1976, and the next known approach of such a large asteroid will be in 2028.

Meteor Crater, located near Winslow, Arizona, is the result of a collision between an asteroid traveling at 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago.  Meteor Crater is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep.  To give you a perspective, if asteroid 2005 Yu55 had hit Earth, it would've caused a crater 4 miles wide and 1,700 feet deep.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

Collisions of asteroids with Earth are quite common and occur about every 100,000 years on average.  The following worldwide map shows the location of impact caters caused by asteroids colliding with Earth. There are probably hundreds more craters hidden in our vast oceans. As you can see, the United States has been hit quite frequently over time. 

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The most recent impact of this size is not known, but there are about 20 similar craters known in the geologic record, including the Wetumka crater in Alabama and the Rock Elm crater in Wisconsin.  Of the known large craters, the most recent are the six-mile-wide Bosumtwi crater in Ghana, which is about 1 million years old, and the nine-mile-diameter Zhamanshin crater in Kazakhstan, which is about 900,000 years old, Melosh said.

He said.  

"Impacts from asteroids of this size are very rare.  They occur about once every 100,000 years, so the chances of an actual collision with an asteroid like YU55 is about 1 percent in the next thousand years. Apophis, a similar-sized asteroid about one-third of a mile in diameter is the biggest threat in our near future. It has a tiny chance of striking the Earth in 2036."

Melosh is a co-author of a 2010 NRC report “Defending Planet Earth” that explores the feasibility of detecting all Earth-crossing asteroids down to a diameter of 140 meters, or about one-tenth of a mile, and of ways to mitigate their hazard.

COMMENTARY:  In a previous blog post dated November 8, 2011, I mentioned to you that asteroid 2005 YU55 passed us at a distance of 201,000 miles from Earth, but the potential danger is still not over, 2005 YU55 will return for a second near-Earth approach in 2028.  Some astronomers believe that the asteroid's second pass will take it beneath the orbit of our space satellites, and could even skim off of Earth's upper atmosphere creating friction and displaying one incredible tail of flame and sparks.  There is also a possibility that asteroid 2005 YU55 could collide with Earth, but we won't know for sure until NASA scientists have analyzed the most recent data and recalculated its new orbit and orbital track when it returns in 2028.  

On Friday, April 13, 2036, asteroid 2005 YU55 will make a third near-Earth visit.  That's the date that has many astrophysicists and astronomers concerned, since we don't know whether it will be on a collision course with Earth.  It is obbvious that NASA and the other nation's must cooperate and work together to take corrective actions to either destroy or redirect the orbits of astroids like 2005 YU55 in order to avoid a catastrophic or extinction-level event (ELE). 

If you were wondering what it might be like if a large asteroid were to actually hit Earth, it would definitely be an "Oh, Shit!!" moment like in the following video:

 

Courtesy of an article dated October 31, 2011 appearing in the Purdue University University News Service and an article dated November 3, 2011 appearing in the Purdue University University News Service

ASTEROID 2005 YU55 PASSED SAFELY BY EARTH AT A DISTANCE OF 201,000 MILES AT 6:28 PM EST THIS MORNING, RETURNS IN 2028

The giant asteroid, Vesta, as seen in an image taken from the NASA Dawn spacecraft on July 24, 2011 (NASA Photo)

Astronomers are tracking an asteroid about the size of an aircraft carrier that on Tuesday will pass by Earth, within the moon's orbit, in the closest approach of such an object in a generation.

The 1,300-foot-wide asteroid, known as 2005 YU55, poses no hazard, experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

 

Astronomers have trained their instruments on a huge asteroid due to cross Earth's path Tuesday, in the closet approach of such an object in a generation. Robert Lee Hotz has details on The News Hub. 

They are monitoring the spinning space rock by radar as it nears and eventually speeds past Earth at a distance of 201,000 miles. The asteroid is going 29,000 miles per hour, according to astronomers at the University of Arizona.

It is the first time since 1976 that an asteroid has come so close to Earth, and the first time astronomers have ever had this much advance notice.

By astronomers' calculations, the asteroid is expected to make its closest approach to Earth at 6:28 pm EST Tuesday. The asteroid is too dim to be seen with the naked eye and its gravity is too weak to affect tides or earthquake activity, said experts at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

New radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 taken by NASA on Monday, November 7, 2011, showed it 3.6 lunar distances (860,000 miles or 1.38 million km) from Earth.  For a king-size blowup click HERE.

Its most important effect may be the adrenaline it has generated this week among the planetary astronomers tracking it through NASA's Deep Space Network antennas, the Arecibo radio-telescope in Puerto Rico and hundreds of telescopes world-wide. Donald K. Yeomans, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, which tracks these objects says.

"This is an extraordinary opportunity to look at an extremely important type of asteroid.  A small army of astronomers are pretty excited about it."

Among the oldest objects in the solar system, such carbon-rich asteroids may hold water and important ores, as well as clues to the molecular origins of life on Earth. They also may become humankind's next destination in space, if current plans by NASA for a manned mission to an asteroid come to fruition.

Facts about Asteroid 2005 YU55 and the estimated number of known near-Earth objects by size (NASA)

Dr. Yeomans said.

"These objects may one day be the fueling stations and watering holes for interplanetary travel." 

The solar system harbors millions of asteroids, but only a few are known to cross Earth's path, like the gigantic object that struck the planet some 65 million years ago, part of a chain of events that led to the demise of the dinosaurs. That impact left a crater 110 miles wide in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, suggesting the original object was six miles or more in diameter.

By that standard, 2005 YU55 is a medium-size asteroid, among about an estimated 19,500 comparable space rocks between 330 feet and 3,300 feet wide believed to have orbits around the sun intercepting Earth's, according to NASA's most recent tally released in September. Some, like 2005 YU55, are rich in organic chemistry, but many are stony or more metallic. Only about a third of them have been located so far.

 

Scientists from NASA's Near-Earth Object Program and Deep Space Network discuss asteroid 2005 YU55 and the future danger posed by near-Earth objects striking the Earth (Discover.TV)

The asteroid 2005 YU55 was first detected six years ago and until now, researchers knew little more than its precise orbit. Previous observations suggest it is a fairly symmetrical stone sphere, darker than the color of charcoal, and rotates once every 18 hours.

NASA radar astronomers picked up its track on Friday and were immediately able to narrow its position to within one kilometer—50 times better than their previous best estimate.

"We pinged it," said Marina Brozovic, a planetary radar astronomer who is leading the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's team at NASA's Goldstone radar installation that is following the asteroid. "It's there."

During the next 48 hours or so, the astronomers expect to map the asteroid's surface and refine their knowledge about its orbit enough to predict its precise path well into the future. "We will probably know centuries ahead where it is going to be," said Dr. Brozovic. "We don't want any surprises."

It will be 2028 before another asteroid comes so close to Earth, when the asteroid 2001 WN5 passes at a distance of about 143,000 miles.

The fly-by of 2005 YU55 offers astronomers an opportunity to rehearse their target acquisition and tracking techniques, in the event that an asteroid is ever discovered on a collision course with Earth. "We would like to know more about them in case one was found on an Earth-threatening trajectory," Dr. Yeomans said.

COMMENTARY:    Check my previous blog posts about asteroid 2005 YU55 dated November 7, 2011, November 6, 2011, and a scary post dated September 24, 2011 about near-Earth objects  

Courtesy of an article dated November 8, 2011 appearing in Tne Wall Street Journal and an article dated November 8, 2011 appearing in CNN US and NASA's Asteroid Watch

 

 

ASTEROID 2005 YU55 TO PASS NEAR EARTH IN NOVEMBER 8, 2011, PASS BETWEEN EARTH AND THE MOON, COULD IMPACT EARTH

Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• Near Earth Object Program
• Don Yeomans, Lance Benner and Jon Giorgini
• March 10, 2011

City University of New York professor of physics Dr. Michio Kaku appeared on Fox News and says that asteroid 2005 YU55 represents the "first major threat" faced by Earth from a meteriod or asteroid, but there is only a small chance that it will actually hit us on this first pass.  

Asteroid 2005 YU55 comes around for a "second pass" of Earth on Friday, April 13, 2036, and that's the date that worries scientists and astronomers the most, because it could come close enough to actually impact earth.  If it were to impact with Earth, Dr. Kaku describes it as a "Nation Buster".  Dr. Kaku says,

"It'll take out Germany, it'll take out France, England or the entire northeast of the United States. It will hit with a force of 100,000 Hiroshima bombs.  It's a catastrophe beyond human comprehension"  

The effects of an impact of asteroid 2005 YU55 with the Earth would shower our planet with molten rock and burning debris reaching out for a radius of 1,000 miles from the point of impact.   

 

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data. The attached animated illustration shows the Earth and moon flyby geometry for November 8th and 9th when the object will reach a visual brightness of 11th magnitude and should be easily visible to observers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The closest approach to Earth and the Moon will be respectively 0.00217 AU and 0.00160 AU on 2011 November 8 at 23:28 and November 9 at 07:13 UT.

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Discovered December 28, 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program near Tucson Arizona, the object has been previously observed by Mike Nolan, Ellen Howell and colleagues with the Arecibo radar on April 19-21, 2010 and shown to be a very dark, nearly spherical object 400 meters in diameter. Because of its approximate 20-hour rotation period, ideal radar observations should include tracks that are 8 hours or longer on multiple dates at Goldstone (November 3-11) and when the object enters Arecibo's observing window on November 8th.

Using the Goldstone radar operating in a relatively new "chirp" mode, the November 2011 radar opportunity could result in a shape model reconstruction with a resolution of as fine as 4 meters. Several days of high resolution imaging (about 7.5 meters) are also planned at Arecibo. As well as aiding the interpretation of the radar observations, collaborative visual and near infrared observations could define the object's rotation characteristics and provide constraints upon the nature of the object's surface roughness and mineral composition.

Since the asteroid will approach the Earth from the sunward direction, it will be a daylight object until the time of closest approach. The best time for new ground-based optical and infrared observations will be late in the day on November 8, after 21:00 hours UT from the eastern Atlantic and western Africa zone. A few hours after its close Earth approach, it will become generally accessible for optical and near-IR observations but will provide a challenging target because of its rapid motion across the sky.

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April 29, 2010

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 was "imaged" by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico on April 19. Data collected during Arecibo's observation of 2005 YU55 allowed the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to refine the space rock's orbit, allowing scientists to rule out any possibility of an Earth impact for the next 100 years. 

 [Click Image To Enlarge]

The space rock was about 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Earth at the time this image of the radar echo was generated. The ghostly image has a resolution of 7.5 meters (25 feet) per pixel. It reveals 2005 YU55 as a spherical object about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in size. 

 

Not only can the radar provide data on an asteroid's dimensions, but also on its exact location in space. Using Arecibo's high-precision radar astrometry capability, scientists were able to reduce orbit uncertainties for YU55 by 50 percent. 

Steve Chesley, a scientist at JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office said. 

"At one time we had classified 2005 YU55 as a potential threat," Prior to the Arecibo radar passes on April 19 thru 21, we had eliminated almost all upcoming Earth flybys as possibilities of impact. But there were a few that had a low remaining probability of impact. After incorporating the data from Arecibo, we were able to rule impacts out entirely for the next 100 years." 

With more observations in the coming years, scientists may be able to accurately plot 2005 YU55's orbit even further out. 

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet. 

JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. 

COMMENTARY: Charles F. Bolden, Jr., NASA Administrator and a former NASA astronaut recorded the following video (my apologies about the insertion of 700 Club religious propaganda from the maker of the video) about being prepared for natural disasters and attacks like 911. Mr. Bolden speaks about making adequaate emergency preparations like having an emergency kit and communications plan.  Although Mr. Bolden does not specifically mention near-earth astroids or Asteroid 2005 YU55, why is he talking about emergency preparedness.   Mr. Bolden claims that the motivation for the emergency prepared speech was based on a FEMA exercise called "Eagle Horizon".   He could just as easily sent out an interagency email.  What were Mr. Bolden's true motivation for recording that speech?  hmmm.

It's just incredible how many near earth orbit space objects have been reported over the years and expected to come close to planet Earth.  NASA's Nearth Earth Object Program has been tracking near-earth astroids since 1995.  As the technology to observe NEAs has improved over time, more NEAs have been discovered.  By the end of the year 2000 about 900 NEAs of all sizes had been discovered.  By the end of March 2011 a total of over 8,000 NEAs of all sizes have been discovered to date.  About 800 of those NEAs are considered large enough (over 1,000 meters in diameter) to cause great damage to earth.  The majority of NEA's average about 500 meters in diameter, and over 2,500 have been discovered.  This gives you an idea just how many NEAs are out thee that we know about.  Below  is a wide range of information of near-earth asteroids that have been discovered by NASA's Near Earth Object Program:

The following charts and tables have been revised to reflect improved estimates for near-Earth asteroid (NEA) reflectivities (albedos) - and hence diameters. The absolute magnitude of a NEA (H) is a measure of the object's brightness one astronomical unit from the sun and Earth and at zero phase angle (i.e., the angle between the sun and Earth, as seen from the NEA, is zero). The absolute magnitude (H) for a particular NEA is computed from the observed apparent magnitudes of the object at various times when the phase angles and the distances from the sun and Earth are known. A value for H can then be converted to an effective diameter using an assumed value for the NEA's reflectivity (albedo). An effective diameter is the diameter of a hypothetical spherical NEA that would provide the same apparent brightness as the observed NEA, whose actual shape is unknown.

Until relatively recently, the mean albedo for NEAs was thought to be 0.11 so the corresponding absolute magnitude for a NEA whose effective diameter is one kilometer was thought to be H = 18.0. Tables and charts based upon H = 18.0 have been provided on this web site since its inception and these charts can still be viewed at the following link.

Recent work by Stuart (2003) and others have shown that NEAs are, in the mean, 20% brighter than previously thought so that the mean albedo for NEAs is 0.14 rather than 0.11. Using this revised mean albedo implies the absolute magnitude (H) for a NEA with an effective one kilometer diameter is 17.75. The charts and plots given below reflect this recent update.

Stuart, J.S. (2003). Observational Constraints on the Number, Albedos, Sizes, and Impact Hazards of the Near-Earth Asteroids. Ph.D. thesis, MIT.

The chart below shows the total known number of near-earth astroids per size bin.  Diameters are estimated using an assumed average albedo for NEAs.  The first size bin represents NEAs smaller than 30 meters in diameter.  The second represents NEAS with diameters from 30 meters to 100 meters, and so on.

PREPARATIONS BEING MADE TO OBSERVE AND RECORD 2005 YU55 FLYBY

Lance Benner, a research scientist at JPL and a specialist on radar imaging of near-Earth objects. He said part of the plan is to observe the asteroid with radar using both the huge Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico and equipment at Goldstone.

Close and big

Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. said.  

“The close Earth approach of 2005 YU55 on Nov. 8, is unusual since it is close and big. On average, one wouldn’t expect an object this big to pass this close but every 30 years,” 

Yeomans said that with new radar capabilities at Goldstone in California — part of NASA’s Deep Space Network — there is a good chance of obtaining radar imaging of 2005 YU55 down to the 5-meter resolution level. Doing so, he said, would mean obtaining higher spatial resolution of the object than that attained by recent spacecraft flyby missions.

He said.  

“So we like to think of this opportunity as a close flyby mission with Earth as the spacecraft,” Yeomans told SPACE.com. “When combined with ground-based optical and near-infrared observations, the radar data should provide a fairly complete picture of one of the larger potentially hazardous asteroids.” 

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is a slow rotator. Because of its size and proximity to Earth, the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., has designated the space rock as a “potentially hazardous asteroid.” 

Dishing it out

Lance Benner, a research scientist at JPL and a specialist on radar imaging of near-Earth objects. He said part of the plan is to observe the asteroid with radar using both the huge Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico and equipment at Goldstone.

“We’re already preparing for the 2005 YU55 flyby. The asteroid will approach from the south, so Goldstone has the first chance to observe it due to its declination coverage.”

To help coordinate the observing campaigns, “Radar Observations Planning” websites have been set up for this unusual occasion, Benner said.

“This flyby will be the closest by any near-Earth asteroid with an absolute magnitude this bright since 1976 and until 2028.  Having said that, nobody saw 2010 XC15 during its close flyby within 0.5 lunar distance in 1976.”

He said, noting that this asteroid wasn’t discovered until late in 2010.  

“Thus, the flyby by 2005 YU55 will be the closest actually observed by something this large, so it represents a unique opportunity.  In a real sense, this will provide imaging resolution comparable to or even better than a spacecraft mission flyby.” 

Radar paint

Benner said that because the asteroid is zooming by Earth so very close, radar echoes will be extremely strong. One facility at Goldstone will be used to transmit and “radar paint” the object…another Goldstone dish is on tap to snag the reflected echo of radar data.

What can radar do?

Information collected by this technique, for example, can be transformed into 3-D shapes, with surface features and spin rates identified. The asteroid’s roughness and density can also be assessed. Furthermore, radar can improve the whereabouts of the object. By greatly shrinking uncertainties for newly discovered meandering NEOs, that in turn enables motion prediction for decades to centuries.

As for seeing the asteroid with small telescopes, start getting your gear ready.

Initially, the object will be too close to the sun and too faint for optical observers. But late in the day (Universal Time) on Nov. 8, the solar elongation will grow sufficiently to see it. Early on Nov. 9, the asteroid could reach about 11th magnitude for several hours before it fades as its distance rapidly increases, Benner explained.

Let's hope that NASA's NEA observatories are well funded.  The last truly catastrophic life-ending asteroid slammed into the Earth about 65 million years ago and killed all the dinosaurs.  We are long overdue for another big one, and the odds increase dramatically that we will be hit again. 

Should Asteroid 2005 YU55 impact with Earth, I would also like to give my blogging fans complete assurances that I will be blogging no matter what happens.   

LATEST FROM NASA!!

According to NASA, there is no cause for alarm, and the only thing that I could find is there original announcement of March 10, 2011 shown in its entirety below:

"Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data. The attached animated illustration shows the Earth and moon flyby geometry for November 8th and 9th when the object will reach a visual brightness of 11th magnitude and should be easily visible to observers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The closest approach to Earth and the Moon will be respectively 0.00217 AU and 0.00160 AU on 2011 November 8 at 23:28 and November 9 at 07:13 UT.

Discovered December 28, 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program near Tucson Arizona, the object has been previously observed by Mike Nolan, Ellen Howell and colleagues with the Arecibo radar on April 19-21, 2010 and shown to be a very dark, nearly spherical object 400 meters in diameter. Because of its approximate 20-hour rotation period, ideal radar observations should include tracks that are 8 hours or longer on multiple dates at Goldstone (November 3-11) and when the object enters Arecibo's observing window on November 8th.

Using the Goldstone radar operating in a relatively new "chirp" mode, the November 2011 radar opportunity could result in a shape model reconstruction with a resolution of as fine as 4 meters. Several days of high resolution imaging (about 7.5 meters) are also planned at Arecibo. As well as aiding the interpretation of the radar observations, collaborative visual and near infrared observations could define the object's rotation characteristics and provide constraints upon the nature of the object's surface roughness and mineral composition.

Since the asteroid will approach the Earth from the sunward direction, it will be a daylight object until the time of closest approach. The best time for new ground-based optical and infrared observations will be late in the day on November 8, after 21:00 hours UT from the eastern Atlantic and western Africa zone. A few hours after its close Earth approach, it will become generally accessible for optical and near-IR observations but will provide a challenging target because of its rapid motion across the sky.

Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type will not happen again until 2028 when asteroid (153814) 2001 WN5 will pass to within 0.6 lunar distances."

Below is NASA's animation showing the path of asteroid 2005 YU55 as it passes between the orbits of Earth and ther Moon.

Trajectory of asteroid 2005 Yu55 - November 8-9, 2011 (CLICK ABOVE IMAGE TO VIEW)

Here's the official video by Lance Benner, Research Scientist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lap (JPL):

Asteroid 2005 YU55

Just in case asteroid 2005 YU55 should hit Earth, or even the Moon, I wanted to have this video as a public record of NASA's official position regarding the asteroid.

Asteroid 2005 YU55 will NOT be viewable by the naked eye or ground-based telescopes from anywhere in the U.S.  Asteroid 2005 YU55 for new ground-based optical and infrared observations will be late in the day on November 8, after 21:00 hours UT from the eastern Atlantic and western Africa zone.  A few hours after its close Earth approach, it will become generally accessible for optical and near-IR observations but will provide a challenging target because of its rapid motion across the sky.

You can bet that NASA, space scientists and astronomers and a few fortunate individuals will be able to see asteroid 2005 YU55, and hopefully some of them will be able to shoot a video of the event when that happens, and post it on YouTube or on the NASA website.  You can bet that as soon as that video is available, I will post an update on my blog.  

Courtesy of an announcement prepared by Don Yeomans, Lance Benner and Jon Giorgini dated March 10, 2011 by NASA Near Earth Object Program and NASA Nearth Earth Object Program Near-Earth Asteroid Discovery Statistics and and article dated April 7, 2011 appearing in Space.com and a NASA profile of  NASA Administrator, Charles F. Bolden Jr.

THREE ASTROPHYSICISTS WIN THE 2011 NOBEL PRIZE FOR RESEARCH ON THE ACCELERATING EXPANDING UNIVERSE

Three U.S.-born researchers shared the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, a startling result that overturned prevailing theories and sparked many new questions for cosmology.

 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half the prize of 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) to American Saul Perlmutter, while the other half will be shared by U.S.-Australian Brian Schmidt and American Adam Riess.

The three winners from left to right: Adam Ries, Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt

The findings about the accelerating universe were presented in 1998 by rival research teams—one led by Dr. Perlmutter and the other headed by Dr. Schmidt, which included Dr. Riess. Both groups based their conclusions on observations of light reaching the earth from distant, exploding stars, known as supernovae.

Back then, the discovery "seemed too crazy to be right."  Dr. Schmidt, in a publicly-broadcast phone call to the Swedish academy minutes after the announcement was made said.

"It was only after a fair bit of trepidation that we ended up telling our group, and then the world, that the universe was speeding up."

Dr. Perlmutter, 52 years old, heads the Supernova Cosmology Project at the University of California, Berkeley, Calif. Dr. Schmidt, 44, is the head of the High-z Supernova Search Team at the Australian National University in Weston Creek, Australia. Dr. Riess, 42, is an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

 

The expansion of the universe was discovered in the 1920s. After that, it was widely believed that since the expansion rate depended on the energy content, a universe containing only matter would eventually slow down due to the attractive force of gravity.

So when the rivals teams presented their findings about an accelerating universe in 1998, cosmologists were taken aback. It's as if someone in a car "steps on the brake and finds the car accelerating" instead, said Olga Botner, a Swedish scientist who described the groups' research in a presentation to the media in Stockholm.

Both groups came to their conclusion by studying the light emitted by exploding stars known as type 1a supernovae. Such events are rare; the last that occurred in the Milky Way, for example, was in 1572. But when such stars explode, they release a huge amount of energy and can outshine an entire galaxy.

 

Type 1a supernovae have a similar amount of mass, so they release the same amount of energy and burn with similar brightness. The further away they are, the fainter they appear to us. By measuring their brightness, scientists can measure how far away they are.

The two teams found more than 50 distant supernovae in faraway galaxies whose light was weaker than expected. That suggested the improbable conclusion that the expansion of the universe must be accelerating.

 

Here Dr. Schmidt explains the Theory of the Expanding Universe at an Accelerating Rate

The Nobel committee said in its award citation.

"The potential pitfalls had been numerous, and the scientists found reassurance in the fact that both groups had reached the same astonishing conclusion." 

But what could be causing the universe to expand at a faster rate? Scientists today speculate that the acceleration is driven by an enigmatic "dark energy" that makes up three-quarters of the universe. It was a result that Einstein, through a mistake, may have predicted in 1917.

Einstein initially hated the idea of an expanding universe. When he found that his equations didn't work for a static universe, he threw in a fudge factor—a hypothetical force that would fix the problem. He called it the "cosmological constant." (After Einstein came to accept the idea of the expanding universe he said the cosmological constant was his "biggest blunder.")

The present size of the Universe since the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years

Today, some astronomers theorize that the cosmological constant is a measure of the mysterious "dark energy" that, in turn, explains the accelerating universe.

Dr. Schmidt said. 

"Thus far, every test we've made has come out perfectly logical with Einstein's cosmological constant." 

Whatever dark energy might be, it seems to make up 75% of the universe. Another 5% is matter—stars, planets, trees, people. The rest is yet another mysterious thing astronomers have dubbed "dark matter."

Thus, the discovery made by the latest physics Nobel laureates prompted far more questions than it answered. The researchers "have helped to unveil a universe that is 95% unknown to science," the Swedish academy said.

COMMENTARY:     I am so happy that American's Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess, and one Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel prize for physics.  

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe was launched on June 30, 2001. It is designed to operate for four years.  

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) team has released the first detailed full-sky map of the oldest light in the universe on February 11, 2003.   The following WMAP Map of the Universe shows the measurements with red indicates "warmer" and blue indicates "cooler" spots.

The patterns in the map are tiny temperature differences within an extraordinarily evenly dispersed microwave radiation bathing the Universe, which now averages a frigid 2.73 degrees above absolute zero temperature.

WMAP resolves the slight temperature fluctuations, which vary by only millionths of a degree. Analyses of this microwave radiation emitted only 380,000 years after the Big Bang appear to define our universe more precisely than ever before.

Measurements from WMAP resolve several long-standing disagreements in cosmology rooted in less precise data. Specifically, present analyses of the WMAP all-sky image indicate that the universe is 13.7 billion years old (accurate to 1 percent), composed of 73 percent dark energy, 23 percent cold dark matter, and only 4 percent atoms, is currently expanding at the rate of 71 km/sec/Mpc (accurate to 5 percent), underwent episodes of rapid expansion called inflation, the geometry of the Universe is flat1, and will expand forever. 

Soon we will know how much dark energy there really is in the universe.  Fermilab has built the world's first Dark Energy Camera, which "will survey the skies of the Southern Hemisphere and peer far back in time, allowing scientists to see galaxies as they were when the universe was only a few billion years old."  

Fermilab technicians working on the Dark Energy Camera

The Dark Energy Camera is the size of a car and captures images with 570 megapixels. Created from 74 individual CCDs, the image sensor is over three feet in diameter. Even with the camera's sophisticated data-acquisition system, each photo is so big that it takes 17 seconds to capture.

 

Here's a time lapse video of Fermilab's Dark Energy Camera being built:

 

Courtesy of an article dated October 4, 2011 appearing in The Wall Street Journal, an article dated March 4, 2011 appearing in Timothy Martell, NASA's Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis (LAMBDA), NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2011, AN EXTINCTION-LEVEL EVENT WILL OCCUR, AND THE EARTH AS WE KNOW IT WILL CEASE TO EXIST

According to Alexander Retrov (see video below), the whole Pacific Rim will collapse.There will be catastrophic magnitude 12 to 15 earthquakes.  New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, China, Korea, Russia, West coast of America, will disappear under the Pacific Ocean.  Here's what the fiery Alexander Retrov says.  

"The next allignment between Elenin, Sun and Earth will be Sept 26th 2011.  The East coast of Australia will be affected by tidal waves. A cosmic sonic shockwave will blow out our protective Van Allen belts and magnetic fields and will leave the planet totally open to gamma radiation.  We will be fried alive like vampires in the sunlight. There will be an electomagnetic pulse that destroys all electronics. Surface temperatures will be 60+ degrees Celsius. There will be 1000km/hr winds. There will be an eclipse that lasts for 3 days. There will be volcanic eruptions everywhere, pyroclastic blasts and acid rain from all the ash. There will be wildfires everywhere..."

I have been following Alexander Retrov's doomsday predictions for several months now, going back to the time Leonid Elenin, an amateur Russian astronomer, discovered comet Elenin or C2010 X1 Elenin on December 10, 2010, in the night sky about 8.8 AU's (astronomical unit) or 1.320 billion kilometers from Earth.  One AU is equivalent to the distance between Earth and the Sun, or roughly 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles. 

No comet in recent memory has raised so many doomsday predictions, falsehoods, exaggerations and outright lies among conspiracy theorists, religiouis zealots, apocolyptics and doomsayers.  Some claim that Elenin is on a collision course with Earth and that our government is keeping this a secret so as not to cause widespread panic. Some say that Comet Elenin is actually a brown dwarf star that is headed our way. 

Alexander Retrov is the first doomsayer who seems to have connected the dots, and discovered a direct correlation between the recent flurry of mega-earthquakes occurring along the Pacific Rim, commonly referred to as the "Rim of Fire".   According to Mr. Retrov, everytime comet Elenin enters into a linear alignment with our Sun and Earth, this has resulted in large magnitude earthquakes in Indonesia, New Zealand, Chile and Japan.

The following video by Mr. Retrov explains the shocking truth about comet Elenin.   Mr. Retrov predicts that on or about September 26, 2011, another linear alignment will occur between comet Elenin, the Sun and Earth.   The new alignment like the four previous ones, will result in a series of high magnitude earthquakes all along the Pacific Rim.  

 

In a blog post dated August 9, 2011, I asked the question, "Is Comet Elenin on a collision with Earth? Separating fact from fiction."   I tried to be objective, but if you have been following my other blog posts, NASA has a long history of not being entirely truthful with the public. In this particular instance, NASA absolutely refutes any possibility that comet Elenin will collide with Earth, claiming that it will come as close as 22 million miles from Earth.   The following is the predicted trajectory path for the comet for the period March 30, 2011 through February 13, 2012:

As you can clearly see, comet Elenin's trajectory path will indeed bring it into close proximity to Earth, but there will be no collission.  NASA says that comet Elenin is composed mostly of dust and ice, does not have a magnetic field of its own, and is much too small to cause any magnetic force capable of causing earthquakes to occur.

If you watch the above video, Mr. Retrov says that past predictions of an extinction-level event (An extinction-level event or ELE is definied as a mass extinction or biotic crisis capable of a sharp decrease in the diversity and abundance of macroscopic life) or "End Times" to occur in December 2012, is just a cover put up by NASA.  Mr. Retrov is steadfast in his prediction that the real extinction level event will occur on September 26, 2011, and that the cause will be comet Elenin.

Adding to the prediction of an extinction-level event is a report by the European Union Times in September 15, 2011, that the U.S. military ordered President Obama and his family to leave the White House on or about September 27, 2011, and take refuge in a huge underground military bunker located under the Denver International Airport.  

Jesse Ventura, the former liberal governor of the State of Minnesota, conducted an investigation of a supposed secret underground bunker located beneath the Denver Airport for TRU.TV, and this very interesting video raises even more questions as to why Obama is going there just when comet Elenin is predicted to cause havoc with the Earth.

  

You may do so as you wish with this information.  As for myself, I have no plans to flee to a safer location on Monday, September 26, 2011, in order to avoid the predicted catastrophe caused by comet Elenin, but will probably be watching Monday Night Football or writing my blog.  However, if anything nasty should occur, I will cover the "event" and write my final blog update for the public record until my dying breath or the solar flare fries my ass like a vampire.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 18, 2011 appearing in Before It's News  

OVER 8,000 NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED, WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF ONE OF THEM COLLIDED WITH EARTH

Recently scientists all over the world have presented many models describing a collision of the Earth with an asteroid or a comet. All of us can imagine the consequences of such a collision. That is a powerful impact wave, a huge tsunami from the body falling into the ocean and the so-called “impact” winter and “firey” rain consisting of material from the Earth’s crust blasted to the edge of the atmosphere with a subsequent rain of meteors back to the Earth. All these scenarios are possible with the falling of a large body similar to that which possibly killed off the dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (the so-called K-T Event).

Is this all we can expect from such a catastrophic scenario? Or do we need to prepare for something more? As studies by the American scientists of the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) have shown, one more biosphere-destroying event will be the destruction of the planet’s ozone layer. The group, under the direction of Elizabeth Pierazzo, generated two models describing the fall of asteroids 500 and 1000 meters in diameter into the ocean (depth of 4000 meters). From their analysis of the data the scientists came to some conclusions about the catastrophic consequences of the ejection of huge quantities of hot water vapor into the atmosphere. After the water vapor, the liberation of huge volumes of chlorides and bromides will continue the process of destroying the ozone layer. As a result of these events, there will be a global exhaustion of the ozone layer, and Earth life will be defenseless for years.

The UVI (ultraviolet index) may be over 20 for several months after Earth is hit by a 500 meter asteroid. A reading of 10 is dangerous to humans, and 20 is the maximum value ever recorded on Earth. Under such radiation, a person can get burned even after only five minutes in the sun. Even more serious are the facts associated with the impact of a kilometer-sized asteroid. The brightness of the ultraviolet radiation will reach a huge value – 56! A person without protection in the open sunlight would literally burn up. The ultraviolet intensity would gradually decrease, but over the course of two years its level would remain over 20.

During this time most of the plant and animal life on Earth would perish; in countries where there are not huge reserves of foodstuffs, hunger would become a problem. All this is without calculating in the catastrophe which a huge tsunami would cause.

All these data are not to scare the people of the Earth, but, instead, they have the purpose of bringing understanding of what we must be prepared for, if we want to preserve our civilization at our modern level of development, and not plunge it into chaos because we couldn’t take a hit from space.

COMMENTARY:   In a blog post dated June 25, 2011, I told you about near Earth object 2005 YU55, an astroid that is scheduled to come very close to Earth on November 8, 2011.   If it stays on its projected course, 2005 YU55 will pass between the Earth and the Moon.  That's close and scary.  

Discovered December 28, 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program near Tucson Arizona, the asteroid has been previously observed by Mike Nolan, Ellen Howell and colleagues with the Arecibo radar on April 19-21, 2010 and shown to be a very dark, nearly spherical object 400 meters in diameter. Because of its approximate 20-hour rotation period, ideal radar observations should include tracks that are 8 hours or longer on multiple dates at Goldstone (November 3-11) and when the object enters Arecibo's observing window on November 8th.

Using the Goldstone radar operating in a relatively new "chirp" mode, the November 2011 radar opportunity could result in a shape model reconstruction with a resolution of as fine as 4 meters. Several days of high resolution imaging (about 7.5 meters) are also planned at Arecibo. As well as aiding the interpretation of the radar observations, collaborative visual and near infrared observations could define the object's rotation characteristics and provide constraints upon the nature of the object's surface roughness and mineral composition.

Since the asteroid will approach the Earth from the sunward direction, it will be a daylight object until the time of closest approach. The best time for new ground-based optical and infrared observations will be late in the day on November 8, after 21:00 hours UT from the eastern Atlantic and western Africa zone. A few hours after its close Earth approach, it will become generally accessible for optical and near-IR observations but will provide a challenging target because of its rapid motion across the sky.

According to NASA astronomers, 2005 YU55 will come within .85 lunar distances or approximately 200,000 miles from the Earth.  NASA is naturally concerned with Astroid 2005 YU55, but claims it will not impact Earth.  However, Russian astronomers are not so sure, claiming that there is a very high probability that it could impact Earth.

If Astroid 2005 YU55 has been estimated to be 400 meters in diameter or roughly 1,100 feet (the size of a U.S. Navy supercarrier or height of the Empire State Building).  However, an impact with Earth may be quite catastrophic, depending on whether it is a rock or iron asteroid.  A rock asteroid will probably breakup as it enters Earth's atmosphere.  An iron asteroid (the most common) could impact with great force. 

The size of 2005 YU55 makes it particularly dangerous. If it hit a populated area on Earth, the resulting explosion would have the force of several nuclear bombs. And if it hit the moon, it could push our satellite off orbit with potentially disastrous results for the tides on Earth. In other words, we should be very glad that 2005 YU55 is going to miss us, and we should be more prepared for the inevitable time when a similar asteroid isn’t so accommodating.

In my blog post dated June 25, 2011, you will find that as of March 2011, a total of 8,000 near-Earth objects have been discovered.  Thankfully, Astroid 2005 YU55 is the only near-Earth object that presents real danger if it should impact earth.  However, these facts should not give us any comfort.  There is always the possibility that a near-Earth object may not be detected in time to warn humans on Earth.  

To give you an idea of just how many near-Earth object there are within close proximity to Earth, just look at this video, which shows the projectories of these near-Earth objects in relation to Earth.  As you can see, it's like an astronomical "soup" or cosmic freeway out there, with Earth like a predestrian dodging traffic.

 

If this blog post did not scare you, please read my comet Elenin post just prior to this one.  I can almost guarantee that you will be scared silly, but you have nearly two full days to make necessary plans.  Nighty-night.

Courtesy of an article dated October 28, 2010 appearing in SpaceObs.org and an article dated July 27, 2011 appearing in 100GF

NASA'S KEPLER SPACE TELESCOPE DISCOVERS 'STAR WARS' PLANET THAT ORBITS TWO SUNS OVER 200 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY

This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-16b, the first planet known to definitively orbit two stars -- a real-life Tatooine, from 'Star Wars.' The planet, which can be seen in the foreground, was discovered by NASA's Kepler mission.  CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

It's a real-life Tatooine. A spectacle made popular by the "Star Wars" saga — a planet with two suns — has now been confirmed in space for the first time, astronomers revealed.

Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope captured details of a giant planet in orbit around the pair of binary stars that make up the Kepler-16 system, which is about 200 light-years away.

 

Blow-Up of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope

Study co-author Alan Boss at the Carnegie Institute in Washington said.

"This discovery is stunning.  Once again, what used to be science fiction has turned into reality."

 

When Tatooine was depicted on film, many scientists doubted that such planets could really exist. Now there's proof.

John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at the special-effects firm Industrial Light and Magic, which was behind the "Star Wars" films said.

"It's possible that there's a real Tatooine out there.  Kepler 16b is unambiguous and dramatic proof that planets really do form around binaries."

The new discovery is expanding the bounds of what scientists, as well as filmakers, can conceive, he said.

Knoll said during a NASA press conference today. 

"Again and again we see that the science is stranger and cooler than fiction.  The very existence of these discoveries gives us cause to dream bigger, to question our assumptions."

The planet, dubbed Kepler-16(AB)-b, passes in front of both stars in view of the satellite, regularly dimming their light. Each star also eclipses its companion as they orbit each other. Altogether, these motions allow scientists to precisely calculate the masses, radii and trajectories of all three bodies. 

The newfound planet keeps a distance from its stars nearly three-quarters that of the distance between the Earth and the sun.  It is somewhat like Saturn in size, although nearly 50 percent denser, suggesting it is richer in heavy elements. [10 Real Alien Worlds That Could Be In 'Star Wars']

 Study lead author Laurance Doyle, an astrophysicist at the Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, Calif said. 

"Kepler-16(AB)-b is not habitable as we know it." 

[Click To Enlarge Image]

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one. The planet, called Kepler-16b, is not thought to be habitable. It is a cold world, with a gaseous surface, and it circles two stars, just like "Star Wars" Tatooine. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech  View full size image

This alien world travels on a nearly circular 229-day orbit around its two parent stars, Kepler-16A and Kepler-16B, which are about 69 and 20 percent as massive as the sun, respectively. The stars keep  close to each other — only a fifth of the distance between Earth and the sun on average, which is closer than Mercury gets to the sun — completing an orbit around each other every 41 days, researchers added.

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration 

Worlds that orbit around two stars, known as circumbinary planets, had been hinted at before. Stars in pairs both orbit around a point in space called barycenter, and researchers at times saw these orbits were slightly off, suggesting the presence of a planet tugging at both stars. However, Kepler-16(AB)-b is the first planet that scientists have detected directly passing in front of, or transiting, its stars, temporarily dimming their light.

Since the movements of this world and its two stars are all virtually confined to the same plane, the researchers suggest they all formed from the same disk of dust and gas. Planets that were captured from other star systems might be expected to orbit at a range of angles.

Doyle told SPACE.com.

"Now that we know how to detect circumbinary planets, I think we are going to find a lot more rapidly." 

The scientists detailed their findings in the Sept. 16 issue of the journal Science.

COMMENTARY:   In a blog post dated August 13, 2011, I profiled the NASA's Kepler Mission, a spacecraft with an observatory which has discovered 1,235 exoplanets since it was first launched into space on March 6, 2009.  So far none of them have proven to be habitable.

The discovery of  Kepler-16(AB)-b, the planet which revolves around two suns and is 200-light years away from Earth, is absolutely incredible.  The beauty, wonder and mystery of the beautiful Universe is being revealed before our eyes.  No telling what other incredible discoveries will be made.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 15, 2011 appearing in Space.com