ImaginativePRO Blog

THE LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS AND WHY THEY ARE ESSENTIAL IN DRIVING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

 

Business intelligence and analytics are competitive necessities in today’s fast-moving, data-driven business world. In fact, more than half of organizations across industries are using business intelligence in some capacity to drive important initiatives like new revenue streams and increased efficiency.

Yet there remains a gap between those who use it and those who use it successfully. A recent survey conducted by Sisence found that 94% of respondents felt data was critical to their ongoing strategy, but only 24% believed their companies were using it effectively. So where is the disconnect?

One key factor to keep in mind is that while data is a powerful tool, it’s not universally applied. Organizations must understand the types of business intelligence and analytics solutions that exist and apply them in ways that add the highest strategic value to their companies.

We’ve put together this quick guide to help you understand exactly what business intelligence entails, the different ways companies can leverage it, and how to choose the tools that make the most sense for your business.

Quick Takeaways

• Business intelligence and analytics provides data-driven insights at a level and scope not capturable by the human brain alone.
• Companies leverage business intelligence in several critical ways including to identify problems earlier, improve operational efficiency, and refine marketing strategies with deep customer insights.
• Organizations should always choose business intelligence and analytics solutions with their specific priorities and needs first in mind.

What is business intelligence and why is it important?

Business intelligence (BI) involves the use of technology tools that enable data-driven decision making and actionable insights to help companies improve performance and identify new opportunities.  While business intelligence has been around for a few decades, it has recently reached new capability levels with the emergence of AI and machine learning.

An important component of business intelligence is its data visualization capabilities, which allow teams to take large and complex datasets and present them in digestible ways that make them usable for driving strategy.

Also of note is the difference between business intelligence and analytics. Business intelligence aims to leverage past and current data to inform real-time decision making and strategies. Analytics uses past data to explain current data, and it uses both past and current data to make predictions about what will happen in the future.

In other words, business intelligence involves looking at data to see what it’s saying and make decisions accordingly. Analytics dives deeper to understand why the data says what it says, and uses those deeper insights to forecast what’s likely to happen next. Both business intelligence and analytics are critical to gleaning complete insights.

Business intelligence and analytics are important because they augment traditional business decision making in a number of ways. First, they provide the necessary data insights for managers to make informed decisions. In today’s world, any company making decisions strictly from gut feelings or firsthand observations are going to fall behind.

Business intelligence also allows organizations to expand data insights beyond the c-suite and make them part of everyday business operations. When employees have access to the level of insight business intelligence and analytics can provide, they’re able to make better decisions, be more productive, and add more strategic value to the company in their roles.

How do companies leverage business intelligence and analytics?

There are many ways to leverage business intelligence and analytics in your organization. Here are some of the most common and valuable ways to do it:

Identify potential problems sooner – Data insights allow organizations to identify worrisome incidents earlier (like a dip in sales or revenue, a drop in retention, or prospect fall-off at a specific point in the customer journey) and address them sooner and more quickly, before they turn into larger issues.

Make better decisions – Data makes decisions more informed. Business intelligence and analytics, in short, go beyond the capacity of our human minds and help us make decisions that account for larger trends and insights we just couldn’t capture without technology. For instance, it would be great for a telecom company to know the future potential of 5G so that they can come up with competitive tactics and pricing strategies.

Improve operational efficiency – BI tools help companies make smart strategic decisions about the future, but they also offer insight into daily operations that help companies make adjustments to increase productivity and daily performance.

Increase marketing effectiveness – Modern technology has given us unprecedented insights into consumer and customer behavior, and business intelligence and analytics tools are critical to accessing them. For example, Zoom took to new age marketing methods to reach consumer households in a saturated video conferencing market.

See larger trends – With BI tools, companies can access and analyze bigger data sets and see larger market and industry trends. These insights contribute to smarter competitive analyses and a better understanding of market position. 

Choosing business intelligence and analytics solutions

So how do you choose the right BI and analytics solutions for your business? First, it’s important to know what’s out there. Business intelligence tools have a variety of capabilities, including data mining, data visualizations, text mining, KPI reporting and more. Most top business intelligence solution providers package all or most of these capabilities into one tool so that companies can use it in ways that benefit them. 

To choose the tool that’s best for you, there’s one key strategy to keep in mind: think first about your company’s priorities and needs, then choose the product that offers the highest value in those specific areas. Simply choosing the solution with the most features or the highest brand awareness is likely not going to add the most possible value to your BI and analytics efforts.

Here’s an overview of the top business intelligence and analytics solutions on the market right now:

COMMENTARY:  As you can readily see from the above post, business intelligence and data analytics are essential in order to develop valuable insights about consumers (and business leaders) and management the entire marketing processes of a data-driven organization. 

Business intelligence is key to monitoring business trends, detecting significant events, and getting the full picture of what is happening inside your organization thanks to data. It is important to optimize processes, increase operational efficiency, drive new revenue, and improve the decision-making of the company.

Courtesy of an article dated April 13, 2022 appearing in Stream By AlphaSense

and an article dated April 22, 2021 appearing in HevoData

 

FOUR STUDENTS AND A TEACHER FROM UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON OBSERVATORY DISCOVER A BRIGHT SUPERNOVA IN M82

Supernova 2014J has brightened to 11th magnitude in M82 off the Big Dipper. It's visible in amateur telescopes during evening.

A surprise supernova has erupted in M82, the famous nearby irregular galaxy in Ursa Major. Observers are reporting it at about magnitude 11.3 as of Thursday, January 23rd, with a color on the orange side of white.

The supernova in M82 as imaged by Leonid Elenin (Lyubertsy, Russia) and I. Molotov (Moscow, Russia) on Jan. 22.396. It's located at right ascension 9h 55m 42.2s, declination +69° 40′ 26″. It was V magnitude 11.7 at the time.  Image by Leonid Elenin.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

A spectrum reported by Yi Cao and colleagues (Caltech) suggests that it may still be two weeks away from reaching its peak brightness. Spectra show it to be a Type Ia supernova — an exploded white dwarf — with debris expanding at 20,000 kilometers per second. It is reddened, and hence must also be dimmed, by dust in M82 along our line of sight.

The M81 Supernova before and after images (Click Image To Enlarge)

M82 is a near neighbor as galaxies go, at a distance of 11 or 12 million light-years. It's a favorite for amateur astronomers and researchers alike, with its thick dust bands, sprays of gas, and bright center undergoing massive star formation. The supernova is not in the central star-forming region but off to one side, 58 arcseconds to the west-southwest.

Remarkably, the supernova went undiscovered for a week as it brightened. Prediscovery unfiltered CCD images by K. Itagaki of Yamagata, Japan, show nothing at its location to as faint as magnitude 17.0 through January 14.5. But on January 15.57 is was magnitude 14.4; on January 16.64 it was 13.9; on January 17.61, 13.3; January 19.62, 12.2; and January 20.62, 11.9. Images.

This is the starburst galaxy M82 imaged by Hubble in 2006, with approximate location of the #supernova noted. (Click Image To Enlarge)

M82 is well up in the northeastern sky by 7 or 8 p.m. (for observers at mid-northern latitudes). The waning Moon doesn't rise until much later.

The new point of light received the name Supernova 2014J once its nature was confirmed. It originally went by the preliminary designation PSN J09554214+6940260.

Animation of the M81 Supernova. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Here's a comparison-star chart from the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). North is up, east is left, the chart is 1° wide, and stars are plotted to magnitude 13.5. If you want other parameters, or if the link fails, make your own chart using the AAVSO Variable Star Plotter. For the star name enter SN 2014J. The chart does not plot the galaxy.

And here's a preliminary AAVSO light curve.

The location of the M82 galaxy where the supernova occured is located near M81 just above the Big Dipper facing north. (Click Image To Enlarge)

A Flukey Find

The first people to recognize the supernova were a group of students — Ben Cooke, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilde and Guy Pollack, assisted by teaching fellow Stephen J. Fossey — taking a quick image at the University College London Observatory (within the London city limits!) on the evening of January 21st, at 19:20 UT.

A university press release said. 

"The discovery was a fluke, a 10-minute telescope workshop for undergraduate students that led to a global scramble to acquire confirming images and spectra."

Fossey says.  

'The weather was closing in, with increasing cloud, so instead of the planned practical astronomy class, I gave the students an introductory demonstration of how to use the CCD camera on one of the observatory’s automated 0.35-meter telescopes.  The students chose M82, a bright and photogenic galaxy, as their target, as it was in one of the shrinking patches of clear sky. While adjusting the telescope’s position, Fossey noticed a star overlaid on the galaxy which he did not recognise from previous observations.  They inspected online archive images of the galaxy, and it became apparent that there was indeed a new starlike object in M82. With clouds closing in, they switched to taking a rapid series of 1- and 2-minute exposures through different colour filters to check that the object persisted, and to be able to measure its brightness and colour."

The original press release, and the BBC repeating it, claimed that this is the nearest supernova since Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In fact SN 1993J in M81 was at essentially the same distance within the uncertainties, and two subsequent supernovae, SN 2004am and SN 2008iz (an obscured radio supernova), occurred within M82 itself.

Watch here for updates.

Courtesy of an article dated January 21, 2014 appearing in Sky & Telescope

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/Bright-Supernova-in-M82-241477661.html

HOW TO WATCH ASTEROID 2012 DA14 AS IT SAFELY PASSES ONLY 17,000 MILES FROM EARTH

NASA artist concept of asteroid 2012 DA14 (Click Image To Enlarge)

The best way for most of us to watch asteroid 2012 DA14 come within 17,200 miles of Earth on Friday, and then recede harmlessly into the cosmos, is to fire up your Web browser and watch the show online. Pictures of the space rock, which is about half the length of a football field, are already starting to roll in.

NASA's experts on near-Earth objects say that the time of closest approach will come at 2:25 p.m. ET, when the asteroid is zooming above the eastern Indian Ocean at a speed of almost 17,500 mph (7.8 kilometers per second). It'll be too dim to see with the naked eye, but observers in Australia, Asia and Europe might be able to follow it with binoculars or small telescopes if they know exactly where to look. (If you want to try it, follow the directions at the bottom of this item.)

 

Then there are the professionals: Astronomers around the world are tracking 2012 DA14 with optical telescopes and radar dishes to learn more about the asteroid's color, shape, spin and reflectivity. Such data could tell them what the object is made of, and perhaps provide insights into how similar objects could be diverted if they were on a threatening course. Which this one is not.

Experts estimate that asteroids the size of 2012 DA14 hit our planet every 1,200 years or so, exploding with the energy of a 2.5-megaton atomic bomb: The last such impact struck a remote region of Siberia without warning in 1908, flattening 820 square miles of forest. If an object that big were to hit in just the wrong place, it could wipe out a city. Coincidentally, a much smaller meteoroid came down over Russia on Friday, sparking a fireball and a glass-shattering shock wave.

The size of the asteroid 2012 DA14 in comparison to a football field (Click Image To Enlarge)

Even though the 150-foot-wide (45-meter-wide) asteroid is the biggest object of its kind to be seen coming this close to Earth, its orbit is so well-known that NASA's Near-Earth Object Program can rule out any chance of collision in the foreseeable future. And even though 2012 will fly 5,000 miles closer than satellites in geosynchronous orbit, NASA says its mostly south-to-north orbital path goes through a "sweet spot" that keeps it far away from those satellites — as well as from other spacecraft that are in closer orbits, including the International Space Station.

 

Thus, astronomers don't expect to see anything go boom on Friday. But they could pick up on some subtler phenomena, such as seismic disturbances in the asteroid that are induced by Earth's gravitational kick, or characteristics of the asteroid's spin that are affected by radiation absorption and emission.

This animated set of three images shows 2012 DA14 as it was observed by the Faulkes Telescope South in Australia on Feb. 14 at a distance of 465,000 miles. The asteroid is the moving bright spot in the middle.NASA's website provides details. Credit: LCOGT / E. Gomez / Faulkes South / Remanzacco Observatory. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Radar readings provide the best way to get a fix on the asteroid's shape and spin, in part because observations from multiple radio telescopes can be combined to produce a clearer picture. During 2012 DA14's flyby, radio telescopes in California, New Mexico and Puerto Rico will be tracking the asteroid. NASA's 230-foot (70-meter) dish at Goldstone, Calif., is expected to collect radar imagery good enough to produce a 3-D movie mapping the space rock from all sides.

Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth's north pole. Image credit of NASA-JPL-Caltech (Click Image To Enlarge)

Other telescopes, spread out from Australia to Israel to the Canary Islands to the U.S., will be gathering optical data — and the images from some of those telescopes will be shared on Friday. Here's the viewing schedule:

Noon ET: NASA plans to start streaming near-real-time imagery of the asteroid's flyby, as provided by telescopes in Australia and Europe, weather permitting. Watch JPL video on Ustream.

2 p.m. ET: To mark the time of closest encounter, NASA will present a half-hour program with commentary from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The show will feature computer animations as well as any live or near-real-time imagery that becomes available from telescopes in Australia. Watch video on NASA.gov or Ustream. (NBCNews.com also plans to stream the show.)

3:15 p.m. ET: The Bareket Observatory in Israel says it will air a three-hour webcast featuring imagery from the flyby. Static images of the asteroid and its celestial surroundings will be refreshed every 30 to 60 seconds. Watch Bareket's webcast.

5 p.m. ET: The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 will present live video of the asteroid flyby from a telescope in Italy, weather permitting. Video site: Watch Virtual Telescope Project's webcast.

6 p.m. ET: Weather permitting, the Clay Center Observatory in Massachusetts will stream real-time, high-definition video from 6 p.m. ET until 4 a.m. ET Saturday. Watch Clay Center video on Ustream.

9 p.m. ET: Slooh Space Camera plans to present several live shows about the asteroid flyby, accompanied by expert commentary. Weather permitting, imagery will be beamed to Slooh HQ from telescopes on the Canary Islands and in Arizona. Watch the show on Slooh.com.

9 p.m. ET: A video feed of the flyby from a telescope at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will be streamed for three hours. During the live-streaming event, viewers can ask researchers questions about the flyby via Twitter or the Ustream chat window. Watch Marshall's Ustream channel.

Got any other websites worth watching? Or any asteroid questions you're wondering about? Feel free to share them in your comments below.

COMMENTARY:  

Courtesy of an article dated February 15, 2013 appearing in NBC News Cosmic Log and an article date February 12, 2013 appearing in Space.com and an article dated February 14, 2013 appearing in Space.com and an article dated February 15, 2013 appearing in NASA.gov

10 TON METEORITE HITS RUSSIAN URALS, ITS FIREBALL EXPLOSION AND SHOCKWAVE WRECKS HAVOC, OVER 900 INJURED

Picture of the meteorite as it explodes into a huge fireball and sends a huge shockwave and rains debris down on Chelyabinsk in the Russian Urals (Click Image To Enlarge)

Russia’s Urals region has been rocked by a meteorite explosion in the stratosphere. The impact wave damaged several buildings, and blew out thousands of windows amid frigid winter weather. Hundreds have sought medical attention for minor injuries.

 

Around 950 people have sought medical attention in Chelyabinsk alone because of the disaster, the region's governor Mikhail Yurevich told RIA Novosti. Over 110 of them have been hospitalized and two of them are in heavy condition. Among the injured there are 159 children, Emergency ministry reported.

Army units found three meteorite debris impact sites, two of which are in an area near Chebarkul Lake, west of Chelyabinsk. The third site was found some 80 kilometers further to the northwest, near the town of Zlatoust. One of the fragments that struck near Chebarkul left a crater six meters in diameter.

Servicemembers from the tank brigade that found the crater have confirmed that background radiation levels at the site are normal.

A hole in Chebarkul Lake made by meteorite debris. Photo by Chebarkul town head Andrey Orlov. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Police officers, environmentalists and EMERCOM experts examine small 0.5-1 cm pieces of black matter left by the meteorite at the site of a meteorite hit in the Chelyabinsk Region (Click Image To Enlarge)

Experts working at the site of the impact told Lifenews tabloid that the fragment is most likely solid, and consists of rock and iron.

A local fisherman told police he found a large hole in the lake’s ice, which could be a result of a meteorite impact. The site was immediately sealed off by police, a search team is now waiting for divers to arrive and explore the bottom of the lake.

Samples of water taken from the lake have not revealed any excessive radioactivity or foreign material.

Weather sattelite Meteosat 10 has taken an image of the meteriote shortly after entering the atmosphere.(Copyright 2013 © EUMETSAT) (Click Image To Enlarge)

Russian space agency Roskosmos has confirmed the object that crashed in the Chelyabinsk region is a meteorite:

“According to preliminary estimates, this space object is of non-technogenic origin and qualifies as a meteorite. It was moving at a low trajectory with a speed of about 30 km/s.”

According to estimates by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the space object weighed about 10 tons before entering Earth’s atmosphere.

A bright flash was seen in the Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions, Russia’s Republic of Bashkiria and in northern Kazakhstan.

The Russian army has joined the rescue operation. Radiation, chemical and biological protection units have been put on high alert. Since the explosion occurred several kilometers above the Earth, a large ground area must be thoroughly checked for radiation and other threats.

According to preliminary reports, the worst damage on the ground in Chelyabinsk was at a zinc factory, the walls and roof of which were partially destroyed by an impact wave. The city's Internet and mobile service were reportedly interrupted because of the damage inflicted near the factory.

Chelyabinsk administration’s website said nearly 3,000 buildings were damaged to varying extents by the meteor shower in the city, including 34 medical facilities and 361 schools and kindergartens. The total amount of window glass shattered amounts to 100,000 square meters, the site said, citing city administration head Sergey Davydov. The ministry also said that no local power stations or civil aircraft were damaged by the meteorite shower, and that “all flights proceed according to schedule.”

Buildings were left without gas because facilities in the city had also been damaged, an Emergency Ministry spokesperson said, according to Russia 24 news channel. 

The Emergency Ministry reported that 20,000 rescue workers are operating in the region. Three aircraft were deployed to survey the area and locate other possible impact locations.

The trail of a falling object is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, on February 15, 2013.(AFP Photo - Oleg Kargopolov) (Click Image To Enlarge)

The regional Emergency Ministry denied  previous unconfirmed reports by local media that the meteorite was shot by  the military air defenses.

Witnesses said the explosion was so loud that it seemed like an earthquake and thunder had struck at the same time, and that there were huge trails of smoke across the sky. Others reported seeing burning objects fall to earth.

A spokesperson for the Urals regional Emergency Ministry center claimed it sent out a mass SMS warning residents about a possible meteorite shower. However, eyewitnesses said they either never received it, or got the message after the explosion had occurred. The Emergency Ministry has since denied sending out the SMS warning, and said the spokesperson that spread the false information “will be fired.”

Picture of windows damaged right after the impact of meteorite in Chelyabinsk (Click Image To Enlarge)

This picture taken by Pavel Berlet shows office damage in the city of Chelyabins (Click Image To Enlarge)

Classes for all Chelyabinsk schools have been canceled, mostly due to broken windows. Institute students have been dismissed until next Monday. Authorities also ordered all kindergartens with broken windows to return children to their families.

Police in the Chelyabinsk region are reportedly on high alert, and have begun ‘Operation Fortress’ in order to protect vital infrastructure.

Office buildings in downtown Chelyabinsk have been evacuated. An emergency message published on the website of the Chelyabinsk regional authority urged residents to pick up their children from school and remain at home if possible.

This picture shows exterior window damage to a building in Chelyabinsk. Photo courtesy Pavel Berlet (Click Image To Enlarge)

A man walks past a building with shattered windows after a meteorite shock wave in Chelyabinsk, Urals, Russia (Click Image To Enlarge)

The shockwave from the meteorite blast was so powerful that n some cases the entire window frames were torn from the windows (Click Image To Enlarge)

Those in Chelyabinsk who had their windows smashed are scrambling to cover the openings with anything available – the temperature in the city is currently -6°C.

Chelyabinsk regional governor Mikhail Yurevich said that preserving the city’s central heating system is authorities’ primary goal.

The governor said in and address to city residents.

“Do not panic, this is an ordinary situation we can manage in a couple of days.” 

Background radiation levels in Chelyabinsk remain unchanged, the Emergency Ministry reported.

Local zinc factory was damaged the severest, some of its walls collapsing (Photo from Twitter.com user @TimurKhorev) (Click Image To Enlarge)

Screenshot from YouTube user Gregor Grimm (Click Image To Enlarge)

Residents of the town of Emanzhilinsk, some 50 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, said they saw a flying object that suddenly burst into flames, broke apart and fell to earth, and that a black cloud had been seen hanging above the town. Witnesses in Chelyabinsk said the city’s air smells like gunpowder.

Many locals reported that the explosion rattled their houses and smashed windows. “This explosion, my ears popped, windows were smashed… phone doesn’t work,” Evgeniya Gabun wrote on Twitter.

Twitter user Katya Grechannikova reported.

“My window smashed, I am all shaking! Everybody says that a plane crashed.” 

Bukreeva Olga wrote on Twitter.

“My windows were not smashed, but I first thought that my house is being dismantled, then I thought it was a UFO, and my eventual thought was an earthquake.” 

The Mayak nuclear complex near the town of Ozersk was not affected by the incident, according to reports. Mayak, one of the world’s biggest nuclear facilities that used to house plutonium production reactors and a reprocessing plant, is located 72 kilometers northwest of Chelyabinsk.

NASA scientists said that the incident is not connected to  the approach of 2012 DA14, which measures 45 to 95 meters in diameter and will be passing by Earth tonight at around 19:25 GMT, at the record close distance of 27,000 kilometers.

Photo from Twitter.com user @varlamov (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:

Another Tunguska event?

The incident in Chelyabinsk bears a strong resemblance to the 1908 Tunguska event – an exceptionally powerful explosion in Siberia believed to have been caused by a fragment of a comet or meteor.

According to estimates, the energy of the Tunguska blast may have been as high as 50 megatons of TNT, equal to a nuclear explosion. Some 80 million trees were leveled over a 2,000-square-kilometer area. The Tunguska blast remains one of the most mysterious events in history, prompting a wide array of hypotheses on its cause, including a black hole passing through Earth and the wreck of an alien spacecraft.

Trees were flattened from the blast and shockwave from the meteorite that exploded above Tunguska in northern Siberia in 1908 (Click Image To Enlarge)

It is believed that if the Tunguska event had happened 4 hours later, due to the rotation of the Earth it would have completely destroyed the city of Vyborg and significantly damaged St. Petersburg.   

When a similar, though less powerful, unexplained explosion happened in Brazil in 1930, it was named the ‘Brazilian Tunguska.’ The Tunguska event also prompted debate and research into preventing or mitigating asteroid impacts.

Courtey of an article dated  February 15, 2013 appearing in RT.com

LAUNCHED IN 1977, NASA'S VOYAGER I IS NOW 11 BILLION MILES AWAY, LEAVING OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, TO ENTER INTERSTELLAR SPACE

Voyager 1 (Click Image To Enlarge) 

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space.

Scientists refer to this new region as a magnetic highway for charged particles because our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. This connection allows lower-energy charged particles that originate from inside our heliosphere -- or the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself -- to zoom out and allows higher-energy particles from outside to stream in. Before entering this region, the charged particles bounced around in all directions, as if trapped on local roads inside the heliosphere.

The heliopause marks the outerost edge of our solar system's heliosphere before entering interstellar space (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Voyager team infers this region is still inside our solar bubble because the direction of the magnetic field lines has not changed. The direction of these magnetic field lines is predicted to change when Voyager breaks through to interstellar space. The new results were described at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Monday.

Voyager spacecraft showing major subsystems (Click Image To Enlarge)

Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena said.

"Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway.  We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager."

The Voyager cover protects the Gold Record ans is made from aluminum with an electro-plating of the isotope uranium-238, which has a half-life of 4.51 billion years. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Voyager's Gold Record is a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth (Click Image To Enlarge)

Explanation of Voyager Recording Cover Diagram (Click Image To Enlarge)

Since December 2004, when Voyager 1 crossed a point in space called the termination shock, the spacecraft has been exploring the heliosphere's outer layer, called the heliosheath. In this region, the stream of charged particles from the sun, known as the solar wind, abruptly slowed down from supersonic speeds and became turbulent. Voyager 1's environment was consistent for about five and a half years. The spacecraft then detected that the outward speed of the solar wind slowed to zero.

 

The intensity of the magnetic field also began to increase at that time.

Voyager data from two onboard instruments that measure charged particles showed the spacecraft first entered this magnetic highway region on July 28, 2012. The region ebbed away and flowed toward Voyager 1 several times. The spacecraft entered the region again Aug. 25 and the environment has been stable since.

 

said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of the low-energy charged particle instrument, based at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

"If we were judging by the charged particle data alone, I would have thought we were outside the heliosphere.  But we need to look at what all the instruments are telling us and only time will tell whether our interpretations about this frontier are correct."

Spacecraft data revealed the magnetic field became stronger each time Voyager entered the highway region; however, the direction of the magnetic field lines did not change.

Data from Voyager 1 show an abrupt drop in solar ions (top) at the same time that the spacecraft detected an increased number of cosmic rays (bottom) from interstellar space (Click Image To Enlarge)

Leonard Burlaga, a Voyager magnetometer team member based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md said.

"We are in a magnetic region unlike any we've been in before -- about 10 times more intense than before the termination shock -- but the magnetic field data show no indication we're in interstellar space.  The magnetic field data turned out to be the key to pinpointing when we crossed the termination shock. And we expect these data will tell us when we first reach interstellar space."

Voyager 1 and 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977. At least one of the spacecraft has visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object, about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from the sun. The signal from Voyager 1 takes approximately 17 hours to travel to Earth. Voyager 2, the longest continuously operated spacecraft, is about 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away from our sun. While Voyager 2 has seen changes similar to those seen by Voyager 1, the changes are much more gradual. Scientists do not think Voyager 2 has reached the magnetic highway.

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

COMMENTARY:   NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. In it, the wind of charged particles streaming out from our sun has calmed, our solar system's magnetic field has piled up, and higher-energy particles from inside our solar system appear to be leaking out into interstellar space.    Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said. 

"Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system.  Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. We shouldn't have long to wait  to find out what the space between stars is really like."

-

Although Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space.  In the latest data, the direction of the magnetic field lines has not changed, indicating Voyager is still within the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. The data do not reveal exactly when Voyager 1 will make it past the edge of the solar atmosphere into interstellar space, but suggest it will be in a few months to a few years.

-

After 35 years of space travel, the twin Voyager planetary probes are nearing the very edge of Earth’s solar system. They will become the first man-made objects to travel between the stars.

Voyager 2 was launched first, on Aug. 20, 1977. Voyager 1 followed on Sept. 5, 1977. This was done because Voyager 2 would travel on a shorter path and would arrive at each planet ahead of Voyager 1.

Each Voyager spacecraft carries a golden record attached to its hull. The record is a 12-inch (30 cm) gold-plated copper disc containing sounds and images of Earth. If the Voyagers are eventually found by alien life forms, a diagram engraved into the record cover explains how to play the record.

As of mid-2012, both Voyager space probes are on the outskirts of our solar system, in a region called the “scattered disc.”  Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object at about 11 billion miles from Earth, twice as far as the dwarf planet Pluto. The Voyagers are expected to soon cross the heliopause, considered the boundary between Earth’s solar system and interstellar space. Both Voyagers continue to radio data back to Earth, and their nuclear batteries, though weakening, continue to provide electrical power.

Courtesy of a press release dated December 3, 2012 issued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, NASA and an article dated December 4, 2012 appearing in Scientific American Blog

ASTEROID 2011 AG5 IS 450 FEET IN DIAMETER, HAS A PROBABILITY OF 1 IN 625 OF HITTING EARTH ON FEB 5, 2040

An artist's illustratino of asteroids, or near-Earth objects, that highlight the need for a complete Space Situational Awareness system. Credit: ESA - P. Carril (Click Image To Enlarge)

Scientists are keeping a close eye on a big asteroid that may pose an impact threat to Earth in a few decades.

The space rock, which is called 2011 AG5, is about 460 feet (140 meters) wide. It may come close enough to Earth in 2040 that some researchers are calling for a discussion about how to deflect it.

Talk about the asteroid was on the agenda during the 49th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), held earlier this month in Vienna.

A UN Action Team on near-Earth objects (NEOs) noted the asteroid’s repeat approaches to Earth and the possibility — however remote — that 2011 AG5 might smack into our planet 28 years from now.

The object was discovered in January 2011 by Mount Lemmon Survey observers in Tucson, Ariz. While scientists have a good bead on the space rock's size, its mass and compositional makeup are unknown at present.

Gravity Simulator image of 2011 AG5 passing the Earth-Moon system in February 2040. Earth is the blue dot, the moon’s orbit is gray, and 2011AG5 is green. Simulation created with JPL Horizons data. CREDIT: Tony Dunn

An asteroid desktop exercise

Detlef Koschny of the European Space Agency’s Solar System Missions Division in Noordwijk, The Netherlands said.

"2011 AG5 is the object which currently has the highest chance of impacting the Earth … in 2040. However, we have only observed it for about half an orbit, thus the confidence in these calculations is still not very high." 

Koschny told SPACE.com.

"In our Action Team 14 discussions, we thus concluded that it not necessarily can be called a ‘real’ threat. To do that, ideally, we should have at least one, if not two, full orbits observed." 

Koschny added that the Action Team did recommend to the NEO Working Group of COPUOS to use 2011 AG5 as a "desktop exercise" and link ongoing studies to the asteroid.

Koschny said.

"We are currently also in the process of making institutions like the European Southern Observatoryaware of this object.  We hope to make the point that this object deserves the allocation of some special telescope time."

 

Non-zero impact probability

The near-Earth asteroid 2011 AG5 currently has an impact probability of 1 in 625 for Feb. 5, 2040, said Donald Yeomans, head of the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

This impact probability isn't set in stone, however. So far, researchers have been able to watch the asteroid for just a short time — the first nine months of 2011 — and the numbers may change after further observation, Yeomans told SPACE.com. 

Yeomans said.

"Fortunately, this object will be observable from the ground in the 2013-2016 interval."  

He added.

"In the very unlikely scenario that its impact probability does not significantly decrease after processing these additional observations, there would be time to mount a deflection mission to alter its course before the 2023 keyhole." 

Keyholes are small regions in space near Earth through which a passing NEO's orbit may be perturbed due to gravitational effects, possibly placing it onto a path that would impact Earth.

 

Video of a NASA Mission to intercept and deflect an asteroid

Prudent course of action

2011 AG5 may zip through such a keyhole on its close approach to Earth in February 2023, which will bring the asteroid within 0.02 astronomical units (1.86 million miles, or 2.99 million kilometers) of Earth.  One astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and sun, which is approximately 93 million miles (150 million km).

According to a JPL estimate, the 2023 keyhole — through which 2011 AG5 must pass in order for there to be a real chance of an Earth impact in 2040 – is roughly 62 miles (100 km) wide.

Yeomans noted, referring to the asteroid Apophis, which could threaten Earth in 2036 if it zips through a keyhole in 2029.

"Although this keyhole is considerably larger than the Apophis keyhole in 2029, it would still be a straightforward task to alter the asteroid’s trajectory enough to miss the keyhole – and hence the impact in 2040.  The prudent course of action is then to wait at least until the 2013 observations are processed before making any preliminary plans for a potential deflection mission." 

He added. 

"Processing additional observations in the 2013-2016 time period will almost certainly see the impact probability for 2011 AG5 significantly decrease."

An artist's impression of a giant space rock slamming into Earth 65 million years ago near what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. A consortium of scientists now says this was indeed what caused the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.  CREDIT: NASA/Donald E. Davis

Wanted: Higher-fidelity assessment

Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Near Earth Objects (NEO) Observations Program Executive in Washington, D.C. said. 

"Yes, the object 2011 AG5 was much discussed at the AT 14 meetings last week, but perhaps prematurely." 

Johnson said NEO watchers have flagged the asteroid "as one we should keep an eye on." At present, he said, while researchers have better preliminary orbit data for 2011 AG5 than for many other asteroids in the NEO catalog,

Johnson told SPACE.com. 

"We have only medium confidence in the derived orbital parameters.  Fortunately, we are confident our uncertainties in the current orbit model will be reduced when we will have good observation opportunities in September 2013 with the larger follow-up assets."

Observing opportunities are even better, he added, starting in November 2015 and for several months thereafter.

Johnson said.  

"This, in turn, will enable us to better assess the likelihood of any ‘keyhole’ passage in 2023 and therefore a much higher fidelity assessment of any impact probability for the 2040 time frame. So, rather than a need to immediately jump to space mission solutions, the situation with 2011 AG5 shows the value of finding potentially hazardous objects early enough so that there is time for a methodical approach of observation and assessment as input to any need for an expensive spacecraft mission.  A more robust survey capability would improve the data available to make such assessments."

A concept spacecraft could use gravity to tow asteroids away from a collision course with earth.
CREDIT: Dan Durda - FIAAA / B612 Foundation

Decision challenge

Long-time NEO specialist and former Apollo astronaut Russell Schweickart played an active role in the dialogue about 2011 AG5. He represented the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Committee on Near Earth Objects and presented to the Action Team an analysis of the situation with 2011 AG5.

Schweickart suggested.

"The space rock presents a decision challenge to the international community, in the unlikely chance that its current low, but significant probability of impacting Earth in 2040 continues to increase after additional tracking becomes available."

Schweickart spotlighted a rough Association of Space Explorers analysis of the options to deflect the asteroid in the future, in the unlikely scenario that the Earth impact probability continues to increase.

He also provided to the Action Team several new appraisals of options for deflection of asteroid 2011 AG5 to avoid a potentially dangerous Earth encounter in 2040.

The key moment of the Don Quijote mission: the Impactor spacecraft (Hidalgo) smashes into the asteroid while observed, from a safe distance, by the Orbiter spacecraft (Sancho). CREDIT: ESA - AOES Medialab

Delayed Deflection Campaign

A decision date for a keyhole deflection is very soon, if not now, Schweickart suggested. Asteroid 2011 AG5 represents an actual threat that underscores the need for a NEO hazard decision-making structure within the UN COPUOS, he said.

Based on the latest analysis, Schweickart reported, a deflection campaign delayed until after the 2023 close approach appears marginally possible, as long as a decision to commit is made immediately thereafter.

In the low-probability case in which the impact threat of the asteroid persists beyond its 2013 apparition.  

Schweickart said.

"Should a keyhole deflection campaign be foregone — for whatever reason — the international community may be faced with the difficult decision of choosing between an expensive multikinetic impactor or a nuclear explosive to prevent an impact should the NEO indeed pass through the keyhole." 

The timelines that would be required to mount a successful deflection of the asteroid, Schweickart told SPACE.com, might be challenging. 

But first things first — researchers stress that more study of the asteroid’s trajectory is called for. The next tracking opportunities of 2011 AG5 will occur in September 2013, and then again in November 2015.

NASA chief: We still have time

In response to a letter from Schweickart regarding 2011 AG5, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.  

"2011 AG5 is high on NASA’s list of NEOs to monitor for impact hazard potential.  We take these duties very seriously."

Bolden also noted the opportunities for highly accurate ground-based observations in the near future.

He said. 

"Based on these observations, a more informed assessment can then be made on the need for any type of mitigation."

Bolden also remarked that the asteroid makes an apparition in 2015, more than seven years before the close keyhole passage in 2023 that could set in motion an Earth impact in the 2040 time frame.

Bolden said.

"As a point of comparison, NASA’s Deep Impact mission [the Deep Impact probe smashed into comet Tempel 1 in July 2005] was conducted in six years from selection to impact under much less urgency, demonstrating the adequacy of a seven-year period for any necessary response." 

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of last year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

COMMENTARY:   Since 1999, NASA has developed more powerful space telescopes capable of searching into deep space and locating Near Earth Objects (NEOS) like asteroids and comets which could present a danger of colliding with Earth.    

In a blog post dated September 24, 2011, I reported that NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, or NEO, celebrated a milestone earlier in 2011 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.    The following graphs shows NEOs by year discovered, large asteroids and known NEOs.

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.

The majority of these NEOs do not present any eminent danger to Earth, but their discovery helps us keep track of them in case they ever do.  

In a blog post dated June 25, 2011, I told you about near Earth object 2005 YU55, an astroid the size of an aircraft carrier that came within 201,000 miles of Earth on November 8, 2011.   2005 YU55 will return in 2028.  

In a blog post dated November 8, 2011, Purdue University researchers determined what would've happened if 2005 YU55 had impacted earth.  Let's put it this way, the asteroid that hit Earth near Flagstaff, Arizona and is the same size as asteroid 2011 AG5, created a Meteor Crater, a crater over 2.4 miles in diameter and 550 feet deep.  If 2005 YU55 had hit Earth, it would've created a crater 4 miles in diameter and 1,700 feet deep.    

Courtesy of an article dated February 27, 2012 appearing in Space.com and an article dated October 4, 2011 appearing in Space.com

NASA'S GRAIL MOON GRAVITY MISSION TAKES 1ST PICS & VIDEO OF THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON, COULD SHED LIGHT ON WHETHER E.T. LIVES ON THE MOON

Artist concept of GRAIL mission. Grail will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail.

A gravity-mapping spacecraft orbiting the moon has beamed home its first video of the lunar far side — a view people on Earth never see.

The new video was captured by one of NASA's twin Grail probes using a novel camera called MoonKAM, which will eventually be used by students on Earth to snap photos of the lunar surface as part of an educational project. The two spacecraft have been circling the moon since they arrived in orbit over the New Year.

Maria Zuber, Grail principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, in a statement accompanying the video's release today said (Feb. 1).

"The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon."

Because the moon is tidally locked with Earth, it only presents one face to the planet's surface (the near side). The side of the moon that faces away from Earth is the far side. Only robotic spacecraft and Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon in the 1960s and 1970s have seen the far side of the moon directly. [New photo and video of the moon's far side]

Click Image To Enlarge

The new video is about 30 seconds long and shows the far side of the moon as a stark, scarred landscape. Dozens of craters are visible in the field of view.

 

As the video begins, the vast impact basin of Mare Orientale — which is 560 miles (900 kilometers) wide and straddles the near and far sides, is clearly visible in the lower third of the frame, according to a NASA description. To the left of the middle is the Drygalski crater, a 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) basin that stands out because of the star-shaped formation in its center.

Click Image To Enlarge

Click Image To Enlarge

While NASA released the lunar far side video today, it was actually recorded Jan. 19 by one of the Grail probes, which are now called Ebb and Flow. The Grail mission's name stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. Both spacecraft are equipped with their own MoonKAM (or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) cameras.

Click Images To Enlarge

The MoonKAM project is an effort led by former astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, to encourage student interest in science. It is the first set of cameras ever to fly on a NASA planetary probe that is completely dedicated to education and public outreach.

Under the program, thousands of students between fourth and eighth grade will be able to request targets on the moon to be photographed by the Grail probes via an operations center based in San Diego, Calif. Once the photos are taken, they will be sent to the students for further study, NASA officials said.

Click Images To Enlarge

Ride said, adding that the first moon photos taken by students will be recorded in mid-March 

"We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far.  I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering."

NASA launched the $496 million Grail mission in September 2011 on a tag-team mission to map the moon's gravity field like never before. The two washing machine-size spacecraft are currently lowering their orbits around the moon and will eventually begin the science phase of their mission once they reach a target altitude of just 34 miles (55 kilometers) above the lunar surface.

Click Images To Enlarge

Grail mission scientists will use minute changes in the positions of the lunar orbiters as they fly in tandem to map variations in the moon's gravitational field.

COMMENTARY:   

NASA Announces Names of GRAIL Moon Gravity Mission Twin Probes

NASA's twin gravity-mapping moon probes received their names on January 17, 2012, reflecting their mission to study the changing pull of Earth's natural satellite.

Now to be called "Ebb" and "Flow," the tandem Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (or Grail) spacecraft arrived in lunar orbit over the New Year weekend and were previously referred to simply as "A" and "B". Their new names were offered by fourth grade students in Bozeman, Mont., who were chosen as the winners of NASA's naming contest.

Maria Zuber, who as principal investigator leads the Grail probes' mission from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.

"The 28 students of Ms. Nina DiMauro's class at Emily Dickinson Elementary School have really hit the nail on the head.  We were really impressed that the students drew their inspiration by researching Grail and its goal of measuring gravity."

Zuber said.

"Ebb and Flow truly capture the spirit and excitement of our mission."  

NASA announced the new names in a press conference on Tuesday, January 17, 2012.

Last Manned Space Mission and Landing On The Moon

Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final manned space mission in NASA's Apollo space program. Launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972, with a three-member crew consisting of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmidt, Apollo 17 remains the last manned Moon landing.

 Apollo 17 lunar landing mission are: Commander, Eugene A. Cernan (seated), Command Module pilot Ronald E. Evans (standing on right), and Lunar Module pilot, Harrison H. Schmitt 

The Reason Why NASA Has Not Returned Astronauts To The Moon

It's very strange that NASA ended all manned space missions to the Moon since Apollo 17.   You would've thought by now that the U.S.  would have a permanent space colony on the Moon and we would be ferrying tourist flights to the Moon and back.  The lack of an atmosphere would make the Moon an excellent jumpoff point to other planets.  According to a few former NASA employees, there's a good reason why we've never been back to the moon.

The reason why NASA hasn't sent manned space missions to the Moon, or established bases there, is because the moon's swarming with unfriendly extraterrestrial life forms who have warned us not to land there.  It's even been alleged in NASA photographs taken by Moon orbiting satellites that massive alien bases and structures exist on the moon.   EnigmaTV produced a video titled "The Truth -- Why NASA Has Never Returned To The Moon," which sheds some light on this subject.

The Truth - Why NASA Has Never Returned To The Moon - Part 1:

 

The Truth - Why NASA Has Never Returned To The Moon - Part 2:

 

The following video is a photo compilation of the anomalies on the lunar surface including an alien spacecraft, and alledged extraterrestrial biological entity known as "Mona Lisa" found inside the alien craft, purported alien bases and ufo's leaving its surface.

 

This recent article on AOL News, Some Say Moon Photos Show Signs of Alien Life, Richard C. Hoagland, founder of The Enterprise Mission, an extensive private space research analysis website said.

"What NASA did not tell the American people is that it discovered the remains of an ancient lunar civilization, and to this day, that data and those artifacts have been withheld from the American people."

The Hollow Moon Theory or The Moon Is An Artificial Object

Another interesting theory is that the moon is hallow.  A few scientists have even suggested that the moon's an artificial object:

1. Carl Sagan, the late astrophysics and cosmologist said,  "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."   But meaning here that if it is hollow, it is not a natural satellite -- and therefore artificial.
2. Two members of the Soviet Academy of Science, former Soviet scientists, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, have theorized that the moon is a huge, hollowed-out planetoid that was sent into orbit around our world billions of years ago. They believe that the moon was hollowed out artificially, which means that it was done by some intelligence.
3. Possibly the strongest evidence for it to be a 'hollow object' comes from the fact that when meteors strike the Moon, the latter rings like a bell. More specifically when the Apollo crew in November 20, 1969 released the lunar module, after returning to the orbiter, the module impact with the Moon caused their seismic equipment to register a continuous reverberation like a bell for more than an hour. The same effect occurred with Apollo 13's third stage which caused the Moon to ring for over three hours. So what's going on with the Moon?
   

 

NASA's GRAIL Moon Gravity Mission will measure the Moon's magnetic field.  This could shed some light on whether the moon is a solid planetary object like our Earth, a hollowed out planetary object, or an artificial hollow object.  

NASA - Some Unanswered Questions

After nearly 40 years, why is NASA returning to the Moon?  They say GRAIL's mission is to measure the Moon's magnetic field, but is it for another reason?   Will NASA release copies of all the photos taken by the GRAIL Moon Gravity Mission?  Will those photos be unaltered?  NASA has often "touched" up photos to hide anomolies located on the Moon that resemble intelligently-made towers, buildings, bridges, domes and bases of unknown origin. Will NASA release their actual magnetic field findings to the scientific community?   Is this a prelude to a major extra-terrestrial disclosure?  Will NASA use this opportunity to finally disclose the existence of alien extra-terrestrial bases on the Moon?  How would you handle this news?  The Vatican wants to know how the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings could affect the teachings of the Catholic Church, so in late 2010, they met with NASA scientists to discuss the subject of extraterrestrials.  

Courtesy of an article dated February 2, 2012 appearing in Space.com and an article dated January 17, 2012 appearing in Space.com

 

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.

Click Image To Enlarge

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.

Click Image To Enlarge

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