NASA’s orbiter is sending back evidence of massive volcanism, strange impact craters and magnetic tornadoes that funnel plasma directly from the sun to the planet’s surface. We’re seeing a very dynamic planet that has a lot going on today.
{May 1, 2009} This Just in: Mercury More Exciting Than Mars
{April 7, 2009} Ex-Astronaut: Global Warming Is Bunk – Science
“global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision-making.”
{April 6, 2009} A Jewish Holiday, Once Every 28 Years
According to the celestial calculations of a Talmudic sage named Shmuel, at the outset of spring every 28 years, the sun moves into the same place in the sky at the same time and on the same day of the week as it did when God made it. This charged moment provides the occasion for reciting a one-line blessing of God, who makes the work of creation.
{February 9, 2009} The Elephant in the Room. Ignoring Unsustainable Growth
Despite all the debate about the economic crisis and possible remedies, there has been almost talk about the overriding issue; the transformation of our economy from unsustainable growth to sustainable growth. There are many possible effective solutions that are being overlooked.
{February 6, 2009} Armchair astronomer discovers unique ‘cosmic ghost’
Hanny van Arkel was poring over photos of galaxies on the Internet in August 2007 when she stumbled across a strange object in the night sky: a bright, gaseous mass with a gaping hole in its middle.
{January 30, 2009} Scientific Evidence from NASA Regarding 2012 Apocalypse
A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.
Severe Electrojet Disturbance Scenerio
The National Academy of Sciences in Washington conducted the study. The resulting report provides some of the first clear economic data that effectively quantifies today’s risk of extreme conditions in space driven by magnetic activity on the sun and disturbances in the near-Earth environment. Instances of extreme space weather are rare and are categorized with other natural hazards that have a low frequency but high consequences.
“Obviously, the sun is Earth’s life blood,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “To mitigate possible public safety issues, it is vital that we better understand extreme space weather events caused by the sun’s activity.”
Besides emitting a continuous stream of plasma called the solar wind, the sun periodically releases billions of tons of matter called coronal mass ejections. These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. Such space weather can affect the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems.
Space weather can produce solar storm electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and affecting communication cables that support the Internet. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles and the dislocation of the Earth’s radiation belts, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning and weather forecasting. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.
NASA: 2003 Solar Flare
A severe space weather event is likely when an intense flare occurs on the Earth-facing side of the sun. In 2003, this flare (left image) is followed immediately by an enormous interplanetary blast wave (right image) called coronal mass ejection or CME that propagates rapidly away from the sun towards Earth. Depending on severity and nature of the storm, the collision with Earth’s magnetic field called a geomagnetic storm can affect satellites, air travel and power grids. Credit: NASA
A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced forecasting capabilities. Without preventive actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the future.
NASA requested the study to assess the potential damage from significant space weather during the next 20 years. National and international experts from industry, government and academia participated in the study. The report documents the possibility of a space weather event that has societal effects and causes damage similar to natural disasters on Earth.
“From a public policy perspective, it is quite significant that we have begun the extremely challenging task of assessing space weather impacts in a quantitative way,” said Daniel Baker, professor and director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Baker chaired the panel that prepared the report.
“Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents, the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems,” said Baker. “We were delighted that NASA helped support bringing together dozens of world experts from industry and government to share their experiences and begin planning of improved public policy strategies.”
NASA: Geomagnetic Storm Image
The geomagnetic storms’ effects can be visualized over the U.S. by showing changes of the electron density in the Earth’s outermost atmospheric layers. The before image shows the ionosphere electron density as high over wide parts of the lower 48 states. The after image shows electrons strongly diminished over the central and northeastern parts of the U.S, and increased over the northwest. Extreme, rapid changes in the ionosphere can inflict strong currents in the power grid that may lead to blackouts. Credit: NASA
The sun is currently near the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. It is expected that solar storms will increase in frequency and intensity toward the next solar maximum, expected to occur around 2012.
The Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington provided funding for the study. The division seeks to understand the sun, its solar processes and the interaction of solar plasma and radiation with Earth, other planets and the universe. Understanding the connections between the sun and its planets will allow better prediction on the impacts of solar activity on humans, technological systems and even the presence of life itself in the universe.
The National Academies are chartered by Congress to provide independent technical and scientific advice to the federal government.
Source: Visit NASA.GOV for more information on this article and related topics
{January 27, 2009} Apocalypse in 2012?
Fueled by a crop of books, Web sites with countdown clocks, and claims about ancient timekeepers, interest is growing in what some see as the dawn of a new era, and others as an expiration date for Earth: December 21, 2012
{October 2, 2008} Glenn Beck: Alcoholics will save America
America needs to understand that many people have no clue what it’s like to truly hit the bottom. “The bottom is actually a very, very horrifying place that I never want to go back to again, but you know what? I’m kind of glad I was there.” – Glenn Beck
{September 30, 2008} Bailout and Rescue Who Plan?
My husband has been gravely concerned about the stock market lately and even more so after the stock market events of today. Apparently his 401(k) has pretty much been torn to shreds, just another wave of the working class chaos going on in America. Getting really old if you ask me, but of course – nobody does.
I don’t know who else was affected by the markets today – but I do know just by my own knowledge of the trickle-down theory – that all Americans are suffering at some level. I have been telling him about this website going on 2 years now. He wasn’t so impressed up until today’s market crash. I, on the other hand, have thought it absolutely mind-boggling since the day I stumbled upon it. They use a special program they developed to harvest keywords used in google, message boards, blogs, groups etc., and then they track them, chart them, study them – day after day, and somehow through this process they have their fingers on the very pulse of mankind, seriously.
This is all perfectly legal – I guess anyone that has actually read one of those privacy agreements understands what I mean. However, to keep it simple for him (since he is not a big user of the internet) I told him that all of the words on the entire internet are free for anybody who wishes to collect them. Bloggers use them all the time to pull interested people to their blogs, spammers use them, web developers use them, advertisers use them, politicians use them…. pretty much everyone that wants to get into your mind and see what you think, uses them. This site just makes that info open to the general public.
Anyway, to keep it short – below is a snippet of this morning’s post. They forecasted the bank/housing crash many many moons ago and have long been talking about the kind of crash that occurred today, as usual – I find their opinion timely and right on target.
(if you enjoy the article – please leave a comment – even if you don’t, I’m open-minded)
I Call it B.S. – The Fix Is In
www.urbansurvival.com
Let’s have a little chat about “Bailout/Stabilization” with the first cup of coffee this morning. The long and short of the discussion ought to begin with “Do we believe in ‘free markets’ or not?” The answer is important because in genuine free markets, banks would be failing by the dozens and the folks who set up a floating craps game based on your regular house payments as a revenue stream beneath it all, would be thrown out of business (and in jail for fraud) and while there would be momentary pain and suffering, the ‘free market’ would do its job and clear out the mis-investment and mal-investment that has characterized serial bubbles since 2000.
If you think that’s a snide reference on my part to the Internet Bubble, Housing Bubble, and now the Housing Bubble Collapse, and now the Banker Bubble, congratulations, you have a pulse, it’s Monday, now get your ass back to work.
With just over a week to go until our “hot date” of October 7th shows up, hot based on the predictive linguistics work of www.halfpasthuman. com, we read this morning how the PowersThatBe are trying to ‘fix’ the outcome of the present ‘bailout debate’ in Washington so as to save the hides of the Bankster Class and do as little as possible for the back-home folks who write the checks.
Not that this is a ‘first time’ kind of event, but the grandeur of this latest scheme to steal from the American public is almost unbelievably large. So large, in fact, that most people won’t look it square in the eye and call it “crime” – although that’s more of less what it is. Until it’s passed by CONgress, then it becomes law. Magic.
While I realize that’s a serious charge to be made, a conversation with my friend The Bond Dude, made it perfectly clear to me that this latest “bailout” is nothing more than the bought-off right wing/conservatives getting one more big pay day from the corporate trough.
For openers, the proposed bailout does about zip – other than make promises which we’ve heard bandied about previously, to the folks who actually go to work trying to hang onto their homes.
“Until these geniuses can actually do something about the underlying causes of the problem, explained The Bond Due, the economy is going to crater and we’ll get to your Bastille Day.”
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AT www.urbansurvival.com
