Science & TechnologyS


Comet

Comet K2 enters the inner solar system, sudden drop in cosmic rays detected in 2021 during geomagnetic storm


Space Weather
Wed, 29 Jun 2022 10:12 UTC
Comet C/2017 K2 Panstarrs
© Michael JaegerComet C/2017 K2 Panstarrs
Taken by Michael Jaeger on June 25, 2022 @ Martinsberg Austria
For the past 3 million years, Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) has been falling toward the sun--a long, slow journey from the Oort cloud. Finally, it's here. Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jaeger photographed "Comet K2" entering the inner solar system on June 25th:

"This is a 22-minute exposure with my 16-inch telescope," says Jaeger. "The comet was about 9th magnitude."

Comet K2 caused a sensation when it was discovered in 2017. At first, it appeared to be one of the biggest comets in modern history, with a nucleus as much as 160 km wide. Hubble Space Telescope observations have since downsized it to 18 km. That's still big (typical comet nuclei measure 1 to 3 km), but not a record setter. K2 is comparable in size to Halley's Comet.

The comet will make its closest approach to Earth (1.8 AU away) on July 14th, brightening to 7th or 8th magnitude. This is too dim to see with the naked eye, but an easy target for backyard telescopes. A good time to look is now before the full Moon of July 13th interferes. Comet K2 may be found high in the midnight sky in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Comment: See also: Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein confirmed as largest ever observed, twice the size of Hale-Bopp

And check out SOTT radio's:

Read More...
Mars

NASA rover finds new potential evidence for ancient life on Mars

Victor Tangermann
Futurism
Tue, 28 Jun 2022 07:35 UTC
mars rover
© NASA
While examining eight-year-old data from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, scientists have made a tantalizing new discovery: the "total organic carbon," a key ingredient of life, is surprisingly high in the Martian rocks the rover was scanning.

While the organic carbon may have originated from non-living sources, including meteorites and volcanoes, the discovery does lend modest new support to the theory that Mars may have been teeming with life billions of years ago, with an atmosphere allowing for the presence of rivers and entire oceans.


Comment: Did Earth 'Steal' Martian Water?


"Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology," said Jennifer Stern of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a statement.

In fact, the carbon levels were comparable to some parts of Earth, albeit desolate ones.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Attention

Big comet approaching Earth and getting brighter


SpaceWeather.com
Tue, 28 Jun 2022 19:11 UTC
For the past 3 million years, Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) has been falling toward the sun, a long, slow journey from the outer solar system. Finally, it's here. Michael Jaeger photographed it on June 25th from Martinsberg, Austria:
Comet C/2017 K2
© SpceWeather.com
"This is a 22-minute exposure with my 16-inch telescope," says Jaeger. "The comet was about 9th magnitude."
Read More...
Moon

Mystery surrounds craters caused by Moon crash

Jamie Johnson
Independent.ie
Tue, 28 Jun 2022 02:30 UTC
The Moon.
© NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University via APThe Moon.
Nasa scientists are baffled by a mystery spacecraft that crashed into the Moon creating two large craters.

Despite being tracked since 2015, no one has claimed the rocket. It was travelling at 5.3km a second when it met the lunar surface on March 4, but new images by Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show that the impact was unlike anything seen before.

"Surprisingly, the crater is actually two craters, an eastern one (18m diameter) superimposed on a western one (16m diameter)," the agency said.
Read More...
Telescope

Three rare & mysterious atmospheric phenomena observed in one night for first time, revealed after reviewing data 2015

Bob Yirka
Phys.org
Fri, 24 Jun 2022 19:41 UTC
atmospheric phenomena
© Geophysical Research Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1029/2022GL098511(a) A wide stable auroral red (SAR) arc is observed at 09:27 UT (left), a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) at 09:51 UT (center), and a partial arc with green picket fence structures at 10:02 UT (right). Auroral activity is observed at the bottom (south) of each image. West is to the right; (b, c, and d) show decomposed images in red, green, and blue colors, respectively, at the same times as panel (a). At 09:27 UT (left) no arc is observed in the green and blue channels. At 09:51 UT (center), the three channels detect the arc. At 10:02 UT (right), the main emission comes from the green channel where picket fence structures are observed. A partial arc is also observed in the red channel to the right of the image.
A team of researchers from New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada has confirmed the first observation of a SAR arc evolving into a STEVE. In their paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the group details their analysis of multiple sets of data used to describe the rare and unique atmospheric event and what it showed them about such events in general.

In 2015, citizen scientist I. Griffith noticed something unusual happening in the night sky above him over Dunedin, New Zealand. An arc of light, which he described as blood red, moved across the dark sky. Intrigued, he grabbed his camera and began filming the action. Over the course of the next 30 minutes, the arc slowly transformed into what has come to be known as a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). Curious about what he had witnessed, he sent what he had captured to the professional stargazers at the University of Otago, also in Dunedin. Also intrigued, the group sent the images to other colleagues. Eventually a team of researchers was formed to study the event.

Comment: Is it these types of events have always been occurring above our heads without us realising it, or could it be that that Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) events of various kinds are on the rise?

Read More...
Info

Turtles can switch off cellular aging

Birgitte Svennevig
University of Southern Denmark
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 05:05 UTC
Different Turtles
© WikimediaFour turtle species: Red-bellied short-necked turtle (Emydura subglobosa), Indian flapshell turtle (Lissemys punctata), Galápagos tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra), and Hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).
Reduce weakening and deterioration with age. Evolutionary theories of ageing predict that all living organisms weaken and deteriorate with age and eventually die. Now, researchers show that certain animal species, such as turtles and tortoises, may exhibit slower or even absent senescence when their living conditions improve.

All living organisms age and die - there is no way of escaping death. But not all organisms follow the same pattern of weakening and deterioration to old age and death, a process known as senescence.

Counter-intuitive as it may seem.

Contrary to widespread theories of aging, we show that many species of turtles and tortoises have found a way to slow down or even completely switch off senescence. This means that senescence is not inevitable for all organisms, said biologist Rita da Silva, who was at University of Southern Denmark when the work was done.

She and other researchers from University of Southern Denmark have published a new study in Science, looking at tortoises and turtles living in zoos and aquariums.
Read More...
Info

Serious issues with plate tectonics

Stephen Smith
The Thunderbolts Project
Wed, 08 Jun 2022 19:53 UTC
Geological map of Alaska showing various exotic terranes.
© USGSGeological map of Alaska showing various exotic terranes.
David Pratt's publication in the year 2000 enumerates multiple problems affecting the theory of plate tectonics and seafloor spreading.

The above schematic of Alaska reveals regions of rock strata that appear to have "accreted" to an original craton. Southern Alaska is composed of fragments in all shapes and sizes, each one telling its own tale. They are all "exotic terranes", formed at different places and times. How they were transported to their present location, and why some are rotated with respect to adjoining terranes is a mystery.

Some exotic terranes arrived from regions on the other side of the world, while others are from nearby locations. They are each quite different from one another in their characteristics, representing strata from many so-called "geologic ages". There are deposits from the Quaternary period lying in proximity to those from the Cambrian and Mesozoic periods. Those epochs represent hundreds of millions of years. If the theory of continental movement is correct, then "collisions" between landmasses took place more than a dozen times in Alaska. However, each terrane is not arranged side-by-side with its neighbor, they are intermixed with each other, as the schematic reveals.

Another puzzling aspect to the terrane lithography is that some of it is oceanic crust, while some is continental. Some terranes appear to be from volcanic islands. Others appear to be the remains of continental shelves from South America. Less than one percent of Alaska is thought to be from the "original" North American continent.

In the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 3, pages 307-352, David Pratt took issue with the theory of tectonic displacement of continental and ocean floor structure. As he wrote: "The classical model of thin lithospheric plates moving over a global asthenosphere is shown to be implausible."
Read More...
Map

Detected: Intelligent designs in the Amazon jungle

David Coppedge
Evolution News
Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:45 UTC
Amazon jungle
"'Mind blowing' ancient settlements uncovered in the Amazon," shouted a headline on Nature News last month. "The urban centres are the first to be discovered in the region, challenging archaeological dogma."

What happened? Haven't scientists been exploring Amazonia for decades? Haven't orbiting spacecraft been watching every square mile of the Earth since the beginning of the space program? Yes: but there were designs in the Amazon jungles hiding in plain sight — signs of intelligence that would not have been noticed by a land explorer or orbiter measuring with ordinary cameras. The secret was revealed with a new imaging technology attached to a helicopter.
Read More...
Sun

Daily Sceptic 'fact checked' over claim that CO2 increase lags behind global warming so cannot cause it - but that is what the data show

Chris Morrison
The Daily Sceptic
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 21:15 UTC
fakefact blocks
© unknown
Another week, another climate 'fact check' for the Daily Sceptic. Four in the last month - not a single fact proved wrong, but plenty of gripes from green activists about scientific interpretations. Maybe it is time for an appearance by the Monty Python Colonel, who frequently interrupted sketches by claiming they were "too silly".

Virginia-based academic public relations company Newswise has claimed our June 10th article titled "Net Zero Shock: Carbon Dioxide Rises AFTER Temperature Increases, Scientists Find", was "mostly false". The Newswise story was written by Editor-in Chief Craig Jones and Texas-based professor of atmospheric sciences Andrew Dessler. Professor Dessler is a man of considerable scientific certitude, and has been described as the "alarmist's alarmist".

In our article, we reported that two climate science professors, Demetris Koutsoyiannis and Zbigniew Kundzewicz, sequenced the changes in temperatures and carbon dioxide growth rates from 1980 to 2019 from widely available sources, and discovered that CO2 values lagged temperature by about six months. The scientists made the obvious point that in attempting to prove causality by stating that increases in temperature are the result of human-caused CO2, cause cannot lag effect. I went on to note that other scientists had struggled to find evidence that CO2 was the global climate thermostat knob. In 2015, Professor Ole Humlum from the University of Oslo found similar lags in the recent record. In addition, the Vostock Ice Core, providing 422,766 years of Antarctic snow accumulation, showed that CO2 lagged the onset of glaciations by several thousands of years. Finally, a wider reconstruction of CO2 and temperature going back 600 million years to the start of life on Earth showed few correlations between the two.
Read More...
Chalkboard

How hyper-dimensional spacetime may explain individual identity

Bernard Carr
Essentia Foundation
Mon, 06 Jun 2022 18:34 UTC
abstract
How can one natural consciousness appear to be many? Prof. Bernard Carr proposes that multiple dimensions of time, which can also be associated with the notion of a 'specious present,' can resolve the problem both rigorously and in an intuitively satisfying manner. This is a long-form essay that will demand attention and patience from the reader, and perhaps more than one read. But it is also one of the most important essays we've ever published, and one that handsomely rewards the effort it requires. It illustrates how fast we can advance to solutions to our basic questions regarding the nature of self and the universe when world-class cosmologists, such as Prof. Carr, approach the problem without metaphysical prejudices.

Bernardo Kastrup's essay How Can You Be Me? has kindly mentioned my own approach to this question, but without giving many details, so this prompts me to elaborate on the topic. I should explain at the outset that I regard the problem of personal identity (1st personhood) as one the most profound questions not only in philosophy but also in science. Indeed, I will argue that the question Why Am I Me? (slightly different from, but closely related to, Bernardo's question) is fundamentally unanswerable within the current scientific paradigm. Of course, this question not only confronts myself and Bernardo, it also applies to any conscious being, including any readers of this article.

The problem of 1st personhood is also closely related to the problem of the passage of time, which is also unanswerable within the current paradigm. Indeed, as Bernardo clearly appreciates, the question Why Am I Me? is closely related to the question Why Is It Now? Both questions have been the focus of extensive literature in philosophical circles, but I will argue that there is also a link with physics (my own professional field) and this has received rather scant attention. This is because both problems involve consciousness and this is usually regarded as going beyond the remit of physics, which is traditionally concerned with the 3rd person account of the world. However, the situation has changed in recent years and several respectable physicists have now begun to address this problem. Nevertheless, I should stress that my own proposal does not represent the mainstream view of physicists.
Read More...