Sky Shadows

Great Balls of Fire

The Boss — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:52:53 +0000

That “Space News” scroll on the left moves by fairly fast, so you may have missed this amazing photograph taken from the International Space Station (ISS). Take a look.

Another amazing space photo is this one of the first “solar sail” spacecraft. The story of this Japanese probe is quite amazing.

Blog Shape Shifting

The Boss — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:34:56 +0000

The Science News from AP has been dead for over a week. I give up. So I’ve replaced it with a space news feed from Feedzilla. You’ll see a few ads float through but hey, the price is right. Just mouse over the little window to get the scroll to stop.

We’ll see how it works. And there are lots of RSS feeds around. If I find a better one I’ll make changes.

Angel, 55 years old and still on the job

The Boss — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:54:56 +0000

The Times of London Online has an interesting story about the use of the U2 spyplane in Afghanistan. The veteran of all U.S. wars since the mid-fifties is the best spotter of Taliban road-side bombs. From 70,000 feet the planes high-resolution camera can spot slight changes in dry mud paths where the Taliban buries improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These locations are often missed by ground patrols.

A defense specialist said, “Earth disturbance is one crucial way of uncovering buried IEDs. The U2 can take a series of images and then check one lot of pixels against another lot to detect changes above and below the surface”.

The specialist added, “The point about the U2 is that it has a pilot on board who can react to what he is seeing and the camera equipment he has produces phenomenal imagery.”

This latest deployment of this remarkable airplane is a tribute to the work of Kelly Johnson and the “Skunk Works” crew.

The British Invasion

The Boss — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:37:09 +0000

The British Ministry of Defence and National Archives have released another installment in their three year project. Highlights include original statements taken at Rendlesham, an illuminated blue triangle that left a white substance when it flew off, and a report of a hovering ‘Toblerone-shaped’ craft – sketch included. The report will be available for downloading for the next month at the UK National Archives, along with a video and a guide to researching the files.

It’s fun reading.

They’re Here! (maybe)

The Boss — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:23:39 +0000

Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal,said the chance of discovering alien life is greater than ever. He believes the newer space telescopes will make it easier to dicover earth like planets orbiting distant stars. He said, “Technology has advanced so that for the very first time we can actually have the realistic hope of detecting planets no bigger than the earth orbiting other stars.” Rees made his comments at a gathering of scientists in London for a conference on the possibilities of discovering extra-terrestrial life.

Also attending is physicist Professor Paul Davies of Arizona State University. He thinks that instead of scanning the heavens we should search inhospitable areas of earth such as deserts for “weird” microbes that might belong to a “shadow biosphere”. He told the London Dail Mail, ‘We need to give up the notion that ET is sending us some sort of customised message and take a new approach.”

But the majority of the scientific community believe the search in outer space remains our best bet for finding aliens. Professor Colin Pillinger remains sceptical of focusing our search on Earth. He said, “I prefer to deal in scientific fact – this is wildly science fiction. You’d be off your trolley to go searching for arsenic-based life.”

Weird microbes in the desert? Maybe this explains some of the characters I’ve seen wandering around Area 51.

Great Ball of Fire

The Boss — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:10:58 +0000

In a report to 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society last week, astronomer Peter Garnavich of the University of Notre Dame and his collaborators revealed their discovery of a star that exploded when its center became so hot that matter and anti-matter were created. The explosion of the star, dubbed Y-155, was visible almost half way across the universe.

The group discovered the exploding star during ESSENCE supernova search. Garnavich said, “ESSENCE found many explosions in our 6 years of searching, but Y-155 stood out as the most powerful and unusual of all our discoveries.” Although because if its distance the star appears a million times fainter than the human eye can see, Garnavich added, “If Y-155 had exploded in the Milky Way it would have knocked our socks off.” And probably would have contributed heavily to “Global Warming”.

You can read more about it at Space Daily.

Spiral

The Boss — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:19:42 +0000

Was it a UFO? Was it a meteor? Was it an early visit from Santa Claus? Or maybe is was a star, honoring the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Or was it a Russian rocket test? (The Russians say, “nyet”.) But they did admit to a ballistic missile launch from the submarine “Dmitry Donskoi”, although they didn’t disclose it’s location.

No one knows for sure, but the speculations on the internet have gone wild. You can see a video here on YouTube, and a complete story at CNN.

We report. You decide.

Underground Laboratories

The Boss — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:51:48 +0000

Tales of secret underground laboratories abound in the lore of UFOs. But now there’s a real deep underground lab, and it’s no secret. The Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab(DUSEL) is being built in the old Homestake gold mine at Lead, South Dakota. There have been other labs built in the old mine in the past, particularly a neutrino detector, but until recently the mine was sealed and filling with water. The first efforts are to get the water out; other work will follow. The DUSEL will be at the 4850 level to start, with other labs planned as deep as 8000 feet.

UFO to the Rescue

The Boss — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:40:09 +0000

Did a UFO save the world from a collision with an 1 billion ton meteorite? That’s the supposition put forth by Russian scientist Yuriy Lavbin. In an article from the Macedonian International News Agency (MINA), Lavbin says that Siberian scientists, searching river banks near the site of the 1908 Tunguska meteorite crash, found unusual quartz boards; solid stones that do not exist on Earth. And there were strange drawings on the stones. Scientist could not duplicate them, even with the most powerful lasers available. They theorize a UFO carrying the stones put itself between the meteor and the earth, breaking it up and deflecting most of it away from earth. Of course it didn’t do much good to the UFO.

I don’t know what those altruistic aliens would do with those solid stones on a UFO. The weight might cause problems with flight. Of course that may explain all those crashes in New Mexico. But if you read it on Macedonian International News Agency website, who can argue with that. The story was even picked up by Fox News.

‘Nuf said.

Up, Up and Away

The Boss — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:35:47 +0000

Another “UFO” sighting in Arizona has come down to earth, but it wasn’t aliens or a weather balloon. Residents from all over the northern part of the state saw what some described as a ”gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz”. But rather than Dorothy and Toto it was massive NASA research balloon. According to Bill Stepp of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, the balloon was launched Sunday morning from Fort Sumter in central New Mexico. It came down Monday evening just south of Kingman, Arizona. The purpose of the flight was measurement of gamma ray emissions at high altitudes. Stepp said the balloon usually floats at an altitude of 130,000 feet, so on a clear day it can be seen for about 170 miles.

One question. Aren’t the usual jet stream winds at that altitude from west to east? The balloon traveled from east to west.

That should keep conspiracy seekers busy.