Random Thoughts, Random Places

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.