Posts tagged 2012

Space weather – variable conditions in the space surrounding Earth – has important consequences for our lives inside Earth’s atmosphere. Solar activity occurring miles outside Earth’s atmosphere, for example, can trigger magnetic storms on Earth. These storms are visually stunning, but they can set our modern infrastructure spinning. On Jan. 19, scientists saw a solar flare in an active region of the Sun, along with a concentrated blast of solar-wind plasma and magnetic field lines known as a coronal mass ejection that burst from the Sun’s surface and appeared to be headed for Earth. When these solar winds met Earth’s magnetic field, the interaction created one of the largest magnetic storms on Earth recorded in the past few years. The storm peaked on Jan. 24, just as another storm began. “These new storms, and the storm we witnessed on Sept 26, 2011, indicate the up-tick in activity coming with the Earth’s ascent into the next solar maximum,” said USGS geophysicist Jeffrey Love.” This solar maximum is the period of greatest activity in the solar cycle of the Sun, and it is predicted to occur sometime in 2013, which will increase the amount of magnetic storms on Earth. Magnetic storms, said Love, are a space weather phenomenon responsible for the breathtaking lights of the aurora borealis, but also sometimes for the disruption of technology and infrastructure our modern society depends on.

Disruptions on Earth: Large magnetic storms, for example, can interrupt radio communication, interfere with global-positioning systems, disrupt oil and gas well drilling, damage satellites and affect their operations, and even cause electrical blackouts by inducing voltage surges in electric power grids. Storms can also affects airline activity — as a result of last weekend’s storm, both Air Canada and Delta Air Lines rerouted flights over the Arctic bound for Asia as a precautionary measure. Although the storm began on the 19th of January, it did not peak until January 24th. While this particular storm had minor consequences on Earth, other large storms can be crippling, Love said. He noted that the largest storm of the 20th century occurred in March, 1989, accompanied by auroras that could be seen as far south as Texas, and sent electric currents into Earth’s crust that made their way into the high-voltage Canadian Hydro-Quebec power grid. This caused the transformer to fail and left more than 6 million people without power for 9 hours. The same storm also damaged and disrupted the operation of satellites, GPS systems, and radio communication systems used by the United States military. While large, the 1989 storm pales in comparison to one that occurred in September 1859 and is the largest storm in recorded history. Scientists estimate that the economic impact to the United States from a storm of the same size in today’s society could exceed $1 trillion as a result of the technological systems it could disrupt. The USGS, a partner in the multi-agency National Space Weather Program, collects data that can help us understand how magnetic storms may impact the United States. Constant monitoring of Earth’s magnetic field allows us to better assess the impact of these phenomena on Earth’s surface.

(Source: theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com)

Can’t touch this: Scientists are trying to build an asteroid shield to protect Earth from the giant space rocks. In three years they hope to have a plan to test devised

Scientists are trying to find a way to protect Earth from the giant rocks which travel around the Milky Way.

Run out of Berlin with funds from the EU, the NEOShield project, which will look for a way to protect earth from the space rocks, is expected to take three years to complete.

Some of the ideas being tossed around at the moment include repelling asteroids with projectiles or explosives or using gravity to change its course.

The project though is a little late as a chunk of rock 400 times the City of London is set to hurtle closer than a rock of its size has in a very long time.

The asteroid labelled ‘(433) Eros’ measures 19 by 8 by 8 miles and is set to pass by next week.

Despite its massive size, the cosmic rock shouldn’t be too cause too much of a threat as it is on a circular path far outside the moon’s orbit.

A smaller bus-sized asteroid is also set to pass extremely close to Earth today

The asteroid 2012 BX34, will pass within 36,750 miles of Earth at about 3:30 p.m. Friday, tweeted astronomers with NASA’s Asteroid Watch program.

Even though this is more than five times closer than the moon, at 11 meters wide, it won’t be any threat to earth.

‘It wouldn’t get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try,’ Asteroid Watch scientists tweeted yesterday.

Nevertheless, with NASA estimating that there are almost one thousand asteroids over one kilometre in length and 19,500 over 100-metres, scientists at the

With an investment of some €4 million by the European Commission and an extra €1.8 million coming from scientific institutions and partners, the German Aerospace Center aims to have a plan for a test mission drafted within three years.

After that, if they can find the extra cash, the mission may be launched by 2020.

The scientists will be looking at a host of ideas, many of which have already been proposed.

For one, there’s the ‘kinetic impactor’ plan where a massive projectile would deflect the asteroid.

Another is the ‘gravity tractor’ idea where a small probe would linger near the asteroid and use its gravitational traction to move it out of Earth’s way.

Or, like waging an all-out space war, some have suggested a full scale strike with nuclear missiles.

‘Of course, a lot of things have already been proposed,’ Alan Harris, the study’s leader, told Spiegel Online.

‘But, so far, most of them have come from a single institution, perhaps even from a single person. So it has been hard to pursue them.’

Investigating each idea ‘will take place on paper and in lab experiments, since we don’t have the money to do more than that,’ said Wolfram Lork, who works with a subsidiary on the project.

One other, coarser idea would be ‘blast deflection’ which would involve deterring the asteroid with directed explosive charges. Harris says this would be the ‘final, desperate approach.’

‘We would like to present plans for a feasible, affordable mission.

‘We want to show the world it can be done,’ Harris said, adding that the ultimate solution might be a combining a gravity tractor with a kinetic impactor.

By observing the huge craters around the world - such as the Barringer Crater in Arizona or the Nördlinger Ries near Munich - scientists know that asteroids have struck Earth in its history and that, without action, they could well strike again.

A small asteroid the size of a city bus zoomed between Earth and the moon’s orbit late on Friday just days after its discovery, but it never posed a threat to our planet, NASA says.

The asteroid 2012 BX34 passed within 59,044 kilometers of Earth when it made its closest approach.

The space rock is about 11 metres wide and would have broken apart in Earth’s atmosphere long before it reached the ground, if it had reached the planet at all, NASA scientists said.

“Asteroid 2012 BX34 is small,” astronomers with NASA’s Asteroid Watch at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a Twitter message. “It wouldn’t get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try.”

The space rock passed Earth at a distance that is only about 0.17 times that between the Earth and the moon. For comparison, the moon typically orbits Earth at a distance of about 386,000 km.

“Asteroids this small are hard to spot, & luckily they pose the least concern,” Asteroid Watch scientists explained. “Our goal is to find the bigger ones.”

In September, NASA announced that it has spotted about 90 percent of the largest asteroids (the size of a mountain or bigger) that can come near Earth. About 911 such giant space rocks have been confirmed.

Astronomers estimate there are about 981 big near-Earth objects that occasionally creep close to our planet.

Asteroid 2012 BX34 was the second space rock to fly relatively close by Earth this week, Asteroid Watch scientists said.

On January 23, another small asteroid — called 2012 BS1 — passed by the planet at a range of about 1.2 million km, which is about 3.1 times the Earth-moon distance.

“Asteroid 2012 BS1 is so small (about 7 meters) it would disintegrate in our atmosphere if it were to come close to Earth,” the Asteroid Watch team wrote.

Astronomers with NASA and other science teams routinely scan the skies in search of near-Earth asteroids that could pose a danger to the planet.

Experts estimate that asteroids about 140 m across and bigger can cause widespread devastation near their impact sites, though a larger space rock would be required to cause destruction on a global scale.

This week, scientists from around the world are also discussing how Earth should respond to the threat of an asteroid impact. The so-called NEOShield project is a European commission led by the German Aerospace Center and includes scientists from universities and industrial partners in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and Russia.

(Source: Yahoo!)

The end? The Aztec Mayan calendar that predicts the world will end in December

Deep inside a secret room buried for eons within an ancient stone temple in Mexico, something dark and terrible has finally stirred.

Or so the doomsayers, with their vivid imaginations, would have you believe.

The sands of time are running out for the world and not even Indiana Jones can save us now.

The astrological alignments and numerological formulae cannot be wrong: on December 21 this year, the apocalypse foretold 5,125 years ago by the ancient Mayans will come to pass and the world will end.

Of course, it’s fair to say predictions of Armageddon are two a penny.

Harold Camping, an American radio preacher, got thousands of followers worked up when he predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on May 21 last year.

When that didn’t happen, he said the world would end on October 21. And then he quietly retired from his radio show.

But the ‘2012 phenomenon’ — as it is commonly known to its legions of internet followers — is different.

For the Mayans, a famously wise and advanced civilisation which was at its height between 250 and 900AD in the present-day Mexican state of Yucatan and Guatemala, have grabbed everyone’s attention.

The evidence boils down to one simple fact: their 5,125-year calendar — the one used across Central America before the arrival of Europeans — runs out on December 21 this year.

The point is that the Mayans were noted for their extraordinary astronomical observations and mathematical powers.

And if they didn’t think it worth taking their calendar beyond

Public concern is so high that NASA, the U.S. space agency, even has a section debunking the theories of impending doom on its website.

The agency says it has taken more than 5,000 questions from people, some asking if they should kill themselves, their families or their pets.

Archaeologists who have studied the Mayans have been downplaying the apocalypse theories, insisting that the only surviving Mayan reference to any dreadful significance attached to December 21, 2012, was contained on a single ancient stone tablet found at ruins in Tortuguero, southern Mexico, in the 1960s.

According to an inscription on the tablet, a fearsome Mayan god of war and creation may ‘descend’ from the sky on the appointed day.

But then, a few weeks ago, archaeologists had to admit they had found a second piece of evidence — a 1,300-year-old carved brick fragment at a temple ruin in nearby Comalcalco.

The brick, now kept in a vault at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, has an inscription on its face which also refers to the date.

The fact that the face of the brick was probably laid facing inward or covered with stucco — suggesting it was not meant to be seen by the Mayan population who visited the temple — has only added to the hysteria of modern doom-mongers.

Scientists insist there is no dire threat on the horizon, while Mayan experts stress that the ancient civilisation’s legacy has simply been misinterpreted.

‘Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012,’ says NASA on its website in the reassuring tones of a parent dealing with a frightened toddler.

‘Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.’

Of course in these conspiracy-obsessed times, there are thousands of cynics who are not convinced.

David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, said he had been receiving about ten emails a day from worried members of the public who are ‘seriously, seriously upset’.

A young woman from Denmark wrote to him saying: ‘Mother of one daughter and another coming.

Yesterday I was considering killing myself, the baby in my stomach and my beloved two-year-old daughter before December 2012 for fear of having to experience the Earth’s destruction.’

Another, a 13-year-old American, wrote: ‘I am considering suicide. I am scared to tears . . . I don’t want to live any more, I deserve an explanation.’

A third wrote: ‘I am so scared. My only friend is my little dog. When should I put her to sleep so she won’t suffer when the Earth is destroyed?’

Worried Americans are rushing to buy everything from £17 survival guides to £32,000-per-person places in bunkers that are marketed as being both nuclear bomb and asteroid-proof.

Robert Vicino is a Californian businessman who is building the luxury bunkers in secret locations. His website asks: ‘What if the prophecies are true? Which side of the door do you want to be on?’

He says that he has more than 5,000 Americans booking places, and is now building bunkers in Europe.

Steve Cramer, one man who has reserved his place, insists: ‘We’re not crazy people: these are fearful times. My family wants to survive. You have to be prepared.’

Jason Hodge, a father-of-four who also counts himself a ‘future survivor’, to use the jargon of the apocalypse industry, adds: ‘It’s an investment in life.

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