Up At The Ranch And Beyond

[Star Tsar]

Weather Events

Ecuadorian Volcano Eruption Leaves Several Cities Covered In Ash

Published 10th June 2020

The eruption of a volcano in Ecuador's Amazon region left several cities covered in ash on Tuesday, fueling concerns of a potential health impact as the South American nation slowly emerges from a brutal coronavirus outbreak.

The Sangay volcano has had moderate eruptions for over a year that have had little impact because of its remote location, but a recent change in wind patterns has pushed ash toward the coast and affected areas including the largest city, Guayaquil.

"The ash comes out of the Sangay volcano and spreads into the Guayas province, and we see a quantity of ash that is arriving near Guayaquil," Benjamin Bernard of the Geophysical Institute of Ecuador told reporters, referring to the province where Guayaquil is located.

The institute said it expects minor volcanic eruptions to continue in the coming days but does not expect a major eruption.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BUwtHL-gSc8

[Star Tsar]

Volcano Time-Lapse

Eruption | Sakurajima Volcano, Japan

Recorded & Published 10th June 2020



At 11:19 JST an eruption was registered.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lX_j9Ci607U

[Star Tsar]

Meteoroides.net

Fireball | Andalusia, Spain

Recorded 9th & Published 10th June 2020

This beautiful meteor overflew the south of Spain on 2020 June 9 at about 23:30 local time (equivalent to 21:30 universal time). It was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from a comet that hit the atmosphere at around 67,000 km/h. It began at an altitude of about 100 km over the province of Seville, and ended at a height of around 61 km. The total length travelled by the meteoroid in the atmosphere was of about 48 km.

The event was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, which is being conducted by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN). The event was spotted from the meteor-observing stations located at Sevilla, Calar Alto, La Hita (Toledo) and Sierra Nevada (Granada).

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2q5L4N38Czs

[Star Tsar]

Phys.org

Ancient Micro-Meteoroids Carried Specks Of Stardust, Water To Asteroid 4 Vesta

Published 10th June 2020



The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formation—material formed around other, long-dead stars—was vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun's birth, still persist.

These "stardust" grains arrived on Earth inside primitive meteorites. New Washington University in St. Louis research led by Nan Liu, an assistant research professor in physics and the Laboratory for Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences, shows that stardust was also delivered to another planet-like body in the solar system, asteroid 4 Vesta, by micrometeoroids that also carried water.

Source paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...458?via%3Dihub

Read all about it here: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-ancien...-asteroid.html

&

First Global Map Of Rockfalls On The Moon

Published 8th June 2020



A research team from ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen counted over 136,000 rockfalls on the moon caused by asteroid impacts. Even billions of years old landscapes are still changing.

In October 2015, a spectacular rockfall occurred in the Swiss Alps: in the late morning hours, a large, snow-covered block with a volume of more than 1500 cubic meters suddenly detached from the summit of Mel de la Niva. It fell apart on its way downslope, but a number of boulders continued their journey into the valley. One of the large boulders came to a halt at the foot of the summit next to a mountain hut, after traveling more than 1.4 kilometers and cutting through woods and meadows.

Source paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16653-3

Read all about it here: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-global...alls-moon.html

[Star Tsar]

History Of The Earth

The Mystery Of The Late Heavy Bombardment

Published 7th June 2020

A collection of radioactive chronometers were employed to reach this date. Most notably these include pairings of U-Pb, Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, and Ar40-Ar39, each of these including a parent atom and a decay product.

Jupiter’s gargantuan mass can inflict chaos on the orbits of smaller bodies over millions and billions of rotations. The danger becomes acute if the orbit of the junior body reflects a ratio of Jupiter’s orbit (for example if the body orbits twice for every single orbit of Jupiter.) In this case the body will pass Jupiter at the same time and place in each orbit and Jupiter’s gravity will pull strongest on the body at the same time and place in each orbit. Over many orbits the slight tug will incrementally draw the junior body out of a circular path and into ever more eccentric ellipses. Eventually this oblong orbit will intersect the orbits of the terrestrial planets.

This phenomenon is called decompression or adiabatic melting is a key feature of plate tectonics on Earth today.

The age of Borealis Basin is somewhat controversial. Without direct access to the physical crater we rely on the fragments of Mars that fall to Earth as meteorites. The oldest known igneous Martian meteorite ALH84001 was forged through the accumulation of crystals floating in a body of magma. It’s therefore postulated that ALH84001 was created during or after the Borealis impact as this event melted half of Mars and deeply buried the other half, erasing any trace of prior martian history.

Around 40% of all meteorites found are classified as H chondrites and most likely originate ultimately from the asteroid 6 Hebe. Around 35% are L chondrites and likely originate from either 433 Eros or 8 Flora. Mesosiderites from 16 Psyche and eucrites from 4 Vesta round off the list of four parent asteroids upon which we find evidence of impacts between 3.5 GA and 4.1 GA. It’s a short list.

Obsessive investigations into the most resilient minerals on the planet, Hadean zircons, unveil a slight bump in temperature between 3.8 and 4.0 billion years ago--the lingering trauma of an otherworldly pummeling? But in all the world only 4 miniscule mineral grains record the bump.

Noting our inability to acquire physical evidence from other planets scientists sought a different way to date geologic features. Since surface imagery was comparatively abundant a sophisticated statistical method was developed to assess age by counting the size and frequency of craters present on a terrain and comparing this size frequency distribution (SFD) to that of a known terrain. This process is fairly effective at achieving relative ages, but caught criticism for some assumptions it makes.

At first glance it appears impossible that the Apollo 16 and 17 sample should come from the Imbrium impact, in each case over a thousand kilometers away. Improved imagery acquired decades later however reveals a radial pattern of debris emanating from Imbrium Basin that overprints both landing sites.

Imbrium is the youngest basin on the near-side of the Moon; much of the volcanism on Mercury ceased by that time; the major basins of Mars all betray the ephemeral presence of liquid water before it vanished from the planet. Echos of this early era still reverberate through the Solar System; solitary giants can wreak havoc especially on our fragile ecosystems, but the terrible scale of the calamity has never again been matched.

In the interest of full disclosure, a continuous (monotonic) bombardment is the perspective that makes the most sense to me. Not only because the physical evidence is sparse and is getting sparser but because the erasure of terrestrial history is a throughline of geology. The destructive power of geologic processes has been on display throughout this narrative and it is a very sensible explanation for the negative anomaly we find in the impact history (a negative anomaly which is now significantly shorter than the “spike” of the LHB.) Furthermore models have consistently shown that while orbital evolution among the gas giants should be expected early on, it’s exceptionally rare for this dynamism to last more than a few 100 MA and virtually impossible for the orbits to calm for several 100 MA then return to a dynamic state. In the absence of a convincing causal mechanism I personally conclude that the LHB is fictitious.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_x2GlgyF8yE

[Star Tsar]

What Da Math? With Anton Petrov

Massive Black Hole Explosion Lit Up The Skies Of Ancient Earth

Published 9th June 2020

In this video Anton will talk about a new discovery suggesting a powerful explosion in the milky way a few millions years ago.

Source paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05720

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zKE_ptkUxE8

[Star Tsar]

Seeker

This Black Hole Is So Close You Can “See” It, Here’s How

Published 10th June 2020



A team of astronomers discovered a black hole lying just 1,000 light-years from Earth — and its presence may hint at the existence of many more.

Astronomers have just found the closest black hole to us yet, a discovery which suggests there could be even more black holes lurking out there in the universe.

The astronomers were originally looking for a double star system called HR 6819 — a pair of stars close enough that it can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere without any optical aids on a dark and clear night. But while observing the stars, the astronomers realized that what they were really seeing was a three body system: The inner star was orbiting around something (hint, hint: a black hole) once every 40 days, while the outer star orbited the pair from much farther away.

Read More:
10 Questions You Might Have About Black Holes
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/10...t-black-holes/
"While black holes are mysterious and exotic, they are also a key consequence of how gravity works: When a lot of mass gets compressed into a small enough space, the resulting object rips the very fabric of space and time, becoming what is called a singularity."

Closest black hole to Earth found 'hiding in plain sight'
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...n-plain-sight/
"The astronomers studying HR 6819 weren’t looking for black holes at all. Instead, they wanted to learn more about a pair of odd stars orbiting each other."

How Supermassive Black Holes Were Discovered
http://nautil.us/issue/69/patterns/h...ere-discovered
"Given that the centers of galaxies might harbor supermassive black holes, it was natural to check the center of our Milky Way galaxy for such a monster. In 1974, a very compact radio source, smaller than 1 second of arc (1/3600 of a degree) was discovered there."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rb4noafF1H4

[Star Tsar]

SpaceNews.com

Chinese Private Launch Firms Advance With Methane Engines, Launch Preparations & New Funding

Published 10th June 2020



A number of Chinese private launch firms for the burgeoning commercial space sector have reported progress in efforts to develop a range of launch vehicles.

Landspace and iSpace are reporting progress with methane rocket engines, while Galactic Energy is moving closer to launch of its Ceres-1 launcher. Deep Blue Aerospace has meanwhile secured early funding for development of a liquid launch vehicle series.

Landspace completed three gimbaling hot fire tests of the SkyLark (Tianque-12) 80t-thrust-level cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen rocket engine early-mid May. Tianque-11, a smaller, 10-ton liquid oxygen methane engine, passed 2,000 seconds of testing June 5.

The engines will together power the 48.8-meter-tall, two-stage Zhuque-2 launch vehicle. The launcher will be capable of delivering a 4,000-kilogram payload capacity to a 200-kilometer low Earth orbit (LEO). Alternatively ZQ-2 can loft 2,000 kilograms to 500-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

Read all about it here: https://spacenews.com/chinese-privat...d-new-funding/

[Star Tsar]

Besser Planetarium

Art & Astronomy

Published 10th June 2020



Johnathan and Amanda discuss art and Astronomy, and ways in how the two are linked to our culture.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=QxNS6J0DqdM

[Star Tsar]

Posted by Star Tsar (here)
Thunderbolts Project

Space News | Robert Hawthorne: Upheaval Dome & Lightning-Scarred Earth

Published 5th June 2020

For more than a decade, among the individuals exploring the concepts of an Electric Universe, a community has arisen which is devoted to exploring the surface of planet Earth. The geological processes of an Electric Universe go well beyond the theoretical toolkit in standard geology. Laboratory experiments involving electrical discharge to solid surfaces reveal familiar features seen on every rocky body in the solar system, including our home planet.

For a number of years, a variety of independent investigators have participated in regular group expeditions in the American Southwest, gathering evidence and developing analyses based on their observations. Robert Hawthorne Jr. is a significant and active contributor to the Electric Universe Geology group. During EU2017: Future Science, the Thunderbolts conference held in Phoenix that August, his Ongoing Exhibit, "Ejecta From Upheaval Dome, Utah", was a Peer-to-Peer Sharing feature of the Breakout salon.

In part one of this two part presentation, Robert offers his analysis on what may be one of the best candidates for an electrical scarring feature on Earth — the so-called Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

Facebook Group: Electric Universe Geology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/122433101926077/

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xT9CEg8BXM8

Space News | Robert Hawthorne: Upheaval Dome & The Obsession Stone

Published 10th June 2020

In his previous presentation, electric geology investigator Robert Hawthorne explored the stupendous geological feature in the American Southwest known as Upheaval Dome. As Robert explained, while standard geology favors the interpretation that Upheaval Dome was created by a kinetic impact, the hypothesis that the feature was created by interplanetary lightning finds great support in the geologic evidence.

Now, in Part Two of this presentation, Robert includes recent experimental research which shows that chemical changes in rock normally attributed to impact such as “shocked quartz” are also produced by powerful lightning. He introduces an unusual rock associated with the Upheaval Dome site, called the Obsession Stone, whose discoverers were able to submit the rock for professional chemical analysis.

In conclusion, Robert explains how his analysis only strengthens the electrical discharge hypothesis.

Facebook Group: Electric Universe Geology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/122433101926077/

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTKxxOSBYtE

[Star Tsar]

Nemesis Maturity

Rare Annular Solar Eclipse To Create A Dazzling 'Ring Of Fire' In The Sky This Month

Published 11th June 2020

On June 21, the Moon will pass directly in front of the Sun, producing a "Ring of Fire" solar eclipse. At greatest eclipse, 99.5% of the Sun's surface will be covered.

Near the center-line of the eclipse, observers will experience something special: The Ring Of Fire.' As the Moon crosses the sun dead-center, a circular strip or annulus of sunlight will completely surround the dark lunar disk. Visually, the sun has a big black hole in the middle.

The "path of annularity" where this occurs is only about 53 miles wide, but it stretches almost halfway around the world passing many population centers en route.

The annular eclipse will begin in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 4:45 UTC and sweep through South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea before crossing over the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula. It will then travel through Pakistan, northern India, and southern China before finally ending over Taiwan at 09:34 UTC. In those locations the Ring of Fire phenomenon will be visible for as much as 38 seconds.

Meanwhile, parts of Africa, southeast Europe, Asia, and the Pacific will witness varying degrees of an equally mesmerizing partial solar eclipse.

An Annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star.

WARNING!
The ring of sunlight during annularity is blindingly bright. Even though most of the Sun's disk will be covered you still need to use a solar filter or some type of projection technique.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ePz1z5Tm0ms

[Star Tsar]

Suspicious Observers | Space News | 11th June 2020 | NASA Scientists On Earth-Facing Quiet, Electromagnetic Galaxies

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=H9nNXGrNhfM

[Star Tsar]

NASA Goddard

Eleven Years Charting Edge Of Solar System

Published 11th June 2020



Far, far beyond the orbits of the planets lie the hazy outlines of the magnetic bubble in space that we call home.

This is the heliosphere, the vast bubble that is generated by the Sun’s magnetic field and envelops all the planets. The borders of this cosmic bubble are not fixed. In response to the Sun’s gasps and sighs, they shrink and stretch over the years.

Now, for the first time, scientists have used an entire solar cycle of data from NASA’s IBEX spacecraft to study how the heliosphere changes over time. Solar cycles last roughly 11 years, as the Sun swings from seasons of high to low activity, and back to high again. With IBEX’s long record, scientists were eager to examine how the Sun’s mood swings play out at the edge of the heliosphere. The results show the shifting outer heliosphere in great detail, deftly sketch the heliosphere’s shape — a matter of debate in recent years, and hint at processes behind one of its most puzzling features. These findings, along with a newly fine-tuned data set, are published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplements on June 10, 2020.

Read all about it here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...eliosphere-sun

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZY8D71NW1wM

[Star Tsar]

Forbes.com

‘Sherpas’ Unravel Secrets Of The Sun’s Mysterious ‘Corona’ From The Last Total Solar Eclipse

Published 9th June 2020



What’s silky white, utterly entrancing and visible for only a few minutes each year?

The Sun’s corona—its crown, or outer atmosphere (and nothing to do with Covid-19, before you ask)—is always there. It’s also almost always blocked from view by the brighter disk of the Sun. That’s a shame because a glimpse of the corona is commonly called “nature’s greatest sight.”

Only during the brief “totality” phase of a total solar eclipse can the corona be glimpsed, which makes it tricky for modern science to take a good, long look. Why?

Total solar eclipses only last a few minutes
They only occur every 18 months (or so) and the next total solar eclipse in North America is in 2024
Totality can only be experienced from within a narrow “path of totality”
Cue the “Solar Wind Sherpas,” a group of eclipse-chasing solar astronomers led by UH Mānoa Astronomy Professor Shadia Habbal at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA), whose student Benjamin Boe is lead author on their published paper in the Astrophysical Journal detailing results from last year’s total solar eclipse in Chile and Argentina.

Read all about it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamieca.../#419195032f89

[Star Tsar]

NDTV.com

Bose-Einstein Quantum "Fifth State Of Matter" Seen For First Time In Space

Published 11th June 2020

Scientists have observed the fifth state of matter in space for the first time, offering unprecedented insight that could help solve some of the quantum universe's most intractable conundrums, research showed Thursday.
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) -- the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago -- are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius).

At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter.

BECs straddle the line between the macroscopic world governed by forces such as gravity and the microscopic plane, ruled by quantum mechanics.

Scientists believe BECs contain vital clues to mysterious phenomena such as dark energy -- the unknown energy thought to be behind the Universe's accelerating expansion.

But BECs are extremely fragile. The slightest interaction with the external world is enough to warm them past their condensation threshold.

Read all about it here: https://www.ndtv.com/science/bose-ei...-space-2244587

More on the experiment courtesy of Seeker:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VGKNWTOPsr4

[Star Tsar]

Asteroid Station



Large Asteroid (2020 LD) Zipped Close To Earth & Almost Got Away Undetected

Published 11th June 2020

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2vCvxyRLIY

[Star Tsar]

Posted by Star Tsar (here)
Space.com

Mysterious Deep-Space Flashes Repeat Every 157 Days

Published 8th June 2020



Astronomers have discovered an activity cycle in another fast radio burst, potentially unearthing a significant clue about these mysterious deep-space phenomena.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are extragalactic flashes of light that pack a serious wallop, unleashing in a few milliseconds as much energy as Earth's sun does in a century. Scientists first spotted an FRB in 2007, and the cause of these eruptions remains elusive nearly a decade and a half later; potential explanations range from merging superdense neutron stars to advanced alien civilizations.

More than 100 FRBs have been discovered to date, and most of them are one-offs, flaring up just a single time (as far as we know). In January of this year, astronomers reported that one member of the "repeater" class, called FRB 180916.J0158+65, appears to exhibit a 16-day activity cycle: It fires off bursts for a four-day stretch, goes quiet for 12 days and then starts all over again.

Read all about it here: https://www.space.com/mysterious-fas...e=notification

EarthFiles



Fast Radio Bursts Update

Streamed & Published 10th June 2020

Linda with a special report on the recently reported 157 Day Fast Radio Burst news.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4mHPxiPrfbU

[Star Tsar]

Suspicious Observers | Space News | 12th& 13th June 2020

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xBlvKy_k1k0

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_S12CAwNQ-Q

[Star Tsar]

Lunar Princess

June Summer Solstice

Published 13th June 2020

The June 20 2020 Summer Solstice marks the beginning of the season that contains the utmost bounty, abundance, and beauty. It is a time for you to be more of an observer of your thoughts than the thinker of them. Quiet your mind and spend time in nature reconnecting yourself. This June Summer Solstice can be a very healing time and a very welcoming time, if you let it.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kBgI2i4b85M

[Star Tsar]

Space Weather Woman Tamitha Skov



Solar Storm Forecast | A Solar Storm Nearly Clips Parker Solar Probe

Published 12th June 2020

This week our Sun gives us more eye-candy as we have two new-cycle, bright regions in Earth view. One is region 2765 and it is the largest new-cycle sunspot we have seen to date. These regions are boosting the solar flux into the low 70s, which means radio propagation on Earth's dayside is staying in the marginal range. Although there arent any Earth-directed solar storms, we did have a far-side launch of a solar storm this week. the intriguing thing is that it nearly clipped the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, which is just finishing its 5th perihelion pass (closest approach to our Sun was on June 7th). This solar storm is also making news because it is the first strong "Halo CME" to be seen as we rise out of solar minimum. That it was so clearly seen in Earth-based coronagraphs means that these solar storms are once again growing stronger. Learn the details of this near miss of Parker Solar Probe, catch up on aurora photos from recent solar storming, and see what else our Sun has in store this week!

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lOmlSGCUJps