Strange Skies
S


UFO

UFOs are proliferating Saturn's rings, claims NASA scientist


Sputnik News
Sat, 20 Aug 2016 19:08 UTC
Saturn
© NASA/Hubble Heritage TeamSaturn in natural colours.
This isn't the first time that the scientist has made such claims, but he warns that the situation is "critical" with living alien spaceships in our solar system "proliferating" faster than ever.

Dr. Norman Bergrun, a distinguished mechanical engineer at NASA's Ames Research Center is once again making headlines for his argument that extraterrestrial life exists within the earth's solar system arguing that UFOs that were first spotted in Saturn's rings are "proliferating" to other planets that have rings including Uranus and Jupiter.

"What I found out is, these things inhabit Saturn, that's where I first discovered them, and they're proliferating. You can find them around Uranus and Jupiter. Wherever you see some rings, that's where I see the aircrafts, I call them a ring maker," explained Dr, Bergrun.

"I say that it is electromagnetic because I can identify streamline patterns with respect to it that I knew were what we called 'potential lines' and that says it was electrical," said Dr. Bergrun. "I could tell that those lines demarked the outside of an object."

The scientists argues that the some of the footage near the rings shows "exhaust" emanating from alien aircraft and he warned that things are getting "critical" in deep space as these space ships continue to proliferate throughout the solar system.
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Rainbow

'Upside-down rainbow' (circumzenithal arc) spotted above Salford, UK

Tom Rodgers
Salford Online
Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:10 UTC
Upside-down rainbow in Salford
© Adam Davies
Settled skies and warm weather combined this week to produce a minor meteorological phenomenom: the 'upside-down rainbow'.

Adam Davies captured this image of the inverted coloured curve while sitting out in his garden in Sportside Avenue, Walkden. Known as a 'Bravias arc', it's not technically a rainbow as it's produced when light from the sun is refracted through ice crystals, rather than raindrops.

High up among the cirrus clouds, water droplets turn to ice. It's here where light refracts through tiny hexagonal ice crystals, which bends the wavelength of the light and makes it appear inverted to the human eye.

The spectrum of colours is only produced under special atmospheric conditions: when the air high up above us is relatively still, and when the sun is shining down at an angle less than 32 degrees from the horizon.


Comment: And it appears to be happening more often because part of the 'special atmospheric conditions' include increased particulates in the atmosphere, i.e. increased volcanic ash/dust and 'meteor smoke' debris left by meteor fireballs exploding in the atmosphere.


Adam used his HTC One M9 smartphone to capture the image. "You could also see a kind of halo ring effect around the sun - I've never seen it shining that bright before," he said.

Sun halo
© Adam Davies
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Sun

Solar storm almost started WWIII in 1967

Neel V. Patel
Inverse
Wed, 10 Aug 2016 19:12 UTC
View of the Sun on May 23, 1967
© NSOA view of the Sun on May 23, 1967, in a narrow visible wavelength of light called Hydrogen-alpha. The bright region in the top center region of brightness shows the area where the large flare occurred.
The Cold War was filled with nuclear annihilation close-calls: There was the '62 Cuban Missile Crisis, the NORAD Computer Glitch in '70, the Nuclear False Alarm of 1983, and likely many we'll never know about. But there's one incident that has gone under the radar for decades. A new paper to be published in the journal Space Weather finally paints a detailed portrait of a 1967 solar storm that almost spurred the U.S. Air Force to attack the Soviet Union and potential ignite World War III.

Here's the deal: On May 23, 1967, the United States noticed its surveillance radars the near poles were jamming up. Naturally, defense officials assumed it was the Soviet Union preparing to attack American soil โ€” so the Air Force began to make its own preparations to strike the Russians.

Problem was, the Russians were not to blame. The culpable party was the sun, which was in the midst of a particularly nasty solar storm. When the sun is producing major flares, the resulting energy can charge up nearby particles and cause electromagnetic disturbances that affect the ionosphere โ€” the part of the Earth's atmosphere that helps propagate radio wave emissions over large distances.

Although solar activity was still not widely understood, by the 1950s the U.S. military knew how eruptions on the surface the sun could hamper communications on Earth. By the following decade, the Air Force established the Air Weather Service to regularly monitor the sun for solar flares.

Comment: Think it couldn't happen today? Think again! Out of any of the 'nuclear war' scenarios currently being thrown around, this reminder from 1967 may very well be repeated sans 'cooler heads prevailing'. This story provides a glimpse into the paranoid hubris of our leaders and touches on their blind reaction to a 'cosmic threat'. In today's atmosphere of US-driven rabid fear and paranoia towards Russia, how do you think our fearful leaders would respond when something wicked this way comes.

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Attention

Atmospheric changes: Strange cloud anomalies, rare ball lighting and more hail damaged aircraft

Adapt 2030
YouTube
Tue, 09 Aug 2016 06:58 UTC
Mexico rainbow cloud
© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
Strange cloud anomalies are appearing globally with higher frequency and intensity. At the same time low cloud formation brought on by increases in cosmic rays are leading to more in-flight hail damage requiring emergency landings.


Comment: It is likely that atmospheric dust loading from increased comet and volcanic activity is contributing to the 'strange skies' we are witnessing, the cooling effect of which causes ice crystals to form. See also: Electric universe theory provides rational, intelligible explanations for such atmospheric phenomena as ball lightning, plasma discharges, noctilucent clouds, lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes. For more information on this and much more read, Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

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Arrow Down

US Airforce wants to detonate plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere

David Hambling
New Scientist
Tue, 09 Aug 2016 21:35 UTC
HAARP
© U.S. Air Force/2nd Lt. J. Elaine HunnicuttHAARP of Alaska: making the ionosphere more reflective.
Can you hear me now? The US Air Force is working on plans to improve radio communication over long distances by detonating plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites.

Since the early days of radio, we've known that reception is sometimes better at night. Radio stations that cannot be picked up by day may be heard clearly at night, transmitting from hundreds of kilometres away.

This is down to changes in the ionosphere, a layer of charged particles in the atmosphere that starts around 60 kilometres up. The curvature of Earth stops most ground-based radio signals travelling more than 70 kilometres without a boost.

But by bouncing between the ionosphere and the ground they can zigzag for much greater distances. At night the density of the ionosphere's charged particles is higher, making it more reflective.

This is not the first time we've tinkered with the ionosphere to try to improve radio communication and enhance the range of over-the-horizon radar. HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska, stimulates the ionosphere with radiation from an array of ground-based antennas to produce radio-reflecting plasma.
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Binoculars

Double rainbows, circumhorizontal arcs appear over Ontario in wake of severe storms

Leeanna McLean
The Weather Network
Mon, 08 Aug 2016 12:44 UTC
Fire rainbow in Ontario
© The Weather Network
Severe storms produced some messy summer weather this past weekend across Canada. However, Mother Nature smiled down in the form of double rainbows and circumhorizontal arcs, an atmospheric phenomena also referred to as "fire rainbows."

Social media lit up with images of the colourful skies. Several residents in southwestern Ontario managed to snap photos of the circumhorizontal arc. It was visible from many places, including the town of Laselle, Windsor and Amherstburg.

"It's actually an ice halo formed by ice crystals in cirrus clouds high in the atmosphere," says Dayna Vettese, The Weather Network manager of meteorological briefing. "The reason why this doesn't look like a halo is because the arc is so large it looks like it's almost parallel to the horizon. These occur when the sun is very high in the sky. As the sunlight passes through the existing ice crystals, the sun ray is split into its individual colours giving it the rainbow effect."

The conditions have to be "just right" for the arcs to appear, Vettese adds.

"The sun must be 58 degree elevation or higher, and there must be cirrus clouds high in the atmosphere with a certain type of ice crystal for this to form."

Meanwhile, after severe storms slammed Nova Scotia, prompting Environment Canada to issue a tornado watch for Sydney and Cape Breton County, a stunning double rainbow formed.
Double rainbow in Ontario
© Via Twitter@Ryno1820"Double rainbow! Glace Bay, Nova Scotia!"
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Rainbow

'Rare' circumhorizontal arc seen over Michigan

Bill Steffen
WOOD TV
Sun, 07 Aug 2016 13:12 UTC
Circumhorizontal arc over Michigan
© Heather Chatfield
This awesome pictures comes from Heather Chatfield, who was driving south on US 127 north of Jackson. This is not a rainbow, it's a very rare circumhorizontal arc. The ribbon of color is caused by sunlight hitting the ice crystals in cirrus clouds. To get a circumhorizontal arc, the sun has to be higher than 58 degrees above the horizon - so here in the mid latitudes, it's only possible in the late spring to mid-summer during the middle of the day.

Theoretically, today it's possible only from 12:30 pm to 3:10 pm (solar noon is around 1:50 pm now). In Grand Rapids, it would be possible from April 18 to August 23 - after that the sun never gets above 58 degrees at solar noon. The ice crystals have to be in the right spot, the clouds have to be the right thickness and the reflection has to be pointed at the photographer. Many people go a lifetime without seeing a circumhorizontal arc. This picture was taken at 12:53 pm.
Circumhorizontal arc in Michigan
© Heather Chatfield
Here's a pic. from Carrie Delong Campbell in Corunna showing a little streak of color. The clouds are at two different levels. The higher cirrus clouds are producing the circumhorizontal arc. The lower cumulus clouds are below.
Circumhorizontal arc in Michigan
© Carrie Delong Campbell
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Info

New retrograde trans-Neptunian object, Niku discovered


SpaceRef
Mon, 08 Aug 2016 01:18 UTC
Trans-Neptunian object
© NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)This is an artist's concept of a craggy piece of Solar System debris that belongs to a class of bodies called trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).
Although the majority of Centaurs are thought to have originated in the scattered disk, with the high-inclination members coming from the Oort cloud, the origin of the high inclination component of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) remains uncertain. We report the discovery of a retrograde TNO, which we nickname "Niku", detected by the Pan-STARRS 1 Outer Solar System Survey.

Our numerical integrations show that the orbital dynamics of Niku are very similar to that of 2008 KV42 (Drac), with a half-life of โˆผ500 Myr. Comparing similar high inclination TNOs and Centaurs (q>10 AU, a<100 AU and i>60โˆ˜), we find that these objects exhibit a surprising clustering of ascending node, and occupy a common orbital plane.

This orbital configuration has high statistical significance: 3.8-ฯƒ. An unknown mechanism is required to explain the observed clustering. This discovery may provide a pathway to investigate a possible reservoir of high-inclination objects.

Reference:
Discovery of A New Retrograde Trans-Neptunian Object: Hint of A Common Orbital Plane for Low Semi-Major Axis, High Inclination TNOs and Centaurs
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Comet 2

Comets & Asteroids - Summary for July 2016

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Sun, 07 Aug 2016 19:25 UTC
During the month of July 2016, 1 new comet has been discovered and there were 4 comet recoveries. An international team of astronomers discovered a new dwarf planet (designated 2015 RR245) orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The Team Radar at Arecibo observed the Near-Earth asteroid (154244) 2002 KL6. "Current comet magnitudes" & "Daily updated asteroid flybys" pages are available at the top of this blog (or just click on the underline text here).

The dates below refer to the date of issuance of CBET (Central Bureau Electronic Telegram) which reported the official news & designations.

Comet Discoveries

July 18 Discovery of C/2016 N4 (MASTER)
C/2016 N4 ( MASTER )
© Jean-Gabriel BoschComet C/2016 N4 (MASTER).
Comet Recoveries

July 04 Recovery of P/2009 K1 (GIBBS) as P/2016 M2
July 04 Recovery of P/2008 J3 (McNAUGHT) as P/2016 N1
July 06 Recovery of P/2008 T1 (BOATTINI) as P/2016 N2
July 18 Recovery of P/2007 R3 (GIBBS) as P/2016 N3
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Info

'Alien megastructure' star only gets more mysterious

Maddie Stone
Gizmodo
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:43 UTC
KIC 8462852
© NASA, JPL-Caltech
Last fall, a little-known star called KIC 8462852 became our planetary obsession when astronomers said that its erratic flickering could be the result of an alien megastructure. Further observation of Tabby's Star yielded no signs of aliens, but the sudden dips in luminosity continue to defy explanation. Now, things just got a bit weirder.

In an unpublished paper posted today to arXiv, Caltech astronomer Ben Montet and Joshua Simon of the Carnegie Institute describe the results of a new photometric analysis of Tabby's Star, which was first flagged in the Kepler Space Telescope's database by citizen science astronomers.

By carefully examining all the full-frame images collected during Kepler's observational campaign, Montet and Simon discovered something astonishing: Not only did the star's light output occasionally dip by up to 20 percent, its total stellar flux diminished continuously over the course of four years.

For the first 1000 days of Kepler's campaign, Tabby's Star decreased in luminosity by approximately 0.34 percent per year. For the next 200 days, the star dimmed more rapidly, its total stellar flux dropping by 2 percent before leveling off. Overall, Tabby's Star faded roughly 3 percent during the four years that Kepler stared at itโ€”an absolutely enormous, inexplicable amount. The astronomers looked at 500 other stars in the vicinity, and saw nothing else like it.

"The part that really surprised me was just how rapid and non-linear it was," Montet told Gizmodo. "We spent a long time trying to convince ourselves this wasn't real. We just weren't able to."
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