Dolly the Sheep, the Great Red Spot, and the outbreak of Ancient Disease...

 Farewell to Philae, the ill fated lander . Philae was the first man - made explorer to land on a comet - still there, but inoperative to all intents and purposes.
The mothercraft, Rosetta is still taking and returning photos of the comet, and in September will crash-land on the surface , bringing an end to the mission - leaving us with a legacy of space debris orbiting the universe forever.
Quite a big deal, when you think of it like that.

Remaining with space, we find the alleged solving of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter - okay, it's a storm system as big as two Earths, but it also generates heat in the upper atmosphere, which may explain the temperature similarity to Earth, despite the greater distance from the Sun.
I imagine further revelations will be due very soon, now that Juno has entered orbit around the gas giant.
Did I mention the fact that Juno was the wife of Jupiter in ancient mythology , and that Galileo named its moons after the mistresses of Zeus ?

the only sheep honoured with a plaque...

In other news, the worlds first cloned sheep Dolly died at only 6.5 years old (half the average life expectancy for a sheep) , which created a new fear that clones were short lived .
Luckly though, clones were made of Dolly, and they are all aging normally.
I remember the huge issue surrounding the whole Dolly thing, the idea of 'meddling with nature '  so the news that there are more clones is not at all comforting.
It begs the question, what are they not telling us ?
But don't worry - only four of the tested thirteen clones were derived from Dolly .
So that's okay, then...
I mean if there are 13 cloned sheep (fourteen, counting Dolly), who knows how many cloned people there are ?
Perhaps we should scan photos of Trump rallies more closely.

The temptation is to write 'wake up, sheeple...'

The Siberian permafrost is thawing, global warming in action - the immediate result is an outbreak of anthrax, supposedly from old reindeer corpses .
That's pretty bad, but of course, what else awaits us, hiding in the distant past ?
The Black Death which decimated medieval Europe ?
TB, Polio and other nasties once thought eradicated ?
 It doesn't bear thinking about, so let's lighten the tone...

Hello to new life - yes, apparently even on this old piece of rock there are still surprises, with the recent discovery of new species - specifically beaked whales, which have recently been cropping up around Alaska - eight in total, none of which are previously known about; in the heady rush to colonise / occupy outer space, it seems that we still have vast unexplored swathes of this blue world.
Even our understanding of the world as it once was, is frequently called into question - most recently by the discovery of  minute air bubbles in grains of rock salt - the specimen grains being 815 million years old, it implies far higher oxygen levels in the Earths atmosphere than previously thought.
This in turn means there is a large gap between oxygen and complex lifeforms evolving.
So there would seem to be something else missing from the equation.
Like the time it took for aliens to arrive and give Earth 'the nod'.

ALIEN 1- "This'll do, but let's start with simple forms like aquatic amoebas, sponges and ultimately cephalopods and fish, then land-based murderous creatures."
ALIEN 2 - "Don't you mean humans ?"
ALIEN 1- "Same thing, different Modus Operandi "
- instantly we have intelligent aliens who understand Latin; or at least watched stray galactic transmissions of CSI.
Which brings us neatly to -
Apparently grammar could easily create a barrier to our ability to understand aliens.
Of course, the whole issue could be irrelevant given the continued lack of contact (wired magazine have just explained the Fermi Paradox again, for those who wonder)
I touched on this previously - damnit there I go again, without a decent referential database to mine for past subject matter.
I need a robot to list all my previous subjects on this blog.
Oh, wait, that will be me, then.
Doh

The Megastructure, The Mammoth, And The Canyon we've never seen

One of todays links is to a site where NASA store moon rocks and meteorites - appparently there is an expedition every year, where meteorites are sought and gathered from Arctic slopes.
I sigh, and wonder how I never heard of such a job when I was younger.
Which brings me conveniently to our recurring mystery star:

A few months back , there was a brief flurry* of media interest in what might conceivably be an alien mega-structure around a nearby star .
By nearby, I mean 1500 light years away.

Apparently it's not comets...

Astronomically, that's 'nearby'.
Anyway, I digress.
The point is that there is further uncertainty over the same star.
Although Keppler only has records of the star and its odd light fluctuations going back 4 years, photographic plates from previous observations have been found which trace back over a hundred years.
And light from the star was fluctuating back in 1890.
It's not the fluctuation itself that's significant, but the degree - up to 20 %, which is a lot.

The generally accepted theory was that the variance in light output was being caused by passing comets: but it has now been estimated that the amount of time involved would require 648,000 comets passing at regular intervals.
So that theory is abandoned .

KIC 8462852  artists impression pic via NASA/JPL/ Caltech

Excited, yet ?
Perhaps it's just me, but then I was actually crestfallen when SETI failed to intercept any signals from that direction.
So there is scope for further investigation, as all current theories are null and void.
Something is causing massive fluctuations in light from this star that cannot be explained by natural phenomenon.
And it's been happening regularly for over a hundred years.
Which is also confusing, as there is no apparent pattern to the variances.

It seems to be one single mechanism which is changing over time, causing the dramatic dimming of the star.
With no audible or visible wavelength signals discernible, however, if it is aliens, then they are being very quiet...

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

There is a hidden canyon beneath the ice of  Antarctica, twice as long as the Grand Canyon, and possibly culminating in a lake covering 480 square miles.
It appears that it was created in a time when Antarctica was free of ice, long ago.
However,that 'long ago' is a movable feast, as another recent discovery in the Siberian permafrost is a mammoth bearing signs of attack by ancient hunters.
Given its age and location, it seems to indicate that our ancestors were further North, some 10,000 years before our previous guesstimate: pushing back the date of humans crossing the Bering Strait into what is now North America.
Are we all immigrants from the dawn of time?




* A link to the original 'Invisible Words' post which mentions it in October last year. Not essential reading, just to say - hey, we're ahead of the curve - stay with us!

Tractor Beams and Space Junk

Did you know that we 'Earthlings' are surrounded by a 'bubble' of our own sounds / t.v. / radio transmissions?
Apparently it stretches 200 light years around us, which is pretty big, but on a cosmic scale, is tiny.
And yet no aliens have been in touch.
Perhaps they saw X Factor.

In Other News...
Scientists in the uk have successfully manipulated a physical object  using only sound waves.
Okay, so it's only a tiny bead, but it's a start.
Tractor Beams are real
The Future is now!

I was thinking of this the other day - the bewildering exponential curve of everything.
Is it me or is the curve of science and discoveries going through the (virtual) roof ?
In tihs blog, I tend to focus on a narrow band where my personal interests lie, which is mainly all things related to space travel and exploration.
In that field alone, we've seen some astonishing advances in this year - the first close up images from Pluto and its moons, ongoing examination of Mars by the Curiosity rover, now yielding details of ancient rock strata and riverbeds : we landed an explorer on a comet, whilst maintaining the benign presence of an orbiting mothership. Another explorer, (Cassini), which was tasked with mapping the moons of Saturn is now testing water plumes from Enceladus, Maven has just entered orbit around Mars, joining the Mars Express and Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter and moves are afoot to send initial human missions to Mars as well as further moon exploration  - a mooted joint venture between the ESA and Roscosmos.
'Dawn' is entering a lower orbit for final close passes of planetoid Ceres in December .
And meantime, one of our furthest explorers, New Horizons is heading for rendezvous with KBO 2014MU69
Keppler is searching for exoplanets in the 'habitable zone' of distant stars.
Voyagers one and two are heading into deep space.
It's busy out there...

  It's a busy solar system! No parking at any time...                     pic by Olaf Frohn . 

Then there's the ISS
As well as an endless band of satellites in a ring around us.
And space junk.
Officially known as 'Orbital Debris'.
At the last count 50,000 pieces orbiting planet Earth, ranging from tiny flecks of paint to objects the size of a family car

Speaking of which - did you know that an unknown object will fall to Earth on Friday 13th November ?
Unlucky for some.
Apparently it's hollow space junk, and whilst this is fairly common, this one is being monitored for reasons unknown.
It has even been given a classification : WT1190F (or WTF in popular parlance).
The 'WTF' is accurate really, as they actually don't know what it is - cue spooky music - (theremin)
Theories range from an alien vessel to the Biblical millstone cast into the sea by God, thus fulfilling Revelation 13- ahem.
Anyway, they are pretty sure it will land in the Indian Ocean, approximately 5 km south of Sri Lanka - and woe betide any local fisherman in that triangulation.

            Landing area of WT1190F  (approx 5 km)                      Pic © Bill Gray   Project Pluto

The Picture That Never Was , And Aliens That May Be

There is now an app that allows you to remove unwanted persons from your photos.
Not exactly news, but it got me thinking.
We live in a time that seems obsessed with correcting and retouching images.
I know this, because I get that twinge of discomfort whenever someone posts old photos where I'm usually looking awkward, and the ability to retouch, rendering everything just right, would be great!
Add to this, the endless variety of software to retouch images / add retro filters etc, and , voila!
When is a fake picture a real picture ?
When it's online, of course!
I remember reading a thread that discussed a black and white photo in an old magazine which had shown a group of men proudly standing around a downed pterodactyl . It was an old black and white photo, taken somewhere in the U.S.A
For years I was an avid collector of The Fortean Times and similar publications which might feature such a picture and after reading this piece, I became convinced that I had seen the actual photograph. The only question was which back issue ?
I searched through every issue, but no sign of such a picture.

One of a few photos of cowboys and pterodactyl

 Although I never found the actual photo, I am still convinced that I saw it.
Except that now I question whether I actually read such an article .
Anyway, this thread re-ignited my interest, and I promptly went online.
The resulting swathe of black/white images of old - western style images of men with a pterodactyl took me by surprise.
At first I felt vindicated.
Then came the doubt.
After all, these were surely fake.
But then why would anyone go to so much trouble posing / faking elaborate images of cowboys with a dead pterodactyl ?
By this time, my questioning mind had broken free of its real world shackles and now I was convinced that there really had been an incident out in the isolated deserts of the USA, where a group of hunters had managed to down a 'Thunderbird ', a missing link from prehistory.
It showed me how easy it is to fall for online reality.
The old adage that 'the camera never lies' is not true.
In some ways it never was, and photographic trickery is as old as the hills.

George Meliés

The difficult thing is that  we now live in the age of social media, with pictures taken as proof of places visited or deeds done - and yet, we also have increasingly sophisticated manipulation of images .
I think it's true to a degree that people are becoming more skilled at spotting photographic fakery, as 'Photoshopped' becomes a verb.
The internet has its own (n)etiquette, and linguistics - Lolcats, memes, selfies and suchlike.
On the one hand, it would seem that in the online world, people just want to be in control of their own image, but is there more to it ?
Is this all part of a merging between the worlds of human and machine?
Is our perception adjusting to fit ?

Earlier today I read of the 'self-awareness' computer being anticipated for 2049 , which sounds remarkably self-assured.
How can such a fixed date be asserted for something which is surely open to external influence ?
What if we are aided by an alien race who arrive before then, perhaps even driven by such self-aware technology, keen to impart its benefits to us ?
After all, despite being isolated in this far flung corner of the Milky Way, 6 billion living beings is a worthy sea of converts.

What if there were no such intervention and the whole thing was a promotion for a series of trashy robot overlord movies ?
That would be depressing.
Although, I'd expect robot 'movies' to have evolved by then, perhaps becoming multi-sensory VR driven 'experiences', the sort of thing depicted in 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale'
The human mind plays tricks, and memories are easily fabricated or warped.
All it takes is a photograph.


This weeks interstellar news was the alleged discovery of what appear to be alien artefacts surrounding a star which is a mere 1500 light years distant.
It's intriguing also because it is one of 150,000 stars being examined for unusual traits by citizen scientists .
It is also the only one of the 150,000 stars which is dimming in such a strange fashion (something is occasionally obscuring 20% of light from the star)
Many have declared the object a 'Dyson' sphere , much to the consternation of the physicist responsible for the theory (and possibly the copyright holder of the bagless vacuum cleaners.)
Without getting embroiled in the theory, it could result in a visit from aliens.*

 The discovery has prompted calls for further exploratory assessment  via the Very Large Array  in Mexico, and time has been booked in January to point it in the direction of the star named VIC 8462852,in a search for the sort of radio signals which may indicate an advanced technological race of beings at work.
The next set of info should emerge in January 2016, when the requested pointing of the VLA may give us further insight.

Meanwhile, back in our own solar system...

Pluto - pits and streaks, each one is hundreds of metres long!

NASA made a recent announcement of the latest downloads from Pluto.
After what must seem like a millenia being neglected in the darkest , most distant corner of our solar system, Pluto is enjoying a moment in the spotlight!
Okay, so maybe I'm being over enthusiastic, but I am happy, as it plays into the other revelations of subsurface oceans, and dynamic geography apparent on other bodies in the solar system.
Like many others, I am guilty of being uninspired by memories of crudely drawn and dull coloured images of planets from childhood text books.
Infact, the only planetary information which I found interesting tended to be about the comparative scale of the worlds, and the incredible distances involved in any attempt to travel there, so the current glut of space exploration is pure joy!

* Hardcore trivia for conspiracy believers: the physicist who came up with the theory of Dyson spheres was Freeman Dyson. 
Freeman is the surname of the scientist / protagonist in the popular computer game Half-Life, involved in battling with a race of aliens who enter this world through a space portal...
Dyson is a popular bagless vacuum cleaner brand.
Thank you.

Postscript Addendum: 

Apologies for the 'scrappy' nature of this posting, it's been giving me technical headaches for some obscure reason, with whole swathes of material vanishing without even backup to refer to, requiring tedious rewrites and guesswork. 
Hopefully issues will be resolved - also, please feel free to send feedback on any aspect of this blog. It's lonely out here!

Intrepid Explorers...

I was recently researching the eradication of the dinosaurs, generally believed to be caused by a comet which struck the Earth,triggering a Hollywood style apocalypse of tsunamis, earthquakes and dust clouds obscuring the sun.
My research led me to realise that there have officially been five periods of extinction in our history, including one called 'The Great Dying' which I thought was a good name for such a sad event. Apparently in  the 'Great Dying' it was mostly bivalves and the like , so that's not too bad, is it ?
I mean , they're not really sentient beings are they ?
Just molluscs really.
Lower life forms are always harder to identify with...

Which brings me to wondering
Are we lower life forms ?

Is there superior life at large in our solar system ?

Yes, full on speculation here, given the ongoing strangeness that is Ceres -
Does anyone remember the bright spots in the craters of that strange little world ?

The spacecraft Dawn is now in orbit
and keeps teasing us with close up, but not quite detailed photographs.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

It's enough to make anyone reach for the tin - foil helmet.
Seriously though, are they just delaying the inevitable ?
Are they desperately trying to avoid showing us something ?
Personally I think it has the hallmarks of  'Oops, someone else beat us to it. '

Discarded heat shield of 'Opportunity' on Mars.

Perhaps Ceres has vast quantities of an as yet undiscovered rare metal, and we're seeing a mining colony.

Then there is the three mile high mountain.
It stands out because it is alone in its mountain-ness.
Leftover heaps of detritus from excavation ?

Mountain near top right

Better quality images of Ceres can be found here.


Leaving Ceres aside for a moment, what of Pluto ?
As we close in, it also gets stranger.
Apparently it has an atmosphere- and methane has been detected.
Another recent discovery, thanks to increasingly detailed images are the four equidistant blobs on Pluto , each one estimated to be some 300 miles in diameter.

Please forgive me as I lapse into pure speculation...

                

The definition is still too vague, but the sense of mystery is almost palpable.

It's only a matter of days before New Horizons does the flypast thing.
The first ever flypast of Pluto.
I'm excited for many reasons.

It almost makes me proud to wear a tin-foil helmet.
But now, sadly , it's time for splashdown...

return in a Soyuz capsule...