Follow The Money
 When you follow the money, you see that our governments are taking this threat seriously. They’re spending immense sums to understand and cope with this threat. They are doing the right things, and at the right time. When you see the facts for yourself, the truth of it becomes unavoidable.
There are science facts, and then there are economic realities. To see the difference, let’s follow the money as we examine the recent burst of research activity by space agencies worldwide. We’ll look at NASA (USA) , ESA (Europe), CNES (France) and JAXA (Japan), and what they’re saying.
A New Fleet of Space-based
Solar Observatories by 2008
 The interaction between our Sun and a massive object approaching it could present us with one of the greatest threat to our way of life — a perfect solar super storm. One that could slam into our planet like a knockout body blow.
We've already experienced a few sharp jabs and a really violent storm could reach the Earth in less than 18 hours. Unless we're prepared for it, it will lay waste to the modern technologies that shape our lives. Now let’s follow the money.
ESA: SOHO
Launch: December 1995
Mission Extended to 2009
 New funding, to extend the mission of ESA's venerable solar watchdog SOHO, will ensure it plays a leading part in the fleet of solar spacecraft scheduled to be launched over the next few years.
Since its launch on 2 December 1995, The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has provided an unprecedented view of the Sun – and not just the side facing the Earth. Two teams have now developed techniques for using SOHO to recreate the conditions on the far side of the Sun. The new funding will allow its mission to be extended from April 2007 to December 2009. Read more...
NASA: Stereo
Launch: August 2006
 NASA will launch its twin STEREO spacecraft into orbit around the Sun, to provide the first stereoscopic views of coronal mass ejections.
The twin spacecraft, called the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), will explore these massive explosions, or coronal mass ejections, which erupt as billowing magnetic storms that can dwarf the sun.
“In terms of space-weather forecasting, we’re where weather forecasters were in the 1950s,” said Michael Kaiser, STEREO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “They didn’t see hurricanes until the rain clouds were right above them. In our case, we can see storms leaving the sun, but we have to make guesses and use models to figure out if and when they will impact Earth.”
Each STEREO observatory, which is about the size of a golf cart, carries 16 instruments in all, including imaging telescopes for optical photos, equipment to measure solar wind and more energetic particles, magnetometers and radio antennas. Read more...
NASA, ESA, JAXA: Solar-B (Hinode)
Launch: October 2006
 Our Sun is a violent star and is capable of producing explosive flares and hurling clouds of matter toward Earth, activities that in the past have interfered with satellite communications and electric power transmission grids on Earth.
Solar scientists have found suggestions that extremely small magnetic features in the solar photosphere are responsible for the changes in the luminosity. Solar-B will enable the first comprehensive set of observations to determine the role of these features in long-term solar luminosity changes and provide better answers to this provocative question of how the Sun impacts Earth's climate. Read more...
ESA: Proba-2
Launch: September 2007
 Proba-2, currently under development and due for launch in September 2007, is the second in ESA’s series of small, low-cost satellites that are being used to validate new spacecraft technologies while also carrying scientific instruments.
Four experiments are being flown: two for solar observations and two for space weather measurements. Read more...
NASA: Solar Dynamics Observatory
Launch: August 2008
 "The SDO mission... will directly contribute to NASA's mission to understand and protect the home planet." Read more...
Mission Goal: Understand the magnetic topologies that give rise to rapid high-energy release processes. Read more...
Tests of critical systems have already begun, in preparation for the full spacecraft assembly, system tests and verification, culminating in an August 2008 launch. The prime observing phase of SDO is planned for five years - half a solar cycle - with the possibility of a 5-year extension. Read more...
ESA: Solar Observer
Launch: 2015
 By approaching as close as 45 solar radii, the Solar Orbiter will view the solar atmosphere with unprecedented spatial resolution circa 100km pixel size. Over extended periods the Solar Orbiter will deliver images and data of the polar regions and the side of the Sun not visible from Earth. Read more...
Solar Orbiter is attracting interest beyond Europe and the workshop made a strong plea for international coordination of future solar missions, which was swiftly accepted. The wide attendance from beyond Europe meant that the Inter Agency Consultative Group (IACG) on space science could meet and it was quickly agreed that Solar Orbiter should become a major element of NASA's 'Living with a Star' programme which begins in 2007. However, Solar Orbiter would complement appropriate missions in this programme, especially NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), if its launch date were brought forward to 2010. Read more...
Using Space Observatories
to Understand Brown Dwarfs
 According to translations of the Sumerian texts by Zecharia Sitchin, author of The 12th Planet, a massive object called Nibiru, orbits our sun once every 3600 years. In my audio report The Destroyer and Sitchin's Nibiru, I explain how the Nibiru prophecy correlates to the Mayan 2012 Red Comet, and The Kolbrin Bible Destroyer return prophecies.
The generic term for this object is Planet X, and in my audio report, Could We See Two Suns in Five Years?, I put forth the theory that Planet X could be a a brown dwarf, an unborn twin of our own sun. The existence of the Kuiper Gap in the Inner Oort cloud (beyond the orbit of Pluto) suggests it once circled our sun in a stable, circular orbit. The Spitzer Space Telescope has recently proven that the orbit of a brown dwarf can destabilize and eventually cause it to spin down into its larger sibling. In my audio, I lay out the case for a perturbation event that destabilized the orbit of our Sun’s binary twin and which accounts for peculiar nature of it’s orbit and how it affects the Earth.
NASA tells us that 80% of all solar systems contain two or more stars, so assuming we actually live in a binary star system and that our sun’s twin is a brown in a destabilized orbit it behooves us to learn as much as possible about brown dwarfs. A task best suited to space telescopes. Now let’s follow the money.
NASA: Spitzer Space Telescope
Launch: August 2003
 Spitzer is the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space. Its highly sensitive instruments give us a unique view of the Universe and allow us to peer into regions of space which are hidden from optical telescopes. Many areas of space are filled with vast, dense clouds of gas and dust which block our view. Infrared light, however can penetrate these clouds, allowing us to peer into regions of star formation, the centers of galaxies, and into newly forming planetary systems. Infrared also brings us information about the cooler objects in space, such as smaller stars which are too dim to be detected by their visible light, extrasolar planets, and giant molecular clouds. Read more...
SEPTEMBER 2006 BROWN DWARF DISCOVERY: NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has directly imaged a small brown dwarf star orbiting a larger star - the first time this has ever been seen. The brown dwarf, HD 3651, is classified as a “T dwarf”, has about 50 times the mass of Jupiter, and orbits about 10 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto. Read more...
NASA: Hubble Space Telescope
Shuttle Servicing Mission 4
Through to Fall 2008
Mission Extended to 2013
 Over a series of five spacewalks, astronauts will replace worn-out telescope components, installing new batteries, new gyroscopes, a refurbished Fine Guidance Sensor, replacement thermal blankets, and more. Read more...
The $US900 million ($A1.16 billion) trip will go ahead even though the shuttle astronauts will be unable to take shelter on the international space station if something goes wrong, Dr Griffin said at the Goddard Space Flight Centre near Washington. Read more...
SEPTEMBER 2006 BROWN DWARF DISCOVERY: Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The conundrum is that it’s also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star. Read more...
JAXA: ASTRO-F (AKARI)
Launch: February 2006
 The AKARI mission is an ambitious plan to make an all-sky survey with much better sensitivity, spatial resolution and wider wavelength coverage than IRAS. Read more...
Brown dwarves have been thought to be a candidate for some of the dark matter. A lightweight star the mass of which is less than 8 % of the Sun can not give off light at high temperature, but it still radiates at infrared wavelengths. Such a small and low-temperature star which can not be seen by visible light is referred to as Brown Dwarf. ASTRO-F can look into it by using the high sensitivity of its infrared cameras. It is expected that the mass and number of brown dwarves in our Galaxy will be estimated accurately and the mystery of the baryonic dark matter will be resolved by ASTRO-F infrared wide area observations. Read more...
Plans are to split the ASTRO-F mission into three distinct phases after the two-month checkout period is completed. The first phase will concentrate on accomplishing the all-sky survey during the first six months of the operations. Following will be another ten months of primarily targeted pointing observations of specific areas of interest as determined by a team of scientists from around the world. Read more...
ESA: Herschel Space Observatory
Launch: 2007
 The Herschel Space Observatory is a space-based telescope that will study the Universe by the light of the far-infrared and submillimeter portions of the spectrum. It is expected to reveal new information about the earliest, most distant stars and galaxies, as well as those closer to home in space and time. It will also take a unique look at our own solar system.
Two-thirds of Herschel's observation time will be available to the world scientific community, with the remainder reserved for the spacecraft's science and instrument teams. Read more...
Polar Infrared Observatories as
Backup to Space Observatories
 We currently possess more observation power in space than ever before in human history. Likewise, the threat that a perfect solar super storm could wreck this capability is likewise making new history. The last 11-year solar maximum saw the creation of the new Y-class designation for solar eruptions, beyond the previous X-class level. So what about the next 11-year solar maximum? It begins in 2007 and it could be half again worse when it peaks in 2012.
One March 2006 NASA made it clear: “It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet. Like the quiet before a storm.” Read more...
So what happens if a perfect solar super storm happens in the near future. It could disable or destroy many of our splendid space-based observatories. With a very real threat such as this, a plan B that gives us the standby ability to use ground-based infrared telescopes in Antarctica to track an brown dwarf approaching from the South makes sense. Now let’s follow the money.
NASA: Sophia Observatory
Project Extension
 The world’s largest airborne astronomical observatory has passed a technical and programmatic review that could potentially lead to the continuation of the mission.
NASA’s Program Management Council concluded that there were no insurmountable technical or programmatic challenges to the continued development of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
The aircraft, fitted with an open-port telescope provided through a partnership with the German Aerospace Center, will provide routine access to space observations in several parts of the spectrum beyond what is visible to the eye. Read more...
USA: South Pole Telescope (Antarctica)
Operational: 1st QTR 2007
 A new 10 meter diameter telescope is being constructed for deployment at the NSF South Pole research station. The telescope is designed for conducting large-area millimeter and sub-millimeter wave surveys of faint, low contrast emission, as required to map primary and secondary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background.
Speaker’s Note: Something which is anisotropic may appear different or have different characteristics in different directions
Speaker’s Note: The SPT an infrared telescope but the web site goes to extreme lengths to avoid making that simple statement. Perhaps that could be due to a anisotropic spin agenda. In fact, the infrared capabilities of this observatory are equal to, or greater than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.
France: Concordia Observatory (Antarctica)
Proposed
 Telescopes are perched at the tops of mountains because the air up there is thinner, drier and clearer than the view from sea level. But the best views of all are near the south pole in Antarctica, in a region called Dome C.
A team of French astronomers are hoping to build a trio of telescopes that work together as a single, large telescope as a prototype. But they’ve got their sights set on a larger installation that could rival the capabilities of the best telescopes on Earth.
Although the view from Dome C could never be as good as the view from space, such as with the Hubble Space Telescope, it could be almost as good. Images taken from this spot could be as good as Hubble about 10% of the time, and images in the near-Infrared spectrum could be as good as Hubble 50% of the time.
Finding New Earths — Future
Lifeboats for Humanity
 Assuming we live in a binary star system and that our sun’s unborn twin is in a destabilized orbit, that could mean the eventual destruction of the Earth in 3797 as prophesied by Nostradamus. Is this far fetched? Not according to an effect described in 1962 by the Japanese Astronomer, Yoshihide Kozai. It is called the Kozai Mechanism and it explains in very predictable terms -- how large objects in space orbit about each other.
Assuming this object we generally refer to as Planet X (England), Nibiru (Sumer), Red Comet (Maya) or the Destroyer (Egypt) is a brown star in an orbit that is perpendicular to the ecliptic (the solar plane) as the ancient tell us, the future is grim indeed. This is because the Kozai Mechanism tells us that this unborn twin will eventually plunge into the sun. Along the way, all the other bodies in our system will likewise either be caused to plunge into the sun or be flung out into the frigid depths of space.
This is why we need to find other solar systems in our galaxy where future generations can colonize new Earths and thereby ensure our survival as a species. Granted, this is an ambitious technological goal to say the least, but then again, it only took little more than a century for America to go from the Pony Express to the Moon. And we didn't do it because we believed the naysayers. We did it because we believed in our own destiny, and finding and colonizing new Earths is a new destiny for humankind that will take millennia to achieve. This means each generation has to pay it forward, and we’re doing that by beginning a new and magnificent search for new Earths. Now let’s follow the money.
NASA: Hubble Space Telescope
Shuttle Servicing Mission 4
Through to Fall 2008
Mission Extended to 2013
OCTOBER 2006 16 EXTRASOLAR PLANETS DISCOVERED: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered 16 extrasolar planet candidates orbiting a variety of distant stars in the central region of our Milky Way galaxy.
The planet bonanza was uncovered during a Hubble survey, called the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS). Hubble looked farther than has ever successfully been searched for extrasolar planets. Hubble peered at 180,000 stars in the crowded central bulge of our galaxy 26,000 light-years away or one-quarter the diameter of the Milky Way's spiral disk. The results will appear in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Nature. Read more...
JAXA: ASTRO-F (AKARI)
Launch: February 2006
One of our great concerns is whether there are planetary systems except for our own Solar System and whether life exists there. A planet forms inside a disk (protoplanetary disk) composed of gas and dust around a star. ASTRO-F can look for the radiation from a protoplanetary disk within 1000 light-years. It will reveal the forming process of planetary systems through infrared observations. It is also expected to detect the dust disks which are a trace of planetary systems in formation around nearby stars. Read more...
ESA, CNES: COROT
Launch: December 2006
 A powerful new instrument for finding extrasolar planets is about to launch: COROT (Convection Rotation and planetary Transits). Developed by the European Space Agency, COROT will search for planets using the transit method; it will be able to detect the slight drop in brightness as a planet moves in front of its parent star. If the observatory performs as expected, it should be able to detect rocky worlds just a few times larger than the Earth.
The launch of COROT opens an exciting new chapter in the quest for planets around other stars. “ESA has been working for a long time towards the detection of Earth-like worlds around other stars. COROT is an important first step in this direction and helps to pave the way for ESA’s future flagship mission, Darwin, dedicated to the direct detection of Earth-like worlds and their atmospheres to search for signs of life.” says Sergio Volonte, Head of the Science Planning and Community Coordination Office at ESA. Read more...
NASA: Wise
Launch: 2009
 NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer team got the good news this week when their space telescope was approved for construction. Once in orbit, the “Wise” spacecraft will survey the entire sky in the infrared spectrum. This full-sky survey should turn up many previously unseen brown dwarf stars - objects too dim to be seen in previous surveys.
Such extensive sky coverage means the mission will find and catalogue all sorts of celestial eccentrics. These may include brown dwarfs, or failed stars, that are closer to Earth than Proxima Centauri, the nearest star other than our sun. Brown dwarfs are balls of gas that begin life like stars but lack the mass to ignite their internal fires and light up like normal stars. They do, however, produce warm infrared glows that Wise will be able to see. Read more...
|
