Reported and Edited by Linda Moulton Howe
January 6, 2007 Pasadena, California - NASA's JPL reports that scientists now have "definitive evidence of the presence of lakes filled with liquid methane" on Saturn's moon Titan. The radar data was published in this week's journal Nature cover story. Radar imaging data from a July 22, 2006, fly-over by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft provided convincing evidence for large bodies of liquid methane. on Titan today.
"Imagine trying to see fireworks at night from across a crowded city. If you could turn off the city lights, you might get a glimpse at the fireworks. We have shut down the lights of the Universe to see the outlines of its first fireworks."
- Alexander Kashlinsky, Ph.D., NASA Goddard Astronomer
"A portion of the organic material in the samples is unlike anything seen before in extraterrestrial materials."
- Scott Sandford, NASA's Ames Research Center
Also see 120106 Earthfiles report about Deep Impact study of Comet Tempel I.
December 15, 2006 Pasadena, California - NASA reports that scientists have found a new class of organics in comet dust captured from comet Wild 2 in 2004 by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. [ See December 15, 2006 issue of Science Express online. ]
"This is the highest energy at which any periodic signal has been observed, nearly 100,000 times higher than previously known."
- H.E.S.S. Observatory, Namibia
November 27, 2006 Gamsberg, Namibia - Astrophysicists operating the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) gamma-ray telescopes in Namibia have announced the discovery of periodic emission of very-high-energy gamma rays from a binary system. The object which is responsible for this emission is a double system called LS 5039, comprised of a massive blue star twenty times heavier than the Sun.
Date: Night of September 30 to October 1, 2002.
Radio Wave Size: About 1 meter in wavelength.
Number of Bursts: Five bursts over 7-hour period.
Name Assigned 5 Radio Bursts: "GCRT J1745-3009"
Length of Each Burst: 10 minutes duration and each radio burst separated by about 77 minutes of silence. Rise time in intensity was about 8 minutes, slower than decay time which was about two minutes.
Estimated Location: As far as 24,000 light-years, or as close as 300 light-years, toward center of Milky Way galaxy and region of red supernova remnant known as "SNR 359.1-00.5."
October 23, 2006 Sweet Briar, Virginia - A year and a half ago in early March 2005, I reported at Earthfiles about a physicist’s report in Nature concerning a powerful and repeating burst of radio waves toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy in a region known as SNR 359.1-00.5. The galactic center is 26,000 light-years from Earth and is full of stars. There were five radio bursts in 1-meter-long radio wavelengths of 330 MegaHertz detected over a 7 hour period on the night of September 30 to October 1, 2002. The five radio bursts were equally spaced apart by 77 minutes and there were no detectable x-ray emissions. No one studying our galaxy has ever seen any radio bursts like that before. The source is a complete mystery.
"Researchers from the University of Colorado believe the next solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24) will be the most intense in 50 years."
- NASA, August 15, 2006
August 23, 2006 Huntsville, Alabama - As long as humans have been studying our sun, observers have noticed that the sun goes through reoccurring cycles that last about eleven years. For instance, most recently the year 2000 was a solar maximum of sunspots. After that, sunspots were supposed to decline in size and number to a solar minimum in 2005 before starting over again with an upswing in sunspot activity to another solar maximum in 2010 to 2012. During solar maximums, there can be powerful flares, or coronal mass ejections, that propel intense solar radiation at a million mph through the solar system. The power of a solar flare is the energy equivalent of a million megatons of TNT, or ten million Hiroshima bombs. During the most recent solar minimum, there were a number of unexpected huge sunspots that unleashed gigantic X class flares when the sun was supposed to be quiet. X class flares are the strongest category. That unusually intense activity during a solar minimum left many people wondering if the next solar cycle, the 24th, will be especially strong?
August 19, 2006 Cardiff, Wales - Nearly half a century ago in 1960, a mathematics graduate student from Colombo, Sri Lanka, set off on his first international trip to Cambridge, England. His name is Chandra Wickramasinghe. He was fascinated by stars in the night skies, wondered about other life Out There, and his Cambridge University advanced degree was in Astronomy. His faculty supervisor was the famous Cambridge astronomer, Fred Hoyle. The two men had the curiosity and courage to look for other life in the universe by studying cosmic dust. Their controversial panspermia hypothesis was that the universe is teeming with at least microbial life, which can be transported from one cosmic location to another. In their collaboration, the two astronomers felt strongly that the double helix DNA found in all Earth life had been seeded here by comets or other cosmic bodies and that same DNA would be found in all life forms throughout the cosmos.
"Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan's north pole ... very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes."
- NASA and JPL Cassini-Huygens Mission
July 25, 2006 Pasadena, California - NASA and JPL report: "The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan's north pole.