Category: Science

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Did CONTOUR Probe Break Apart Or Disappear Into Space?

NASA artist's conception of Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft approaching one of the comets it planned to study, including Comet Encke in 2003, Comet Schwassman-Wachmann 3 in 2006 and Comet d'Arrest in 2008.
NASA artist's conception of Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft approaching one of the comets it planned to study, including Comet Encke in 2003, Comet Schwassman-Wachmann 3 in 2006 and Comet d'Arrest in 2008.

NASA UPDATE ON AUGUST 26, 2002:

"On Aug. 15, CONTOUR's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor
> was programmed to ignite at 4:49 a.m. EDT, giving CONTOUR
> enough boost to escape Earth's orbit. At that time, CONTOUR
> was about 140 miles above the Indian Ocean and out of radio
> contact with controllers. The CONTOUR mission operations team
> at APL expected to regain contact at approximately 5:35 a.m.
> EDT to confirm the burn, but NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN)
> antennas did not acquire a signal.
>
> Since then, there has been no contact with CONTOUR. Commands
> pre-programmed into the spacecraft's flight computer system,
> designed to instruct the spacecraft to try various alternate
> methods of contacting Earth when contact is lost, also have
> not worked to date.
>
> Images from a Spacewatch ground-based telescope at Kitt Peak,
> Ariz., show three objects at the location where CONTOUR was
> predicted to be, images which may indicate the spacecraft has
> broken apart. Mission controllers at APL will continue
> listening for signals from the spacecraft periodically until
> early December, when CONTOUR will come into a more favorable
> angle for receiving a signal from Earth."

August 16, 2002  Laurel, Maryland - Late this afternoon at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), Dr. Robert Farquhar, Mission Director for the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), teleconferenced with reporters about the status of the missing CONTOUR spacecraft. CONTOUR's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor was programmed to ignite at 4:49 a.m. EDT yesterday, August 15, to launch the probe out of Earth orbit onto a trajectory to study two or three comets over the next few years. At that burn time, CONTOUR was over the Indian Ocean at 140 miles (225 kilometers), too low for NASA's Deep Space Network stations to track the spacecraft during the burn. All systems seemed to be OK going into the burn, but 45 minutes later when the JHUAPL mission operations team tried to regain contact with the probe, no signal was received.

 

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The “Bloop” in the Ocean

Spectrogram of an unidentified deep ocean sound, referred to as "Bloop." The bloop sound was repeatedly recorded during the summer of 1997 on the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array. The sound rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km. It yields a general location near 50oS; 100oW (far off the west coast of southern South America). The origin of the sound is unknown. A recording of the bloop sound can be heard, sped up 16 times, at: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/sound01.html
Spectrogram of an unidentified deep ocean sound, referred to as "Bloop." The bloop sound was repeatedly recorded during the summer of 1997 on the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array. The sound rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km. It yields a general location near 50oS; 100oW (far off the west coast of southern South America). The origin of the sound is unknown. A recording of the bloop sound can be heard, sped up 16 times, at: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/sound01.html

June 30, 2002  Woods Hole, Massachusetts - The June 13, 2002 issue of New Scientist featured an article by reporter John von Radowitz in London about an underwater sound deep in the ocean recorded in 1997 by NOAA scientists that remains unidentified. The "Bloop" was detected and recorded from an array of underwater hydrophones (microphones) originally set up by the U. S. Navy in the 1960s to track Soviet submarines. The listening technology is distributed in a deep ocean level known as the "sound layer" which marine animals such as whales and human technology such as submarines use for long-range communication.

The SOund SUrveillance System, or SOSUS, consists of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays connected by undersea communication cables to facilities on shore. Illustration courtesy Naval Research Laborator
The SOund SUrveillance System, or SOSUS, consists of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays connected by undersea communication cables to facilities on shore. Illustration courtesy Naval Research Laboratory.

The "Bloop" was detected by hydrophones up to 4,800 kilometers apart (2,983 miles). That is a long distance for a single sound to be heard. Thus, speculation began about what the "Bloop" might be. The New Scientist article stated that the great distance it covered "meant it had to be much louder than any recognized animal noise, including that produced by the largest whales."

Recently, NOAA scientist Chris Fox who originally recorded the "Bloop," sent one recording to Dr. Phil Lobel, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Laboratory in Massachusetts and a Professor of Marine Biology at Boston University. Dr. Lobel studies underwater sounds made by fish and other marine animals. I asked him what he thought the Bloop could be.

 

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Mile and A Half Diameter Asteroid 2002 NT7 Might Impact Earth in 2019

"We are talking about a global disaster of apocalyptic dimensions
if an asteroid that size were to hit us."­

Benny Peiser, Ph.D., Liverpool John Moores University, U. K.

Asteroid 2002 NT7 currently tops the Impact Risk list of NASA/JPL's Near-Earth Object Program because current calculations place it crossing the earth's orbital path on or about February 1, 2019, or other possible later dates. NASA says, "While this prediction is of scientific interest, the probability of impact is not large enough to warrant public concern."
Asteroid 2002 NT7 currently tops the Impact Risk list of NASA/JPL's Near-Earth Object Program because current calculations place it crossing the earth's orbital path on or about February 1, 2019, or other possible later dates. NASA says, "While this prediction is of scientific interest, the probability of impact is not large enough to warrant public concern."

July 25, 2002  Liverpool, England - The newly discovered potential threat to the earth in another seventeen years is known by scientists as "Asteroid 2002 NT7." It was discovered on July 9, 2002 by researchers from M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project funded by the United States Air Force and NASA. The goal of the LINEAR program is to demonstrate the application of technology, originally developed for the surveillance of earth orbiting satellites, to the problem of detecting and cataloging Near Earth Asteroids (also referred to as Near Earth Objects, or NEOs) that threaten the Earth.

 

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Hubble Telescope Photographs Seven Binary Objects Beyond Pluto

This NASA composite picture shows the apparent orbit in blue of one member of a pair of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) known as WW31. The six fainter points of light are Hubble photographs of WW31 as it moved relative to another object which is the larger, brighter light. The two objects revolve around a common center of gravity, like a pair of waltzing skaters. Astronomers assembled this picture from six separate Hubble Telescope exposures taken from July to September 2001, December 2001 and January to February 2002. The location is in the Kuiper Belt of icy objects that were left over from the solar system's birth and which orbit beyond Pluto. Graphic courtesy NASA and C. Veillet, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
This NASA composite picture shows the apparent orbit in blue of one member of a pair of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) known as WW31. The six fainter points of light are Hubble photographs of WW31 as it moved relative to another object which is the larger, brighter light. The two objects revolve around a common center of gravity, like a pair of waltzing skaters. Astronomers assembled this picture from six separate Hubble Telescope exposures taken from July to September 2001, December 2001 and January to February 2002. The location is in the Kuiper Belt of icy objects that were left over from the solar system's birth and which orbit beyond Pluto. Graphic courtesy NASA and C. Veillet, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

July 11, 2002  Baltimore, Maryland ­ One of the most recent discoveries in our solar system, NASA reports, is an "intriguing new class of objects, dim and fleeting, which travel in pairs in the frigid, mysterious outer realm of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt." These Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), inhabit a region that begins around Neptune and extends out more than nine billion miles. At least half of the short-period comets that come through the solar system, around the sun and back out again are from the Kuiper Belt, named after astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper who headed the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona until his death in 1973.

 

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Update About Cuba Underwater Megalithic Research

A half mile down in the waters of Cabo de San Antonio off the western tip of Cuba's Guanahacabibes marked by red X is a 20-kilometer square area of clean, white sand punctuated by tall, megalithic stones or structures first reported in May 2001 by Paulina Zelitsky, Ocean Engineer, Havana, Cuba.
A half mile down in the waters of Cabo de San Antonio off the western tip of Cuba's Guanahacabibes marked by red X is a 20-kilometer square area of clean, white sand punctuated by tall, megalithic stones or structures first reported in May 2001 by Paulina Zelitsky, Ocean Engineer, Havana, Cuba.

"They (megalithic stones) are very unique structures. They really are not easy to understand and I do not have any easy explanation for them in a natural geological process."

­ Manuel Iturralde-Vinent, Ph.D., Geologist,
National Museum of Natural History, Havana, Cuba

 

July 10, 2002  Havana, Cuba ­ A year ago in May 2001, I first reported at Earthfiles.com the startling comments made by ocean engineer, Paulina Zelitsky in Havana, Cuba about her finding earlier in 2000 "possibly a sunken city built in the pre-classic period and populated by an advanced civilization similar to the early Teotihuacan culture of Yucatan. ...Researchers using sonar equipment have discovered at a depth of about 2,200 feet (700-800 meters) a huge land plateau with clear images of what appears to be urban development partly covered by sand. From above, the shapes resemble pyramids, roads and buildings." (See Earthfiles May 18, 2001.)

 

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Earth’s Magnetic Anomalies – Could the Poles Flip?

Computer-generated snapshot of lines of force in the Earth's magnetic field beginning at the Earth's surface from where they penetrate smoothly into the insulating mantle. The structure changes dramatically in the liquid core below the mantle where the magnetic field is generated by the convection of the core's melted iron. Graphic courtesy Gary A. Glatzmaier, EE-IGPP, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Paul Roberts, University of California-Los Angeles.
Computer-generated snapshot of lines of force in the Earth's magnetic field beginning at the Earth's surface from where they penetrate smoothly into the insulating mantle. The structure changes dramatically in the liquid core below the mantle where the magnetic field is generated by the convection of the core's melted iron. Graphic courtesy Gary A. Glatzmaier, EE-IGPP, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Paul Roberts, University of California-Los Angeles.

April 27, 2002  Cambridge, Massachusetts - Deep beneath our feet as we walk around ­ in fact, 4,000 miles down ­ is the center of the earth where an iron core is so hot it is liquid and boils around like cooking porridge. That moving, melted iron also produces the magnetic fields that surround the earth and upon which much of earth's surface life, satellites and space technology depend upon for orientation, and for protection. If magnetic fields did not trap highly energetic particles racing from the sun, all kinds of damage could be done to living organisms and space technologies. For nearly a million years, magnetic field lines have been coming out of the south pole and entering the north pole of the earth. That is called the magnetic dipole.

 

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John Anthony West Organizing New Effort to Date Weathering of Sphinx and Red Pyramid Chamber

A 20th Century photograph of the Sphinx showing weathering and damage from deliberate attacks over the ages, Cairo, Egypt. The Sphinx was carved, method unknown, from one single ridge of stone that was 240ft long. Its length is 150 feet and the paws alone are 50 feet. Its height is 66 feet. The head measures 30 feet long and 14 feet wide.
A 20th Century photograph of the Sphinx showing weathering and damage from deliberate attacks over the ages, Cairo, Egypt. The Sphinx was carved, method unknown, from one single ridge of stone that was 240ft long. Its length is 150 feet and the paws alone are 50 feet. Its height is 66 feet. The head measures 30 feet long and 14 feet wide.

April 23, 2002  Athens, New York - In 1991, Egypt researcher John Anthony West joined Boston University geologist, Robert Schoch, Ph.D., to study the weathering on the base of the Sphinx. Dr. Schoch's academic opinion was water damage at least eight thousand years ago and the two men announced their theory which made worldwide headlines. Since then, two British geologists named David Coxill and Colin Reader have independently traveled to Cairo to study the Sphinx and each has supported Dr. Schoch's conclusion that the weathering is from water. But no one yet has definitively proved how long ago there was enough rain to weather the Sphinx.

 

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Dinosaur Feathers – Even On Tyrannosaurus rex?

Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur painting © by artist Tony Trammell in Dinosaur Illustrations.
Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur painting © by artist Tony Trammell in Dinosaur Illustrations.

March 9, 2002 New York City, New York - This week I talked to a scientist who is confident that many dinosaurs had feathers, including the fierce Tyrannosaurus rex "monster" meat-eater, - or at least when it was young. Dr. Mark Norell, Chairman of the Paleontology Division at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, published photographs and information about a new fossil discovery from the Liaoning Province in northeast China in the March 7th journal, Nature.

 

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Mysterious Slowing of Pioneer Spacecraft 7 Billion Miles from Earth

An artist's rendering of the Pioneer spacecraft in deep space courtesy NASA.
An artist's rendering of the Pioneer spacecraft in deep space courtesy NASA.


February 24, 2002  Los Alamos, New Mexico - Thirty years ago on March 2, 1972, NASA launched the Pioneer 10 spacecraft from Cape Kennedy aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket. According to officials, it was the "fastest spacecraft ever to leave Earth." Its mission was to travel through the asteroid belt, be the first manmade machine to pass Jupiter and be the first spacecraft to use planetary gravity to change course and to reach escape velocity from the solar system. Pioneer 10 is powered by electricity derived from the warmth of decaying plutonium 238 and was intended to last only 21 months. Thirty years later, it is still going and sending signals.

 

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