OMEN: Plagues And Pestilences - Mysterious "Blood Rain" Tints Water A Gruesome Hue In Several Villages In Northwest Spain?!

Water in a basin in Fuente Encalada (Zamora) was stained red by the algae Haematococcus pluvialis, brought by the rain. Credit: Joaquín Pérez

November 15, 2015 - SPAIN - Residents of several villages in northwest Spain received an unpleasant surprise last fall, when they noticed that the water in their fountains had turned a gory shade of red. The tint wasn't left behind by a guilty murderer's bloody hands, but rather by microscopic algae that arrived in a recent rainfall.

But at the time, no one knew what had caused their pristine reservoirs to suddenly resemble grisly crime scenes. Speculation ran rampant, blaming everything from contaminants dropped from airplanes to biblical plagues (a similar "blood rain" episode in Kerala, India, in 2001 sparked suggestions that the rain had extraterrestrial origins). Joaquín Pérez, who lived nearby, decided to collect rainwater to see if he could detect the culprit, according to a statement by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology.

Over the next several months, Pérez gathered samples, noticing particles in the water that stained it red. He sent the samples to researchers at the University of Salamanca, where they confirmed in a study that the "blood rain" was teeming with microscopic freshwater algae called Haematococcus pluvialis, which produce a red pigment when they're stressed. Bacteria in the Chromatiaceae family may have caused similarly blood-red water in a Texas lake in 2011.

Scientists were surprised to see H. pluvialis, which is common in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere — particularly in North America and along Europe's Atlantic coastlines — but is practically nonexistent in that part of Spain. "So, they must be coming from some other place," said geologist Javier Fernández-Lozano, co-author of the study. Analysis of weather data suggests that the algae could have hitchhiked to western Spain on the winds, but, for the present, the origins of this bloodbath are still unknown.

The finding was published Sept. 21 in the Spanish Royal Society of Natural History Journal, and can be accessed on Researchgate. - Live Science.

 

STAR WARS: The War Off Los Angeles - U.S. Navy Launches Second Test Missile Off Southern California Coast!

A light created by a naval test fire off the Southern California coast was seen across the Southland and Arizona on Saturday evening.
(Eddy Hartenstein/ Los Angeles Times)

November 10, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - The U.S. Navy said it launched a second -- and final -- missile in a planned exercise Monday afternoon from a submarine off the Southern California coast.

The second test launch of the Trident II (D5) missile from a ballistic submarine in the Pacific Ocean took place Monday afternoon, the Navy said. The blast-off took place to far less fanfare than Saturday night’s launch, which provoked residents from San Francisco to Mexico to take to social media, posting photos of an eerie-looking bluish-green plume smeared above the Pacific.

Speculations were wide-ranging, including rumors of an otherworldly alien UFO visit. In fact, the streak was generated from the Trident missile’s rocket motor.

The Navy later confirmed a ballistic submarine launched an unarmed Trident II (D5) missile in a test flight, but would not define the window of time available for conducting additional launches, nor would it disclose where the exercise was actually taking place.

“It’s important that we test these missiles for our national security,” said John M. Daniels, spokesman for the secretive Strategic Systems Programs office, which oversees the Navy’s nuclear-tipped missile arsenal. “We don’t announce future launches, but this is it for any time soon.”

The Kentucky, the ballistic submarine, conducted the two launches as part of a demonstration and shakedown operation, or DASO, process that certifies the readiness of a submarine’s crew and strategic weapons before returning to operational availability.

It occurs after a submarine has its mid-life nuclear refueling, which involves replacing the expended nuclear fuel in the submarine’s reactor with new fuel. The Kentucky entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., in February 2012 for an overhaul that ended in April.

The Navy is considering posting additional photos -- and possibly video -- of the missile launches after the current exercises are completed, Daniels said, but it has yet to decide.

The Navy’s fleet of 14 ballistic submarines can each carry 24 Trident missiles, each tipped with 14 independently targetable thermonuclear warheads.

The Navy annually tests the Tridents, on the West Coast and on the East Coast, near Florida.

The $31 million missile, built by Lockheed Martin Corp. in Sunnyvale, Calif., has had more than 150 successful launches since its first test in 1989. It is capable of hitting a target 4,000 nautical miles away.

The test on Saturday featured the launch of a missile outfitted with a dummy warhead toward the Kwajalein Atoll, a missile test site that’s part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific.

While the risk of nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia declined after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, it has never gone away.

The U.S. military’s nuclear weapons strategy rests on a triad of delivery systems — bombers, submarines and land-based missiles — developed early in the Cold War to deliver warheads anywhere in the world.

The Pentagon recently embarked on a $355-billion program for modernizing each aging leg of the U.S. nuclear triad over the next decade.

The submarine missile test came late Saturday after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter addressed a defense forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley about the U.S. “adapting our operational posture and contingency plans” to deter Russia’s “aggression.”

“We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot, war with Russia,” he said to the forum. “We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake; the United States will defend our interests, our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all.” - LA Times.

 

TWILIGHT ZONE: Aliens, Planet X, Secret Space Program, Killer Asteroids, BioWeapons, Pole Shift, Government Secrets,... - Why Have So Many Scientists Been Mysteriously Killed Over The Last 24 Months?!

January 27, 2015 - TWILIGHT ZONE - A number of experienced scientists have died, often under mysterious conditions, over the past couple of years, the latest being a NASA expert in robotics who worked on space missions.

As reported by Britain's Daily Mail, the latest scientist casualty is Alberto Behar, 47, of Scottsdale, Arizona, who was killed instantly when the small plane he was piloting recently crashed into a Los Angeles intersection in a nosedive shortly after take-off.

The paper said the plane took off from Van Nuys Airport, according to the LA County Coroner. Behar, the paper continued, worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena for 23 years and was also a research professor at Arizona State University. He worked on a pair of Mars missions and had spent years researching how robots would work in hard conditions and environs, like volcanoes and deep underwater.

The Daily Mail further reported:

As part of the NASA team exploring Mars with the Curiosity rover, Behar was responsible for a device that detected hydrogen on the planet's surface as the rover moved.

"His career was dedicated to better understanding Earth and the other planets," JPL Science Division manager Michael Watkins in a statement.

Just the latest in a long line of dead scientists

His research with the Mars missions helped discover that at one time there was water on the planet.

Behar's additional work seems innocuous enough. In 2010, he assisted in designing a camera that was able to capture a miniscule, shrimp-like sea creature swimming deep below the Antarctic ice sheet, a discovery that was highly unexpected. His colleagues and research associates said he was especially notable for narrowing the divide between scientists attempting to study inhospitable environments and engineers whose robots are able to survive such conditions.

"From his submarines that peeked under Antarctica to his boats that raced Greenland's rivers, Alberto's work enabled measurements of things we'd never known," NASA scientist Thomas Wagner told the Mail in a statement. "His creativity knew few bounds. He is, and will forever be, sorely missed."

The cause of the crash is, as of this writing, still under investigation.

The New York Times further reported that Behar ran Arizona State's Extreme Environments Robotics and Instrumentation Laboratory, and that he "had a passion for creating autonomous craft" that contained "sensors or cameras that could probe places no human could ever go." One of those was "down the great roaring watery drain pipes, or moulins, that pepper the Greenland ice sheet in summertime."

The Times further reported:

By coincidence, Behar's death came just three days before publication of the latest study on which he is a co-author -- a detailed analysis of the melt-water rivers and moulin drains across a 2,000-square-mile portion of the vast Greenland ice sheet. The paper, "Efficient meltwater drainage through supraglacial streams and rivers on the southwest Greenland ice sheet," was posted online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [January 12].

"This job is killing me"

The Times piece was written by Andrew C. Revkin, who expressed admiration for Behar and called him "a rare breed."

"I've met only a handful of researchers with his mix of skills -- most, as it happens, focused on the extreme environments at the poles," Revkin wrote. "He'll be sorely missed."

Behar joins a growing list of other scientists and researchers who have recently died in mysterious circumstances, as tallied at .

They include, from the most recent deaths:

-- John Rogers, a tropical disease expert with the National Institutes of Health. "Martin John Rogers was found 'near' his wrecked car down in an embankment in western Maryland on Thursday, September 4, 2014, after disappearing on August 21, 2014 when he left home for work at the world-renowned research center near Washington, D.C. No word yet on the cause of death..."

--Glenn Thomas, an AIDS and Ebola expert and spokesman for the World Health Organization. "Ebola expert Glenn Thomas was among the 298 people who were killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down and crashed in Ukraine. It is understood he was one of more than 100 researchers who were aboard the flight on their way to an international Aids conference in Australia."

--Mark Ferri, a nuclear engineer. "A renowned American engineer was found dead in his hotel room in Salford after his heart suddenly stopped working. Mark Ferri, 59, from Tennessee, had completed two degrees in engineering as well as an MBA before becoming a nuclear engineer. ... It was said Mr Ferri had been under stress from his job. His wife, Michaela, told the inquest: 'He said a number of times, this job is killing me.'" - Natural News.

MONUMENTAL SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS: More Evidence Of "PLANET X" - Spanish Astronomers Discover TWO New Giant Planets In Our Solar System, Just Beyond Pluto!

June 17, 2014 - SPACE - The monsters are multiplying. Just months after astronomers announced hints of a giant "Planet X" lurking beyond Pluto, a team in Spain says there may actually be two supersized planets hiding in the outer reaches of our solar system.

When potential dwarf planet 2012 VP113 was discovered in March, it joined a handful of unusual rocky objects known to reside beyond the orbit of Pluto. These small objects have curiously aligned orbits, which hints that an unseen planet even further out is influencing their behaviour. Scientists calculated that this world would be about 10 times the mass of Earth and would orbit at roughly 250 times Earth's distance from the sun.

Now Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain have taken another look at these distant bodies. As well as confirming their bizarre orbital alignment, the pair found additional puzzling patterns. Small groups of the objects have very similar orbital paths. Because they are not massive enough to be tugging on each other, the researchers think the objects are being "shepherded" by a larger object in a pattern known as orbital resonance.

Planet shepherd

For instance, we know that Neptune and Pluto are in orbital resonance – for every two orbits Pluto makes around the sun, Neptune makes three. Similarly, one group of small objects seems to be in lockstep with a much more distant, unseen planet. That world would have a mass between that of Mars and Saturn and would sit about 200 times Earth's distance from the sun.

Some of the smaller objects have very elongated orbits that would take them out to this distance. It is unusual for a large planet to orbit so close to other bodies unless it is dynamically tied to something else, so the researchers suggest that the large planet is itself in resonance with a more massive world at about 250 times the Earth-sun distance – just like the one predicted in the previous work.


 WATCH: Spanish astronomers discover two new planets in solar system.

Observing these putative planets will be tricky. The smaller bodies are on very elliptical orbits and were only spotted when they ventured closest to the sun. But the big planets would have roughly circular orbits and would be slow moving and dim, making them tough for current telescopes to see. "It's not at all surprising that they haven't been found yet," says Carlos.

"As there are only a few of these extremely distant objects known, it's hard to say anything definitive about the number or location of any distant planets," says Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, one of the discoverers of 2012 VP113. "However, in the near future we should have more objects to work with to help us determine the structure of the outer solar system."

Reference: arxiv.org/abs/1406.0715 

- NewScientist.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: PLAN CONOP 8888 - The U.S. Pentagon Has A Plan To Stop The Zombie Apocalypse?! SERIOUSLY! The Catalog Of The Walking Dead Also Includes Zombies From OUTER SPACE?! [PDF DOCUMENT, 31 PAGES]

May 14, 2014 - PENTAGON, UNITED STATES - The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency. Need a response for a Russian nuclear missile launch? Check. Have to rescue a U.S. ambassador kidnapped by drug lords? Yup, check, got that covered. How about a detailed strategy for surviving a zombie apocalypse? As it turns out, check.

Incredibly, the Defense Department has a response if zombies attacked and the armed forces had to eradicate flesh-eating walkers in order to "preserve the sanctity of human life" among all the "non-zombie humans."

Buried on the military's secret computer network is an unclassified document, obtained by Foreign Policy, called "CONOP 8888." It's a zombie survival plan, a how-to guide for military planners trying to isolate the threat from a menu of the undead -- from chicken zombies to vegetarian zombies and even "evil magic zombies" -- and destroy them.

"This plan fulfills fictional contingency planning guidance tasking for U.S. Strategic Command to develop a comprehensive [plan] to undertake military operations to preserve 'non-zombie' humans from the threats posed by a zombie horde," CONOP 8888's plan summary reads. "Because zombies pose a threat to all non-zombie human life, [Strategic Command] will be prepared to preserve the sanctity of human life and conduct operations in support of any human population -- including traditional adversaries."

CONOP 8888, otherwise known as "Counter-Zombie Dominance" and dated April 30, 2011, is no laughing matter, and yet of course it is. As its authors note in the document's "disclaimer section," "this plan was not actually designed as a joke."

Military planners assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska during 2009 and 2010 looked for a creative way to devise a planning document to protect citizens in the event of an attack of any kind. The officers used zombies as their muse. "Planners ... realized that training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan," the authors wrote, adding: "Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional 'Tunisia' or 'Nigeria' scenarios used at [Joint Combined Warfighting School], we elected to use a completely-impossible scenario that could never be mistaken for a real plan."

Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for Strategic Command, acknowledged the document exists on a "secure Internet site" but took pains to explain that the zombie survival guide is only a creative endeavor for training purposes. "The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," she wrote in an email. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."

This isn't the first time zombies have been used to inspire trainers or the American public. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) built an entire public awareness campaign for emergency preparedness around zombies. "Get a kit, make a plan, be prepared," one CDC poster warns as a dead-eyed woman peeks over a blanket.

But the military appears to have come up with the idea first. And of course, should there be a zombie apocalypse, the military indeed has a plan.

CONOP 8888 is designed to "establish and maintain a vigilant defensive condition aimed at protecting humankind from zombies," according to the plan's purpose, and, "if necessary, conduct operations that will, if directed, eradicate zombie threats to human safety." Finally, the plan provides guidance to "aid civil authorities in maintaining law and order and restoring basic services during and after a zombie attack."

The "worst case threat scenario," according to the plan, suggests a rather dark situation: a zombie attack in which there would be high "transmissibility," lots of zombies eating lots of people, zombies infecting humans at a rapid rate, and little or no immunity and few effective countermeasures.

Under "Zombie Threat Summary," the plan highlights the different kinds of zombie adversaries one might find in such an attack. They include not only vegetarian zombies ("zombie life forms originating from any cause but pose no direct threat to humans because they only eat plant life"); evil magic zombies ("EMZs are zombie life forms created via some form of occult experimentation in what might otherwise be referred to as 'evil magic'"); and also chicken zombies.

"Although it sounds ridiculous, this is actually the only proven class of zombie that actually exists," the plan states. So-called "CZs" occur when old hens that can no longer lay eggs are euthanized by farmers with carbon monoxide, buried, and then claw their way back to the surface. "CZs are simply terrifying to behold and are likely only to make people become vegetarians in protest to animal cruelty," CONOP 8888 notes.

The catalog of the walking dead also includes zombies that come from outer space; those deliberately created by Frankensteinian bio-engineers; and humans that have been invaded by a pathogen that turns them into zombies.

The plan reviews, extensively, the various phases of saving the world from zombie rule and reads not unlike the phases of a counterinsurgency campaign: from "shape" to "deter" to "seize initiative" to "dominate" to "stabilize" and, finally, in the final, confidence-building phase, "restore civil authority." That final phase includes the directive to "prepare to redeploy the forces to attack surviving zombie holdouts."

Finally, "[a]s directed by POTUS and SECDEF," using military-ese for the president of the United States and the defense secretary, "provide support to federal, state and tribal agencies' efforts to restore basic services in zombie-related disaster areas."

If the military's mantra is to "be prepared," then writing a zombie survival guide -- even if it is just for an imaginative exercise -- makes sense. "I hope we've invested a similar level of intellectual rigor against dragon egg hatching contingencies," one defense official quipped.

READ: CONOP 8888:

   CONPLAN 8888

- Foreign Policy.

STAR WARS: The Space Race - President Putin Eyes Up Cosmonaut Uniform As His Deputy Premier Sets Out Plans To Colonise Space And Declares "We Are Coming To The Moon FOREVER"!

April 11, 2014 - RUSSIA - The West fears Russia is poised to invade Ukraine, but it seems the Kremlin has a bigger conquest in its sights - the Moon.

Vladimir Putin (left) looks at exhibits as he visits the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Russia. Russia
celebrates Cosmonaut Day marking Yuri Gagarin's flight into Space on April 12, 1961.

Moscow today set out plans to conquer and colonise space, including a permanent manned moon base.

Deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin said: 'We are coming to the moon forever.'

His comments came as President Vladimir Putin toured the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Moscow. On Saturday, Russia celebrates Cosmonaut Day marking Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight into space on April 12, 1961.

In an article in the government's own newspaper headlined 'Russian Space', he spoke of targeting Mars and other 'space objects' as future priorities.

'Flights to Mars and asteroids in our view do not contradict exploration of the moon, but in many senses imply this process.'

He wrote of 'colonisation of the moon and near-moon space'.

In the next 50 years, manned flights are unlikely beyond 'the space between Venus and Mars'.

But 'it is quite possible to speak about exploration of Mars, flights to asteroids and flights to Mars'.

The essential first step as a base for research and experiments was the moon, said Rogozin, who is in overall charge of Russia's space and defence industries, and was recently targeted for EU and US sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis.

President Putin was taking the tour as one of his deputy premiers, Dmitry Rogozin, claimed
that Russia had an eye on the Moon once again.

The Russian President enjoyed the visit while with a group of children. Currently Russia has plans to
launch three lunar spacecraft - two to the surface and one to orbit - byt he end of the decade.

The final frontier: A Russian Soyuz rocket takes off for the International Space Station last month. The Kremlin has
announced plans to colonise the moon and set up a permanent lunar base by 2040 to harvest minerals.

'The moon is not an intermediate point in the race,' he wrote in official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, conjuring an impression of a new space race with America.

'It is a separate, even a self-contained goal.

'It would hardly be rational to make some ten or 20 flights to the moon, and then wind it all up and fly to the Mars or some asteroids.

'This process has the beginning, but has no end. We are coming to the moon forever.'

MEANWHILE NASA LOSES FUNDING

The International Space Station

The Kremlin's space-age boasts come less than three years after the U.S. was forced to start hitching flights on Russian rockets.

Nasa ended its space shuttle programme in 2011 and has faced years of funding cuts.

Just two weeks ago a Soyuz rocket carried two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut to the International Space Station (above), despite the crisis in Crimea.

But there could be hope of a new space race - as Nasa announced this week it hopes to land humans on Mars within 20 years.

Stellar plans: The announcement was made
by deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin
in the state newspaper

Currently, Russia has plans to launch three lunar spacecraft - two to the surface and one to orbit - by the end of the decade.

The first mission, the long-delayed Luna-25, is slated for launch in 2016, to research the moon's  south pole.

The next two missions will include an orbiter to monitor the moon in 2018, and a year later a polar lander with a drill will search for water ice.

By 2040, Russia plans to create a lunar base for long-term missions to the Earth's natural satellite.

Rogozin said that the moon is the only realistic source to obtain water, minerals and other resources for future space missions.

A lunar laboratory complex will also be used for testing new space technologies.

He promised the development of  'a super-heavy rocket for lunar missions and to the Mars in the future'.

Rogozin claimed sanctions including the termination of space cooperation announced by the US 'can contribute' to a stronger Russian space industry.

It will force Russia 'to create a strategy of development of Russian manned space flights, independent from unreliable international partners'.

He stressed: 'We should not be afraid to dream, to raise the bar as high as possible for our future development.

'Russia has everything needed for a new breakthrough in space research.

'All we need is to learn how to combine idealism and pragmatism and how to properly organise our business.' - Daily Mail.

MONUMENTAL SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS: New Dwarf Planet Found At The Solar System's Edge - Celestial Body 2012 VP113 Strongly Hints At The Possible Existence Of "PLANET X"!

March 26, 2014 - SPACE - Astronomers have found a new dwarf planet far beyond Pluto's orbit, suggesting that this distant realm contains millions of undiscovered objects — including, perhaps, a world larger than Earth.

The newfound celestial body, called 2012 VP113, joins the dwarf planet Sedna as a confirmed resident of a far-flung and largely unexplored region scientists call the "inner Oort Cloud." Further, 2012 VP113 and Sedna may have been pulled into their long, looping orbits by a big planet lurking unseen in these frigid depths.

"These two objects are just the tip of the iceberg," study co-author Chadwick Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, told Space.com. "They exist in a part of the solar system that we used to think was pretty devoid of matter. It just goes to show how little we actually know about the solar system."

Probing the depths

For several decades, astronomers have divided our solar system into three main parts: an inner zone containing the rocky planets, such as Earth and Mars; a middle realm housing the gas giants Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune; and an outer region called the Kuiper Belt, populated by distant and icy worlds like Pluto.

The discovery of Sedna in 2003 hinted that this map is incomplete. Sedna, which is about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide, has an incredibly elliptical orbit, coming no closer to the sun than 76 astronomical units (AU) and going all the way out to 940 AU or so at its most distant point. (One AU, the distance from Earth to the sun, is about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)

Both 2012 VP113 and Sedna are currently nearly as close as they can come to the Sun. Notice that both orbits have
similar perihelion locations on the sky and both are much more distant than the outer planets and the Kuiper Belt.

The discovery images of 2012 VP113, which has the most distant orbit known in our Solar System. Three images of the
night sky, each taken about 2 hours apart, were combined into one. The first image was artificially colored red, second
green and third blue. 2012 VP113 moved between each image as seen by the red, green and blue dots. The background
stars and galaxies did not move and thus their red, green and blue images combine to show up as white sources.
Credit: Scott S. Sheppard: Carnegie Institution for Science

That puts Sedna in the far outer reaches of the solar system. For comparison, Pluto's orbit takes it between 29 and 49 AU from the sun.

And now astronomers know Sedna is not alone out there. Trujillo and Scott Sheppard, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., discovered 2012 VP113 using the Dark Energy Camera, which is installed on a 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

Follow-up observations by the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, also in Chile, helped Trujillo and Sheppard determine details of 2012 VP113's orbit and learn a bit more about the object.
The body comes no closer to the sun than 80 AU, and it gets as far away as 452 AU. About 280 miles

(450 km) wide, 2012 VP113 is large enough to qualify as a dwarf planet if it's composed primarily of ice, researchers said. (By definition, dwarf planets must be big enough for their gravity to mold them into spheres; the mass required for this to happen depends upon the objects' composition.)

The inner Oort Cloud

Objects as distant as Sedna and 2012 VP113 are incredibly difficult to detect; astronomers really only get a chance when the bodies near their closest approach to the sun.

Based on the amount of sky the scientists searched, Trujillo and Sheppard estimate that about 900 bodies larger than Sedna may exist in this faraway realm, which the astronomers dub the inner Oort Cloud. (The true Oort Cloud is an icy shell around the solar system that begins perhaps 5,000 AU from the sun and contains trillions of comets.)

Astronomers are discovering trans-Neptunian objects belonging to the Oort Cloud,
the most distant region of Earth'ssolar system. Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

These images show the discovery of the new inner Oort cloud object 2012 VP113 taken about 2 hours apart on UT
November 5, 2012. The motion of 2012 VP113 clearly stands out compared to the steady state background stars
and galaxies.Credit: Scott S. Sheppard: Carnegie Institution for Science

The total population of objects in the inner Oort Cloud, in fact, may exceed that of the Kuiper Belt and the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, researchers said.
‪
"Some of these inner Oort Cloud objects could rival the size of Mars or even Earth," Sheppard said in a statement. "This is because many of the inner Oort Cloud objects are so distant that even very large ones would be too faint to detect with current technology."

The study was published online today (March 26) in the journal Nature.

Planet X?

Astronomers don't know much about the origin or evolutionary history of Sedna and 2012 VP113 at this point. The objects may have formed closer to the sun, for example, before getting pushed out by gravitational interactions with other stars — perhaps "sister stars" from the sun's birth cluster, researchers said. Or inner Oort Cloud objects may be alien bodies that the sun plucked from another solar system during a stellar close encounter.

It's also possible that 2012 VP113 and its neighbors were knocked from the Kuiper Belt to the inner Oort Cloud when a big planet was booted outward long ago. This planet may have been ejected from the solar system entirely, or it may still be there in the extreme outer reaches, waiting to be discovered.

The dwarf planet 90377 Sedna, artist's illustration pictured, was discovered in 2003. It has a similar orbit to the newly
discovered 2012 VP113. The Carnegie study indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, up to
10 times the size of Earth, is possibly influencing the orbit of these two dwarf planets

Dr Linda Elkins-Tanton, of the Carnegie Institution said: 'This is an extraordinary result that redefines our
understanding of our solar system,' stock illustration pictured. The dwarf planets sit at the
very edge of the system in a region known as the Oort cloud

Indeed, certain characteristics of the orbits of Sedna, 2012 VP113 and several of the most distant Kuiper Belt objects are consistent with the continued presence of a big and extremely faraway "perturber," researchers said. It's possible that a planet roughly 10 times more massive than Earth located hundreds of AU from the sun is shepherding these bodies into their current orbits.

Such supposition is far from proof that an undiscovered "Planet X" actually exists, Trujillo stressed. But he did say that the door is open, noting that an Earth-mass body at 250 AU from the sun would likely be undetectable at present.

"It raises the possibility that there could be stuff out there of significant mass, Earth-mass or larger, that we don't know about," he said.

The picture should clear up as more inner Oort Cloud objects are found, allowing astronomers to put more constraints on the origin and orbital evolution of these frigid, distant bodies.

"I think it's a little hard to draw firm conclusions from two objects," Trujillo said. "If we were to have 10 inner Oort Cloud objects, then we could really start saying detailed things about the formation scenarios." - SPACE.

SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS: The European Southern Observatory To Hold Major Press Conference Today In Brazil To Announce "Surprise" Discovery In The Outer Solar System - "Unexpected Result" Will "Provoke Much Debate"?!

March 26, 2014 - BRAZIL -  The European Southern Observatory says its discovered something at the edge of our solar system that will "raise several unanswered questions and is expected to provoke much debate."

Here is the media advisory:

An international team of astronomers, led by Felipe Braga-Ribas (Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), has used telescopes at seven locations in South America, including the 1.54-metre Danish and TRAPPIST telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, to make a surprise discovery in the outer Solar System.

This unexpected result raises several unanswered questions and is expected to provoke much debate. A press conference will be held in Brazil to present the new results and allow opportunities for questions.

Note that all information regarding these findings is under strict embargo until 19:00 CET (15:00 BRT) on Wednesday 26 March 2014.

ESO’s La Silla Observatory.

When: The conference will be held on 26 March 2014 at 14:30 local time (BRT) and will take place in Portuguese with a summary in English.

Who: The conference presenters are:

• Felipe Braga-Ribas, Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Bruno Sicardy, LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Paris, France
• Prof. Roberto Martins, Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Prof. Julio Camargo, Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Where: The event takes place in Observatório Nacional, Auditório do Grupo de Pesquisas em Astronomia (GPA), in the GPA/LINEA Building in Rua General José Cristino, 77, Bairro de São Cristovão, Rio de Janeiro - RJ, 20921-400, Brazil.

How: To participate in the conference and receive additional material, bona fide members of the media must get accredited by sending an email to Dr. Gustavo Rojas (ESON Brazil) at eson-brazil@eso.org. Members of the media may also request the feed URL from the contacts below. Questions can be sent by email to eson-brazil@eso.org in Portuguese or English. A limited number of journalists can participate via GoToMeeting online (please request access from eson-brazil@eso.org).

Contacts

Gustavo Rojas
ESON Brazil, Universidade Federal de São Carlos
São Carlos, Brazil
Tel.: +55 1633519795
Cell.: +55 16991554847
Email: eson-brazil@eso.org

Richard Hook
ESO, Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org - ESO.

Please check this space for updates as the story unfolds.

FIRE IN THE SKY: Comet Of The Century Or An Interstellar Object - Experts Puzzled After Great Comet Makes Mars Orbital “Adjustments”?!

September 19, 2013 - SPACE - A new report prepared by the Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) circulating in the Kremlin today states that Comet C/2012 S1 has made a number of “unexplained orbital adjustments” around the planet Mars seemingly to better align itself with the Red planets strange moon Phobos.

According to this report, Comet C/2012 S1 was first discovered on 21 September 2012 by Russian amateur astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the International Scientific Optical Network, thus giving this comet its name ISON. Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars and with a mean radius of 11.1 km (6.9 mi) it is 7.24 times more massive than the second moon Deimos.

Important to note about Phobos, this report continues, was in 1958 when Russian astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky, studying the secular acceleration of Phobos’s orbital motion, suggested a “thin sheet metal” structure for Phobos, a suggestion which led to speculations that Phobos was of artificial origin.

Shklovsky based his analysis on estimates of the upper Martian atmosphere’s density, and deduced that for the weak braking effect to be able to account for the secular acceleration, Phobos had to be very light — one calculation yielded a hollow iron sphere 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) across but less than 6 cm thick.

In a February 1960 letter to the journal Astronautics, Fred Singer, then science advisor to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, said of Shklovsky’s theory:

“If the satellite is indeed spiraling inward as deduced from astronomical observation, then there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore Martian made. The big ‘if’ lies in the astronomical observations; they may well be in error. Since they are based on several independent sets of measurements taken decades apart by different observers with different instruments, systematic errors may have influenced them.”

Subsequently, the systemic data errors that Singer predicted were said found to exist, and the Shklovsky’s study was called into doubt, and accurate measurements of the orbit available by 1969 said showed that the discrepancy did not exist. Singer’s critique was said justified when earlier studies were discovered to have used an overestimated value of 5 cm/yr for the rate of altitude loss, which was later revised to 1.8 cm/yr. The secular acceleration is now attributed to tidal effects, which had not been considered in the earlier studies.

Soviet scientists, however, this report says, were not convinced by the American scientist’s arguments and in 1988 launched two probes, Phobos 1 and Phobos 2, towards Mars to gather more information.

Phobos 1 was “lost” while Phobos 2 was able to establish an orbit around the Mars moon Phobos when it was “attacked” by a still unexplained space craft that showed itself in the last image beamed back to Earth before it was destroyed.

Shklovsky’s studies, however, were vindicated in 2012 when the European Space Agency (ESA) released their report on Phobos that, in part, stated:

“One reason to suspect that Phobos is not a captured asteroid is its density. Analysis of Mars Express radio science data gave new information about the mass of Phobos based on the gravitational attraction it exerts on the spacecraft. The team concluded that Phobos is likely to contain large voids, which makes it less likely to be a captured asteroid. Its composition and structural strength seem to be inconsistent with the capture scenario.”

As some experts have noted that Phobos may be an “ancient spacecraft” marooned in Mars orbit, this report continues, the possibility that Comet ISON may be one too cannot be ruled out either.

The reason for this assessment, ROSCOSMOS experts state, are the “unexplained orbital adjustments” Comet ISON has apparently made on its approach to Mars and were verified by American amateur astronomer Bruce Gary on 12 August when he became the first to see Comet ISON again after its sojourn behind the sun during June, July and part of August.

Alan MacRobert at Skyandtelescope.com said about Gray’s 12 August discovery: “Comet ISON is about two magnitudes (six times) fainter than it should be compared to the calculations that first led astronomers to predict it would become a grand naked-eye sight before dawn in early December.”

Astronomer Ignacio Ferrin, with the University of Antioquia in Colombia, in a paper submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society further noted that: “Comet ISON has been on a standstill for more than 132 days … a rather puzzling feat.”

Many in the Western media have billed Comet ISON as “the comet of the century,” this is because it is a sungrazer and its believed to be gaseous tail will expand to millions of kilometers making it appear as bright as the full moon to the naked eye in the coming months.

On 1 October it will pass within 0.07 AU from Mars, about six times closer than it will ever come to Earth and on 28 November, when it is closest to the sun, it will fly through the sun’s atmosphere just a little more than 1.1 million kilometers (720,000 miles) from the solar surface, after which it will be making its inner solar system passage safely 0.426 A.U., or a little over 63 million kilometers from Earth even on its closest approach on 26 December.

This ROSCOSMOS report summarizes its findings by stating that it “cannot be ruled out of theory” that Comet ISON is not a “dirty ice-ball” comet at all, but may, in fact, be an interstellar object under intelligent control on a mission to Phobos for as an yet unexplained mission.

And in, perhaps, its strangest assessment, ROSCOSMOS scientists further link Comet ISON to the 9 December 2009 “Norway Spiral” [see video HERE] noting that this still unexplained phenomena was “directly aligned” with the Sign of Cancer from which this strange comet originated from. - EU Times.

RATTLE & HUM: "The Sounds of the Apocalypse" - Government Investigating The Mysteriously Loud "Windsor Hum"?!

January 24, 2013 - CANADA - The federal government is committing $60,000 to help two universities investigate a mysterious humming vibration in Windsor, Ont.  The Windsor Hum has been the subject of much speculation for almost two years in the industrial city, which sits on the Detroit River across the U.S. border from the Motor City.

A seismographic study by Natural Resources Canada has identified Zug Island on the U.S. side of the river as the likely source of the noise pollution, but talks between Canadian and American authorities have failed to resolve the matter.

U.S. Steel re-opened a mill on Zug Island about the time the hum became bothersome to Windsor residents, but has not taken responsibility for the hum, which at times rattles homes.

Now the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is stepping up with funding for an acoustic study in an effort to further pinpoint the source of the sound vibration.

Researchers from the University of Western Ontario and the University of Windsor will team up for the study. - Globe And Mail.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL MEMES: "Strongest Evidence Yet To There Being Life On Mars" - Martian Rocks From A Crater Hit By A Meteorite May Hold Clues To A Monumental Discovery!

January 20, 2013 - MARS - Prof John Parnell, 55, has co-written a theory with Dr Joseph Michalski, a planetary geologist at the Natural History Museum, that suggests they have discovered the best signs of life in the huge McLaughlin Crater on the surface of Mars.  The document, published today in Nature Geoscience journal, describes how they assessed the crater, created by a meteorite which smashed into the surface of Mars, flinging up rocks from miles below.

The best signs of life on Mars so far have been found in the huge McLaughlin Crater Photo: GETTY.

The rocks appear to be made up of clays and minerals which have been altered by water - the essential element to support life.  Speaking from his laboratory at the University of Aberdeen, geochemist Prof Parnell said: "We could be so close to discovering if there is, or was, life on Mars.  "We know from studies that a substantial proportion of all life on Earth is also in the subsurface and by studying the McLaughlin Crater we can see similar conditions beneath the surface of Mars thanks to observations on the rocks brought up by the meteorite strike.   "There can be no life on the surface of Mars because it is bathed in radiation and it's completely frozen. However, life in the sub surface would be protected from that.  "And there is no reason why there isn't bacteria or other microbes that were or still are living in the small cracks well below the surface of Mars.  "One of the other things we have discussed in our paper is that this bacteria could be living off hydrogen, which is exactly the same as what microbes beneath the surface of the Earth are doing too.  Unfortunately, we won't find any evidence of animals as the most complex life you might get in the sub surface would be fungi. But fungi aren't even that far removed from plants and animals, so I think you could say that life on Mars could be complex, but small." 

Prof Parnell reckons that although the next mission to Mars will have a drill to examine possibilities of life beneath the surface of Mars, he says his new study suggests looking around the edges of craters would be easier and more beneficial.  He said: "What we're really doing is emphasising that if we are going to explore for life on Mars, we need to go beneath the surface. So we need to find an approach beneath the surface.  "One approach to do that might be to drill and indeed the next European mission to Mars will have a drill on it, but that will only go down about two metres.  And although drilling two metres on Earth would be a fantastic technological achievement, it's only really scratching the surface.  So the alternative is to use what nature has done for us and that's why we are are particularly interested in the McLaughlin Crater that we have investigated in our paper.  Because when a meteor lands, it excavates a big hole in the ground and throws rocks from the bottom of the hole outside the crater to where we could conceivably go and sample them."  And while the craters on Mars may uncover secrets about the planet's possibility of supporting life, Prof Parnell also revealed the results could show us how life on Earth began.  He said: "It's very easy to draw parallels between what Mars looks like and what the early Earth might have looked like, because the rocks on Earth that we see now have been recycled a lot in ways that they have not been recycled on Mars.  "Mars has not had things like erosion and shifting of mountain ranges to destroy vital evidence from the past.  So studying meteorite craters of Mars may well actually give us an indication to how life on Earth began.  Although we all live on the surface of Earth, life did not originate here, but actually in the sub surface.  It was only when life had taken hold below the surface that it gradually expanded and came up to the surface.  In fact, there's so much life below the surface of our planet that we are actually the unusual ones living above it." - Telegraph.

HIGH STRANGENESS: Mysterious Substance From Crashed UFO Blamed For The Death Of Millions Of Fish Off Okinawa, Japan?!

January 18, 2013 - JAPAN - The very first troublesome sign of the UFO crash off the coast of Okinawa has finally arrived. Millions of dead fish, estimated at over fifty tons, have washed up along the shore of the Japanese island. Some of the dead fish showed signs of severe burns and bleeding through their eyes.  The Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has signed an executive order restricting Japanese media from covering the UFO crash. Several news agencies based in the Pacific nation have quietly filed numerous protests with the Prime Minister’s office. They have yet to receive any comment as of this morning, Inothernewz.com has learned.  Inothernewz.com is one of the very few international news agencies covering this reported UFO crash and we have been able to cultivate a source deep inside the Japanese government who has direct knowledge of the proceedings off Okinawa. We spoke to him a short while ago regarding the dead fish washing up along the shore of the small island.

Graphic illustration of what happened off the coast of Okinawa.

“I can confirm to you the dead fish appearing on Okinawa’s coast is a direct result of the UFO crash,” said the source. “We have scientists stationed on the JS Kurama, the vessel at sea responsible for bringing the spacecraft up to the surface, and they have informed the Prime Minister they believe a strange substance is oozing from the damaged ship and causing noxious fumes to rise to the surface. Not only is it killing any surrounding fish in the immediate vicinity but the fumes are making it difficult for the salvage crew aboard the ship to breath. The salvage operation has been halted for several hours due to this new development. The scientists fear a new and very dangerous alien chemical is infiltrating the seas and thus killing sea life.”  Meanwhile, back on Okinawa, several residents seemed astonished by the sight of millions of dead fish showing up on their ordinarily pristine shores.  “I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own two eyes,” said Tsutomu Irabu, a 57 year old fisherman. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life. The rotting smell is quite disorientating.” 

Photo of the crashed UFO, released by the Japanese Navy.

“I’m afraid to touch one,” said Yamato Endo, an 18 year old student. “I believe them to have chemicals foreign to our planet. I don’t want to get infected.”  The source went on to say the scientists aboard the salvage vessel JS Kurama have expressed concern to the Prime Minister and the military officials responsible for the resurrection of the craft that there could very well be highly flammable substances on the UFO.  “One scientist believed the sea water would begin to boil as the UFO released the last of its unknown foreign substances into the water,” he said. “At this point it is conjecture as there is no such event occurring at the moment but the sight of several burnt fish is certainly disconcerting.”  Inothernewz.com asked the source when the Prime Minister would decide whether or not to let Japanese media outlets carry this important story on television or in print.  “The Japanese people have a right to know what has happened off their waters,” he said.

A man wades through the sea of dead fish caused
by the chemicals oozing from the crashed UFO.

“That is why I have come forward. Transparency is very important to me as a government official. I suspect it may not be so to the Prime Minister. I believe it will be a very long extended period of time before he will allow such a thing, if ever. I am saddened by this.”  “I’m quite certain there will be government representatives combing the Okinawa shoreline within the next few hours cleaning up the mess of dead fish,” he went on to say. “They will not leave any evidence of such an event as this UFO crash. They will deny everything. The Prime Minister was very angry at our Navy officials after the photo of the crashed UFO appeared on Inothernewz.com. He was quite livid. The Navy has received direct orders not to publish or make comment on this event without approval from the Prime Minister’s office.” - Veterans Today.

MASS UFO SIGHTINGS: The Symbols of an Alien Sky, Man-Made or Natural Phenomena - The Latest UFO Sightings And Aerial Anomalies Around the World?

January 18, 2013 - WORLDWIDE UFOs - Here are several of the latest unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen recently across the globe.

Melbourne, Australia - 7th of January, 2013.

Midlothian, Scotland - 7th of January, 2013.

Warren, Michigan, United States - 10th of January, 2013.

Detroit, United States - 13th of January, 2013.

Phoenix, Arizona, United States - 13th of January, 2013.

Buckeye, Arizona, United States - 13th of January, 2013.

Victoria, Canada - 14th of January, 2013.

The Sun - 15th of January, 2013.

Berlin, Germany - 16th of January, 2013.

Phoenix, Arizona, United States - 16th of January, 2013.

International Space Station - 16th of January, 2013.

UFO SIGHTINGS: An Encounter On The Dark Side Of The Moon - "UFO" Spotted Soaring Above The Lunar Surface; Scientists, Astronauts And YouTube Users Report Strange Sightings?!

January 17, 2013 - THE MOON - People claim to videotape UFOs in the sky above Earth. They also spot unusual-looking objects in NASA camera feeds at the International Space Station. Now, a growing number of individuals insist they're using their telescopes and cameras to reveal UFOs around the moon, according to the International Business Times.

This image reportedly shows a group of UFOs heading from space toward the moon.

Many odd things have been seen by amateur and professional astronomers on the moon over decades, and YouTube affords the opportunity to look at alleged UFOs flying across, toward and away from our nearest astronomical neighbor. Part of the problem with most videos like these is the lack of specific, helpful information to accompany the visual "evidence," so it's difficult to know what's real and what was created from a clever software app. But, lunar anomalies are not new phenomena. They've been reported by astronomers going back to the 1700s. Strange things seen by the scientists of centuries past included mysterious bright lights or glowing spots on the moon. In 1869, Great Britain's Royal Astronomical Society conducted a study of unusual moving lights.

WATCH: Lights moving rapidly, slowly and changing directions - Jan. 2013.

After numerous observations of this activity, the lights just turned off. On July 29, 1953, New York Herald Tribune science editor John J. O'Neill noticed, through his telescope, a huge bridge-like object spanning 12 miles in the lunar area known as Mare Crisium. Other observers, including Hugh Percy Wilkins of the British Astronomical Association, confirmed O'Neill's sighting on the lunar surface. The object that became known as O'Neill's Bridge, was eventually thought to be nothing more than a combination of lights and shadows. The history of the Apollo flights to the moon in the late 1960s into the 1970s included countless tabloid stories of supposed UFO encounters experienced by the astronauts. - Huffington Post.

WATCH: Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin describes a UFO that accompanied them en route to the moon in 1969.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL MEMES: Polonnaruwa Meteorite - Evidence Of Life From Outer Space, Described As The Most Important Find In Over 500 Years?!

January 17, 2013 - SRI LANKA - A meteorite that Landed recently, close to the ancient city of Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka has been described as the most important scientific discovery in the last 500 years as it carried “compelling evidence of life” from outer space. The scientists who discovered the contents of the meteorite said, “we report here the first compelling evidence for life existing outside the earth.’

Polonnaruwa meteorite under electronic microscope.

Following extensive lab work in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka four scientists in a paper said , “We report the discovery for the first time of fossilized diatoms in a carbonaceous meteorite that fell on 29 December 2012”. Diatoms are a variety of algae. They very firmly said contamination, a hazard scientists face when examining things fallen from the sky on the ground is excluded in the meteorite they have named Polonnaruwa. The four scientists, Chandra Wickramasinghe, J. Wallis, D.H.Wallis, and Anil Samaranayaka said, there are also structures in the meteorite similar to the red rain cells that fell within days in the area. The team in a paper to be published in the Journal of Cosmology added, “The new data on fossil diatom provide strong evidence to support the theory of Cometary Panspermia” -a theory that says life came to our planet earth and other worlds hitchhiking on comets from far corners of the universe.

The leader of the team, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe from the Buckingham Center for Astrobiology in UK told this correspondent, “”I think the discovery of an unequivocal microbial structure such as a diatom deeply trapped in the rock matrix proves beyond doubt that this life existed in the parent comet from which the meteorite was derived. The highly intricate and woven patterns on the outer shells of diatoms are impossible to generate by any other process than biology. This could ultimately turn out to be the most important scientific discovery in 500 years. The cosmic ancestry of humans becomes ever more securely established.” “People might try to say that what we found were terrestrial contaminants. Contamination after landing on Earth is ruled out absolutely because of the way the diatoms are woven between the rock matrix. In any case we found many diatom types that are not known to be present on the soil where the meteorite landed.” The scientists said minutes after a large fire ball seen by a large number of people in Sri Lanka on 29 December 2012 a large meteorite disintegrated and fell in the village of Araganwila located few miles away from the historic city of Polonnaruwa. At the time of entry into the earth’s atmosphere on 29 December 2012 the parent body of the Polonnaruwa meteorite would have had most of its interior porous volume filled with water , volatile organics and possibly viable living cells. The scientists said a remarkable coincidence was the red rain.

They said the red rain analyzed at the Medical Research Institute in Colombo contained red biological cells that show spontaneous movement and the ability of reproducing. Abnormally high in arsenic and silver they are connected to a non territorial habitat , possibly connected with a cometary asteroidal body. The four scientists said the Polonnaruwa meteorite was a result of a fragmentation of such a body. The electron microscopic studies of the Polonnaruwa meteorite had been done at the School of Earth Sciences of the Cardiff University, in the United Kingdom. The scientists said in the meteorite microfossils rather than living cells were seen . The scientists said in the meteorite the donut shaped structure seen has a striking similarity to Kerala red rain cells and the cells contained in the red rain that followed the meteorite fall in the Polonnaruwa area. The scientists said contamination is decisively ruled out in the meteorite since the structure is deemed to be fossilized and fossil diatoms were not present on the surface of the ground where it fell.The scientists said , contamination is excluded by the circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match closely with those of the surrounding matrix. There is also evidence of structures morphologically similar to red rain cells that may have contributed to the episode of red rain that followed within days of the meteorite fall. They said , “We conclude therefore identification of the fossilized diatom of the Polonnaruwa meteorite is firmly established and unimpeachable.” They also said,” Since this meteorite is considered to be an extinct cometary fragment , the idea of microbial life carried within comets and the theory of cometary panspermia is vindicated.” The paper said , “The universe , not humans must have the final say to declare what the world is really like.” - Lanka Web.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL MEMES: Amateur Astronomers Find 42 New Planets - Including A Jupiter-Sized World That Could Hold Life!

January 15, 2013 - SPACE - A team of amateur astronomers from around the world has discovered evidence for 42 alien planets, including a Jupiter-size world that could potentially be habitable, it was revealed today. The team, organised online via the planethunters website, analysed data from NASA's Kepler Space telescope.

An artist's impression of of the view from a moon orbiting the planet PH2b. Scientists says Moons
like the one depicted in the film Avatar may be among the most common places to find alien life.

Moons like the one depicted in the film Avatar may be among the most common places to find alien life, scientists believe. Astronomers came to the conclusion after identifying up to 15 new planets orbiting the life-friendly 'habitable zones' of stars. All are giant gaseous worlds similar in size to Jupiter or Neptune. While such planets would not themselves be suitable for Earth-like life, they could be circled by moons on which there are forests, oceans and living creatures, researchers now believe. Pandora, the fictional moon in Avatar, is just such a world. The rest still fall into the category of 'candidate' planets while further evidence is collected. The confirmed planet, known as PH2 b, orbits a sun-like star in the constellation Cygnus several hundred light years away. Astronomer Dr Chris Lintott, from Oxford University, a member of the international team behind the discovery, said: 'There's an obsession with finding Earth-like planets but what we are discovering with planets such as PH2 b is far stranger. 'Jupiter has several large water-rich moons. Imaging dragging that system into the comfortably warm region where the Earth is. 'If such a planet had Earth-size moons, we'd see not Europa and Callisto but worlds with rivers, lakes and all sorts of habitats: a surprising scenario that might just be common.

'It may be that the most common habitable worlds are moons around Jupiter and Neptune-size planets rather than rocky planets as in our own solar system.' Members of the public helped astronomers identify the candidate exoplanets by logging onto the planethunters.org website on their home computers. The Planet Hunters project invites 'citizen scientists' to spot graph patterns signifying the tell-tale dip in brightness as planets pass in front of their parent stars. Follow-up work with the Keck telescope in Hawaii provided the proof that PH2 b is almost certainly a genuine planet. More than 40 volunteers are credited in a paper on the research published online by the Astrophysical Journal. One, retired police office Roy Jackson, 71, from Birtley near Gateshead, said: 'It is difficult to put into words, the pleasure, wonderment and perhaps even pride that I have in some small way been able to assist in the discovery of a planet.' Another, electronics engineer Mark Hadley from Faversham, said: 'Now when people ask me what I achieved last year I can say I have helped discover a possible new planet around a distant star. How cool is that?' Planet Hunters lead scientist Professor Debra Fisher, from Yale University in the US, said: 'We are seeing the emergence of a new era in the Planet Hunters project where our volunteers seem to be at least as efficient as the computer algorithms at finding planets orbiting at habitable zone distances from the host stars. 'Now, the hunt is not just targeting any old exoplanet; volunteers are homing in on habitable worlds.' Before the latest finds, 19 other exoplanets had already been located in habitable zones. Also known as the 'Goldilocks zone', this is the orbital path where temperatures are not too hot or cold but "just right" to permit liquid surface water. Dr Ji Wang, another Planet Hunters scientist from Yale University, said: 'We can speculate that PH2 b might have a rocky moon that would be suitable for life. 'I can't wait for the day when astronomers report detecting signs of life on other worlds instead of just locating potentially habitable environments. 'That could happen any day now.' - Daily Mail.

UFO SIGHTINGS: Strange Objects Seen Flying Near The International Space Station?!

January 14, 2013 - SPACE - As 2012 ended and 2013 began, numerous UFOs were reported around the country -- nothing earth-shattering there -- but what about alleged unidentified objects seen in space near the International Space Station (or ISS), a couple of hundred miles above Earth? 

This composite image shows four different times that alleged UFO were photographed above Earth by either space shuttles or the International Space Station. The big question is whether or not they are truly unidentified objects or if they are more likely reflections from spacecraft windows, meteors or fast-moving spacecraft-generated debris.

Videos have cropped up on YouTube showing images taken by NASA cameras of objects of different shapes, some moving very slowly, others rapidly hurtling through space.  What, exactly, are we looking at here? Alien spacecraft dropping by for a visit with the ISS? Reflections from ISS windows? Meteors? Or various types of orbiting or fast moving spacecraft-generated debris?  On Christmas Day, YouTube poster Streetcap1 recorded video of a silvery object, moving slowly near the curvature of Earth. At :46 into the following video, the object can be seen in faraway perspective.

WATCH: Silver UFO near the ISS.

Streetcap1 also recorded the following two objects -- one circular, the other disc-shaped -- outside the ISS on New Year's Day. Could it be a mere window reflection?

WATCH: Objects seen by ISS from the outside camera.

"Spacecraft-generated 'dandruff' has been seen since the very first human spaceflights, when the non-intuitive relative motions and impossible-to-judge distances in the earthly environment of outer space tricked observers into misinterpreting visual stimuli," according to James Oberg, a former space engineer who specialized in NASA space shuttle operations and is currently the NBC News Space Consultant.  "It shouldn't be surprising that only half a century later, most folks watching YouTube videos are still totally flummoxed by what they understandably and excusably can't comprehend," Oberg told The Huffington Post in an email.  Oberg doesn't give much credence to any speculation that unidentified flying objects near the ISS originate from an alien civilization. But he also feels it's important for people to keep looking at camera feeds which may result in visual information that can help prevent potential technical problems for the ISS.  "It's good to keep scanning space video for possible anomalies and reporting them quickly," Oberg said. "The reason is, there is always a real chance that it could be a genuine anomaly, either a spacecraft malfunction or other threat, expected or unexpected. In the past, missions have failed because a clue that should have been seen out the window was overlooked." - Huffington Post.

WATCH: Here's a compilation of alleged UFOs flying around Earth as seen from space and posted by YouTube user danielofdoriaa.