The Mysterious Bright Spot On Ceres Has A Companion

Published on Feb 25, 2015
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com

The discovery of a bright spot on Ceres has given rise to lots of speculation. And now we've learned something new: it has a friend. The second spot is not quite as bright, but still weirdly reflective compared to the rest of the dwarf planet. And one scientist has a possible explanation for both of these bright spots.

Top image: From photographs taken on February 19, 2015 at 46,000 kilometers away (29,000 miles), Dawn can finally see that the mysterious bright spot on Ceres is in a basin, and has a smaller, dimmer companion. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The latest round of photographs was taken by Dawn on February 19, 2015 when the spacecraft was still 46,000 kilometers away (29,000 miles) from the dwarf planet. It reveals not just the bright spot that has been provoking speculation for years, but now our imaging resolution is getting good enough to spot a second smaller and dimmer bright spot apparently in the same basin as the main attraction.

http://space.io9.com/the-mysterious-bright-spot-on-ceres-has-a-pretty-bright-168...




Uncropped view of Ceres taken on February 19, 2015. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/ DLR/IDA/


What could these bright spots be? Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, theorizes:

"Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations."
Even though the resolution is finally good enough that we can identify a smaller, dimmer companion-spot, we still can't see well enough to make solid interpretations. When speculating wildly about the source of these white freckles, we thought they could be evidence of cyrovolcanism or even icy geysers, but were confused how such an isolated, small world could be thermodynamically active enough to generate either of them. Even though that's the current best-guess, the mystery of how it could even happen still stands. The competing theory that Ceres has an icy crust dulled by dust but exposed in impact craters is still in play, and will be until we can see these mysterious features in enough detail to get an actual shape. I admit it: I'm totally jazzed that we've got such a blatant mystery staring right at us, daring us to figure it out with ever more obvious clues!

WOW! Dark Energy Camera Snaps Shot of Comet Lovejoy and Spiral Galaxy

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150227/1018843952.html#ixzz3SyouPSYU

Dark Energy Camera Snaps Shot of Lovejoy Comet

16:44 27.02.2015(updated 18:28 27.02.2015)
29010
On December 27, 2014, while scanning the southern sky as part of the Dark Energy Survey, researchers snapped a picture of comet Lovejoy.
The survey uses the 4-meter Victor M.Blanco Telescope located at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.





The image was captured using the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera, the world's most powerful digital camera.
At the time the image was taken, the comet was passing 51 million miles from Earth – a short distance for the Dark Energy Camera, which is sensitive enough to light up to 8 billion light years away.
The comet's center is a ball of ice roughly three miles across

( ice at the core is rubbish . incorrect data here edit IITL )



, and the visible head of the comet is a cloud of gas and dust about 400,000 miles in diameter, according to experts at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, Illinois, specializing in high-energy particle physics
Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is one of more than 32 comets imaged by NASA's NEOWISE mission from December 2013 to December 2014. In November 2013 it was 1.7 astronomical units from the sun. (An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun.)
Comet Lovejoy was the brightest comet in Earth's sky in early 2015. On January 7 it passed closest by Earth at a distance of 44 million miles, nearly half the distance from Earth to the Sun.

2/27/2015 - Science SCANDAL! USGS censors 6.0 Magnitude earthquake near Puerto Rico

Published on Feb 27, 2015
Strange times we are living in, the death of "logic" and "science" comes today in a triple dose.

First, the USGS censored this 6.0 Magnitude earthquake off their feeds, which occurred just Northeast of Puerto rico about 30 minutes AFTER the 7.0 magnitude (now 6.8) which struck the West Pacific.

Screenshots of the 6.0M in Puerto Rico with links here:

https://www.facebook.com/DutchsinseOf...


Also, worthy to note the fracking movement in Texas, and Colorado, as well as the earthquakes near Yellowstone also NOT being shown on the USGS feeds today.

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2nd dose of science scandal-- deliberately NOT reporting a 2.3 magnitude earthquake on the East coast in Pennsylvania!

Screenshots here:

https://www.facebook.com/DutchsinseOf...

_____

The final dose , the lethal dose, comes with reports that Leonard Nimoy (spock from star trek - the king of logic + science) has died.

The death of science is today. February 27, 2015.

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Compounding insult with injury to intellect, the Texas Railroad Commission is still in denial about fracking earthquakes. Today, February 27, 2015, another 3.1M earthquake struck Dallas Texas near the old injection well (fracking).

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquake...
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June 15, 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of Mt. Pinatubo's cataclysmic eruption, which sent huge amounts of ash high into the sky and circling around the globe, lowering global temperatures by 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree Celsius) over the following year.

On this anniversary, we countdown the largest volcanic eruptions in history as measured by the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) a classification system somewhat akin to the magnitude scale for earthquakes.

The system was developed in the 1980s, and uses factors such as the volume of an eruption, its rate, and other variables to quantify a volcano's power. The scale goes from 1 to 8, and each succeeding VEI is 10 times greater than the last.

There haven't been any VEI-8 volcanoes in the last 10,000 years, but human history has seen some powerful and devastating eruptions. Because it's extremely difficult for scientists to be able to rank the strength of eruptions in the same VEI category, here we present the 10 most powerful volcanoes within the last 4,000 years (within human records) first in order of strength, then within each category, in chronological order.

The rumblings that preceded the final eruption of Krakatoa (also spelled Krakatau) in the weeks and months of the summer of 1883 finally climaxed with a massive explosion on April 26-27. The explosive eruption of this stratovolcano, situated along a volcanic island arc at the subduction zone of the Indo-Australian plate, ejected huge amounts of rock, ash and pumice and was heard thousands of miles away.

The explosion also created a tsunami, whose maximum wave heights reached 140 feet (40 meters) and killed about 34,000 people. Tidal gauges more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) away on the Arabian Peninsula even registered the increase in wave heights.

While the island that once hosted Krakatoa was completely destroyed in the eruption, new eruptions beginning in December 1927 built the Anak Krakatau ("Child of Krakatau") cone in the center of the caldera produced by the 1883 eruption. Anak Krakatau sporadically comes to life, building a new island in the shadow of its parent.

The eruption of Novarupta one of a chain of volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire was the largest volcanic blast of the 20th century. The powerful eruption sent 3 cubic miles (12.5 cubic km) of magma and ash into the air, which fell to cover an area of 3,000 square miles (7,800 square km) in ash more than a foot deep.

Hyperloop Is Coming! Elon Musk's Plan for 760 mph Tube Travel to Begin Testing In 2016

Published on Feb 28, 2015
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com

Elon Musk's 'Hyperloop' was dismissed as a pipe dream that would never get off the ground.
But now the billionaire's plans to shoot capsules of passengers along a tube at around the speed of sound may launch as soon as next year.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has secured land for the first full-scale Hyperloop with a 2016 launch in the California town of Quay Valley.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2970909/The-Hyperloop-coming-Elon...

Scientists Create Methane-Based Life Form, Say 'No Water Needed' On Saturn's Moon Titan

Published on Mar 1, 2015
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com

Researchers from the Cornell University have developed a methane-based, oxygen-free life form that theoretically may exist in the cold and harsh environment of the planet Saturn’s giant moon Titan, defying the idea that water is necessary for life.

Scientists modeled the cell membrane of small organic nitrogen compounds, and it can function in extremely cold liquid methane temperatures: Titan has seas of liquid methane of almost 300 degrees below zero.

The cell is made of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen molecules: they exist in the Titan seas, but simultaneously demonstrate flexibility and stability of the liposome on Earth, according to a study published in Science Advances journal.

The cell was called "azotosome" where “azote” stands for nitrogen in French, while “soma” is “body” in Greek.

http://rt.com/news/236557-titan-saturn-life-methane/

No water needed: Methane-based life possible on Saturn’s moon Titan, study says
Published time: March 01, 2015 11:05


A representation of a 9-nanometer azotosome, about the size of a virus. (Image from the study)

Researchers from the Cornell University have developed a methane-based, oxygen-free life form that theoretically may exist in the cold and harsh environment of the planet Saturn’s giant moon Titan, defying the idea that water is necessary for life.

Scientists modeled the cell membrane of small organic nitrogen compounds, and it can function in extremely cold liquid methane temperatures: Titan has seas of liquid methane of almost 300 degrees below zero.

The cell is made of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen molecules: they exist in the Titan seas, but simultaneously demonstrate flexibility and stability of the liposome on Earth, according to a study published in Science Advances journal.

The cell was called "azotosome" where “azote” stands for nitrogen in French, while “soma” is “body” in Greek.



"Using molecular simulations, we demonstrate that these membranes in cryogenic solvent have an elasticity equal to that of lipid bilayers in water at room temperature," said James Stevenson, co-author of the research from the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University.

"As a proof of concept, we also demonstrate that stable cryogenic membranes could arise from compounds observed in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, known for the existence of seas of liquid methane on its surface," Stevenson said.

On Earth, life is based on the phospholipid bilayer membrane. Being a water-based vesicle, it holds organic matter of a cell. A vesicle made from this type of membrane is called a liposome, “a lipid body.”

One of the leading scientists who participated in the study, Paulette Clancy, told Science Times that they had “the right tools” to make it work.

“We didn't come in with any preconceptions about what should be in a membrane and what shouldn't. We just worked with the compounds that we knew were there and asked, 'If this was your palette, what can you make out of that," Clancy said.

The researchers’ next move would be to attempt to show the cells’ behavior in a methane, oxygen-free environment, and to see what processes would be equivalent to metabolism and reproduction.