Perhaps the coolest brown dwarf yet! At about 200 degrees Celsius, the new
T-dwarf SDSS 1416+13B is the binary companion of a larger brown dwarf star.
"An international team, led by British astronomers
using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, has discovered
what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar
system. This object is technically known as a brown dwarf, but what has
excited astronomers is its very peculiar colors, which actually make it appear
either very blue or very red, depending on which part of the spectrum is used to
look at it."
It's only detectable in infra-red light, and astronomers have been studying it
using different infra-red telescopes. What's odd is that depending upon
which set of wavelengths are used to view it (Using either UKIRT or Spitzer),
the quixotic object is either surprisingly red, or surprisingly blue.
"The fact that it is a binary companion to a warmer
brown dwarf that also has an unusual spectrum is helping us to fill in some some
gaps in our understanding", says Dr. Ben Burningham of the University of
Hertfordshire. "It seems likely that both brown dwarfs are somewhat poor in
heavy elements. This would be consistent with the pair being old, which in turn
implies a high
gravity
for both dwarfs, which can further enhance the unusual colors seen for both
dwarfs."
Old, cool brown dwarfs are in my Dark Star territory, so this object could teach
us a lot about a potential Nemesis object orbiting our own sun at a great
distance. Already, it's proving
puzzling!
This week a two-day conference is being held at the Royal Society in London,
titled, 'The detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science
and society.' Professor Simon Conway Morris, a Cambridge University evolutionary
biologist, will be talking at the Royal Society on
'Predicting what extraterrestrial life will be like – and preparing for the
worst."
I heard about this conference on BBC radio this morning. Here's the Today
programme's piece about it. You'll need to move through to 1hr:24min into
it (about halfway through the 3 hour programme):
It's absolutely true that the debate about ET life in the scientific community
has changed in the last decade. Not only the discovery of so many planets (and
their frequency of discovery around target stars) but also the propensity for
life to be found in the most unlikely places on Earth (extremeophiles). Clearly,
life can find a way given the right conditions - and the right conditions seem
common throughout our corner of the galaxy, at least.
Will the aliens be friendly? Well, we certainly aren't, and nature is a
cut-throat place. There's every reason to suspect that nature works in the same
way on other planets, given the tenets of evolution through natural selection.
If trying to second guess alien visitors we should ask ourselves what we
would do if we discovered a planet nearby full of rich resources, and ripe for
the taking.
Such considerations are at the heart of my fictional writing. My new novel, "The
Followers of Horus", explores the nature of the Anunnaki, and how
their particular style of management, as it were, would impact upon an
unsuspecting modern humanity. I, for one, don't imagine them to be fun to be
around. It stands to reason that a species more advanced than us, and more
evolved than us, would have developed a greater social complexity than us, and
so be all the more damned difficult to deal with.
"Scientists searching for alien life should get
governments and the UN involved lest we unwittingly contact hostile
extraterrestrials, a British astronomer has warned. Mr Marek Kukula,
public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, said "We might like to
assume that if there is intelligent life out there it is wise and benevolent,
but of course we have no evidence for this. Given the consequences of contact
may not be what we initially hoped for, then we need governments and the UN to
get involved in any discussions"." (1)
It seems that the likelihood of finding, and being found by, alien life is
increasing rapidly. Upon making contact, we would have to get our
collective heads around these concerns pretty fast.
My new book, "The Followers of Horus", is now
finished and is with my publisher, Timeless Voyager Press. It will be available in the spring.
I've been writing a summary of the book for the back cover, and I wanted to
share it with you at this early stage, so you could get a feel for where I'm
going with my writing at the moment:
"After five years of fruitless
investigation, Bill Bainbridge is giving up hope of ever discovering the truth
about NASA's black project "Ezekiel One". But when a meeting with a
nervous astronomy student ends in violence, Bill finds himself submerged in
subterfuge and conspiracy. This time, powerful figures in the intelligence
community seem intent on helping him succeed. But why?
"Meanwhile, Ezekiel One is on its way
towards the planet Nibiru - a journey that will take fifteen long, difficult
years. Only three of the alien race of Anunnaki are aware of its
existence: Enki, Enlil and Marduk. Each has his own agenda about whether
the mission should succeed, or fail. When the demoralised crew try to
reassert control over their own destiny, they swiftly become the first humans in
thousands of years to fully experience the wrath of the Anunnaki."
"The Followers of Horus" is the exciting sequel to
Ezekiel One, available from Amazon, Timeless Voyager Press, and
directly from the author.
If you want to be informed when "The Followers of Horus"
becomes available, please send me an email entitled 'Followers'
andy-lloyd@hotmail.com
It's been several years since astronomers discovered a number of
Kuiper Belt Objects with inexplicably bizarre orbits (particularly
Sedna and 2000 CR105).
In my 2005 book 'The Dark Star' I discussed how these anomalies provide evidence
for a companion object located within 2000 Astronomical Units (where one A.U. is
the distance from the Sun to the Earth). At the time, the idea was also
being seriously considered by serious scientists. They performed
calculations to work out what size a companion object would need to be to create
the Kuiper Belt anomalies, and at what distance (1). Their calculations
indicated that a companion object was not only capable of creating these
anomalous orbits, but was theoretically a better fit than the action of a
passing star in the distant past. Here's a section of the conclusion Gomes
et al wrote in their scientific paper:
"We have demonstrated that a distant
planetary-mass solar companion (i.e., a planet orbiting within the inner Oort
cloud) would be capable of raising the perihelia of scattered disk objects and
placing them on orbits similar to those of Sedna and 2000 CR105. The perihelia
of the SDO's are raised by the Kozai mechanism, so the orbit of such a
hypothetical companion would in principle need to be substantially inclined to
that of the orbit of the scattered disk object that was produced by
perturbations of the known planets in order for the type of perturbations that
we are discussing to operate efficiently.
"Note, however, that a very eccentric
Earth-mass companion with small perihelion (60 AU in the example that we
studied) and low inclination could also produce low inclination Sedna-like
orbits. The required minimum
companion mass would be only about Neptune's mass if it orbited with semi-minor
axis at 2000 AU, but would need to be a Jupiter mass at 5000 AU and 8 Jupiter
masses at 10,000 AU.
"A significant advantage of the solar companion model is that it naturally
produces the very massive inner Oort cloud that is suggested by observations to
date. A brown dwarf's planetesimals captured by the Sun can amount to a large
mass, but the inclination distribution could favor any arbitrary initial plane
(including retrograde)." (2, my emphasis)
Personally, I favour a sub-brown dwarf object located in the gap
between the Kuiper Belt (which extends from Neptune out to about 50AU) and the
Inner Oort Cloud (from about 2000AU outwards). The scientists indicate
that an object at these sort of distance would need to be about as massive as
Neptune, as a minimum. That still allows for an eccentric sub-brown dwarf
within these parameters. Such an object would have 'swept out' the area of
space between the Belt and the Cloud.
Interestingly, NASA recently put forward the idea that this same
'space' is currently occupied by part of an interstellar gas cloud, which they
have given the unusual moniker 'Fluff' (3). This proposition is a response
to the finding by the Voyager probes that the Heliopause (the sheath-like border
between the solar wind and interstellar space ~75AU away) is misshapen. It
goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) that a companion object that has
created the Kuiper Belt Object anomalies is also quite capable of manifesting a
huge magnetic field, and of denting the
Heliopause.
Europe is suffering a harsh winter with
temperatures on the continent of below minus 40 Celsius, and -20C in Scotland.
The U.S. is also experiencing a very cold winter. Winters like this have
happened before, of course (1947 was desperately cold) but it's all the more
remarkable this year because it comes at a time when we are generally
experiencing warmer winters year on year. Meteorologists dislike the notion
that our weather on this planet is affected significantly by the Sun, but it
seems to me that this sudden dip may well have something to do with what
happened, or rather didn't happen, with the Sun in the last couple of
years:
Earlier this year the Sun was entirely free of
spots for months on end. It created a lot of speculation that, if the
sunspot absence continued for years, we might experience a mini-Ice Age like
that of the 16th Century when the Sun went through the Maunder Minimum (2).
In recent months, the activity has returned, thankfully.
It is thought that sun-spot activity reflects
solar output. No sunspots mean that the Sun is giving out less radiation,
and that the Earth is warmed by the Sun to a lesser degree. This seems
common-sense, but the mechanism is neither fully understood nor altogether
accepted. That notwithstanding, the harsh winter we're currently
experiencing seems to me to be a result of the solar phenomenon earlier this
year.
A group of Spanish scientists have released details of a brown dwarf companion
theory that is eerily reminiscent of the Dark Star theory. I think these
guys wrote to me a while ago, but I had trouble verifying who they were. They
might be putting forward original research that simply corroborates much of what
I've claimed, or they might be relying quite heavily on my prior work.
It's hard to say for sure. They identify the sub-BD (of almost 2 Jupiter
masses) as being in Sagittarius, which I agree with. But at "60AU" this
object is simply way too close. That's only twice the distance of Neptune!
They make the additional claim that the sub-BD, which they name G1.9, is a
celestial object erroneously previously identified as a recent supernova.
Their claim is evaluated on the website viewzone.com:
"G1.9 was first identified
as a "supernova remnant" in 1984 by Dave Green of the University of Cambridge
and later studied in greater detail with NRAO's Very Large Array radio telescope
in 1985. Because it was unusually small for a supernova it was thought to be
young -- less than about 1000 years old. But in 2007, X-ray observations
made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed that the object was much
larger than the last time it was observed! It had grown in size by 16%.
"Puzzled by this
observation, the Very Large Array repeated its observations of 23 years ago and
verified that it had increased in size considerably. Knowing that supernova do
not expand this quickly, unless they have just exploded, they explained that
G1.9 must be a "very young" supernova -- perhaps not more than 150 years old.
But no record of a visible supernova has been found corresponding to that
historical period (about the time of the American Civil War).
"Spanish astronomers
have tracked this object with great interest because they were anticipating its
appearance. Gravitational anomalies have been appearing in the Oort Cloud for
some time, suggesting the perturbations were caused by a nearby object with
considerable mass. The announcement that G1.9 had increased in size was no
mystery to them. It is exactly what they would expect as the object moved closer
to Earth." (1)
The article debunks their claim that the supernova is actually a brown dwarf
star. I also think at that distance we'd have a much better and clearer image
of a spherical brown dwarf object. Saying that, the possibility that a brown
dwarf companion might be a misidentified catalogued object is a good one. It
might not be this particular object, but that's not to say that it might not be
another one in the same vicinity. It would be nice to know who the members
of this Spanish 'scientific research team' are. Perhaps cracks are
appearing in the standard scientific consensus that a brown dwarf companion
object is an impossibility.
It may be 50 light years away, but astronomers have succeeded in directly
imaging a brown dwarf companion orbiting the sun-like star named GJ 758 (1).
At least, that's what they think it is. The planet lies at 29 AU
from its parent star (about the same distance as Neptune from the Sun), and is
only 600F - which is a very low temperature for a brown dwarf (2). It may
be as low as 10 Jupiter masses, which would bring it into the category of
sub-brown dwarf. Its distance is proving to be a headache for astronomers:
"The fact that such a large planet-like
object might be orbiting at this location defies traditional thinking on how
planets form, McElwain said. Astronomers think most large planets form either
closer to or farther away from stars, but not in the location where GJ 758 B is
now.
"This challenging but beautiful
detection of a very low mass companion to a sun-like star reminds us again how
little we truly know about the census of
gas giant planets and brown dwarfs around nearby stars," said Alan Boss,
an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who
was not involved in the research. "Observations like this will enable theorists
to begin to make sense of how this hitherto unseen population of bodies was able
to form and evolve."" (1)
Sun, Earth, Jupiter and a Dark Star
But things may not be quite as they seem:
"Telescope images also revealed a second companion to the
star, which the scientists have called GJ 758 C. More observations, however, are
needed to confirm whether it is nearby or just looks that way. 'It looks
very promising,' said Christian Thalmann, one of the team's lead scientists. If
it should turn out to be a second companion, he said, that would make both of
them more likely to be young planets rather than old brown dwarfs, since two
brown dwarfs in such close proximity would not remain stable for such a long
period of time." (2)
If confirmed, GJ 758 B and C might well bang a further hole in current brown
dwarf theory! Jacco van der Worp makes the excellent point that the
problematic 'Kozai effect' would be an early casualty of such a finding (3).
Let's say that GJ 758 B and C are both confirmed as companions of the parent
star 50 light years away from us. Two brown dwarfs existing within 30AU would
raise major issues about how such a system could have remained stable over any
length of time. This system does not appear to be very young, so it seems
unlikely that the proposed brown dwarf B is in fact a much younger, smaller
light-emitting planet. This appears to be the 'get-out' clause if GJ 758 C was
found to be a companion BD too.
If GJ 758 B and C are both BDs, then the Kozai effect is in
trouble. The implication is that a BD could well move through the solar system
regularly without causing chaos (which was
Hills' judgement back in the
mid-eighties, when the Nemesis concept was explored using supercomputer
models). That would open up the Planet X debate considerably! I'm not saying
that Planet X is here right now, but it would mean that it could have moved
through the solar system in the historical past, as a visible object, without
dismantling the orbits of the other planetary objects.
If a sub-brown dwarf is orbiting around our own Sun (which I believe is the
case, based upon the anomalous evidence of the outer solar system), then it is a
wide binary object that probably currently lies between the Kuiper Belt and the
inner Oort Cloud. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are also
interested in the question of whether a brown dwarf might exist at the edges of
the solar system. A plethora of new telescopes and probes look set to
vastly expand our knowledge of the far-flung reaches of the solar system in the
years to come, starting with the launch of the infra-red telescope WISE (4).
Strange meteorites from unknown
asteroid/dwarf planet
Here's a new mystery to consider. Two meteorites, known as GRA 06128 and GRA
06129, were discovered in the Graves-Nunataks region of Antarctica in 2006 (1).
They are unlike any other meteorites. They date almost back as far as the
birth of the solar system, some 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists are
puzzled by them because they appear to have come from a sizeable object that is
large enough to retain its own heat and so undergo internal melting. This
process, common to planets and moons, causes a differentiation of the rocks and
chemical composition of the body. The mysterious body is likely to be at
least 200 km in diameter, which rules out the vast majority of asteroids.
Here are some of the puzzling aspects of the case: "Although
initial oxygen isotopic compositions are consistent with an origin in the
Earth-Moon system, numerous observations appear to eliminate both bodies,"
says Chip Shearer of the University of New Mexico (2). So the meteorites
originate from beyond the Earth-Moon system. Additionally, the high sodium
content of the meteorites implies that the body they originated from was rich in
water (3). Yet, it they are inconsistent with Martian meteorites.
Venus seems an impossible fit.
So, the problem is - which body in the solar system did the meteorites come
from, and how did they get here? Our knowledge of the composition of many
planets and asteroids in the solar system is incomplete, and the data we have
from our current collection of meteorites is limited:
"The contemporary flux of meteorites is biased and
unrepresentative of Solar System materials; this is because of the complex
sequence of events required to bring a meteorite from its parent body to Earth.
These biases include, but are not limited to, longevity of the parent body in
the asteroid belt, location of asteroids near dynamically favourable delivery
zones/resonances, impact-excavation and preservation of the meteorite from its
parent body and low-velocity collision with Earth." (4)
It may be that the originating body is one of the larger asteroids, but how did
the asteroid manage to undergo these internal changes so quickly? The
solar system had barely had time to form before these fragments were separated
from their parent body. It has been suggested that the differentiation of
the body was only partial - and that this would allow scientists to square the
circle of the remarkable age of these meteorites against the timeframe needed
for the parent body to properly differentiate (5).
A more radical suggestion has been put forward by Lunar and Planetary Institute
researcher Allain Treiman. He thinks it probable that the source was a
destroyed dwarf planet (6). Under this hypothesis, fragments of the
destroyed world remain in the asteroid belt, awaiting spectroscopic analysis for
verification. We know that the early solar system was a violent place.
We may be closer to understanding some of the detail of that early turmoil.
Written by Andy Lloyd, with research by Lee Covino, 7th December 2009
The new Infra-red sky survey telescope is scheduled for launch in mid December
(1). It's
called WISE, and it is a modern and more powerful version of IRAS. It has
the capability of locating numerous brown dwarfs hidden in the constellations.
I've been saying for a long time that WISE is by far the best hope of finding
the Dark Star - a sub-brown dwarf object orbiting the Sun at a great distance.
Now, as WISE launches, a spokesman from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has
confirmed that looking for a distant Dark Star is actually part of the project's
remit:
"Excitingly, [WISE] may also find a theoretical ninth
planet in our own solar system (since Pluto is no longer counted as a planet,
there are currently only eight). The patterns of comet orbits around our sun
suggests that there may be a huge gas giant planet, about 25,000 times as far
from the Sun as the Earth is, as yet undetected.
"The Wise telescope could spot a Jupiter-sized planet as far as 60,000
Earth-to-Sun-distances (called astronomical units, or A.U.s) from the Sun,
according to one of the scientists behind it, Peter Eisenhardt of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and it will be actively looking
for the distant giant." (2)
The idea of a Dark Star was first put forward by Richard Muller et al when they
proposed a distant object that they named 'Nemesis' (3). Lying at the very
periphery of the solar system, among the distant comets in the outer Oort cloud,
Nemesis was thought to be responsible for an observed extinction cycle in the
fossil record. A decade ago, I proposed that this object was located
closer than the astronomers thought - between the Kuiper Belt and the inner Oort
Cloud. Because I don't believe that this object is responsible for an
extinction cycle, I prefer to give it the title 'Dark Star'. My hypothesis
is that such an object is capable of providing a habitable environment on a
moon/planet in its own planetary system, and thus life, which may be complex -
even intelligent (4). This more positive idea is not in keeping with the
moniker 'Nemesis'. I also believe that this object plays a part in ancient
mythology. Its proximity and irregular orbit may mean that it is
occasionally seen from Earth during rare perihelion events.
Will WISE discovery this Dark Star? If so, will it be found in the outer
Oort Cloud as suggested by Muller? Or will it be found much closer, sweeping out
the empty area beyond the Kuiper Gap, as I have suggested? If WISE does
its job, we will find out in the next couple of years. We are living in
exciting times!
A crater in the equatorial region of Mars has been found to contain exposed
surface ice. That ice appears to be part of an extensive ice sheet which extends
well beyond the polar regions of Mars. The crater was caused by a recent
meteor, and the exposed ice was eventually covered again by Martian surface
dust.
So, it's now established that vast sections of Mars are ice sheets covered in
regolith dust. The ice below the surface is exposed by meteorite impacts, then
quickly covered again by the prevailing dust storms on the red planet. I wonder
whether the extent of the ice below the surface might be even greater still.
Perhaps Mars is more like one of the Gallilean moons of Jupiter. Perhaps not as
obviously ocean-friendly as Europa, but more like Callisto and Ganymede? In
those cases frozen sub-surface ice is gently warmed by the proximity to Jupiter
(the same scenario for a warmed habitable world orbiting a Dark Star). Mars
does not have such a massive companion to warm the sub-surface ice into an
ocean. But...it is large enough to have volcanic activity, as the considerable
calderas on Mars indicate.
Surface features on Mars tend to bat down the idea of active recent vulcanism,
because there are large swathes of ancient craters which should have been filled
in long ago under that scenario. But it certainly seems to be reasonable to
paint a picture of subsurface ice sheets covering Martian oceans warmed by
underground geothermal activity. Meteorite impacts crunching through the
surface ice and releasing underground water might explain some of the Martian
anomalies of dried riverbeds. If the meteorite that uncovered the ice in this
case had been bigger, we might have witnessed just such an effect!
It seems increasingly likely that oceans covered much the of the low-lying
surface of the Northern hemisphere of Mars:
"Computerised analysis of satellite data shows that some
regions of Mars had valley networks almost as dense as those on Earth. 'It is
now difficult to argue against run-off erosion as the major mechanism of Martian
valley networks,' said research leader Professor Wei Luo, from Northern Illinois
University. The belt pattern of the valley network could best be explained if
there was a large northern ocean, said the scientists writing in the Journal of
Geophysical Research - Planets." (3)
That water had to end up somewhere. Could it be that Mars more closely
resembles one of the Galilean moons, with very significant quantities of deep
sub-surface water ice?
References:
1) Claire
Bates "Now they find water on Mars: Meteorites uncover ice which could point to
life" The Daily Mail, 25th September 2009, with thanks to Mart
NASA's data about Moon rock composition over the last 40
years has been very consistent. The non-polar regions of the Moon are dry,
desiccated, dead. Until yesterday. NASA announced that data from the
Indian
Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbitor indicates that
there is a relative abundance of lunar water - even in areas exposed to the
Sun's rays. At 750 parts per million, a ton of lunar rock would yield
about a litre of water (1). Helpful for future missions.
But, how on earth did NASA get this so wrong
for the last 40 years? The Apollo astronauts brought back piles of Moon rocks,
many of which were analysed for water. Traces were found at the time, but
NASA claimed that "most of the boxes containing the lunar samples leaked
which led scientists to assume traces of water found came from Earth air that
had entered the containers". 750ppm is not a trace. And how about the
boxes which did not leak? What of the water composition in them?
Then
there are the NASA probes in the late 1990s,which deliberately set out to
discover water on the Moon. They found frozen water in deep polar craters.
But Clementine, and particularly Prospector, were set up with spectrometers
capable of detecting water across the surface. How did they miss it?
They certainly shouldn't have! Here's the Mission guidelines for
Prospector's spectrometers:
"Lunar Prospector (LP), which was launched on January
6, 1998, carries an integrated suite of three spectrometers. A Gamma-Ray
Spectrometer (GRS) and a Neutron Spectrometer (NS) are providing global maps of
the major and trace elemental composition of the lunar surface, with special
emphasis on the search for polar water-ice deposits, implied by the H
abundance...Global mapping of elemental abundances by the LP GRS
and NS will impose major new constraints on the bulk composition of the lunar
crust, on compositional variations over the lunar surface, and on the existence
of lunar resources including polar water ice" (2) [my emphasis]
The map opposite shows Prospector data from 1998 (3), which has still not
been properly peer-reviewed over ten years on, according to the PDS website (4).
The equatorial map indicates that a fairly detailed, surface wide analysis was
undertaken. So - it begs the question: Why is the Indian data (and
also Deep Impact data, we learn) so radically different? How is it that 40
years of scientific opinion about Moon soil and rock composition has been so
fundamentally overturned? Did God just pee on the Moon? Or is there
something fundamentally wrong with the data that NASA has been making public for
the last 40 years? The BBC news report about the discovery heard that NASA
scientists were 'very sceptical' about the Indian finding at first, simply
because it so comprehensively overturned their previously held beliefs about
water on the Moon (5).
It beggars belief that two American probes sent to comprehensively survey the
Moon just a decade ago could have come up with the wrong data - wrong data that
is consistent with a scientific belief about the composition of Moon rock dating
back to the 1960s. Are we to believe that in the last decade the Indians
have made a quantum leap forward in technology above and beyond NASA and the
U.S. Department of Defense (which controlled Clementine)? I don't think so.
Notwithstanding that puzzling aspect of this story, there are other implications
for the discovery. Water is common throughout the solar system, it
appears. According to theories of planetary formation in the early solar
system, inner worlds tend to have their water veneers driven off by the strong
solar wind of the young vibrant Sun. This is why Mercury and Venus are
dry, and also why the Moon is supposed to be a desiccated shell. Yet, now
it is clear that the Moon is not that dry at all. If the Moon was formed
by an early collision between the early Earth and a Mars-sized planet, as is
currently accepted, then why does the Moon have this water? It should have been
driven off long ago. NASA argues that this water 'comes and goes' with the
long lunar day - and therefore is part of a continuing chemical process
activated by the Sun's rays.
We return to the great water conundrum that features prominently in my book
'The Dark Star' (6).
Isotopic studies of solar system water are essential to understand the point of
origin of any given water bearing object, as the ratio changes with distance
from the Sun, roughly. This is complicated by collisions with comets which bring
water from the outer solar system. The Earth is a puzzle in this regard, and I
have suggested that this puzzle is best solved by the recognition that Earth
began at a more distant orbital point, and then migrated in to its current
position, perhaps due to a collision. That the Moon still holds quantities
of water in its surface soil and rocks strengthens that point.
The LCROSS Mystery
An essential next
step is to establish whether the isotopic ratio for that Moon-water is more like
a planetary object beyond Mars than one at Earth's current location. The
answer to that question would surely have been solved by the planned impacts of
two parts of the LCROSS spacecraft into the lunar surface. NASA expected a
plume of dust and rock to result from the 5,600 mph collision, but there was no
obvious sign of any plume from either collision (7). However, closer
scientific analysis eventually provided exciting news about ice on the Moon:
NASA confirms a "significant
amount" of frozen water
Ice in large quantities on
the Moon has been confirmed by NASA as a result
of the LCROSS mission:
"A
'significant amount' of frozen water has been
found on the moon, the U.S. space agency NASA
said Friday, boosting hopes of eventually
setting up a permanent lunar base. Preliminary
data from a moon probe "indicates the mission
successfully uncovered water in a permanently
shadowed lunar crater," NASA said. "The
discovery opens a new chapter in our
understanding of the moon," it added in a
statement. The data was found after NASA sent
two spacecraft crashing into the lunar surface
last month in a dramatic experiment to probe for
water. One rocket slammed into the Cabeus
crater, near the moon's southern pole, at around
5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) per hour. It was
followed four minutes later by a spacecraft
equipped with cameras to record the impact." (8)
Robert Massey of the Royal
Astronomical Society speculated that the 'frozen
water' was brought to the surface of the Moon by
comet impacts. (9) The large debris plume rose
at least one or two kilometres in altitude. It
stayed just below the crater rim, which may have
prevented astronomers from observing it from
Earth. (10) Lee Covino, one of my editors, has a
keen interest in data about water sources in the
solar system. He and I agree that the returning
data from comets and asteroid exploration in
recent years has consistently pointed to
anomalies which can be explained by planetary
migration and catastrophism in the early solar
system, involving a Planet X entity. He
points out that the NASA press release about the
LCROSS findings hint at the prevalence of other
volatile materials in the Cabeus crater.
Here are the excerpts themselves:
"In addition, water, and other compounds
represent potential resources that could
sustain future lunar exploration."
"The concentration and distribution of water
and other substances requires further
analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds
water."
"The LCROSS science team along with
colleagues are poring over the data to
understand the entire impact event, from
flash to crater, with the final goal being
the understanding of the distribution of
materials, and in particular volatiles,
within the soil at the impact site."
"Along with the water
in Cabeus, there are hints of other
intriguing substances." (11)
If water was deposited by comets, then there might also be present on the
surface of the Moon organic material from the same source. Given that the
water ice is held within the lunar soil, then it seems reasonable to suppose
that comet-sources organic material and volatiles might also be prevalent within
the lunar soils. Such a discovery would be even more profound than the
confirmation of frozen water. The building blocks of life could be present
within lunar soil, brought to the Moon over billions of years by comets.
All of which begs the question - why was this not realised when
the lunar rocks, returned to Earth by Apollo, were analysed decades ago?
It's perhaps forgivable to mistake water in the lunar soil samples for
contamination. Would missing the presence of organic compounds on the Moon
be an omission too far?
Ancient Gold-mining Site Discovery
in Africa Claim
Here's an intriguing article about the possibility of a very, very ancient human
habitation in southern Africa. Researcher Michael Tellinger has found a
curious landscape, apparent on Google Earth, which may be artificial in origin.
This partially buried zone has been dated back 200,000 years. Aspects of
the site suggest human involvement, including gold-mines and the archeo-astronomy
of a set of standing stones. Although this work is independent rather than
academic in nature, it is tantalizing nonetheless. The author of this
article discusses Sitchinite material as part of his analysis.
On 8th October 2009, with no warning, a ~10-meter wide asteroid hit Earth's
atmosphere above Indonesia and exploded. The break-up was so powerful, it
triggered nuclear test ban sensors thousands of kilometers away. This
significant meteor event, named Jatuh, has received relatively little attention
in the Western press.
Analysis of the infrasound data revealed an explosion at
coordinates 4.5S, 120E (close to Bone, Indonesia) with a yield of about 50 kton
of TNT. That's two to three times more powerful than World War II-era atomic
bombs. The asteroid that caused the blast was not known before it hit and
took astronomers completely by surprise. According to statistical studies of the
near-Earth asteroid population, such objects are expected to collide with Earth
on average every 2 to 12 years.
It appears that the new blockbuster movie '2012' is about to send the Planet X
debate into complete meltdown (1). In February, I gave a couple of
lectures at a Planet X conference
in Rome, alongside Jacco van der Worp, co-author of
'Planet X Forecast and
2012 Survival Guide'. It was very clear that the majority of the
audience were very anxious about the prospect of a catastrophe in 2012 connected
with the return of Nibiru. Besides, my presentations, there was little
further discussion of the evidence for such a possibility - simply how to
survive it. I have heard that other conferences have stoked up greater
fears in recent times.
I used to have a lot of contact with Marshall Masters' group. Although I
disagree with them on the fundamental point of Planet X in 2012, I realise that
they are all genuinely concerned that Nibiru will return soon. Our
disagreement caused a split between us. A NASA scientist has recently
attacked the 2012/Nibiru issue, stating that it is a hoax (2). I think
that's a strong claim to make. I remember back in 2003, when we last had
this situation, that some critics were alleging fraud by Mark Hazelwood and
Nancy Lieder. Again, I don't think these two writers were purposely
attempting to generate a fraud or hoax, but the debate did get close to that
sort of litigious level.
Now that the '2012' movie is about to hit our screens, this debate is going to
intensify by an order of magnitude. The trailers of the movie do seem to
insinuate a cosmic catastrophe. If a returning Planet X is at the centre
of that movie's fictional scenario, then the stakes in the non-fictional
discussion of Nibiru will inevitably escalate. Researchers making strong
claims for the end of the world in 2012 need to bear in mind that their opinions
can influence people's life decisions, and that opens up the potential for
litigation by disgruntled catastrophists and angry sceptics - especially come
2013, when the world continues on as normal. I have quietly made these
concerns known to Marshall and Jacco in the past, but I have been rebuffed.
Fair enough: I am not their mother...it's up to them how they present their
case, and how they weigh up the risks.
But they've been warned, and as result of our disagreement I'm no longer
associated with them. Given the heat of the debate, I need to make the
following very clear. While I welcome a wider public acknowledgement of
the possibility of the existence of Planet X, particularly in the form of a
sub-brown dwarf (my own contribution to this genre), I am not advocating that
Earth is under imminent threat from the return of Planet X. That has
always been my position, even when I used to appear on Marshall's internet radio
show. I was a dissenting voice back in 2003, with Zetatalk and
'Blindsided', and I'm a dissenting voice now.
But that does not make me a Planet X sceptic. There is a lot of evidence
for such an object lying in the massive gap between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort
Cloud. I think that the NASA scientist, David Morrison, is wrong to
dismiss any possibility of such an object existing at great distance from the
Sun. By doing so , he is guilty of polarising this debate, and ignoring
the many scientific anomalies of the outer solar system. There is ample
opportunity for future discovery, especially through the WISE infra-red sky
search, due for launch this December. If WISE fails to discover a
sub-brown dwarf within half a light year (the extent of the Sun's influence),
then I will accept that the Sun is on its own. That's science, after all.
Let's wait for the experiment to be carried out before we jump to conclusions in
either direction. Until that program is complete we must keep our minds
open to the possibility of a Dark
Star existing in the solar system.
The Dark Star theory is a radical hypothesis. However,
it is also very much immersed in science. That's because unlike a lot of
'alternative science', this hypothesis can be proven, or disproven. A new
wide infra-red search will start in December this year with the launch of WISE.
It will seek out brown dwarfs, among other things, across the entire sky.
So, if there is a Dark Star orbiting the sun - even if it's locate out in the
comet clouds - WISE should spot it. 2010 will be a very important year for
me. Either a sub-brown dwarf will be discovered, or it won't. Place
your bets now. Here's some more info on the mission:
Lloyd Pye sent me an article describing how a secret
satellite deployment was tracked by amateur astronomy sleuths. He noted
how close this was to the storyline in Ezekiel One. Indeed!
Extra-solar planets are plentiful, and often bizarre.
Here's a very odd example. It's in the Scorpius constellation, about 1000
light years away, and is called WASP-17. Unusually, its orbit proceeds
backwards, and is tilted at a spectacular 150 degrees, whilst lying extremely
close to its own sun. It is twice the size of Jupiter, with half the mass,
so is too small to be classified even as a sub-brown dwarf. Nevertheless,
it shows some interesting Dark Star characteristics.
Jupiter took an unexpected hit by a comet recently. Jupiter's
gravitational mass attracts incoming objects, and it acts like cross between a
solar system sentinel and a vacuum cleaner. So, taken on its own, such an
event is hardly surprising. But we also learn this week that Venus has
developed an unexpected bright spot in its permanent cloud cover too.
Scientists speculate that there may be volcanic activity going on on the surface
of Venus. But is this bright spot evidence of a similar 'scar' caused by
the catastrophic impact of a comet or asteroid? On Jupiter these impacts
appear as dark scars, of incredible size. The jury is out on what caused
the brightening of the clouds on Venus, but it would certainly be a concern if two planets in the solar
system showed evidence of comet strikes within such a short time period of one
another. Does this indicate an increase in the number of incoming objects?
Should we be concerned that similar objects might strike the Earth? Is
such a situation connected with 2012? Or Planet X? Or both?
The Asteroid Belt's Twin Origin
Planet X researcher Shad Bolling recently sent me a piece about the complex
origin of the asteroid belt. Apparently, scientists are trying to figure
out why asteroids from the outer asteroid belt vary significantly in composition
from those in the inner asteroid belt. Water ices, and heated processes
demark the two types of asteroid studied by planetary scientists. Writing
in the journal 'Nature', Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in
Boulder, Colorado, advocates the 'Nice Model' to explain how these, and other
anomalies came about. The summary from Space.com makes for fascinating
reading:
The
Nice model is "a model for the dynamical evolution for the orbits of the giant
planets that we believe was a very violent event that happened roughly 700
million years after the solar system formed," when the solar system was in "its
teenage years," Levison explained. Models haven't been able to reproduce
the formation of Uranus and Neptune in their current orbits, so Levison and
other astronomers think that they formed much closer to Jupiter and Saturn, so
that all the gas giants initially sat within 15 AU of the sun. (One AU, or
astronomical unit, is the mean distance between Earth and the sun, about 93
million miles. Jupiter currently has a mean distance of 5.2 AU from the sun.)
We
think [the gas giant planets] formed in a much more compact configuration than
what we currently see," Levison said. A protoplanetary disk of
planetesimals stretched from just beyond that 15 AU boundary to about 30 AU, the
thinking goes. While this configuration was initially stable, objects
leaking out from the disk caused slow changes in the orbits of the gas giants.
According to the model, about 700 million years after
the solar system formed, these changes resulted in Jupiter and Saturn hitting a
resonance with each other that caused the orbits of Uranus and Neptune to
destabilize. The latter two planets gravitationally scattered off each other
towards Jupiter and Saturn, which pushed back, sending their smaller siblings
out to their current orbits. Like a bowling ball hitting a set of pins,
Uranus and Neptune plowed into the outer protoplanetary disk, whose objects "got
scattered all over the solar system". (1)
This model might help to explain the late,
great bombardment, and the bizarre distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects. The Nice
model is gaining acceptance in the astronomical community, with its talk of
migrating gas giants, even though it sounds like an unlikely game of planetary
billiards.
The anomalies that the Nice model sets out
to explain also offer rich pickings for Planet X advocates. The
catastrophic element to this period of solar system evolution is
self-explanatory. Add to that the dual nature of the asteroid belt, and
one can piece together events that involve the catastrophic interloping of a
usurper planet. One wonders whether any of the academic researchers who
crunch the numbers in their super-computers have also created models from this
scenario as well? Given the anomalous evidence for an as yet undiscovered
massive planet beyond Neptune, it should surely be a good bet!
Reference:
(1) Andrea Thompson
"Migrating
Planets May Have Kicked Asteroids Into Orbit" 15th July 2009,
On occasion people write to me advocating the possibility that a brown dwarf
binary companion might be be constructed by 'electric fields' or plasma. I
generally reply that the Dark Star theory does not require a new theory of
physics to work. A sub brown dwarf built of regular elements would do
nicely. However, there is one intriguing possibility from new physics that
might also fit. Could a Dark Star binary companion be made up of 'dark
matter'? Dark matter is still largely theoretical, but its presence is
required to explain the missing mass of the universe. Given the quantity
of mass missing, is seems likely that it clumps into Dark Stars. It would
also make sense that there are a huge number of low mass stars rather than
extremely massive Dark Matter Stars which might be bending light, and creating
other more noticeable effects. So such a notion would fit with a multitude
of missing low mass companions located at the peripheries of stellar systems.
Here's a piece from 2007 sent to me by my astronomer friend Mattia which
puts just such a possibility across:
"Before stars were fueled by nuclear fusion, they may
have been fueled by dark matter. Researchers have theorized that "Dark Stars"
may have been supported by the huge release of energy from dark matter
annihilation (i.e. the release of energy that comes when matter and antimatter
encounter each other) in the early universe. The physicists from UC Santa Cruz,
UM Ann Arbor, and the University of Utah believe that despite many theories
stating otherwise, dark matter did have an effect on the first stars in the
universe.
"The release of energy from dark matter/anti-dark matter annihilation may have
prevented the first proto-stars from collapsing and beginning fusion, but in
turn could have heated a star¿s core enough to support it. This would change the
time scale of the formation of second generation stars, the appearance of
elements like nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen in our universe, and other aspects of
stellar evolution.
"Products of the annihilation, such as neutrinos, gamma-rays, or antimatter may
make these dark stars or their remnants detectable. Although stars composed of
dark matter are likely to be much dimmer than normal stars, they may produce
some light. The next step for researchers will be to determine how much visible
light the dark stars give off, and how long they survive. Dark stars may have
died out millions of years ago, or they may still exist today.
"The idea of dark stars relies on the Lightest Super symmetric Particle (LSP), a
highly favored candidate for particles that make up dark matter. The properties
of the LSPs are consistent with current information about dark matter in the
universe. Many physicists are hopeful that new experiments in particle colliders
will soon yield more discoveries on the nature of dark matter, and perhaps offer
insight into the possibility of dark stars in the early universe."
Scientific American are leading
with this brown dwarf planetary systems article, and accompanying image on the
front of their June 2009 magazine which looks an awful lot like the cover of
'Dark Star'! It's not just the cover either - 'Scientific American'
speculates about the possibility of habitable planets existing around brown
dwarfs, and mentions the potential for such objects to lie hidden between us and
the nearest star. Which is exactly what I've been advocating for some
years.
"Unlikely Suns Reveal Improbable
Planets - Astronomers are finding planets where there were not supposed to be
any."
Many of my readers will be familiar
with my description of the late, great bombardment. After the formation of
the solar system, there was a volatile period involving planets crashing about,
and at some point very early in the system's history Earth took a hit from a
Mars-sized body. This incredible impact eventually led to the formation of the
Moon. Things quietened down considerably, until a point when the Sun was
over 600 million years old. Then a new series of high impact events
caused mayhem in the inner solar system. This event, some 3.9 billion
years ago, was the Late, Great Bombardment. What created these
catastrophes? Astronomers don't know. I have proposed that this is
the point when the 'Celestial Battle' took place - the advent and close approach
of the Dark Star binary companion and its system of planets.
Whether my explanation is correct or
not, the catastrophe was certainly real enough. Scientists working on this
mysterious period of cataclysm have now found that life might have survived the
multiple asteroid impacts, which would help with the modelling of the emergence
of life on this planet. The extent of the damage to Earth is also
consistent with the damage sustained by 'Tiamat' asdescribed by Sitchin:
Geologic evidence suggests that
life on Earth was present at least 3.83 billion years ago, said Mojzsis. “So it
is not unreasonable to suggest there was life on Earth before 3.9 billion years
ago. We know from the geochemical record that our planet was eminently habitable
by that time, and this new study sews up a major problem in origins of life
studies by sweeping away the necessity for multiple origins of life on Earth.”
Most scientists believe a rogue plan et as large as Mars smacked Earth with a
glancing blow 4.5 billion years ago, vaporizing it self and part of Earth. The
collision would have created an immense vapor cloud from which moonlets, and
later our moon, coalesced, Mojzsis said. “That event, which preceded the Late
Heavy Bombardment by at least 500 million years, would have effectively hit
Earth’s re-set button,” he said.
“But our results strongly suggest that no events since the moon formation were
capable of destroying Earth’s crust and wiping out any biosphere that was
present,” Mojzsis said. “In stead of chopping down the tree of life, our view is
that the bombardment pruned it.”
There has been a rash of discoveries
about small failed stars this week. Some very young (and therefore still
hot) sub-brown dwarfs have been found (1). Their mass is in the region of
what I expect for our binary Dark Star, although their youth makes them an awful
lot more active as they have not yet used up their fuel. They are not
bound to parent stars, but have formed within stellar nurseries alongside more
traditional suns. Another recent discovery is of a binary object which is
very cool by failed star standards. At just 300 degrees Celsius, Wolf 940B
is clearly an old brown dwarf, weighing in at between 20 and 30 Jupiter masses
(2).
The size and warmth of these
discovered objects is dropping as detection methods improve. But they
remain difficult to find, and old objects of the order of ten Jupiter masses
remain beyond current limits. But it is only a matter of time.
Crucially, brown dwarfs are popping up despite their difficulty to be spotted,
and this may show that they are far more abundant than has been thought, which
may mean that scientists need to revisit their theories of star formation (3).
There have been a couple of
interesting articles recently about whether life could exist on planets orbiting
red dwarf stars. These small stars are common, but have been traditionally
left out of the debate about life on extrasolar planets. But more
recently, planetary scientists have reconsidered this prior prejudice.
Red dwarfs are much larger than the
Dark Star object I discuss, which is more like the planet Jupiter.
Nevertheless, some of the considerations are interesting, and valid for both
cases. In particular, whether tidally-locked planets around parent dwarf
stars could have reasonable atmospheres (1). Another point raised by NASA
is that data from protoplanetary disks around red and brown dwarfs shows a lack
of hydrogen cyanide, which might be a problem for the evolution on life in such
systems (3). Also of interest is the need for a magnetic field on the
candidate habitable world, which is a function of its spin and size (1).
3) Whitney Clavin, NASA JPL press release "Cool Stars Have Different Mix of
Life-Forming Chemicals" 7th April 2009, with thanks to Monika
Dark Star on Coast-to-Coast
Andy Lloyd was George Noory's
guest on
the night of Wednesday 4th March 2009.
He talked about his new
novel, “Ezekiel One”. Topics under discussion included 2012, government
cover-ups about intelligent E.T. life, governmental manipulation of the
mainstream media, the Anunnaki, and Planet X / Nibiru. Andy built upon his
‘Dark Star Theory’ research to show how intelligent life can exist on our
doorstep, posing challenges and dangers for those in power on Planet Earth.
There was a lively and well-informed final hour of questions. Thanks
to George, Tom, Lex and Stephanie at Coast-to-Coast for facilitating another
great show. Here's the show's recap, and subscriber podcasts:
My new Dark Star novel,
'Ezekiel One', has now been published by Timeless Voyager Press.
I decided to write a novel to set out some of my Dark Star ideas in a more
accessible
format, and to present a story rich with conspiracy theory.
The book is "fast-moving and intriguing", and full of surprises. 'Ezekiel One' has
the feeling of a cult thriller. Think 'The Ipcress File'
meets 'The X-Files', with a generous sprinkling of 'The Dark Star'. The
sequel to 'Ezekiel One', entitled 'The Followers of Horus', will be available in
2010.
I 
Surface features on Mars tend to bat down the idea of active recent vulcanism,
because there are large swathes of ancient craters which should have been filled
in long ago under that scenario. But it certainly seems to be reasonable to
paint a picture of subsurface ice sheets covering Martian oceans warmed by
underground geothermal activity. Meteorite impacts crunching through the
surface ice and releasing underground water might explain some of the Martian
anomalies of dried riverbeds. If the meteorite that uncovered the ice in this
case had been bigger, we might have witnessed just such an effect!
Then
there are the NASA probes in the late 1990s,which deliberately set out to
discover water on the Moon. They found frozen water in deep polar craters.
But Clementine, and particularly Prospector, were set up with spectrometers
capable of detecting water across the surface. How did they miss it?
They certainly shouldn't have! Here's the Mission guidelines for
Prospector's spectrometers: 
