Archive for earth
The Earth’s axis DIDN’T shift
Posted by: | CommentsSummer Solstice is near and theories are flowing about the axis shift. The sun is too far north, the sun isn’t setting at the proper place, etc. I wrote a previous article about the Earth’s axis shift, just stating that it was completely nonsense to think that the axis of rotation changed but now, I would just like to provide a simple everyday life example of why it doesn’t make sense.
This example is called satellite T.V. I’m sure you know roughly how satellite T.V. works and that the antenna at your home as to be in direct line of sight with the satellite of your satellite T.V. provider. It does make sense, if you want your antenna to receive signal, it has to be in line with the satellite, otherwise it doesn’t receive any signal. Trust me, it’s not something roughly aligned: moving your antenna of a single degree can make a difference. Now, if you want to be able to communicate with the satellite day and night, it has to stay in the same position. How is this achieved? Well, that kind of satellite is called a geosynchronous satellite:
A geosynchronous orbit is simply an orbit that allows the satellite to remain apparently stationary above the same location on Earth.
In order for a satellite’s orbit to remain stationary above the same location on Earth, the satellite’s orbital period (the time required for one complete orbit) needs to equal the Earth’s rotational period - one day. Because the satellite orbits at the same rate the Earth rotates, the satellite remains stationary above the same longitude on Earth.
In addition for the satellite orbit to be truly geostationary, the orbit must not be inclined to the equator. Otherwise the satellite will oscillate in a north south direction above the same longitude.
Just like that:
So that’s why you are able to stay connected with the satellite at all time. Now, remember when I said moving your antenna of a single degree would make a difference, well now imagine if the Earth’s axis would shift! The Earth does move, but not the satellite. There aren’t any physical bindings between the Earth and the satellite which means your antenna is no longer pointing toward the satellite. So if you are still able to watch satellite T.V., the Earth’s axis is the same.
Also, it is ridiculous to think it wouldn’t have important impacts. Just the length of days would be different! I strongly encourage you to have a look at this video as it’s pretty good to understand the basics:
I hope it cleared it all!
Link it to UFOs, no matter what
Posted by: | CommentsIndia Daily posted an article regarding last week’s NASA findings about the Earth’s magnetotail. You can have a look at my last week article about this for more information. I was reading their article and I thought that for once, it was a “normal’ article not filled with BS. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The article is not too long so I’ll post it here:
Scientists are baffled with the data from NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which recorded big changes in the lunar night side voltage, jumping typically from -200 V to -1000 V.
Every month, around the time the moon is full, it gets hit by Earth’s magnetic tail. As a result of the moon’s contact with the large ”plasma sheet” of hot charged particles that are trapped within our magnetic tail, scientists say, the night side of the moon climbs to hundreds or even thousands of volts in energy. Further, there is growing evidence that in such a period, the fine particles of moon dust actually begin to float because of electrostatic repulsion.
Because the moon could encounter the plasma sheet many times during a single pass through the magnetotail you can imagine how dynamic the charging environment on the moon is.
The bigger question is who created the dynamic charging environment on the moon?
many scientists now believe the anomaly can be explained by strange extraterrestrial bases in moon. Many scientific think tanks believe that US and Russia avoided moon since 1970 after they found evidence of extraterrestrial bases in moon.
Now, I want to point this sentence: The bigger question is who created the dynamic charging environment on the moon?
And then, this conclusion: many scientists now believe the anomaly can be explained by strange extraterrestrial bases in moon.
Ok, so this really doesn’t make sense. First of all, nobody created that dynamic charging environment on the moon, it’s just something that happens for scientific reasons! I mean, we could go on and on with that kind of arguments: “Who created magnetism?”, “who created electricity?”, etc. It’s not something that is created, these are phenomenons that can be explained by science and are the result of a complex interactions between molecules/atoms. You can get an explanation of the dynamic charging of the moon on the NASA’s website, just follow the link at the top of this post.
That kind of conclusion was of course to find a way to link the aliens to this story. That’s pure India Daily, link it to UFOs, no matter what.
The Moon and the magnetotail
Posted by: | CommentsNASA has published an extremely interesting article about still unknown phenomenons happening on the Moon when it goes through Earth’s magnetotail. NASA says the Moon is not as static as we previously thought:
“Earth’s magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it,” says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This can have consequences ranging from lunar ‘dust storms’ to electrostatic discharges.”
Read the NASA article about the Moon and the magnetotail here.
Planet X - Quick link
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve written about Planet X before (Planet X Explained), but I would like to share a link with you from Bad Astrononomy that contains a lot of information. It basically clears everything out and is a bit more complete than my article. So, instead of repeating what’s been written before (You know how I hate content replication), here is the link to Bad Astronomoy: Misconceptions: Planet X and real science.
Thanks to a reader of DCS for pointing me to this link.
WR-104, a threat to Earth?
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What is WR-104?
Mainly taken from wikipedia, with irrelevant parts taken out:
WR 104 is a Wolf-Rayet star located 8000 light years from Earth. It is a binary star with a class OB companion. The stars have an orbital period of 220 days and the interaction between their stellar winds produce a spiral “pinwheel” outflow pattern. WR 104’s rotational axis is aligned within 16° of Earth. This could have potential implications to the effects of WR 104’s eventual supernova, since these explosions often produce jets from their rotational poles. It is possible that WR 104 may even produce a gamma ray burst (GRB), though it is not possible to predict with certainty at this time.
What is a WR star?
Wolf-Rayet stars (often referred to as WR stars) are evolved, massive stars (over 20 solar masses), and are losing their mass rapidly by means of a very strong stellar wind, with speeds up to 2000 km/s. Wolf-Rayet stars are a normal stage in the evolution of very massive stars, in which strong, broad emission lines of helium and nitrogen (”WN” sequence) or helium, carbon, and oxygen (”WC” sequence) are visible.
What’s the matter with WR-104
The problem with WR-104 is that it is possible for a Wolf-Rayet star to progress to a “collapsar” stage in its death throes: This is when the core of the star collapses to form a black hole, pulling in the surrounding material. This is thought to be the precursor of a long gamma-ray burst(GBR for the rest of the article). That ain’t really a problem itself, the real deal is that the Earth is in the sight of that star and a GBR could possibly be aimed at Earth. Consequences of a GBR hitting Earth are mainly related to global impacts on the biosphere and climate-change triggered by the large dose of radiation.
So the GBR would be pointing at us?
A GBR is not like a laser beam with a clear target. It’s true that the Earth is in the line of “possible” danger, but we have to take in consideration how wide is the GRB. WR 104’s rotational axis is aligned within 16° of Earth and a typical GBR is about 2-20° wide. So, we are not in the comfort zone, but Earth is not a clear target. Remember that we deal with such big distances (8,000 light years), so even 0.1° can make a huge difference in terms of distance. In space, close to Earth can be considered as thousands of kilometers, so we have to keep that in mind.
When will it explode?
I’m not going to lie here just to please people: We don’t know when it is going to explode. Peter Tuthill, professor at the University of Sydney have studied the case since the star was discovered in 2000 and suggest that the star will explode within the next few hundred thousand years. Here’s what he officially says:
The WC spectrum Wolf-Rayet component of the binary should explode sometime within the next few hundred thousand years. To an astronomer, this is the last known stable phase in the life of these massive stars, and it could go anytime. I know of no way to predict this more accurately. The other component, the supergiant O/B star, likely has a much longer fuse than this, and for the rest of this discussion I focus mainly on the WR component.
The WC spectrum analysis is the analysis of the star’s helium, carbon, and oxygen emission. By analyzing this spectrum, you can determine at what stage or phase the star is in. As Tuthill says, it’s the last known stable phase in the life of these massive stars and it could go anytime.
What if it explode?
Well, if it explode tomorrow, we’re safe. The star is 8,000 light years away from Earth and one light year is the distance the light would travel in one year, which is extremely far. So, with gamma rays also traveling at the speed of light, we are looking at 8,000 years for a GRB to hit us. We are safe on that point.
What if it already exploded?
The problem is that when we look at the stars we look back in time. If the star is 8,000 light years away from us, it means what we see now is what the star was looking like 8,000 years ago. So, if the star can explode at any time with the data we have and it’s 8,000 years old data, the star could have already exploded right? Yes, I’m not going to lie to you about that. This means if the star exploded 7,999 years ago, we would know next year. We would know in the case that the burst hit us and it’s very unlikely.
What are your thoughts?
Honestly, I will sleep tonight and you should do the same without worrying too much. Like Phil Plait from badastronomy.com said:
So if it’s less than 10,000 years from exploding and if it blows up as a GRB and if it’s aimed at us and if there isn’t much junk between us and it, then yeah, we may have a problem. But that’s an awful lot of ifs.
There’s way too much ifs to conclude on a theory. It could explode tomorrow, in two hundred thousand years or have already exploded. The GRB might hit Earth as it might not at all and there’s lot of stuff in that 8,000 light years distance that could interfere. The theory is not strong enough to clearly say we are 100% safe and it’s ain’t defined enough to conclude on something. There’s way too much things to worry about in this life, don’t worry about that. Trust me WR-104 is one of the star we know of but there are possibly other stars that could pose a threat to Earth we are just not aware of. I’d say worry about your everyday life, not what’s happening 8,000 years away.
So, is it debunked and we’re safe?
It’s not debunked like the 2012 theory is. I feel confident enough to say you won’t see that GBR in your lifetime, but space is very complex and we have a lot of surprises ahead of us. It’s not worth to worry about WR-104, but it’s a nice thing to be aware of.
Earth’s Axis tilted an additional 26 degrees
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to this website, the earth axis tilted an additional 26 degrees recently. Quite strange we didn’t notice it because by looking at pictures, it looks to be quite an important change.
Before
After
Do you really think a 26 degrees axis shift can happen without anything more than increasing volcanoes and earthquakes like mentionned on the website? 26 degrees is huge and would mean MAJOR climate changes. There’s also the fact that we would notice a difference in the amount of light we receive from the sun everyday and a major difference in the Sun’s rising and setting positions. There are hundreds and hundreds of examples we can come up with just to prove this theory doesn’t make sense, it’s just another proof of the amount of disinformation available on the web.
If a pole shift happened on the Sun, it can happen on Earth too.
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I received a comment yesterday on one of my article about pole shifting. This was a reaction to the fact that I said recorded previous poles shifts on Earth took about 5,000 years to complete. This comment was that a magnetic pole shift happened on the Sun recently, which is a bigger mass than Earth and it didn’t take 5,000 years to complete. Thus, a pole shift can happen on Earth and real fast.
I’d like to clarify that. The answer I’d like to make official would be: If I can peel a banana, then why can’t I peel a strawberry if they both are fruits?
Unfortunately, while kind of funny, it isn’t really a proper answer. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense and can be an official answer…But let’s elaborate a bit. First of all, the Earth and Sun aren’t like the banana and the strawberry because they both aren’t planets. That’s the first mistake of the affirmation: comparing the Sun and the Earth like being two similar things. The Sun is a star, while the Earth is a planet. This makes a huge difference because the minute you know that, you can’t compare both equally.
The other important thing to consider is that the Sun is known to be on a 11 years cycle. What does this mean? Every 11 years, there’s a magnetic pole reversal happening on the Sun. Longer cycles have been recorded of course, but it’s usually an 11 years cycle. Does the Earth have such cycle? Luckily, no.
I’m not saying a pole shift can’t happen in a single day on Earth. While there’s not much chance of seeing that happening, who knows? The problem is “If it happens on the Sun it can happen on Earth”. This is not true and it is the kind of argument too often used in different domains. The Sun and Earth are two completely different things. Don’t forget that stars are mostly made of gas, while this ain’t the case of planets.
I continue to think that “If I can peel a banana, then why can’t I peel a strawberry if they both are fruits?” is the best answer to that argument. Because even if the Sun would’ve been a planet, there’s no way you can go with that kind of argument, affirmation being true or false.
What’s the speed of dark?
Posted by: | CommentsOk, here’s a good one. While browsing on my favorite scam websites and forums I came across an interesting question:
WHAT IS THE SPEED OF DARK?
Really, it must travel.
That is really interesting. Just so that everybody knows, there is no such thing as “dark”. There’s light and dark is actually absence of light. So basically light travels, but dark can’t really travel as it’s no light. If you consider dark as not being something like a “black hole” then it simply travels at the same speed as light because it’s still light. It’s not because it’s dark that there’s no light…
Maybe some Daily Common Sense reader can provide a different point of view. Something like following new studies, there could be something as “dark” traveling…I’m waiting for these theories.
Anyway, just thought that was quite a weird question.