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Massive X6.9 class solar flare, August 9, 2011...

Massive X6.9 class solar flare, August 9, 2011. While this flare produced a coronal mass ejection (CME), this CME is not traveling towards the Earth, and no local effects are expected. Sun Unleashes X6.9 Class Flare, NASA press release dated 08.09.2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AR 1476 gave us one last eruption by producing a M5 class solar Flare which has produced a S2 class radiation storm that is currently assaulting the earth today.

A S2 class Rad. storm will not produce any biological hazards. Satellite operations will experience infrequent single-event upsets possible and small effects on HF propagation through the polar regions and navigation at polar cap locations possibly affected.

 

(Spaceweather.com) RADIATION STORM UNDERWAY: Energetic solar protons are swirling around Earth following an M5-class solar flare from departing sunspot 1476. The sunspot erupted on May 17th around 0130 UT. This radiation storm, which peaked at S2 on NOAA storm scales, is subsiding but still capable of confusing spacecraft imaging systems and causing ‘single event upsets’ in orbiting electronics.

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© Amel Emric / AP Photo
A van drives on a road during snowy weather near Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Monday, May 14, 2012. Heavy snow covered central parts of Bosnia early Monday. After the weekend with record high temperatures, reaching mid 30′s Celsius, citizens of Sarajevo woke up Monday with 10 centimeters of snow covering the city streets.

Sunbathing one day, snowstorm the next: Bosnians are getting whiplash from the latest crazy weather to hit the Balkans.

Weeks after Bosnians had stashed away their winter clothes and their memories of last winter’s unbearably heavy snow, residents had to drag out the shovels Monday after waking up to a blanket of snow in the middle of an otherwise unusually hot May.

Some 50 remote villages in a mountainous area near the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo lost power due to the snow.

© Amel Emric / AP Photo
A Bosnian man shovels snow in front of a car stuck in snow near Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Monday, May 14, 2012. Heavy snow covered central parts of Bosnia early Monday. After the weekend with record high temperatures, reaching mid 30′s Celsius, citizens of Sarajevo woke up Monday with 10 centimeters of snow covering the city streets.

The unseasonal weather followed a week of summer-like temperatures with 27 C (80.6 Fahrenheit) registered in Sarajevo on Saturday.

Temperatures hit 5 Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) on Monday, causing traffic jams as people struggled to get to work.

The cold spell is forecast to last until at least the middle of the week, when the snow is expected to be replaced by heavy rain.

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(Image: Doug Perrine/naturepl.com)

IT DOESN’T get much better than this. It’s a moonless night and you are on a deserted beach in the Maldives. As the waves lap the shore, the beach lights up like Las Vegas. Glowing organisms stick to your feet. It is one of the most magical sights in the natural world: a bloom of bioluminescent plankton.

This picture was taken on Vaadhoo Island, but bioluminescing organisms are found all over the world. The ones here are probably single-celled protists and marine crustaceans called copepods. Both glow when they are disturbed.

“Every so often, one of these bright specks of light would appear to take off and run up the beach,” says photographer Doug Perrine. Ghost crabs were grabbing the glowing organisms and carrying them back to their burrows.

It doesn’t work so well on the beach, but bioluminescence usually distracts predators by disrupting their swimming behaviour and preventing them from feeding. It may also act as a burglar alarm to attract animals that feed on the predators. So what to us is a beautiful spectacle of light is to them a minefield (Journal of Plankton Research, DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbh141).

The light is produced by devilishly named twins: a pigment called luciferin and an enzyme, luciferase. Luciferin reacts with oxygen, and luciferase speeds up the reaction. A range of unrelated animals use the same pigment-enzyme pair to produce light, including fireflies, anglerfish and jellyfish. Bioluminescence evolved independently many times: in the bigger picture, it ain’t so magical after all.

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Coronal Mass Ejection: Artist Concept (NASA, Sun)

Coronal Mass Ejection: Artist Concept (NASA, Sun) (Photo credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center)

A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) is travelling from the Sun at 1 000km per second and will give the Earth a glancing blow.

Spaceweather.com reported the CME will arrive in Earth’s vicinity at about 14:00 GMT  on Monday and while no harm toward humans is expected, there is a risk that satellites may be adversely affected.

According to the South African National Space Agency (Sansa), the solar wind speed is high at between 500km/s and 550km/s.

CMEs are classified into three categories: X-class flares are big and are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.

In the polar regions people could observe spectacular auroras, that may even be visible at lower latitudes.

The CME may have a particular impact in South Africa because of the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the Earth’s magnetic field is weakest.

CMEs that erupt from higher latitudes on the Sun have a lower chance of directly hitting the Earth because they are further away from the plane of the ecliptic.

A direct hit could have devastating consequences for global communications and electrical grids.

The Sun goes through a solar cycle about every 11 years where an increased activity on the surface is observed.

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Artist's impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Kornmesser (ESO)A six-year search that surveyed millions of stars using the microlensing technique concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The average number of planets per star is greater than one. This means that there is likely to be a minimum of 1,500 planets within just 50 light-years of Earth.

The results are based on observations taken over six years by the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration, which was founded in 1995. The study concludes that there are far more Earth-sized planets than bloated Jupiter-sized worlds. This is based on calibrating a planetary mass function that shows the number of planets increases for lower mass worlds. A rough estimate from this survey would point to the existence of more than 10 billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy.

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The moon is set to get a lot bigger this weekend – at least from our perspective on Earth.

And the ‘Supermoon’ – the nickname for a perigee full moon, closer to the Earth than usual – could cause tides to rise around the world as the moon’s close ‘fly past’ exerts 42% more tidal force.

The moon will appear bigger and brighter – sky-watchers promise this ‘supermoon’ will be 16% brighter than most when it begins on Saturday at 3.35pm GMT, 11.35am EDT.

Another 'super moon' is due on Saturday. The perigee full Moon in May will be as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons of 2012Another ‘super moon’ is due on Saturday. The perigee full Moon in May will be as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons of 2012

 

Super moon rise over Warfield Church, Warfield, Bracknell, Berkshire, UKSuper moon rise over Warfield Church, Warfield, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK
The supermoon this weekend will be brighter - and 'bigger' - than any this yearThe supermoon this weekend will be brighter – and ‘bigger’ – than any this year

 

Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee).

Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon’s orbit.

A perigee full Moon brings with it extra-high ‘perigean tides,’  but this is nothing to worry about, according to America’s NOAA space-weather predicting agency.

In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. 

‘To view this weekend’s supermoon to best effect, look for it just after it rises or before it sets, when it is close to the horizon. There, you can catch a view of the moon behind buildings or trees, an effect which produces an optical illusion, making the moon seem even larger than it really is,’ said Space.com, which reported the phenomenon.

The elliptical orbit of the moon means some full moons are bigger than others The elliptical orbit of the moon means some full moons are bigger than others

 

PerigeeAnd the ‘Supermoon’ – the term for a perigee full moon, closer to the Earth than usual – could cause tides to rise around the world as the moon’s close ‘fly past’ exerts 42% more tidal force than usual And the ‘Supermoon’ – the term for a perigee full moon, closer to the Earth than usual – could cause tides to rise around the world as the moon’s close ‘fly past’ exerts 42% more tidal force than usual

Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)–not exactly a great flood.

The Moon looks extra-big when it is beaming through foreground objects–a.k.a. ‘the Moon illusion.’

Indeed, contrary to some reports circulating the Internet, perigee Moons do not trigger natural disasters. The ‘super moon’ of March 1983, for instance, passed without incident. And an almost-super Moon in Dec. 2008 also proved harmless.

The 'super moon' will slightly amplify tides around the world The ‘super moon’ will slightly amplify tides around the world

 

Okay, the Moon is 14% bigger than usual, but can you really tell the difference? It’s tricky. There are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters. Hanging high overhead with no reference points to provide a sense of scale, one full Moon can seem much like any other.

The best time to look is when the Moon is near the horizon. That is when illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view.

For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects.

 

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4.9 Magnitude Earthquake WYOMING – 1st May 2012

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake has struck Wyoming at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the quake hit at 17:11:18 UTC Tuesday 1st May 2012
The epicenter was 25 km (15.5 miles) Southwest of Moorcroft, Wyoming
No Reports of Damage or Injuries at this time

NOTE: Update USGS has removed this earthquake 30 min after publishing the above details.

Update 2: This earthquake has been upgraded to a 4.9 Magnitude from 4.0 Magnitude, USGS has still not returned the Wyoming Earthquake as it remains completely removed.

26 Stations measured this earthquake ranging from 4.3 Magnitude to 5.6 Magnitude

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fracking…

Counties in the United States where one or mor...

Counties in the United States where one or more National Ambient Air Quality Standards are not met, as of June 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wyoming’s southwestern region was found to have an unsafe level of smog-causing ozone, a designation the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency linked to a boom in oil and gas drilling in the state.

The EPA included the Upper Green River Basin in its list of areas nationwide exceeding an ozone standard set in 2008 during the administration of President George W. Bush. Wyoming until today was the only state where all counties had met the federal ozone limit.

“It’s undoubtedly the oil and gas drilling going on out there,” John Walke, clean-air director for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. Walke criticized President Barack Obama for throwing out a proposal by the EPA to lower that ozone standard.

Ozone, a precursor to smog, is caused by emissions from vehicle traffic, industrial activities or related projects such as road construction. Gas escaping from wells or pipelines contains volatile organic compounds, which also can cause smog.

Breathing air containing high levels of ozone can reduce lung function and increase respiratory symptoms, aggravating asthma or other respiratory conditions, according to the EPA.

With the official designation of “non-attainment” for the U.S. ozone standard of less than 75 parts per billion, a state or locality must develop a plan to cut its pollution.

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Skywatchers take note: The biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend.

The moon will officially become full Saturday (May 5) at 11:35 p.m. EDT. And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.

The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.

And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.

This month’s full moon is due to be about 16 percent brighter than average. In contrast, later this year on Nov. 28, the full moon will coincide with apogee, the moon’s farthest approach, offering a particularly small and dim full moon.

Though the unusual appearance of this month’s full moon may be surprising to some, there’s no reason for alarm, scientists warn. The slight distance difference isn’t enough to cause any earthquakes or extreme tidal effects, experts say.

However, the normal tides around the world will be particularly high and low. At perigee, the moon will exert about 42 percent more tidal force than it will during its next apogee two weeks later, Rao said.

The last supermoon occurred in March 2011.

To view this weekend’s supermoon to best effect, look for it just after it rises or before it sets, when it is close to the horizon. There, you can catch a view of the moon behind buildings or trees, an effect which produces an optical illusion, making the moon seem even larger than it really is.

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As titanic earthquakes rip apart the earth’s crust, destroy Mankind’s cities, and sweep away lives with the merciless hand of Fate, desperate scientists aware of the relationship between the ongoing magnetic polar shift, the planet’s stressed molten core, and rupturing tectonic plates, scramble to anticipate the next upheaval.

The titanic 9.0 superquake that destroyed much of northeastern Japan is a symptom of the growing devastation reverberating around the globe as the geomagnetic field continues to relentlessly warp, fluctuate and mutate the Earth into a cauldron of cascading disaster.

Both the superquake and super-tsunami were generated by a gigantic ripping of the Earth’s crust: the North American plate snapped upward. The mammoth fissure—150 miles long and 50 miles wide—gapes lies like a garish wound on the ocean floor, plunging downwards into the depths of the crumbling, unstable mantle.

Geomagnetosphere mutations affecting major plate faultlines

Most people are unaware that magnetic field fluctuations can precipitate earthquakes and initiate strange mass animal behavior—bizarre behavior like that reported around the world since the final months of 2010. [See:Statistical relationship of strong earthquakes with planetary geomagnetic field activity  Harvard University]

Earthlights phenomenon caused by harmonics from Earth’s mantle

Earth harmonics deep in the mantle emanating from an unstable core are causing visual and auditory phenomenon. Strange shimmering colors are painting the skies; unsettling moans, booms and droning are being heard in various regions of the planet.

Geomagnetic flux, often a precursor to mighty quakes, is sometimes accompanied by those strange harmonics: colors dancing in the sky or eerie, discordant “music.” [See: Ultralow-Frequency Magnetic Fields Preceding Large Earthquakes  Antony C. Fraser-Smith Stanford University]

All are signs of what may come.

And what may come puts all of Hollywood’s disaster movies to shame.

Earth’s beating heart

The geodynamo that’s the heart of the Earth is like a human heart that’s begun fibrillating. It’s become unpredictable, unstable, and increasingly dangerous to all life on the surface.

Mighty currents of molten rock, under extreme pressure, boil beneath the fragile crust propigating earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the continental drift.

Changes in the geomagnetosphere affect the Earth’s plate tectonics. Tectonics are affected because the planet’s primarily a core of superheated, dense, viscous liquid with a relatively thin crust floating on the surface. That segmented crust—like a cracked pie crust—is what comprises the tectonic plates. They are in constant movement chiefly due to massive currents deep within the planet’s mantle and molten core.

It’s also the geodynamo that creates the earth’s magnetic field and the interaction with the solar magnetosphere can initiate plate drift, tensions, and the massive buckling and shearing between the plates. This movement along fault lines is called an earthquake.

Geomagnetic flux, often a precursor to mighty quakes, is sometimes accompanied by strange harmonics: people see colors dancing in the sky or hear what sounds like eerie, discordant music. [See: Skyquakes: Warnings From Earth's Destabilizing Core]

The growing abberations of the magnetic field—and the increasing level activity of the sun—is symptomatic of the change in the Earth’s core. A dangerous change. An uncontrollable change. A change that is leading to the possibility of greater and greater disasters in every hotspot around the globe.

It’s been demonstrated that changes in the geomagnetosphere affect the Earth’s plate tectonics. The reason why tectonics are affected has to do with how the Earth is built geologically. The planet’s primarily a core of superheated, dense viscous liquid with a relatively thin crust floating on the surface. That segmented crust—like a cracked pie crust—is what comprises the tectonic plates. They are in constant movement chiefly due to massive electrical currents deep within the planet’s mantle and molten core. [See: Detecting earthquake precursors by monitoring the earth's electrical field  Dionysios Dimakos]

Volcanic activity will also increase

Japan’s superquake was followed by hundreds of strong to severe aftershocks, and then an entirely new quake on a separate fault in central Japan measuring 6.6 magnitude.

Hours later a volcano in Indonesia along the famous Pacific Rim ring of fire exploded into an intense eruption.

As the core continues to mutate, more volcanoes will become active. The sun also is exacerbating the ancient volcanoes. Because of this, the danger of Earth’s supervolcanoes erupting has also greatly increased.

Warning signs are emerging across the world.

The supervolcano in the Canary Islands off the African coast is active now, and in the United States the Yellowstone supervolcano is activating. [See: Scientists Warn Supervolcano Will Destroy U.S.]

In the Great Midwestern states the New Madrid faultine appears to have awakened and ominous volcanic venting has been captured by satellites. [See: Frightening Volcanic Venting Signals Coming Midwest Megaquake]

Ominous magnetic torsion fields emerge

As the flux in the Earth’s dynamic magnetic field becomes more erratic and the intensity of the field fluctuates to a greater degree, the formation of energetic torsion fields withing the electrical matrix generated by the geodynamo can increase.

The torsion fieldsas defined by geophysicist Dr. A. Akimovcan appear within an electrical field in a state of flux. They are distinct energy fields that interact and affect energy and matter. Some experimenters have found evidence that their emanations sometimes appear to exceed the speed of light.

Torsion fields can change the light frequency of laser beams, affect electrical components, modify gravity waves, and negatively impact biological processes.

Beyond that, torsion fields can go rogue, create escalating feedback by looping upon themselves and generating massive, uncontrollable forces upon the spinning molten core through permutations, and erratic spin, and unequal pressure. It can be measured and deduced by the magnetic flux using supercomputers.

But the data produced is always after the fact and is useless as a tool for prediction.

Sadly, the current level of Man’s technology is useful only to determine exactly what it was that killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

As the geomagntic field effects intensify and interacts with an increasingly active sun, the core becomes ever more erratic.

What’s on the horizon?

More superstorms erupt into global titans of fury; more superquakes splitting lands in two and shifting coastlines, submerging islands, and destroying whole countries; and more volcanoes spilling superheated death and destruction upon helpless humanssearing death from the very bowels of the Earth.

What can scientists do? What can any humans do except record data and watch the escalating turmoil.

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Chernobylreactor 2

Chernobylreactor 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With the memorial ceremonies over for another year, the hard work of building a new permanent shelter to secure the stricken Chernobyl nuclear plant has begun.

After the explosion 26 years ago reactor four was encased in cement at great risk to those who completed the work. Now that is to be replaced with a new sarcophagus, but are things any safer today?

“Because of the construction work they’ve dug down to the level where the nuclear fuel and graphite lay. As a result the level of radioactivity in the air has risen. While the work is going on the level of the radioactivity in the air exceeds the sanitary norm by hundreds, perhaps thousands of times,” warned construction expert Yuri Andreyev.

Once the digging is finished experts say there will be no danger from the dust at the site. But to reassure the builders and technicians there are regular health checks. Each person is monitored and his or her exposure to radiation is controlled.

Euronews reporter Angelina Kariakina said: “The experts believe the encasement doesn’t solve the main Chernobyl problem, that of the nuclear waste inside the demolished reactor. But there is currently no chance of moving it to a safer storage facility.”

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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ukraine is making plans to rebuild civil society in the areas affected by the Chernobyl accident, as the man responsible for the Exclusion Zone announces most of the affected towns could be resettled.

A round of comments have come from Ukrainian leaders today ahead of tomorrow’s 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.

Speaking to parliament, prime minsiter Mykola Azarov announced extra funding for Chernobyl programs amounting to UAH3.7 billion ($460 million). The pensions of the ‘liquidators’ that performed emergency clean-up are to be increased and there will also be more money available for other people badly affected by the accident. Azarov said he is doing so ‘despite huge payments on debts, despite the frantic overpayment for Russian gas’, and because he does not want to make empty promises.

At the same time, Vladimir Kholosha, chairman of the State Agency for the Exclusion Zone (DAZV) gave a briefing at Government House. He gave the results of radiological surveys carried out last year in 2155 of the 2293 settlements in the Exclusion Zone. It revealed that ‘most of these towns can function without restrictions due to radiation’.

He said this is because time, natural processes and countermeasures have significantly reduced radiation hazard compared to the time immediately after the accident some 26 years ago.

Approaches to evacuation

The Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was drawn to limit additional radiation doses from the accident to 1 millisievert per year, compared to the 2.4 millisieverts per year people receive from all sources. This resulted in a very wide evacuation area, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

By contrast, radiation experts in Japan have said that Fukushima residents should be able to return home to areas where additional doses would be up to 20 millisieverts per year, although their wish is for additional doses to be as low as possible. Some areas have already been opened during daylight hours for residents and workers to make repairs ahead of a permanent return.

Kholosha also connected the towns with potential socio-economic development, which Azarov separately said was the only way to alleviate the chronic ‘state of poverty’ that hampers some of the affected regions.

A draft bill towards a definition of the ‘concept of state policy on development activities in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone’ was published by the DAZV on 7 December last year but Kholosha did not reveal any specific areas he may be considering for potential development.

The only area specified in documents available from the DAZV is the Chernobyl power plant site, where other industrial activities could take place to make better use of the labour force maintained in the worker town of Slavutych.

DAZV will work with local authorities and labour unions to promote volunteerism and development of supporting civil society groups. One concrete measure will be the creation of a radio station for the region, which is due to begin broadcasting before the middle of this year.

Belarusian example

Belarus lies close-by to the north of the Chernobyl site and was badly affected by contamination spread on the wind during the accident. In 2010 that country announced a multi-year plan to promote basic economic activity in its evacuated Gomel and Mogilev regions.

The official plan begins by reducing fire risk by clearing overgrown areas and then properly disposing of buried contaminated items. Infrastructure work can then follow – the rebuilding of roads and reconnection to gas and electrical grids.

Among the first self-sustaining industries in the Belarusian regions could be forestry, with schools and housing provided for the families of specialist workers before broader development begins.