{"id":1528,"date":"2006-12-25T13:51:56","date_gmt":"2006-12-25T13:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/2006\/12\/25\/exopolitics_the\/"},"modified":"2006-12-25T13:51:56","modified_gmt":"2006-12-25T13:51:56","slug":"exopolitics_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/exopolitics_the\/","title":{"rendered":"Exopolitics: The coming Galactic Superwave"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER, B.C. – This article summarizes the evidence<\/a>
\nupon which to hypothesize that the Asian Tsunami of December 26, 2004
\n(Boxing Day) may have been caused by gravity waves  which accompanied a
\ngamma ray burst caused by the explosion of a Neutron Star in the
\nConstellation Saggitarius, some 45,000 light years from Earth.  The
\narticle also summarizes analysis of whether the December 26, 2004 event
\nmay be an indicator that a cyclical Galactic Superwave event, recurrent
\nevery 13,000 and 26,000 years, is overdue and may occur precipitously
\nin the near term future.  The Mayan Calendar’s current TUN, or organic
\nunit of Galactic time, ends on December 21, 2012.<\/p>\n

According to one analyst<\/a>,
\n"both our species’ recent history and that of the crust of our planet,
\nhave been both gradual and catastrophic. However, the catastrophes are
\nof first and most immediate concern, since they relate to periodic
\n"superwaves" or volleys of cosmic rays from the Galactic Center itself.
\nThe Galactic Center is an incredibly superdense region only about as
\nbig as the sphere enclosing Jupiter’s orbit: it is about 23,000
\nlight-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius."<\/p>\n

Others analyze the 13,000 and 26,000 year cycles of the Galactic Superwaves in the context of spiritual and prophetic texts.<\/a>
\nUnder the Mayan Calendar, this TUN, or organic unit of Galactic time is
\nscheduled to end and a new TUN is scheduled to begin on December 21,
\n2012.  According to the "Prophetic" frame of perception, the December
\n26-27, 2005 Gravity Wave\/Tsunami was a Warning<\/a>
\nthat humanity should move out of a permanent warfare economy into a
\npeaceful, sustainable, cooperative, Universe-oriented Space Age
\nsociety, seeking to integrate with Universe society.  <\/p>\n

This
\nobservor writes: "What could be coming from the sky to earth that the
\nStar People are symbolized above being in between? There is only one
\nthing, that even Plato said descends from the heavens after long
\nperiods of time like a pestilence. It has a modern name, given by the
\nscientist that has researched this phenomena, Dr Paul LaViolette. It is
\ncalled: A Galactic Superwave.<\/a><\/p>\n

"Stanford
\nhad said years back: But there shall come a sign that is a warning.
\nThis is related also, in part, to the energization of the ionosphere of
\nthe earth. In it, or related to it, there shall appear an "apparition"
\nthat will symbolize the way in which men have turned to materialism and
\nto selfishness – in a sense, to death. It shall symbolize the choice
\nthat is represented in that recorded of old, "In this day I stand
\nbetween the living and the dead." That may be seen of all men. Still,
\nby jaded mind, science shall be inclined to dismiss it as natural
\nevents and phenomena. But it shall be symbolic, in a sense, of the
\njudgment of the earth, of the karmas, the retribution to come in the
\nearth, that is mind created.  So then, science misses the point behind
\nthe event?"  <\/p>\n

Read Source Article by James Finn<\/a><\/p>\n

In this light, the development of Exopolitics<\/u><\/a>
\nat this juncture in human history seems fortuitous, "just in time."
\n(See: EXOPOLITICS: POLITICS, GOVERNMENT AND LAW IN THE  UNIVERSE<\/a>, available online at: http:\/\/www.filamentbooks.com\/<\/a>)
\nThe Exopolitics model postulates the Earth resides is a populated,
\norganized Universe, operating under Universal law, with forms of
\nUniversal governance, and mediated by the processes of Universe
\npolitics amongst its constituent civilizations.  Exopolitics provides
\nan institutional and educational bridge for integrating Earth into
\nUniverse society.    Is one central reason for the outreach of the UFO
\nphenomenon since 1947 to prepare human society for this integration,
\nknowing that the stress of a cyclical Galactic Superwave event would
\noccur by 2012, hypothetically?  If there is any truth to this
\nhypothesis, then Exopolitics is the discipline that human society
\nrequires to implement that integration – politically, socially,
\nlegally, constitutionally, ethically, and Spiritually.<\/p>\n

In fact solutions to the ecological,
\nsocial, and personal stress caused by phenomena
\nsuch as global warming and possible Galactic Superwaves may lie in an
\nExopolitical future, in which we in human society decide to integrate
\nother spiritually advanced Off-Planet cultures now in the Earth’s
\nenvironment and willing to integrate with us.  Two specific programmes
\nproposed by Exopolitics are (1) A Decade of Contact in the form of an
\nopen period of public education, science, community participation, and
\nmedia\/communications about our populated Universe and (2) A Star Dreams
\nInitiative for public interest diplomacy with Off-Planet Cultures
\ndesigned to establish the infrastructure for our integration into
\nUniverse society.<\/p>\n

It
\nhas not been determined to a certainty that Galactic Gravity Waves
\ncaused the December 26, 2004 Tsunami and the many Earth Changes we are
\nwitnessing at this time, and which are documented in this article.  Nor
\ndo we know for a certainty when any Galactic Superwave will strike with
\nthe next 10 years, be that on March 6, 2005, as one observor
\nhypothesizes, or before December 21, 2012, or even in this Century.<\/p>\n

But we do know enough just in the articles<\/a> and Links<\/a>
\nset out here that we must  transform to a peaceful Space Age society.
\nIs the Galactic Superwave a form of the War Against the Asteroids,
\nanother strategic deception operation to derail humanity away from
\ntransforming the permanent warfare state?  That is doubtful – The
\npapers below are based on science, and an Exopolitical strategy of
\nreaching out to Universe society seems healthy, sane, ethical and
\nAgape-based, not a strategy  based on deception.  <\/p>\n

Exopolitics.com<\/a>
Vancouver, B.C.<\/p>\n

Galactic Core Explosions and their hazardous effects on the Earth<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.etheric.com\/GalacticCenter\/Galactic.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Cosmic Explosion Among the Brightest in Recorded History<\/a><\/p>\n

Exopolitics & A Galactic Superwave: <\/strong>
Host Clyde Lewis interviews futurist Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
EXOPOLITICS: POLITICS, GOVERNMENT AND LAW IN THE UNIVERSE<\/a>
Date: Sunday, March 13, 2005\/ 10PM – 1 AM PT
LISTEN ARCHIVES:  http:\/\/www.clydelewis.com\/<\/a>
X-Zone Radio, Host: Rob McConnell
Date: March 17, 2005
LISTEN ARCHIVES: http:\/\/www.xzone-radio.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The Life Work of Paul LaViolette
http:\/\/www.etheric.com\/LaViolette\/LaViolette.html<\/a><\/p>\n

PAUL
\nA. LaVIOLETTE, PH.D, is author of The Talk of the Galaxy, Earth Under
\nFire, Genesis of the Cosmos (Beyond the Big Bang), Subquantum Kinetics,
\nand editor of A Systems View of Man. He has also published many
\noriginal papers in physics, astronomy, climatology, systems theory, and
\npsychology. He received his BA in physics from Johns Hopkins, his MBA
\nfrom the University of Chicago, and PhD from Portland State University
\nand is currently president of the Starburst Foundation, an
\ninterdisciplinary scientific research institute.<\/p>\n

Paul LaViolette has an ongoing interest in metaphysics, mysticism, and music.<\/p>\n

He
\nhas served as a solar energy consultant for the UN, Greek government,
\nand Club of Rome Goals for Mankind Project and has also consulted
\nFortune 500 companies on ways of stimulating innovation. Research he
\nconducted at Harvard School of Public Health led him to invent an
\nimproved pulsation dampener for air sampling pumps. Related work led
\nhim to develop an improved life-support rebreather apparatus for
\nprotection against hazardous environments and for which he received two
\npatents.
Recognized in the Marquis Who’s Who in Science and
\nEngineering, Dr. LaViolette is the first to predict that high intensity
\nvolleys of cosmic ray particles travel directly to our planet from
\ndistant sources in our Galaxy, a phenomenon now confirmed by scientific
\ndata. He is also the first to discover high concentrations of cosmic
\ndust in Ice Age polar ice, indicating the occurrence of a global cosmic
\ncatastrophe in ancient times. Based on this work, he made predictions
\nabout the entry of interstellar dust into the solar system ten years
\nbefore its confirmation in 1993 by data from the Ulysses spacecraft and
\nby radar observations from New Zealand. He also originated the glacier
\nwave flood theory that not only provides a reasonable scientific
\nexplanation for widespread continental floods, but also presents a
\ncredible explanation for the sudden freezing of the arctic mammoths and
\ndemise of the Pleistocene mammals. Also he developed a novel theory
\nthat links geomagnetic flips to the past occurrence of immense solar
\nflare storm outbursts.<\/p>\n

He is the developer of subquantum kinetics, a novel approach to
\nmicrophysics that not only accounts for electric, magnetic,
\ngravitational, and nuclear forces in a unified manner, but also
\nresolves many long-standing problems in physics such as the field
\nsingularity problem, the wave-particle dualism, and the field source
\nproblem, to mention a few. Moreover based on the predictions of this
\ntheory, he developed an alternative cosmology that effectively replaces
\nthe big bang theory. In fact, in 1986, he was the first to cast doubt
\non the big bang theory by showing that it makes a far poorer fit to
\nexisting astronomical data when compared to this new non-expanding
\nuniverse cosmology. The subquantum kinetics cosmology also led him to
\nmake successful predictions about galaxy evolution that were later
\nverified with the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

Dr. LaViolette is credited with the discovery of the
\nplanetary-stellar mass-luminosity relation which demonstrates that the
\nSun, planets, stars, and supernova explosions are powered by
\nspontaneous energy creation through photon blueshifting. With this
\nrelation, he successfully predicted the mass-luminosity ratio of the
\nfirst brown dwarf to be discovered.<\/p>\n

In addition, Paul LaViolette has developed a new theory of gravity
\nthat replaces the deeply flawed theory of general relativity. Predicted
\nfrom subquantum kinetics, it accounts for the electrogravitic coupling
\nphenomenon discovered by Townsend Brown and may explain the advanced
\naerospace propulsion technology utilized in the B-2 bomber.<\/p>\n

He is the first to discover that certain ancient creation myths and
\nesoteric lores metaphorically encode an advanced science of
\ncosmogenesis. His contributions to the field of Egyptology and
\nmythology may be compared to the breaking of the Rosetta Stone
\nhieroglyphic code. <\/p>\n

Galactic Cosmic Ray Volleys: A Coming Global Disaster<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.etheric.com\/GalacticCenter\/Galactic.html<\/a><\/p>\n

"Galactic
\ncore outbursts are the most energetic phenomenon taking place in the
\nuniverse. The active, quasar-like core of spiral galaxy PG 0052+251
\n(Figure 1-a), for example, is seen to radiate 7 times as much energy as
\ncomes from all of the galaxy’s stars. Most of this is emitted in the
\nform of high energy cosmic ray electrons accompanied by electromagnetic
\nradiation ranging from radio wave frequencies on up to X ray and gamma
\nray frequencies.<\/p>\n

"A study of astronomical and geological data
\nreveals that cosmic ray electrons and electromagnetic radiation from a
\nsimilar outburst of our own Galactic core (Figure 1-b), impacted our
\nSolar System near the end of the last ice age. This cosmic ray event
\nspanned a period of several thousand years and climaxed around 14,200
\nyears ago. Although far less intense than the PG 0052+251 quasar
\noutburst, it was, nevertheless, able to substantially affect the
\nEarth’s climate and trigger a solar-terrestrial conflagration the
\ninitiated the worst animal extinction episode of the Tertiary period.<\/p>\n

"The
\neffects on the Sun and on the Earth’s climate were not due to the
\nGalactic cosmic rays themselves, but to the cosmic dust that these
\ncosmic rays transported into the Solar System. Observations have shown
\nthat the Solar System is presently immersed in a dense cloud of cosmic
\ndust, material that is normally kept at bay by the outward pressure of
\nthe solar wind. But, with the arrival of this Galactic cosmic ray
\nvolley, the solar wind was overpowered and large quantities of this
\nmaterial were pushed inward. The Sun was enveloped in a cocoon of dust
\nthat caused its spectrum to shift toward the infrared. In addition, the
\ndust grains filling the Solar System scattered radiation back to the
\nEarth, producing an "interplanetary hothouse effect" that substantially
\nincreased the influx of solar radiation to the Earth. Details of this
\nscenario are described in Paul LaViolette’s book Earth Under Fire,(1)
\nin his Ph.D. dissertation,(2) as well as in a series of journal
\narticles he has published.(3\u00ad8)<\/p>\n

"LaViolette’s research suggests
\nthat the Sun also became highly active as dust and gas falling onto its
\nsurface induced extreme flaring activity. Together with the radiation
\ninflux from the Sun’s dust cocoon, this caused the Sun’s corona and
\nphotosphere to inflate, much as is observed today in dust-choked stars
\ncalled "T Tauri stars." These various solar effects caused atmospheric
\nwarming and inversion conditions that facilitated glacial growth which
\nbrought on ice age conditions. On occasions when the solar radiation
\ninflux to the Earth became particularly high, the ice age climate
\nwarmed, initiating episodes of rapid glacial melting and continental
\nflooding. There is evidence that one particularly tragic solar flare
\nevent occurred around 12,750 years ago during a period when the Sun was
\nparticularly active. This involved the release of an immense coronal
\nmass ejection which engulfed the Earth and induced a mass animal
\nextinction.<\/p>\n

"Dr. LaViolette, who is currently president and
\nchief researcher of the Starburst Foundation, was the first to
\ndemonstrate that cosmic rays from a galactic core explosion penetrate
\nfar outside a galaxy’s nucleus to bombard solar systems like our own
\nresiding in the spiral arm disk. He coined the word "galactic
\nsuperwave" to refer to such a cosmic barrage. He has shown that
\ngalactic superwaves recur at long intervals and arrive at Earth’s
\ndoorstep without warning because they travel at near light speed.<\/p>\n

"Galactic
\nsuperwaves are a recent discovery. During the early 60’s astronomers
\nbegan to realize that the massive object that forms the core of our
\nGalaxy (the Milky Way), periodically becomes active.(9) The cores of
\nall spiral galaxies cycle through a similar phase. During its active
\nperiod, our galactic core spews out a fierce quasar-like barrages of
\ncosmic rays, with a total energy output equal to hundreds of thousands
\nof supernova explosions.(10, 11) In some galaxies these active
\nemissions have been observed to equal the energy from billions of
\nsupernova explosions.<\/p>\n

"Until recently, astronomers believed
\nthese eruptions were very infrequent, occurring every 10 to 100 million
\nyears.(10) They also believed the interstellar magnetic fields, in the
\nGalactic nucleus, would trap the emitted particles in spiral orbits
\ncausing them to reach the Earth very slowly.(12) For these reasons,
\nmany did not believe that Galactic core explosions posed any immediate
\nthreat to the Earth.<\/p>\n

"However, in 1983 Paul LaViolette presented evidence to the scientific community indicating that:(2 – 4)<\/p>\n

     1. Galactic core explosions actually occur about every 13,000 –
\n26,000 years for major outbursts and more frequently for lesser events.<\/p>\n

     2. The emitted cosmic rays escape from the core virtually
\nunimpeded. As they travel radially outward through the Galaxy, they
\nform a spherical shell that advances at a velocity approaching the
\nspeed of light. <\/p>\n

"Astronomical discoveries subsequently
\nconfirmed aspects of Dr. LaViolette’s hypothesis. In 1985, astronomers
\ndiscovered that Cygnus X-3, an energetic celestial source of cosmic
\nrays, which is about the same distance from Earth as the Galactic
\nCenter (25,000 light years), is showering Earth with particles,
\ntraveling at close to the speed of light, moving in essentially
\nstraight paths.(13) Later, scientists found the Earth is impacted, at
\nsporadic intervals, with cosmic rays emitted from the X-ray pulsar
\nHercules X-1 (about 12,000 light years distant).(14, 15) The
\nintervening interstellar medium has so little effect on these
\nparticles, that their pulsation period of 1.2357 seconds, is constant
\nto within 300 microseconds.<\/p>\n

"These findings are reason to be
\ngravely concerned about the effects of a Galactic core explosion
\nbecause they imply that the cosmic rays generated can impact our
\nplanet, virtually without warning, preceded only by the wave-flash from
\nthe initial explosion.(1, 2, 6) Astronomical observations show the last
\nmajor Galactic core explosion occurred as recently as 10,000 to 15,000
\nyears ago.(16, 17) Data obtained from polar ice core samples show
\nevidence of this cosmic ray event as well as other cosmic ray intensity
\npeaks from earlier times (Figure 2).(1, 18)<\/p>\n

"Also Dr.
\nLaViolette’s prediction that there is a residual flow of interstellar
\ndust currently entering the Solar System from the Galactic center
\ndirection was later verified by data collected from the Ulysses
\nspacecraft and by AMOR radar measurements made in New Zealand.(8)<\/p>\n

    For a listing of related theory predictions and their verification click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

"Today,
\ntomorrow, next week, next year. . . sometime in the coming decades. . .
\nour planet could once again be hit by an intense volley of Galactic
\ncosmic rays. It will come cloaked and hidden from us, until the very
\nmoment it strikes. We live on the edge of the Galaxy’s volcano. Knowing
\nneither the time, the magnitude, nor the severity of the next eruption
\nor its impact on our environment, we stand unprepared to deal with this
\nevent, much less anticipate its arrival.<\/p>\n

Galactic Superwaves: Their Effects on Life and Society<\/strong><\/p>\n

  "When cosmic rays from Galactic superwaves impact the Earth’s
\natmosphere, they produce "electron cascades." Each primary cosmic ray
\ngenerates millions of secondary high energy electrons. Many of these
\nparticles scatter upwards and become trapped by the Earth’s magnetic
\nfield to form radiation belts similar to those created by high altitude
\nnuclear explosions. In just one day, a major Galactic superwave event
\nwould inject into the geomagnetic field a particle energy equivalent to
\n1000 one-megaton hydrogen bomb explosions (1025 ergs). At this rate,
\nthe energy delivered to the belts after one year would exceed 30,000
\ntimes the energy received from the most powerful solar cosmic ray
\nstorms observed in modern times.<\/p>\n

    "Such energized radiation
\nbelts could cause a global communications blackout by creating radio
\nstatic and by permanently damaging critical electronic components of
\ncommunication satellites. Air travel during such conditions would be
\nextremely hazardous. The resulting atmospheric ionization would destroy
\nthe ozone layer, and increase skin cancer rates, due to high levels of
\nUV reaching the Earth’s surface; the cosmic ray particles penetrating
\nto ground level would significantly increase cell mutation rates.<\/p>\n

  "Galactic superwaves may also produce an intense electromagnetic
\npulse (EMP) whenever a cosmic ray front happens to strike the Earth’s
\natmosphere. Galactic superwaves such as those that arrived during the
\nlast ice age could have generated pulses delivering tens of thousands
\nof volts per meter in times as short as a billionth of a second,
\ncomparable to the early-time EMP signal from a high-altitude nuclear
\nexplosion (see Figure 3).<\/p>\n

    "In addition, there is the danger
\nthat a superwave could transport outlying cosmic dust into the Solar
\nSystem which could seriously affect the Earth’s climate possibly
\ntriggering a new ice age. Although there is a small probability that
\nthe next superwave will be as catastrophic as the one at the end of the
\nlast ice age, even the less intense, more frequent events would be
\nquite hazardous for the global economy.<\/p>\n

The Frequency and Hazards of Minor Superwave Events<\/p>\n

  Galactic Center activity occurs frequently between major superwave
\nevents. Astronomical observation indicates that during the last 6,000
\nyears, the Galactic center has expelled 14 clouds of ionized gas.(19)
\nSee Figure 4 for dates. These outbursts may have produced minor
\nsuperwave emissions with EMP effects comparable to those of major
\nsuperwaves. About 80% of these bursts took place within 500 hundred
\nyears of one another (Figure 5). With the most recent outburst
\noccurring 700 years ago, there is a high probability of another one
\noccurring in the near future.<\/p>\n

    The four-second extragalactic
\ngamma ray burst that arrived in 1983, did have a measurable effect on
\nradio transmissions used for global navigation and communication.(20)
\nBy comparison, the "minor" superwave events discussed above might have
\ntotal energies hundreds of millions of times greater than this.<\/p>\n

  At present little research is being done on this important
\nastronomical phenomenon. Nor are we prepared should a Galactic
\nsuperwave suddenly arrive. International channels of communication are
\nnot in place to deal with the disasters that a superwave could bring
\nupon us.<\/p>\n

Steps that Should be Taken<\/p>\n

   
\nCurrently, radio astronomers are monitoring the cosmic ray\/synchrotron
\nradiation activity of the Galactic core on a daily basis. They report
\ntheir findings regularly in IAU (International Astronomical Union)
\ncirculars. However, an early warning system needs to be set up so that,
\nin the event that signs of a significant core outburst and superwave
\nactivity are detected, the proper organizations around the world are
\nnotified and the proper precautions are taken. In this way, the impact
\nof such an event could be drastically reduced.<\/p>\n

    In regard to
\nthe superwave EMP problem, there is a need to develop an awareness
\nabout this phenomenon so that if it does occur, it does not
\ninadvertently trigger a nuclear missile launching. Also there is a need
\nto develop emergency plans to implement measures that will minimize its
\nimpact on power and communications networks.<\/p>\n

    There needs to
\nbe an increased awareness of the phenomenon and its potential threat to
\nthe Earth so that ways might be found of minimizing the effects of a
\nsuperwave should one arrive. More scientific papers need to be
\npresented on research on this subject and media coverage of the subject
\nis needed. Astronomical and geological research needs to be conducted
\nto learn more about this phenomenon. For example, a more detailed
\nanalysis needs to be made of the high concentrations of beryllium-10
\nand cosmic dust present in the ice age portion of the Earth’s polar ice
\nrecord, remnants of the last major superwave event. Data on
\ninterstellar dust composition that will be gathered with the Cassini
\nspacecraft will also be particularly useful.<\/p>\n

    Currently, the
\nStarburst Foundation is one of the few organizations researching this
\nimportant astronomical phenomenon. The Starburst Foundation is a
\nscientific research institute dedicated to discovering how Galactic
\nsuperwaves have affected our planet in the past, to implementing an
\ninternational early-warning system for future events, and to
\ninvestigating ways of lessening the adverse effects of superwaves on
\nour planet.<\/p>\n

    The Starburst Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
\nnonprofit U.S. corporation that is supported by charitable
\ncontributions. Those interested in sending donations may make out a
\ncheck to the Starburst Foundation and send it to:<\/p>\n

    The Starburst Foundation
    1176 Hedgewood Lane
    Niskayuna, NY 12309
    email: Gravitics1@aol.com<\/a><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

    1) LaViolette, P. A. Earth Under Fire. Alexandria, VA: Starlane Publications, 1997.<\/p>\n

  2) LaViolette, P. A. Galactic Explosions, Cosmic Dust Invasions, and
\nClimatic Change. Ph.D. dissertation, Portland State University,
\nPortland, Oregon, August 1983.<\/p>\n

    3) LaViolette, P. A. "The
\nterminal Pleistocene cosmic event: Evidence for recent incursion of
\nnebular material into the Solar System." Eos 64 (1983): 286. American
\nGeophysical Union paper, Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n

    4) LaViolette,
\nP. A. "Elevated concentrations of cosmic dust in Wisconsin stage polar
\nice." Meteoritics 18 (1983): 336. Meteoritical Society paper, Mainz,
\nGermany.<\/p>\n

    5) LaViolette, P. A. "Evidence of high cosmic dust
\nconcentrations in Late Pleistocene polar ice (20,000 – 14,000 Years
\nBP)." Meteoritics 20 (1985): 545.<\/p>\n

    6) LaViolette, P. A.
\n"Cosmic ray volleys from the Galactic Center and their recent impact on
\nthe Earth environment." Earth, Moon, and Planets 37 (1987): 241.<\/p>\n

    7) LaViolette, P. A. "Galactic core explosions and the evolution of life." Anthropos 12, (1990): 239 \u00ad 255.<\/p>\n

    8) LaViolette, P. A. "Anticipation of the Ulysses interstellar dust findings." Eos 74(44) (1993): 510 \u00ad 511.<\/p>\n

    9) Oort, J. H. "The Galactic Center." Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics 15 (1977): 295.<\/p>\n

  10) Burbridge, G. R. et al. "Evidence for the occurrence of violent
\nevents in the nuclei of galaxies." Reviews of Modern Physics 35 (1963):
\n947.<\/p>\n

    11) Burbidge, G. R. et al. "Physics of compact
\nnonthermal sources III. Energetic considerations." Astrophysical
\nJournal 193 (1974): 43.<\/p>\n

    12) Ginzburg, V. L., and Syrovatskii, S. I. The Origin of Cosmic Rays. New York: Pergamon Press, 1964, p. 207.<\/p>\n

    13) Marshak, et al. "Evidence for muon production by particles from Cygnus X-3," Physical Review Letters 54 (1985): 2079.<\/p>\n

  14) Dingus, B. L. et al. "High-energy pulsed emission from Hercules
\nX-1 with anomalous air-shower muon production." Physical Review Letters
\n61 (1988): 1906.<\/p>\n

    15) Schwarzschild, B. "Are the ultra-energetic cosmic gammas really photons? Physics Today (ll) (1988): 17.<\/p>\n

  16) Brown, R. L., and Johnston, K. J. "The gas density and
\ndistribution within 2 parsecs of the Galactic Center," Astrophysical
\nJournal 268 (1983): L85.<\/p>\n

    17) Lo, K. Y., and Claussen, M. J.
\n"High-resolution observations of ionized gas in central 3 paresecs of
\nthe Galaxy: possible evidence for infall." Nature 306 (1983): 647.<\/p>\n

  18) Raisbeck, G. M., et al. "Evidence for two intervals of enhanced
\n10Be deposition in Antarctic ice during the Last Glacial Period."
\nNature 326 (1987): 273.<\/p>\n

    19) Lacy, J. H., Townes, C. H.,
\nGeballe, T. R., and Hollenbach, D. J. "Observations of the motion and
\ndistribution of the ionized gas in the central parsec of the Galaxy.
\nII," Astrophysical Journal 241 (1980): 132.<\/p>\n

    20) Fishman, G.
\nJ. and Inan, U. S. "Observation of an ionospheric disturbance caused by
\na gamma-ray burst." Nature 331 (1988):418.<\/p>\n

        <\/p>\n

Copyright www.etheric.com <\/a><\/p>\n

Was the December 26, 2004 Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami
\nCaused by a Stellar Explosion 45,000 Light Years Away? Sound Crazy?
\nRead Carefully Below.<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.etheric.com\/GalacticCenter\/GRB.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Gamma Ray Bursts, Gravity Waves, and Earthquakes<\/p>\n

On
\nDecember 26, 2004 a magnitude 9.3 earthquake occurred in the Indian
\nOcean off the coast of Sumatra in Malaysia.  It caused a powerful
\ntsunami which devastated coastal regions of many countries leaving over
\n240,000 people either dead or missing.  It was the worst tsunami to
\naffect this area since the explosion of Krakatoa.  The earthquake that
\nproduced it was so strong that it exceeded by a factor of 10 the next
\nmost powerful earthquake to occur in the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Indonesian 9.3 Richter earthquake:
     December 26, 2004 at 00 hours 58 minutes (Universal Time)<\/p>\n

It
\nis then with some alarm that we learn that just 44.6 hours later gamma
\nray telescopes orbiting the Earth picked up the arrival of the
\nbrightest gamma ray burst ever recorded!<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gamma ray burst arrival:
     December 27, 2004 at 21 hours 36 minutes (Universal Time)<\/p>\n

This
\ngamma ray blast was 100 times more intense than any burst that had been
\npreviously recorded, equaling the brightness of the full Moon, but
\nradiating most of its energy at gamma ray wavelengths.  Gamma ray
\ncounts spiked to a maximum in 1.5 seconds and then declined over a 5
\nminute period with 7.57 second pulsations.  The blast temporarily
\nchanged the shape the Earth’s ionosphere, distorting the transmission
\nof long-wavelength radio signals.  See stories on Space.com, BBC News,
\nNY TImes.<\/p>\n

     It was determined that the burst originated from
\nthe soft gamma ray repeater star, SGR 1806-20, a neutron star 20
\nkilometers in diameter which rotates once every 7.5 seconds, matching
\nthe GRB pulsation period.  SGR 1806-20 is located about 10 degrees
\nnortheast of the Galactic center and about 45,000 light years from us,
\nor about twice as far away as the Galactic center.  It released more
\nenergy in a tenth of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years.
\nOther gamma ray bursts have been detected whose explosions were
\nintrinsically more powerful than this one at the source of the
\nexplosion, but since those explosions originated in other galaxies tens
\nof thousands of times more distant, the bursts were not nearly as
\nbright when they reached our solar system.  What makes the December
\n27th gamma ray burst unique is that it is the first time that a burst
\nthis bright has been observed, one that also happens to originate from
\nwithin our own Galaxy.<\/p>\n

     Astronomers have theorized that
\ngamma ray bursts might travel in association with gravity wave bursts.
\nIn the course of their flight through space, gamma rays would be
\ndeflected by gravitational fields and would be scattered by dust and
\ncosmic ray particles they encountered, so they would be expected to
\ntravel slightly slower than their associated gravity wave burst which
\nwould pass through space unimpeded.  After a 45,000 year light-speed
\njourney, a gamma ray burst arrival delay of 44.6 hours would not be
\nunexpected.  It amounts to a delay of just one part in 9 million.  So
\nif the gravity wave traveled at the speed of light (c), the gamma ray
\nburst would have averaged a speed of 0.99999989 c, just 0.11 millionths
\nslower.  There is also the possibility that at the beginning of its
\njourney the gravity wave may have had a superluminal speed; see textbox
\nbelow.<\/p>\n

The 9.3 Richter earthquake was ten times stronger than
\nany other earthquake during the past 25 years, and was followed just
\n44.6 hours later on December 27th by a very intense gamma ray burst,
\nwhich was 100 fold brighter than any other in the past 25 year history
\nof gamma ray observation. It seems difficult to pass off the temporal
\nproximity of these two Class I events as being just a matter of
\ncoincidence.  A time period of 25 years compared to a time separation
\nof 44.6 hours amounts to a time ratio of about 5000:1.  For two such
\nunique events to have such a close time proximity is highly improbable
\nif they are not somehow related.  But, as mentioned above, gravity
\nwaves would very likely be associated with gamma ray bursts, and they
\nwould be expected to precede them.<\/p>\n

    Many have inquired if
\nthere might be a connection between these two events (e.g., see the
\nSpace.com article).  Not thinking of the gravity wave connection,
\nastronomers have been reluctant to admit there might be a connection
\nsince they know of no mechanism by which gamma rays by themselves could
\ntrigger earthquakes.  They admit that the December 27th gamma ray burst
\nhad slightly affected the ionization state of the Earth’s atmosphere,
\nbut this by itself should not have caused earthquakes.  However, if a
\nlongitudinal gravity potential wave pulse were to accompany a gamma ray
\nburst, the mystery becomes resolved.  The connection between
\nearthquakes and gamma ray bursts now becomes plausible.<\/p>\n

     In
\nhis 1983 Ph.D. dissertation, Paul LaViolette called attention to
\nterrestrial dangers of Galactic core explosions, pointing out that the
\narrival of the cosmic ray superwave they produced would be signaled by
\na high intensity gamma ray burst which would also generate EMP effects
\n(e.g., see Page 3).   He also noted that a strong gravity wave might be
\nexpected to travel forward at the forefront of this superwave and might
\nbe the first indication of a superwave’s arrival.  He pointed out that
\nsuch gravity waves could induce substantial tidal forces on the Earth
\nduring their passage which could induce earthquakes and cause polar
\naxis torquing effects.   In his book Earth Under Fire (as well as in
\nhis dissertation), he presents evidence showing that the superwave that
\npassed through the solar system around 14,200 years ago had triggered
\nsupernova explosions as it swept through the Galaxy.  Among these were
\nthe Vela and Crab supernova explosions whose explosion dates align with
\nthis superwave event horizon.  He points out that these explosions
\ncould be explained if a gravity wave accompanied this superwave, it
\ncould have produced tidal forces which could have triggered unstable
\nstars to explode as it passed through.   <\/p>\n

    He wrote at a time
\nwhen gamma ray bursts had just begun to be discovered, and when no one
\nwas concerned with them as potential terrestrial hazards.  In recent
\nyears scientific opinion has come around to adopt LaViolette’s concern,
\nas can be seen in news articles discussing the SGR 1806-20 gamma ray
\noutburst, e.g., see Space.com news story.  They note that if this gamma
\nray burst had been as close as 10 light years it would have completely
\ndestroyed the ozone layer.  By comparison, the Galactic superwaves
\nLaViolette has postulated to have been generated as a result of an
\noutburst of our Galaxy’s core and to have impacted the Solar system
\nduring the last ice age would have impacted the solar system with a
\ncosmic ray electron volley having an energy intensity 100 times greater
\nthan this hypothetical 10 light year distant stellar gamma ray burst.
\nIn comparision, SGR 1806-20 has been estimated to have a stellar
\nprogenitor mass of 150 solar masses, whereas our Galactic core has a
\nmass of 2.6 million solar masses.  In its present active phase, SGR
\n1806-20 is estimated to have a luminosity 40 million times that of the
\nSun, whereas during its active phase the Galactic center could reach
\nluminosities of 400 trillion times that of the Sun.   So it is
\nunderstandable that if the Galactic center were to erupt, it would
\nproduce a gamma ray burst and a gravity wave far more intense than the
\noutburst from this star.<\/p>\n

     If anything, the December 27, 2004
\ngamma ray burst shows us that we do not live in a peaceful celestial
\nenvironment.  And if the December 26th earthquake was in fact part of
\nthis same celestial event, we see that this stellar eruption has
\nclaimed many lives.  For this reason, it is important that we prepare
\nfor the possibility of even stronger events in the future, the arrival
\nof superwaves issuing from the core of our Galaxy.  Like the December
\n26th earthquake and the December 27th gamma ray burst, the next
\nsuperwave will arrive unexpectedly.  It will take us by surprise.<\/p>\n

As
\na next step, it is advisable to investigate data from gravity wave
\ntelescopes to see if a celestial gravity wave may have arrived
\nimmediately prior to the December 26, 2004 earthquake.  Since seismic
\nwaves from the Indonesian earthquake would have taken some time to
\npropagate through the Earth to these gravity wave antenna, their
\nsignature could be distinguished from the gravity wave coming from SGR
\n1806-20.  LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravity Wave Observatory), which
\nconsists of two correlated telescopes, one in Washington and one in
\nLouisiana, each having a 4 kilometer long laser interferometer beam
\npath, was in the process of being made operational and unfortunately
\nwas not collecting data at that time.   The TAMA gravity wave antenna
\nin Japan may have been operational during the December time period
\nhowever they apparently do not answer telephone calls and have no
\nposted email address.   So it has not been possible to contact their
\nscientific team.<\/p>\n

Superwave Monitoring Center<\/p>\n

   Those
\ninterested in monitoring earthquake, gamma ray burst, cosmic ray
\nbackground activity, and gravity wave bursts may try the following
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Current earthquakes: http:\/\/earthquake.usgs.gov\/recenteqsww\/Quakes\/quakes_all.html<\/p>\n

\u2022 Past earthquakes:  http:\/\/earthquake.usgs.gov\/activity\/past.htmlpast.html<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gamma ray bursts:  http:\/\/grad40.as.utexas.edu\/grblog.php?author=D.%20Gotz<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cosmic ray radiation intensity:  http:\/\/cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru\/mosc\/main.htm<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gravity wave bursts  (LIGO site:  no posted data, just posted papers): 
http:\/\/www.ligo.caltech.edu\/  and  http:\/\/www.ligo.org\/results\/<\/p>\n

The
\nDecember 27th GRB was not accompanied by any rise in the cosmic ray
\nbackground, indicating that if it was accompanied by cosmic rays their
\nintensity was unable to exceed the relatively constant extragalactic
\nbackground flux arriving from distant galaxies.  A Galactic superwave,
\non the other hand, would most likely produce a substantial rise in
\nthese levels.<\/p>\n

   Note that almost two months passed before the
\nDecember 27th gamma ray burst found its way into news media stories.
\nIf unusually intense activity were to occur in the near future as the
\nbeginning stages of a superwave arrival, it is hoped that scientists
\nwill not keep this knowledge to themselves but rather allow the global
\nnews media to disseminate the story quickly to inform the world.<\/p>\n

A Superluminal Gravity Wave?<\/p>\n

Experiments
\ncarried out by Eugene Podkletnov show that a shock front outburst
\nproduces a longitudinal gravitational wave that travels forward with
\nthe burst.  He has found that this gravity wave pulse has a speed in
\nexcess of 64 times the speed of light (personal communication).  Also
\nGuy Obolensky has produced spark discharge electric potential shock
\nfronts and observed them to propagate forward at speeds as high as 10
\ntimes the speed of light.  Observations suggest that the gravity wave
\nfrom an expanding stellar explosion will decrease its superluminal
\nspeed and eventually approach the speed of light as the shock front
\nexpands.  But meanwhile, the gravity wave will have obtained a
\nheadstart over the electromagnetic wave radiation component traveling
\nin its wake (light waves, gamma rays, etc.).  So one would expect that
\nthe gravity wave from such an outburst (and its resultant earthquake
\nactivity) would precede the gamma ray burst component.<\/p>\n

Nine (9) Alternative Frames of Analysis
http:\/\/www.ecologynews.com\/ecologynews103.html<\/a><\/p>\n

NEWS ARTICLES: Neutron Star Explosion Detected December 27, 2004 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Brightest Explosion Ever Recorded<\/strong><\/p>\n

NASA — Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the
\nGalaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth’s
\nupper atmosphere. The flash was brighter than anything ever detected
\nfrom beyond our Solar System and lasted over a tenth of a second.
NASA
\nand European satellites and many radio telescopes detected the flash
\nand its aftermath on December 27, 2004. Two science teams report about
\nthis event at a special press event today at NASA headquarters. A
\nmultitude of papers are planned for publication.
The scientists said
\nthe light came from a "giant flare" on the surface of an exotic neutron
\nstar, called a magnetar. The apparent magnitude was brighter than a
\nfull moon and all historical star explosions. The light was brightest
\nin the gamma-ray energy range, far more energetic than visible light or
\nX-rays and invisible to our eyes.<\/p>\n

Such a close and powerful eruption raises the question of whether an
\neven larger influx of gamma rays, disturbing the atmosphere, was
\nresponsible for one of the mass extinctions known to have occurred on
\nEarth hundreds of millions of years ago. Also, if giant flares can be
\nthis powerful, then some gamma-ray bursts (thought to be very distant
\nblack-hole-forming star explosions) could actually be from neutron star
\neruptions in nearby galaxies.
NASA’s newly launched Swift satellite
\nand the NSF-funded Very Large Array (VLA) were two of many
\nobservatories that observed the event, arising from neutron star SGR
\n1806-20, about 50,000 light years from Earth in the constellation
\nSagittarius.<\/p>\n

"This might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for astronomers, as well
\nas for the neutron star," said Dr. David Palmer of Los Alamos National
\nLaboratory, lead author on a paper describing the Swift observation.
\n"We know of only two other giant flares in the past 35 years, and this
\nDecember event was one hundred times more powerful."
Dr. Bryan
\nGaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
\nCambridge, Mass., is lead author on a report describing the VLA
\nobservation, which tracked the ejected material as it flew out into
\ninterstellar space. Other key scientific teams are associated with
\nradio telescopes in Australia, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, India
\nand the United States, as well as with NASA’s High Energy Solar
\nSpectroscopic Imager (RHESSI).<\/p>\n

A neutron star is the core remains of a star once several times more
\nmassive than our Sun. When such stars deplete their nuclear fuel, they
\nexplode — an event called a supernova. The remaining core is dense,
\nfast-spinning, highly magnetic, and only about 15 miles in diameter.
\nMillions of neutron stars fill our Milky Way galaxy.
Scientists have
\ndiscovered about a dozen ultrahigh-magnetic neutron stars, called
\nmagnetars. The magnetic field around a magnetar is about 1,000 trillion
\ngauss, strong enough to strip information from a credit card at a
\ndistance halfway to the moon. (Ordinary neutron stars measure a mere
\ntrillion gauss; the Earth’s magnetic field is about 0.5 gauss.)<\/p>\n

Four of these magnetars are also called soft gamma repeaters, or
\nSGRs, because they flare up randomly and release gamma rays. Such
\nepisodes release about 10^30 to 10^35 watts for about a second, or up
\nto millions of times more energy than our Sun. For a tenth of a second,
\nthe giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashed energy at a rate of about
\n10^40 watts. The total energy produced was more than the Sun emits in
\n150,000 years.
"The next biggest flare ever seen from any soft gamma
\nrepeater was peanuts compared to this incredible December 27 event,"
\nsaid Gaensler. "Had this happened within 10 light years of us, it would
\nhave severely damaged our atmosphere. Fortunately, all the magnetars we
\nknow of are much farther away than this."<\/p>\n

A scientific debate raged in the 1980s over whether gamma-ray bursts
\nwere star explosions from beyond our Galaxy or eruptions on nearby
\nneutron stars. By the late 1990s it became clear that gamma-ray bursts
\ndid indeed originate very far away and that SGRs were a different
\nphenomenon. But the extraordinary giant flare on SGR 1806-20 reopens
\nthe debate, according to Dr. Chryssa Kouveliotou of NASA Marshall Space
\nFlight Center, who took part in both the Swift and VLA analysis.
A
\nsizeable percentage of "short" gamma-ray bursts, less than two seconds,
\ncould be SGR flares, she said. These would come from galaxies within
\nabout a 100 million light years from Earth. (Long gamma-ray bursts
\nappear to be black-hole-forming star explosions billions of light years
\naway.)<\/p>\n

"An answer to the ‘short’ gamma-ray burst mystery could come any day
\nnow that Swift is in orbit", said Swift lead scientist Neil Gehrels.
\n"Swift saw this event after only about a month on the job."
Scientists
\naround the world have been following the December 27 event. RHESSI
\ndetected gamma rays and X-rays from the flare. Drs. Kevin Hurley and
\nSteven Boggs of the University of California, Berkeley, are leading the
\neffort to analyze these data. Dr. Robert Duncan of the University of
\nTexas at Austin and Dr. Christopher Thompson at the Canadian Institute
\nfor Theoretical Astrophysics (University of Toronto) are the leading
\nexperts on magnetars, and they are investigating the "short duration"
\ngamma-ray burst relationship.<\/p>\n

Brian Cameron, a graduate student at Caltech under the tutorage of
\nProf. Shri Kulkarni, leads a second scientific paper based on VLA data.
\nAmateur astronomers detected the disturbance in the Earth’s ionosphere
\nand relayed this information through the American Association of
\nVariable Star Observers.
Videos and Animations
1) Artist
\nconception of the December 27, 2004 gamma ray flare expanding from SGR
\n1806-20 and impacting Earth’s atmosphere. Click here to watch video.
2)
\nAn artist conception of the SGR 1806-20 magnetar including magnetic
\nfield lines. After the initial flash, smaller pulsations in the data
\nsuggest hot spots on the rotating magnetar’s surface. The data also
\nshows no change in the magentar’s rotation after the initial flash.
\nClick here to watch video.
3) Radio data shows a very active area
\naround SGR1806-20. The Very Large Array radio telescope observed
\nejected material from this Magnetar as it flew out into interstellar
\nspace. These observations in the radio wavelength start about 7 days
\nafter the flare and continue for 20 days. They show SGR1806-20 dimming
\nin the radio spectrum. Click here to watch video.
4) SGR-1806 is an
\nultra-magnetic neutron star, called a magnetar, located about 50,000
\nlight years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. Click
\nhere to watch video.
5) Swift is a first-of-its-kind
\nmulti-wavelength observatory dedicated to the study of gamma ray burst
\n(GRB) science. Its three instruments will work together to observe GRBs
\nand afterglows in the gamma ray, X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical
\nwavebands. Swift is designed to solve the 35-year-old mystery of the
\norigin of gamma-ray bursts. Scientists believe GRB are the birth cries
\nof black holes. Click here to watch video.
6) NASA’s Swift satellite
\nwas successfully launched Saturday, November 20, 2004 from the Cape
\nCanaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Click here to watch video.<\/p>\n

Other observatories and scientific representatives include:<\/p>\n

Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, Netherlands — Prof. Ralph Wijers
http:\/\/www.astron.nl\/p\/observing.htm<\/p>\n

Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST), Australia — Prof. Dick Hunstead
http:\/\/www.physics.usyd.edu.au\/astrop\/most\/<\/p>\n

Australia Telescope Compact Array — Prof. Bryan Gaensler
http:\/\/www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au\/<\/p>\n

Parkes radio telescope, Australia — Dr. Maura McLaughlin
http:\/\/www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au\/<\/p>\n

Greenbank Radio Telescope, West Virginia — Dr. Maura McLaughlin
http:\/\/www.gb.nrao.edu\/<\/p>\n

Very Long Baseline Array, USA — Dr. Mike Garrett
http:\/\/www.vlba.nrao.edu\/<\/p>\n

Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN), UK — Dr. Rob Fender
http:\/\/www.merlin.ac.uk\/<\/p>\n

Additional information about magentars and soft gamma ray repeaters
\ncan be found at Dr. Robert Duncan’s web site located at the University
\nof Texas at Austin:  http:\/\/solomon.as.utexas.edu\/~duncan\/magnetar.html
Story from REDNOVA NEWS:
http:\/\/www.rednova.com\/news\/display\/…<\/p>\n

Published: 2005\/02\/18 13:55:00 CST<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Rednova 2004<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/2005\/050214\/\/full\/050214-18.html<\/a>
News
Published online: 18 February 2005; | doi:10.1038\/news050214-18<\/p>\n

Huge explosion traced to exotic star<\/strong>
Jim Giles
Astronomers pinpoint source of unprecedented radiation surge.
The rotating, highly-magnetised neutron star undergoing a ‘quake’ at its surface. Click here to see animation.
A
\ncataclysmic ‘starquake’ is thought to have caused a flare of radiation
\nthat ripped past the Earth on 27 December, battering instruments on
\nsatellites and lighting up our atmosphere.
Scientists say this is
\nthe biggest blast of gamma and X-rays they have ever observed in our
\ncorner of the Universe. They believe the flare came from a bizarre
\nobject just 20 kilometres wide on the other side of the Galaxy.
"This
\nis a once-in-a-lifetime event," says Rob Fender of Southampton
\nUniversity, UK, one of the researchers studying data on the flare. "The
\nobject released more energy in a tenth of a second than the Sun emits
\nin 100,000 years."
Data from satellites and ground-based telescopes
\nhave pinpointed the origin of the burst as SGR 1806-20, a ‘magnetar’
\naround 50,000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius.
\nMagnetars are extremely dense, small stars with magnetic fields at
\nleast a thousand trillion times stronger than the Earth’s. They are a
\ntype of neutron star, the compact remnant of a collapsed sun.
Astronomically speaking, this was in our backyard.
Bryan Gaensler, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The
\nflare may have been caused by a quake on the surface of SGR 1806-20,
\nsuggest researchers. The quake would have disturbed the star’s magnetic
\nfield, creating an explosion that was the brightest ever detected
\nbeyond our Solar System.
It is possible that similar flares have
\nbeen misinterpreted in the past. Analogous gamma ray bursts have been
\ndetected, but they were assumed to come from very distant objects
\nbeyond our galaxy.
A satellite launched last November is ideally
\npositioned to resolve the issue. NASA’s Swift Gamma Ray Burst Mission
\nis designed to locate and measure bursts. "Answers to these questions
\ncould come any day now that Swift is in orbit," says Neil Gehrels of
\nNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Safe distance
Fortunately
\nfor life on Earth, the nearest known magnetar is about 13,000 light
\nyears away – too far for any future burst to damage the planet. The
\nradiation burst from a closer explosion could, for example, wipe out
\nthe ozone layer.
"Astronomically speaking, this was in our
\nbackyard," says Bryan Gaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
\nAstrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an author of a paper
\nabout the burst that has been accepted for publication in Nature. "If
\nit were in our living room, we’d be in big trouble."<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.spacedaily.com\/news\/gamma-05b.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Blast Affected Earth From Halfway Across The Milky Way<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cambridge MA (SPX) Feb 21, 2005
Forget "Independence Day" or "War
\nof the Worlds." A monstrous cosmic explosion last December showed that
\nthe earth is in more danger from real-life space threats than from
\nhypothetical alien invasions.
The gamma-ray flare, which briefly
\noutshone the full moon, occurred within the Milky Way galaxy. Even at a
\ndistance of 50,000 light-years, the flare disrupted the earth’s
\nionosphere. If such a blast happened within 10 light-years of the
\nearth, it would destroy the much of the ozone layer, causing
\nextinctions due to increased radiation.
"Astronomically speaking,
\nthis explosion happened in our backyard. If it were in our living room,
\nwe’d be in big trouble!" Said Bryan Gaensler (Harvard-Smithsonian
\nCenter for Astrophysics), lead author on a paper describing radio
\nobservations of the event.
Gaensler headed one of two teams
\nreporting on this eruption at a special press event today at NASA
\nheadquarters. A multitude of papers are planned for publication.
The
\ngiant flare detected on December 27, 2004, came from an isolated,
\nexotic neutron star within the Milky Way. The flare was more powerful
\nthan any blast previously seen in our galaxy.
"This might be a
\nonce-in-a-lifetime event for astronomers, as well as for a neutron
\nstar," said David Palmer of Los Alamos National Laboratory, lead author
\non a paper describing space-based observations of the burst.
"We know of only two other giant flares in the past 35 years, and this December event was one hundred times more powerful."
NASA’s
\nnewly launched Swift satellite and the NSF-funded Very Large Array
\n(VLA) were two of many observatories that observed the event, arising
\nfrom neutron star SGR 1806-20, about 50,000 light years from Earth in
\nthe constellation Sagittarius.
Neutron stars form from collapsed
\nstars. They are dense, fast-spinning, highly magnetic, and only about
\n15 miles in diameter. SGR 1806-20 is a unique neutron star called a
\nmagnetar, with an ultra-strong magnetic field capable of stripping
\ninformation from a credit card at a distance halfway to the Moon. Only
\nabout 10 magnetars are known among the many neutrons stars in the Milky
\nWay.
"Fortunately, there are no magnetars anywhere near the earth.
\nAn explosion like this within a few trillion miles could really ruin
\nour day," said graduate student Yosi Gelfand (CfA), a co-author on one
\nof the papers.
The magnetar’s powerful magnetic field generated the
\ngamma-ray flare in a violent process known as magnetic reconnection,
\nwhich releases huge amounts of energy. The same process on a much
\nsmaller scale creates solar flares.
"This eruption was a super-super-super solar flare in terms of energy released," said Gaensler.
Using
\nthe VLA and three other radio telescopes, Gaensler and his team
\ndetected material ejected by the blast at a velocity three-tenths the
\nspeed of light. The extreme speed, combined with the close-up view,
\nyielded changes in a matter of days.
Spotting such a nearby
\ngamma-ray flare offered scientists an incredible advantage, allowing
\nthem to study it in more detail than ever before. "We can see the
\nstructure of the flare’s aftermath, and we can watch it change from day
\nto day. That combination is completely unprecedented," said Gaensler.
Headquartered
\nin Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
\n(CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical
\nObservatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists,
\norganized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and
\nultimate fate of the universe.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Distant explosion breaks brightness records<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 19:00 18 February 2005
\u2022 NewScientist.com news service
\u2022 Maggie McKee
Several
\ndozen satellites around Earth, and one orbiting Mars, detected a flash
\nof high-energy photons – known as gamma rays – on 27 December 2004. The
\n0.25-second flash was so bright it overwhelmed the detectors on many
\nsatellites – making an energy measurement impossible – and disrupted
\nsome radio communication on Earth.
"It was so bright, it came right
\nthrough the body of the Swift satellite, even though Swift wasn’t
\npointed at the object," says John Nousek, mission director for NASA’s
\nSwift spacecraft – launched especially to detect gamma-ray bursts
\n(GRBs) – at Pennsylvania State University, US.
The brief flash was
\nfollowed by a fainter afterglow of gamma rays lasting for about 500
\nseconds, which showed a recurring signal every 7.5 seconds. That signal
\nled scientists using Europe’s INTEGRAL spacecraft to trace the source
\nof the "superflare" to a dead star – called a neutron star – known to
\nspin at that rate. Measurements of the distance to the star – called
\nSGR 1806-20, range from 30,000 to 50,000 light years from Earth.
That
\nrelatively small distance, coupled with an accurate energy measurement
\nby NASA’s RHESSI satellite, means the explosion was not as powerful –
\nat source – as more distant bursts linked with black holes.
\nNevertheless, it "may have sterilised any planets within a few light
\nyears of it", says Rob Fender, an astronomer at Southampton University,
\nUK, who is studying the lingering radio emission from the flare. "This
\nmay be a once-in-a-lifetime event both for astronomers and for the
\nneutron star itself."
Clean credit card
But Christopher Thompson,
\nan astrophysicist at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Physics,
\nsays that may not be so. The neutron star in question is rare magnetar,
\nwith a magnetic field so strong it could wipe a credit card clean from
\na distance of 160,000 kilometres. And this magnetar is even rarer yet,
\none of three "soft gamma repeaters" (SGRs) in the Milky Way.
SGRs
\ntend to release low-energy flares of gamma rays sporadically, but more
\nenergetic bursts have been observed twice before – in 1998 and 1979.
\nBut the energy in the initial 0.25-second burst from the most recent
\nflare was 100 times that of the two previous superflares.
But
\nThompson, who worked on the most accepted magnetar model, says: "I
\nwasn’t shocked at the energy it was putting out. The total energy
\nimplied by the models is enough to power a dozen or more of these
\nevents in the life of one magnetar."
Superflares may occur when
\ntightly wrapped magnetic fields inside the magnetar start to "untwist".
\nThis briefly rips loose some magnetic fields outside the star,
\nreleasing a "fireball" of particles, and light that astronomers see as
\na bright flash of gamma rays.
Extreme distances
If this flare had
\nbeen even farther away – up to 100 million light years or so – it would
\nhave looked "indistinguishable" from a short GRB – a cosmic phenomenon
\nthat has baffled astronomers for years. Short GRBs are blasts of
\nhigh-energy gamma rays that last less than two seconds. Astronomers are
\nunsure of their cause but think they have a different origin than
\n"long" GRBs – lasting for several seconds or minutes – which are
\nthought to be created during the birth of black holes.
This latest
\nobservation leads David Palmer, a Swift team member at Los Alamos
\nNational Laboratory in New Mexico, US, to say: "I’m fairly confident
\nthat soft gamma repeaters account for at least some short gamma-ray
\nbursts."
Neil Gehrels, principal investigator for Swift at NASA,
\nsays Swift should be able to help settle the debate about short GRBs.
\nSwift will study both SGRs and short GRBs, having the capability to
\nquickly respond to short GRBs in order to locate them in space.
But he laments: "It’s very unlikely we’re going to see another one of these supergiant flares."
Related Articles
\u2022 Massive exploding stars create rare magnetars
\u2022  http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article.ns…
\u2022 05 February 2005
\u2022 Swift mission sees its first gamma ray bursts
\u2022  http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article.ns…
\u2022 07 January 2005
\u2022 Superbright gamma ray burst may be closest ever
\u2022  http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article.ns…
\u2022 04 April 2003
Weblinks
\u2022 Swift, NASA
\u2022  http:\/\/swift.gsfc.nasa.gov\/docs\/swift\/swiftsc.html
\u2022 INTEGRAL, ESA
\u2022  http:\/\/astro.estec.esa.nl\/SA-general\/Projects\/Integral\/integral.html
\u2022 RHESSI, NASA
\u2022  http:\/\/hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov\/hessi\/<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.able2know.com\/forums\/about45952.html<\/a><\/p>\n

AFP
Monster star burst was brighter than full Moon: astronomers<\/strong>
Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:40 pm
PARIS
\n(AFP) – Stunned astronomers described the greatest cosmic explosion
\never monitored — a star burst from the other side of the galaxy that
\nwas briefly brighter than the full Moon and swamped satellites and
\ntelescopes.<\/p>\n

The high-radiation flash, detected last December 27, caused no harm
\nto Earth but would have literally fried the planet had it occurred
\nwithin a few light years of home.<\/p>\n

Normally reserved skywatchers struggled for superlatives.<\/p>\n

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Rob Fender of Britain’s Southampton University.<\/p>\n

"We have observed an object only 20 kilometers (12 miles) across, on
\nthe other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a 10th of a
\nsecond than the Sun emits in 100,000 years."<\/p>\n

"It was the mother of all magnetic flares — a true monster," said
\nKevin Hurley, a research physicist at the University of California at
\nBerkeley.<\/p>\n

Bryan Gaensler of the United States’ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
\nAstrophysics, described the burst as "maybe a once per century or once
\nper millennium event in our galaxy.<\/p>\n

"Astronomically speaking, this explosion happened in our backyard. If it were in our living room, we’d be in big trouble."<\/p>\n

The blast was caused by an eruption on the surface of a known,
\nexotic kind of neutron star called SGR 1806-20, located about 50,000
\nlight years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius and about
\nthree billion times farther from us than the Sun.<\/p>\n

A neutron star is the remnant of a very large star near the end of
\nits life — a tiny, extraordinarily dense core with a powerful magnetic
\nfield, spinning swiftly on its axis.<\/p>\n

When these ancient star cores finally run out of fuel, they collapse in on themselves and explode as a supernova.<\/p>\n

There are millions of neutron stars in the Milky Way but, so far,
\nonly a dozen have been found to be "magnetars": neutron stars with an
\nultra-powerful magnetic field.<\/p>\n

Magnetars have have a magnetic field measuring about 1,000 trillion
\ngauss, hundreds of times more powerful than that of any other object in
\nthe Universe.<\/p>\n

To give an idea of this in earthly terms, the field is so powerful
\nthat it could strip the data off a credit card at a distance of 200,000
\nkilometers (120,000 miles).<\/p>\n

SGR 1806-20 is an even rarer bird. It is one of only four known
\n"soft gamma repeater" (SGR) magnetars, so called because they flare up
\nrandomly and release gamma rays in a mammoth burst.<\/p>\n

Why this happens is unknown. One theory is that the energy release
\ncomes from magnetic fields which wrestle and overlap because of the
\nstar’s spin and then snap back and reconnect, creating a "starquake"
\nrather like the competing faults that cause an earthquake.<\/p>\n

What is sure, though, is that the outpouring of energy is massive.<\/p>\n

The SGR 1806-20 spewed out about 10,000 trillion trillion watts, or
\nabout 100 times brighter than any of the several "giant flares" that
\nhave been previously recorded.<\/p>\n

Despite this energy loss, the strange star did not even pause, Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) said.<\/p>\n

"SGR 1806-20 spins once in only 7.5 seconds. Amazingly, the December
\n27 event did not cause any slowing of its spin rate, as would be
\nexpected," the RAS said.<\/p>\n

The flare, detected by satellites and telescopes operated by NASA
\n(news – web sites) and Europe, was so powerful that it bounced off the
\nMoon and lit up the Earth’s upper atmosphere. For over a tenth of the
\nsecond, it was actually brighter than a full Moon, and briefly
\noverwhelmed delicate sensors, RAS said.<\/p>\n

Two science teams, formed by observations provided by 20 institutes
\naround the world, will report on the blast in a forthcoming issue of
\nthe British weekly journal Nature.<\/p>\n

Many questions will be thrown up by the event, including the
\nintriguing speculation that the dinosaurs may have been wiped out by a
\nsimilar, closer gamma-ray explosion 65 million years ago, and not by
\nclimate change inflicted by an asteroid impact.<\/p>\n

"Had this happened within 10 light years of us, it would have
\nseverly damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass
\nextinction," said lead-author Gaensler.<\/p>\n

The good news, he noted, is that the nearest known magnetar to Earth, 1E 2259+586, is about 13,000 light years away.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/mcdonaldobservatory.org\/news\/releases\/2005\/0218.html<\/a><\/p>\n

18 February 2005
Magnetar flare blitzed Earth Dec. 27, could solve cosmic mysteries<\/strong><\/p>\n

This
\ninformation is co-released with The University of California, Berkeley,
\nand co-incides with a NASA Space Science Update (right).<\/p>\n

Austin, Texas \u2014 Astronomers around the world recorded late last year
\na powerful explosion of high-energy X-rays and gamma rays \u2014 a
\nsplit-second flash from the other side of our galaxy that was strong
\nenough to affect the Earth’s atmosphere. The flash, called a soft gamma
\nrepeater flare, reached Earth on Dec. 27 and was detected by at least
\n15 satellites and spacecraft between Earth and Saturn, swamping most of
\ntheir detectors.
Thought to be a mighty cataclysm in a super-dense,
\nhighly magnetized star called a magnetar, it emitted as much energy in
\ntwo-tenths of a second as the sun gives off in 250,000 years. Robert C.
\nDuncan of the University of Texas at Austin originally proposed and
\ndeveloped the magnetar theory, along with Christopher Thompson of the
\nCanadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics.
"This is a key event
\nfor understanding magnetars," Duncan said. Its intrinsic power was a
\nthousand times greater than the power of all other stars in the galaxy
\nput together, and at least 100 times the power of any previous magnetar
\noutburst in our galaxy. It was ten thousand times brighter than the
\nbrightest supernova.
Duncan and Thompson worked with Kevin Hurley, a
\nresearch physicist at UC Berkeley who leads a major international team
\nstudying the event, to understand the immense power of the Dec. 27
\nflare. "It was the mother of all magnetic flares – a true monster,"
\nHurley said.
The team’s observations and analysis are summarized in a paper that has been submitted for publication in the journal Nature.
"Soft
\ngamma repeater" bursts \u2014 pinpoint flashes of highly energetic X-rays
\nand low-energy (soft) gamma rays coming repeatedly from one place in
\nthe sky \u2014 were first noticed in 1979 and remained a mystery until
\nDuncan and Thompson proposed in 1992 that they originate from
\nmagnetically powered neutron stars, or magnetars. Formed by the
\ncollapsing core of a star throwing off its outer layers in a supernova
\nexplosion, neutron stars are extremely dense, with more mass than in
\nthe Sun packed into a ball about 10 miles across. Many neutron stars
\nspin rapidly. These spinning neutron stars, some rotating a thousand
\ntimes a second, signal their presence by the emission of pulsed radio
\nwaves, and are called pulsars.
According to Duncan, magnetars are a
\nspecial kind of neutron star. They are born rotating very quickly,
\nwhich causes their magnetic fields to get amplified. But after a few
\nthousand years, their intense magnetic field slows their spin to a more
\nmoderate period of one rotation every few seconds. The magnetic fields
\nboth inside and outside the star twist, however, and according to the
\ntheory these intense fields can stress and move the crust much like
\nshearing along the San Andreas Fault. These magnetic fields are a
\nquadrillion \u2014 a million billion \u2014 times stronger than the field that
\ndeflects compass needles at the Earth’s surface.
The shear moves the
\ncrust around and the magnetic fields are tied to the crust, generating
\ntwists in the magnetic field that can sometimes break and reconnect in
\na process that sends trapped positrons and electrons flying out from
\nthe star, annihilating each other in a gigantic explosion of hard gamma
\nrays.
The flare observed Dec. 27 originated about 50,000 light years
\naway in the constellation Sagittarius, which means that the magnetar
\nsits directly opposite the center of our galaxy from the Earth in the
\ndisk of the Milky Way Galaxy.
As the radiation stormed through our
\nsolar system, it blitzed at least 15 spacecraft, knocking their
\ninstruments off-scale whether or not they were pointing in the
\nmagnetar’s direction. One Russian satellite, Coronas-F, detected gamma
\nrays that had bounced off the Moon.
The flare also ripped atoms
\napart, ionizing them, in much of the Earth’s ionosphere for five
\nminutes, to a deeper level than even the biggest solar flares do, an
\neffect noticed via its effect on long-wavelength radio communications.
\nSuch events are unlikely to pose a danger to the Earth because the
\nchances that one would be close enough to the Earth to cause serious
\ndisruption are exceedingly small.
Hurley and his team combined
\ninformation from many spacecraft, including neutron and gamma-ray
\ndetectors aboard Mars Odyssey and many near-Earth satellites, in order
\nto localize it to a spot well-known to astronomers: a magnetar known as
\nSGR 1806-20. This position was accurately confirmed by radio
\nastronomers at the Very Large Array in Socorro, N.M., who studied the
\nfading radio afterglow of the event and obtained important information
\nabout the explosion.
The tremendous power of the event has suggested
\na novel solution to a long-standing mystery \u2014 the origins of a strange
\nphenomenon known as "Short-Duration Gamma Ray Bursts." Hundreds of
\nbrief, mysterious flashes of high-energy radiation from deepest space,
\nlasting less than two seconds, have been measured and recorded over
\ndecades, but nobody knew what they were.
The similarity between the
\nDec. 27 burst and these short-duration bursts lies in the brief spike
\nof hard gamma rays that arrives first and carries almost all the
\nenergy. In the recent burst, for example, the hard spike lasted only
\ntwo-tenths of a second. This was followed by a "tail" of X-rays that
\nlasted over six minutes. As the tail faded, its brightness oscillated
\non a 7.56 second cycle, the known rotation period of the magnetar.
According
\nto Duncan and Thompson’s theory, the oscillating X-ray tail that
\nfollowed was due to a residue of electrons, positrons and gamma-rays
\ntrapped in the magnetar’s magnetic field. Such a hot "trapped fireball"
\nshrinks and evaporates over minutes, as electrons and positrons
\nannihilate. The measurements of Hurley’s team corroborate this picture.
\nThe tail’s brightness appears to oscillate because the fireball is
\nstuck to the surface of the rotating star by the magnetic field, so it
\nrotates with the star like a lighthouse beacon.
Duncan and his team
\nargue that the hard initial spike of these giant flares is so bright
\nthat it can be detected from very far away, meaning that some of the
\nshort flares we see are from other galaxies, though the soft X-ray
\ntails are too faint to be seen.
Duncan and his collaborators predict
\nthat if a magnetar flares as brightly as the December 27 event within
\n100 million light-years of Earth, astronomers should be able to detect
\nit. Texas astronomers John Scalo and Sheila Kannappan helped Duncan
\nestimate the rate at which such distant flares might be seen. They
\nestimated that of order 40% of the short bursts previously observed
\ncould have been such magnetar bursts. There is a good probability that
\nthe newly-launched Swift satellite will see a magnetar burst once a
\nmonth.
Launched in November 2004 and gathering data only since
\nJanuary, Swift is designed to automatically turn its X-ray telescope
\ntoward a burst in order to accurately pin down its position.
Duncan’s
\nteam estimates that Swift will spot an abundance of magnetars lurking
\nin other galaxies. In some cases, Swift’s X-ray telescope may even
\ncatch the oscillating tail and measure the rotation period of the
\nfaraway star.
"Swift will open up a new field of astronomy: the study of extragalactic magnetars," Duncan said.
Co-authors
\nwith Hurley, Boggs, Duncan and Thompson were D. M. Smith of the UC
\nSanta Cruz physics department, RHESSI and Wind principal investigator
\nand Space Sciences Laboratory Director Robert Lin, and teams of U.S.,
\nSwiss, Russian, and German scientists.
\u2014 END \u2014<\/p>\n

Notes to editors: Robert Duncan and Kevin Hurley will be at NASA
\nHeadquarters in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Feb. 18, to attend a NASA
\nScience Update about the Dec. 27 giant flare and observations by the
\nrecently launched Swift satellite. Duncan’s cell phone number is (512)
\n587-0043. Hurley’s cell phone number is (510) 366-4463.
Duncan
\nnormally can be reached at (512) 471-7426 or at
\nduncan@astro.as.utexas.edu. Hurley can be reached at his office, (510)
\n643-9173, or via e-mail at  khurley@ssl.berkeley.edu. Steven Boggs is
\nat (510) 643-4129 or  boggs@ssl.berkeley.edu.
Robert Sanders, science press officer for UC Berkeley, can be reached at (510) 643-6998 or  rsanders@berkeley.edu.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.12thharmonic.com\/astroturf\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Huge ‘star-quake’ rocks Milky Way<\/strong><\/p>\n

It turns out that
\nthe 26th and 27th of December were not only turbulent for our planet,
\nbut turbulent for our galaxy too. The explosion took place in the
\nconstellation of Sagittarius. I’m very grateful to fixed star expert
\nDiana K Rosenberg for calculating the position and time of the
\nexplosion, which in astrological tropical zodiac terms occurred at
\n01CAP28; LAT 3N 25 53; DECL 19S20; RA 18 06 18. It occurred Dec 27,
\n2004, at 21:30:26 UT.<\/p>\n

BBC – Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy
\nreleased in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000
\nlight-years away
The flash of radiation on 27 December was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth’s atmosphere.
The blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star – a super-magnetic neutron star called SGR 1806-20.
If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said.
"We
\nfigure that it’s probably the biggest explosion observed by humans
\nwithin our galaxy since Johannes Kepler saw his supernova in 1604," Dr
\nRob Fender, of Southampton University, UK, told the BBC News website.
One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.
"This
\nis a once-in-a-lifetime event. We have observed an object only 20km
\nacross, on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a
\n10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years," said Dr Fender.<\/p>\n

VLA Probes Secrets of Mysterious Magnetar<\/strong><\/p>\n

A giant flash of energy from a supermagnetic neutron star thousands
\nof light-years from Earth may shed a whole new light on scientists’
\nunderstanding of such mysterious "magnetars" and of gamma-ray bursts.
\nIn the nearly two months since the blast, the National Science
\nFoundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) telescope has produced a wealth of
\nsurprising information about the event, and "the show goes on," with
\ncontinuing observations.
The blast from an object named SGR 1806-20
\ncame on Dec. 27, 2004, and was first detected by orbiting gamma-ray and
\nX-ray telescopes. It was the brightest outburst ever seen coming from
\nan object beyond our own solar system, and its energy overpowered most
\norbiting telescopes. The burst of gamma rays and X-rays even disturbed
\nthe Earth’s ionosphere, causing a sudden disruption in some radio
\ncommunications.
While the intensely bright gamma ray burst faded in
\na matter of minutes, the VLA and other radio telescopes have been
\ntracking the explosion’s "afterglow" for weeks, providing most of the
\ndata astronomers need to figure out the physics of the blast.
A
\nmagnetar is a superdense neutron star with a magnetic field thousands
\nof trillions of times more intense than that of the Earth. Scientists
\nbelieve that SGR 1806-20’s giant burst of energy was somehow triggered
\nby a "starquake" in the neutron star’s crust that caused a catastrophic
\ndisruption in the magnetar’s magnetic field. The magnetic disruption
\ngenerated the huge burst of gamma rays and "boiled off" particles from
\nthe star’s surface into a rapidly expanding fireball that continues to
\nemit radio waves for weeks or months.
The VLA first observed SGR
\n1806-20 on Jan. 3, and has been joined by other radio telescopes in
\nAustralia, the Netherlands, and India. Scientific papers prepared for
\npublication based on the first month’s radio observations report a
\nnumber of key discoveries about the object. Scientists using the VLA
\nhave found:
\u2022 The fireball of radio-emitting material is expanding at roughly one-third the speed of light.
\u2022 The expanding fireball is elongated, and may change its shape quickly.
\u2022 Alignment of the radio waves (polarization) confirms that the fireball is not spherical.
\u2022
\nThe flare emitted an amount of energy that represents a significant
\nfraction of the total energy stored in the magnetar’s magnetic field.
Of
\nthe dozen or so magnetars known to astronomers, only one other has been
\nseen to experience a giant outburst. In 1998, SGR 1900+14 put out a
\nblast similar in many respects to SGR 1806-20’s, but much weaker.
National
\nRadio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) astronomer Dale Frail observed the
\n1998 outburst and has been watching SGR 1806-20 for a decade. Both
\nmagnetars are part of the small group of objects called soft gamma-ray
\nrepeaters, because they repeatedly experience much weaker outbursts of
\ngamma rays. In early January, he was hosting a visiting college student
\nwhile processing the first VLA data from SGR 1806-20’s giant outburst.
"I
\nliterally could not believe what I was looking at," Frail said.
\n"Immediately I could see that this flare was 100 times stronger than
\nthe 1998 flare, and 10,000 times brighter than anything this object had
\ndone before."
"I couldn’t stay in my chair, and this student got to
\nsee a real, live astronomer acting like an excited little kid," Frail
\nsaid.
The excitement isn’t over, either. "The show goes on and we
\ncontinue to observe this thing and continue to get surprises," said
\nGreg Taylor, an astronomer for NRAO and the Kavli Institute of Particle
\nAstrophysics and Cosmology in Stanford, Calif..
One VLA measurement
\nmay cause difficulties for scientists trying to fit SGR 1806-20 into a
\nlarger picture of gamma ray bursts (GRBs). GRBs, seen regularly from
\nthroughout the universe, come in two main types–very short bursts and
\nlonger ones. The longer ones are generally believed to result when a
\nmassive star collapses into a black hole, rather than into a neutron
\nstar as in a supernova explosion. The strength and short duration of
\nSGR 1806-20’s December outburst has led some astronomers to speculate
\nthat a similar event could be seen out to a considerable distance from
\nEarth. That means, they say, that magnetars may be the source of the
\nshort-period GRBs.
That interpretation is based to some extent on a
\nprevious measurement that indicates SGR 1806-20 is nearly 50,000
\nlight-years from Earth. One team of observers, however, analyzed the
\nradio emission from SGR 1806-20 and found evidence that the magnetar is
\nonly about 30,000 light-years distant. The difference, they say,
\nreduces the likelihood that SGR 1806-20 could be a parallel for
\nshort-period GRBs.<\/p>\n

In any case, the wealth of information astronomers have gathered
\nabout the tremendous December blast makes it an extremely important
\nevent for understanding magnetars and GRBs.
Source: The National Science Foundation<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.whatdoesitmean.com\/index658.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

January 10, 2005<\/p>\n

Continuing Earth Changes Cripple American Submarine and Pose New Dangers for the American Continents<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Russian Subscribers<\/p>\n

Continued
\nenergy surges, and as yet still unexplained by Western scientists,
\ncontinue to bombard the earth\u2019s Southern Hemispheric Regions this
\nmorning causing many widespread and anomalous events throughout the
\nworld and affecting all of its peoples.<\/p>\n

Western media sources
\nare presently reporting the dire circumstances surrounding the United
\nStates Los Angeles Class Nuclear Submarine San Francisco and the latest
\nreports are saying that one crewman has died and  \u201823 other crew
\nmembers are being treated aboard for injuries including broken bones,
\nbruises and lacerations\u2019.<\/p>\n

The BBC also reports in this article
\nthat, \u201cThe US Navy said it did not know what the vessel had struck and
\nwas investigating severe damage to the outside of the submarine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not
\nbeing reported by the Western media though is that the USS San
\nFrancisco (SSN 711) is part of the United States Navy\u2019s Pacific Fleet,
\nand a part of what is known as Submarine Squadron Fifteen based out of
\nthe US Territory of Guam, located in the Mariana Islands Region of the
\nPacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

The significance of this lies in the eruption on
\nAnatahan Island, a part of the Mariana Islands and in the \u2018patrol zone\u2019
\nof the USS San Francisco.<\/p>\n

As related to us by one Russian Naval
\nOfficial, \u201cImagine you walking around your house at night with the
\nlights off and someone had re-arranged the furniture, make no mistake
\nabout it, the American submariners \u2018know\u2019 their courses too well and
\nare too highly trained for this to happen suddenly.  Some extreme
\ngeologic \u2018change\u2019 had to have happened for this accident to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could this \u2018extreme geologic change\u2019 have been this eruption? <\/p>\n

As
\nreported in the Western media regarding this event we hear, \u201cThe
\nvolcano’s activity intensified beginning Tuesday and Wednesday last
\nweek after months of extremely low seismic activities, which followed
\nthe second batch of eruptions from April to June last year. The volcano
\non Anatahan first erupted after centuries of dormancy on May 10, 2003,
\nwith ash plume rising to more than 30,000 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are also
\ncontinuing to receive reports of meteor fireballs entering the earth\u2019s
\natmosphere.  Yesterday another such sighting was reported as occurring
\nin the United States region of Alaska, and where it is said, \u201cIt
\nstreaked quickly from the west to the east in a steep downward arc, and
\nsoon wasn’t visible behind the mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information also
\ncontinues to be received by us also relating to my December 28, 2004
\nreport, Evidence for Sumatra 9.0 Quake Leans towards Meteorite Strike.<\/p>\n

In
\none research report by the United States National Geophysical Data
\nCenter (NGDC) it clearly states, and in apparent contradiction to the
\nknown facts about The Great Tsunami of 2004, that, \u201cIn the Indian
\nOcean, however, the Indo-Australian plate is being subducted beneath
\nthe Eurasian plate at its east margin. Therefore, most tsunamis
\ngenerated in this area are propagated toward the southwest shores of
\nJava and Sumatra, rather than into the Indian Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

As recent
\nevents have occurred however we know this not to be the case due to the
\nfact that the waves propagated out from a \u2018center\u2019 to all areas of the
\nIndian Ocean, to even the African Coast and beyond.<\/p>\n

Numerous,
\nyet conflicting, Western media reports also continue to be generated
\nabout this cataclysmic event with no regard to science fact but rather
\nrelying on speculation alone.<\/p>\n

Reports are varying to many
\nextremes of sea floor horizontal and\/or vertical movement, such as one
\nreport that states, \u201cslippage occurred along about 1,200 km of the
\ninterface between the tectonic plates\u201d, and another that states that it
\nwas, \u201c\u2026a 600-mile-long (965km) rupture that generated a 35ft vertical
\ndisplacement in the sea floor.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the differences in how
\nmany kilometers of vertical displacement did or did not occur, or how
\nhigh or low various parts of the sea floor rose or fell are not as
\nimportant as to how fast these assertions of fact were being spread by
\nthe Western media sources. <\/p>\n

They in fact began within hours of
\nthe cataclysm occurring, with no scientific research being conducted
\nand in contradiction to what the United States National Geophysical
\nData Center had reported and Prof Ravinder Kumar of the Centre of
\nAdvance Studies in Geology, Punjab University who has said, \u201cThere is
\nno historic record of a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

This
\ninformation alone does not constitute proof of a meteorite strike being
\nthe cause of this cataclysmic, but neither do the pronouncements by the
\nWestern media stating the cause as being an earthquake event.  The
\nbehavior of the waves in the Indian Ocean though do suggest a meteorite
\ndue to their concentric nature of flowing throughout the oceans basin,
\nwhere if these were caused by an earthquake would have been omni or bi
\ndirected only as scientists have previously predicted, and particularly
\nin a region where no historical reports of a tsunami had ever been
\nrecorded.<\/p>\n

Not being connected in the Western Media about this
\nevent either was its precursor which occurred in the Macquarie Island
\nregion of Antarctica and was measured as an 8.2 event on the Richter
\nscale. (An 8.2 Richter event is equal to 3 billion tons of TNT and the
\n9.0 event in the Indian Ocean was equal to 32 billion tons.)  But
\nreleased almost simultaneously with the Antarctica 8.2 event was a
\nreport from the United States space organization NASA’s Near Earth
\nObject Program in an \u2018Asteroid Alert\u2019 which in part said, \u201cFor
\ncomparison, the Barringer Meteor Crater in northern Arizona is thought
\nto have been created by an iron meteorite between 30 and 100 meters in
\ndiameter. Its impact would have released energy equivalent to about 3.5
\nmillion tons of TNT.\u201d<\/p>\n

More interesting in the light of these
\nrecent events are that these two events have more in common than their
\nhistorically rare power in that both the Antarctica event and the
\nIndian Ocean event are connected by their sameness in both geological
\nand magnetic anomalous features, and as previously mapped by
\nscientists. <\/p>\n

One such other area on the earth is known as the Cayman Trough and is located in the Northwest Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n

A
\nnumber of the world\u2019s top scientists in their fields have reported on
\nthis region in a report that in part says, \u201cWe review the plate
\ntectonic evolution of the Caribbean area based on a revised model for
\nthe opening of the central North Atlantic and the South Atlantic, as
\nwell based on an updated model of the motion of the Americas relative
\nto the Atlantic-Indian hotspot reference frame.  We focus on post-83 Ma
\nreconstructions, for which we have combined a set of new magnetic
\nanomaly data in the central North Atlantic between the Kane and
\nAtlantis fracture zones with existing magnetic anomaly data in the
\ncentral North and South Atlantic oceans and fracture zone
\nidentifications from a dense gravity grid from satellite altimetry to
\ncompute North America-South America plate motions and their
\nuncertainties.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we are all aware, the largest magnetic
\nanomalous area in the world is located in Russia and is named the Kursk
\nSatellite Magnetic Anomaly (KMA), and in the memory of our fallen
\nheroes from the great Russian Submarine Kursk of the same naming.  <\/p>\n

\u00a9 January 10, 2005, EU and US all rights reserved.<\/p>\n

(Note:
\nThere is no easy way to describe to foreign speaking peoples the style
\nof writing one encounters when reading Russian writers like Sorcha
\nFaal, who are steeped in Russian shamanistic thought and in the lives
\nthey live.  A report like this particular one can best be analogized as
\n\u2018circle of thought\u2019 writing in that the beginning should equal the end.
\nIn this report for example it begins with an American Submarine
\ndisaster and ends with a Russian one.  The meanings that can be derived
\nare for individual thought and are not meant to be \u2018scientific\u2019, as it
\nis defined in Western nations.  Russian shamanistic thinking
\nencompasses the \u2018whole\u2019 of all things and can be likened to seeing and
\nattempting to understand the \u2018connections\u2019 between all things.  The
\nsame \u2018known\u2019 facts of information are used like Westerners do, but then
\nare \u2018added\u2019 with the \u2018unknown\u2019 so that in knowing the greater \u2018whole\u2019
\nof \u2018thing\u2019 warnings can be given to help prepare the entire tribe.)<\/p>\n

Original Article<\/a><\/p>\n

EXOPOLITICS: POLITICS, GOVERNMENT AND LAW IN THE UNIVERSE (Filament Books)
by Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
http:\/\/www.filamentbooks.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER, B.C. – This article summarizes the evidence upon which to hypothesize that the Asian Tsunami of December 26, 2004 (Boxing Day) may have been caused by gravity waves  which accompanied a gamma ray burst caused by the explosion of a Neutron Star in the Constellation Saggitarius, some 45,000 light years from Earth.  The article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}