US astronomers launch search for alien life on 86 planets.

This picture taken on March 2010 shows the Karoo Array Telescope construction site in South Africa.
A massive radio telescope in rural West Virginia has begun listening for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets, US astronomers said Friday.

The giant dish began this week pointing toward each of the 86 planets -- culled from a list of 1,235 possible planets identified by NASA's Kepler space telescope -- and will gather 24 hours of data on each one.

"It's not absolutely certain that all of these stars have habitable planetary systems, but they're very good places to look for ET," said University of California at Berkeley graduate student Andrew Siemion.

The mission is part of the SETI project, which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, launched in the mid 1980s.

Last month the SETI Institute announced it was shuttering a major part of its efforts -- a 50 million dollar project with 42 telescope dishes known as the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) -- due to a five million dollar budget shortfall.

ATA began in 2007 and was operated in partnership by the UC Berkeley Radio Astronomy Lab, which has hosted several generations of such experiments. It was funded by the SETI Institute and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

With ATA's dishes in hibernation for now, astronomers hope the powerful Green Bank Telescope, a previous incarnation of which was felled in a windstorm in 1988, will provide targeted information about potential life-supporting planets.

"Our search employs the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and the most sensitive radio telescope in the world capable of undertaking a SETI search of this kind," Siemion told AFP.

"We will be looking at a much wider range of frequencies and signal types than has ever been possible before," he added, describing the instrumentation as "at the very cutting edge of radio astronomy technology."

The surface of the telescope is 100 by 110 meters and it can record nearly one gigabyte of data per second, Siemion said.

The 17 million pound (7.7 million kilogram) telescope became operational in 2000 and is a project of the NSF's National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

"We've picked out the planets with nice temperatures -- between zero and 100 degrees Celsius -- because they are a lot more likely to harbor life," said physicist Dan Werthimer.

Werthimer heads a three-decade long SETI project in Puerto Rico, home of the world's largest radio telescope, Arecibo. However that project could not observe the same area of the northern sky as the Green Bank telescope, he said.

"With Arecibo, we focus on stars like our Sun, hoping that they have planets around them that emit intelligent signals," Werthimer said in a statement.

"But we've never had a list of planets like this before."

The Green Bank Telescope can scan 300 times the range of frequencies that Arecibo could, meaning that it can collect the same amount of data in one day that Arecibo could in one year.

The project will likely take about a year to complete, and will be helped by a team of one million at-home astronomers, known as SETI@home users, who will help process the data on personal computers.

http://www.physorg.com/

The comet Elenin.

On 10 December 2010, Leonid Elenin, a little known amateur Russian astronomer from Lubertsy City, in Russia, discovered Comet C/2010 X1, a comet now universally known as Elenin. The researcher from the Russian Academy of Sciences spotted the C/2010 X1 while reviewing four-minute footage from the ISON-NB Observatory (International Scientific Optical Network's Robotic Observatory) in New Mexico. After he recorded the find in NEO (Near Earth Objects) Confirmation Page, the sighting was later seconded by Aleksei Sergeyev and Artyom Novichonok from the Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan, W. H. Ryan (Magdalena Ridge Observatory, New Mexico), R. S. McMillan, J. V. Scotti and M. L. Terenzoni (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona), and H. Sato (another off-site stargazer from the Remote Astronomical Society Observatory, Mayhill), confirming the cometary nature of the 19-magnitude object.

At the time of discovery, an analysis of its orbit predicted that its perihelion (closest orbital distance to the sun) was a very negligible 8.8 Astronomical Unit (1a.u equals 149,598,000 kilometers) from us. Hundreds of thousands of objects of all shapes and sizes emerging from the Oort cloud orbits our sun at that approximate orbital trajectory at any given time, and apart from the significance that it was never tagged before, it appeared to be just like any ordinary ancient wanderer of the solar system.

Recalculation of its orbital path one month later shows that the Elenin's perihelion has shrunk to a projected 0.15 to 0.24 a.u. That distance is still very safe, even if we consider its debris tail that runs for hundreds of miles long. Plus, comparatively speaking, the moon's perihelion stands at 0.00256. However, we are not yet capable of conclusively determining its orbital path, and any projections at this moment of time will be based on a series of conjectures, one of them being that, its perihelion will be on the coming September 10th 2011 measuring at 0.45a.u, which is approximately 67,319,100 kilometers away. Based simply on these projections, Elenin would be visible to land-based observation beginning from mid-August this year, especially since its tail is expected to blaze brightly as its metallic content scatters the sun's rays, deflected of the moon.


Have You Met Elenin?

Elenin, or as it is officially known, Comet C/2010 X1, is a non-periodic comet that is estimated to reach its perihelion with our Sun on September 10, 2011. The 19 magnitude (where a smaller integer indicates a higher level of brightness) comet follows a 9,900 years hyperbolic orbit around our sun. The size for Elenin has yet to be confirmed by NASA. Nevertheless, during perihelion, Elenin will be traveling at speeds in excess of 85,000 km/hr. and its approach will bring its magnitude down to 6, with the occasional 0 at selected locations during dawn. The U.S. Navy, through NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories, has prepared a trajectory diagram of Elenin on their site http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/STEREOorbit/C2010_X1.html

Okay, So What's The Real Deal With Elenin?

There appears to be some reservations among amateur astronomy enthusiasts, as well as privately funded entities concerning Leonard Elenin's discovery of the Comet C/2010 X1. There are the obvious questions of his credentials, his fortuitous luck in tracking down a Magnitude 19 moving object when many more well equipped personages have failed to do so, and more importantly, the lack of any notable press coverage over the event.

Instead, speculation is intensifying that Comet C/2010 X1 / Elenin is actually a cover for the real deal: an old brown dwarf, a sister sun for the our Sol - a moving, planetary-size mass of collapsing clouds with three moons that is on a 3,600 year orbit around the galaxy. It has been referred to as Nibiru (D23K9) by some, and NASA's seeming reluctance to dispel the notion has only served to increase and indirectly feed the rumor mill to almost breaking point.

The alternative theory that seems to have gained ground recently is that Elenin/Nibiru's continued approach will eventually see it inadvertently attempting to take control of the Earth's polarity away from the sun. The contest between Elenin/Nibiru, the sun and earth, coupled with the dynamic influence of other planet-sized mass in our solar system would eventually start to affect and ultimately shatter the eons of magnetic stability on earth, along with the underlying gravitational balance that will precipitate major reactions within the earth's core as well as on its surface that could very well lead to a global catastrophe. A shift in the earth magnetic pole is widely anticipated, with many pointing to the recent devastating earthquake in Chile as one of the earliest effect of Elenin/Nibiru. NASA has confirmed that the recent quake has shifted the earth's axis by 3 inches, and shortened the length of our day by 1.26 millionth of a second. However, any attempt to link the incident with the approaching brown dwarf has been dismissed by NASA.



And then, there were two - Comet Honda

Amidst the ongoing controversy over the little known Comet Elenin, a more likely suspect for an ELE (Extinction Level Event) has been left relatively untouched. Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova is projected to reach aphelion (closest orbital distance to earth) in mid-August 2011, with an estimated proximity to earth of 0.06 A.U (astronomical unit), or approximately 9 million kilometers, the closest since comet D/1770 L1 (Lexell) in 1770 and C/1983 H1 (IRAS-Araki-Alcock) in 1983.

The 45P/Honda was first discovered on December 3 1948 by Minoru Honda, an amateur astronomer from Japan. The 45P/Honda is believed to have a diameter of 1.6km, which is significantly larger than both Lexell and IRAS-Araki-Alcock. It follows an elliptical, five and a quarter years orbit around our Sun commencing from the Ophiuchus constellation at the Galactic Equator. The 45P/Honda has a perihelion (closest orbital distance to the Sun) of 0.58A.U, which will occur on September 30 this year.

With the exception of 1954 and 1990, the 45P/Honda's aphelion has become increasingly closer to earth, as shown below. Year Aphelion (in A.U)
1948 0.43
1954 0.59
1969 0.30
1975 0.23
1983 0.11
1990 0.29
1996 0.17
2001 0.11
2006 0.09
2011 0.058


Another interesting aspect of 45P/Honda is its forecasted flyby with Comet Elenin. They will cross path approximately around October 8 this year. Here is a trajectory animation of comets Elenin and 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova.
 

Elenin and The Maya

Scientists recently discovered that we are actually late immigrants to the Milky Way! The long held belief that we are citizens of the Milky Way appears to have been debunked with the discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy in 1994 by Rodrigo Ibata, Mike Irwin, and Gerry Gilmore.

Further studies and voluminous amount of data from the infrared telescope Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) by researchers from the University of Massachusetts revealed that the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, our home galaxy, is in the midst of concluding a process that begun millions of years ago - a process of integrating themselves into the 10,000 times bigger Milky Way galaxy.

This process explains why the Milky Way always appears to be slanting sideways in the night sky instead of ecliptic, and why there appears to be a dark depth in the center of it. The orbit of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy and the Milky Way, plus to a much smaller extent, the wobble of the earth caused by its spinning along its axis coincides with the planet dipping above and below the center of that dark depth, which is also referred to as Galactic Equator.

Now, how does this relate to the Mayan prophesy, you rightly wonder. Well, let's start in the beginning. The fundamentals of the Mayan calendar and sky charting were 'borrowed' from the Olmec civilization which started their stargazing approximately in 680B.C. The Mayans extrapolated and refined the Olmec's system to assist them in the more mundane aspects of existence, such as crop plating, the appointment of a Sun God and stuff like that. Eventually, they created their own calendars, and paid close attention to the movement of the stars and planets that were marching across our sky.

One of their most popular calendars was called the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin consists of eighteen 20 days month (Uinals), where each of the twenty days is accorded a symbolic significance (a more complicated version of the modern astrology). The eighteen month totals up to 360 days, which is referred to as a Tun year. The sum of twenty of these Tuns is 19 years, eight months and 15 days, or a Katun. A Baktun meanwhile, equals twenty Katuns, or 394 years and four months. Now, thirteen Baktuns gets you one Great Cycle, or 1,872,000 days, which is approximately 5,125 years; the equivalent of one Mayan Great Cycle. Since the Mayan folklore stipulates that the universe was created on August 11, 3114BC, it stands to reason that the end of the cycle will happen exactly 1,872,000 days later, which falls on 11:11GMT, 21 December 2012.

So, how did the Mayans came to the '5,125 year equals one Great Cycle' conclusion, again, you rightly wonder? Elementary, my dear Watson. It's the wobbling stars in the sky. The movement of the stars across the night sky is often accompanied by wobbles in movement that corresponds with the solstices of both the earth and the sun. The wobbles, which coincidentally sounds like a children's TV show, is caused by a minor realignment of our planet along its axis as the gravitational forces and the recently discovered phenomena of the dark energy exerts its influence on earth. A simple (Okay, it's not simple at all. It's hard, like rocket science hard) calculation reveals that our movement and the sun's, in relation to the Galactic Equator, will see the intersection of the Sun's path across our skyline (the Elliptical) and the Galactic Equator. This intersection can only occur every 5,125 years (and the Mayans didn't even have a scientific calculator to help with the counting then - a great many volunteer toes were probably required then)!

To be fair, the Mayans did not prophesize what exactly will happen to the galaxy, which they referred to as the Sacred Tree, then. It could be a simple display of aurora borealis, it could be a period of rebirth or, seeing that the Mayans consider the sun as a representation of their God, Kukulkna, it could also imply (as many seem to be in favor of) a cataclysmic extinction level event.

So you sigh in silence, exasperated, wondering yet again as to the link between Elenin's arrival in September-October 2011 and the Mayan prophesized Armageddon in December 2012. To be as brief as possible, the solar dating system that is the Gregorian calendar that you swear by, inherited a number of flaws in them. The most obvious one would be of the missing day every century, owing to the rounding up of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.25 seconds to 3651/4 days in the Julian calendar that was used before the Gregorian one, which by the 16th century, saw to the 'disappearance' of 14 days! In addition, Pope Gregory, who authorized the conversion to the Julian calendar in 1582, shifted the calendar by 11 days, which saw the calendar leap from March 4, 1582 to March 15 the next day. In addition, the new calendar is still losing 30 seconds from the solar cycle annually. Add to the fact that the Julian calendar that was adopted by, who else, Julius Caesar in the eight century made a leap of 67 days to sync with the solar cycle, and upon his death, there were confusions with the methodology involved, with the most damaging being the three years leap years (instead of the now common four). Recalculating the Great Cycle in its entirety against the modern calendar, taking into account the faults and adjustments incorporated into it would reveal that the prophesized date would in fact be on October 28, 2011 - within weeks of Elenin's projected perihelion, and more alarmingly, within 12 days of its forecasted perigee (closest orbital distance to the center of earth).


Elenin and The Hopi

The Hopis prophesy ties a little into the Mayan's concept of creation - the Great Cycle. The prophesy has been part of their tribe's oral tradition that has dated back since time immemorial. This is their prophesy, as recited by White Feather of the Bear Clan to Reverend David Young in 1948.

"The Fourth World shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The Signs over many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left.

"This is the First Sign: We are told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana men who took the land that was not theirs. And men who struck their enemies with thunder.

"This is the Second Sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. In his youth, my father saw this prophecy come true with his eyes -- the white men bringing their families in wagons across the prairies."

"This is the Third Sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. These White Feather saw with his eyes -- the coming of the white men's cattle."

"This is the Fourth Sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron."

"This is the Fifth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed by a giant spider's web."

"This is the Sixth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun."

"This is the Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it."

"This is the Eight Sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like my people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn their ways and wisdom.

"And this is the Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.

"These are the Signs that great destruction is coming. The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle against other people in other lands -- with those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire such as White Feather has seen the white man make in the deserts not far from here. Only those which come will cause disease and a great dying. Many of my people, understanding the prophecies, shall be safe. Those who stay and live in the places of my people also shall be safe. Then there will be much to rebuild. And soon -- very soon afterward -- Pahana will return. He shall bring with him the dawn of the Fifth World. He shall plant the seeds of his wisdom in their hearts. Even now the seeds are being planted. These shall smooth the way to the Emergence into the Fifth World."

Forget about how the first eight Signs seem eerily familiar to events and characters in the past century. Instead, concentrate on the final Sign, the Ninth sign. There is no way you could miss the meaning behind the phrase. An object of blue color, hurtling in from space would fall and end everything. The Age of Purification?

© 2011 elenin.org

Cached from www.elenin.org.

The Twelfth Planet Nibiru (Planet X).

Also known as The Twelfth Planet or Planet X, some are warning that this wandering body is quickly nearing the Earth - and could cause global devastation. Should you worry?

In 1976, Zecharia Sitchin stirred up a great deal of controversy with the publication of his book, The Twelfth Planet. In this and subsequent books, Sitchin presented his literal translations of ancient Sumerian texts which told an incredible story about the origins of humankind on planet Earth - a story far different and much more fantastic than what we all learned in school.

The ancient cuneiform texts - some of the earliest known writing, dating back some 6,000 years - told the story of a race of beings called the Anunnaki. The Anunnaki came to Earth from a planet in our solar system called Nibiru, according to the Sumerians via Sitchin. If you`ve never heard of it, that`s because mainstream science does not recognize Nibiru as one of the planets that revolves around our Sun. Yet it is there, claims Sitchin, and its presence holds great importance not only for humankind`s past, but our future as well.

Nibiru`s orbit around the Sun is highly elliptical, according to Sitchin`s books, taking it out beyond the orbit of Pluto at its farthest point and bringing it as close to the Sun as the far side of the asteroid belt (a ring of asteroids that is known to occupy a band of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter). It takes Nibiru 3,600 years to complete one orbital journey, and it was last in this vicinity around 160 B.C.E. As you can imagine, the gravitational effects of a sizable planet moving close to the inner solar system, as it is claimed for Nibiru, could wreak havoc on the orbits of other planets, disrupt the asteroid belt and spell big trouble for planet Earth.

Well, prepare for yet another possible apocalypse because, they say, Nibiru is once again heading this way - and will be here soon.

A Bit of History

The story of the Anunnaki is told in Sitchin`s many books and is digested, augmented and speculated about in dozens of websites. But the tale is essentially this: About 450,000 years ago, Alalu, the deposed ruler of the Anunnaki on Nibiru, escaped the planet on a spaceship and found refuge on Earth. He discovered that Earth had plenty of gold, which Nibiru needed to protect its diminishing atmosphere. They began to mine Earth`s gold, and there were a lot of political battles among the Anunnaki for power. Then around 300,000 years or so ago, the Anunnaki decided to C R E A T E a race of workers by genetically manipulating the primates on the planet. The result was homo sapiens - us. Eventually, rulership of the Earth was handed over to humans and the Anunnaki left, at least for the time being. Sitchin ties all this - and much more - into the stories of the first books of the Bible and the histories of other ancient cultures, especially Egyptian.

It`s an astonishing story, to say the least. Most historians, anthropologists and archeologists consider it all Sumerian myth, of course. But Sitchin`s work has C R E A T Ed a diehard cadre of believers and researchers who take the story at face value. And some of them, whose ideas are getting widespread attention thanks to the Internet, contend that the return of Nibiru is close at hand - possibly as soon as somewhere between 2003 and 2013!

Even mainstream astronomers have long speculated that there may be an unknown planet - a Planet X - somewhere out beyond the orbit of Pluto that would account for the anomalies they were detecting in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. Some unseen body seems to be tugging at them. The finding was reported in the June 19, 1982 edition of the New York Times:


Something out there beyond the furthest reaches of the known solar system is tugging at Uranus and Neptune. A gravitational force keeps perturbing the two giant planets, causing irregularities in their orbits. The force suggests a presence far away and unseen, a large object, the long-sought Planet X. Astronomers are so certain of this planet`s existence that they have already named it "Planet X - the 10th Planet."
The anomalous body was first spotted in 1983 by IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite), according to news stories. The Washington Post reported: "A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite. So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, a nearby `protostar` that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that it is still in the process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the light cast by its stars ever gets through."

Nibiru supporters contend that IRAS has, in fact, spotted the wandering planet.

"A Mystery Revolves Around the Sun," an article posted by MSNBC on October 7, 1999 said: "Two teams of researchers have proposed the existence of an unseen planet or a failed star circling the sun at a distance of more than 2 trillion miles, far beyond the orbits of the nine known planets... Planetary scientist at Britain`s Open University, speculates that the object could be a planet larger than Jupiter." And in December, 2000, SpaceDaily reported on "Another Candidate For `Planet X` Spotted."

Another article and photo appeared in Discovery News: "Large Object Discovered Orbiting Sun." The article, published in July, 2001, says, "The discovery of a large reddish chunk of something orbiting in Pluto`s neighborhood has re-ignited the idea that there may be more than nine planets in the solar system." Naming it 2001 KX76. the discoverers estimate that it is smaller than our Moon and might have an elongated orbit, but they gave no indication that it was heading this way.

Mark Hazelwood, who has a large website warning about the impending arrival of Nibiru and how we should prepare for it, suggests that all of these news stories lend credence to the existence of the Anunnaki`s Nibiru (although none of the articles said the celestial body was heading toward Earth). But Hazelwood says his research indicates that Nibiru will be here in the Spring of 2003, though he isn`t specific about how he arrived at that precise time period. This website about Planet X narrows it down even further to "late Spring or early Summer of 2003, probably May or June," although they don`t specify their reasoning either.

Andy Lloyd isn`t as pessimistic - or at least his calculations are different. Since he speculates that Nibiru was actually the Star of Bethlehem seen about 2,000 years ago, "the problem faced by humanity as Nibiru again enters the planetary zone will fall to our descendants 50 generations hence."

But Kent Steadman at the Sentinal section of Cyberspaceorbit.com is tracking Nibiru based on the Spring/Summer 2003 scenario and offers several star charts, timetables and other illustrations that show where Planet X will supposedly cross the inner solar system.

What Will Be the Effects on Earth?

As stated before, the gravitational pull of a planet entering the inner solar system would have profound effects on the other orbiting bodies, including Earth. In fact, the Anunnaki story says that a previous appearance of Nibiru was responsible for the "Great Flood" recorded in Genesis, in which nearly all life on our planet was extinguished (but saved, thanks to Noah). Going even further back, some researchers into this topic suspect that Nibiru once even collided with Earth millions of years ago, creating the asteroid belt and resulting in the enormous gouges in our planet that the oceans now fill.

Mark Hazelwood and others say that Earth is in for some massive and catastrophic changes as Nibiru approaches. Floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, a pole shift and other natural disasters will be so severe, Hazelwood says, that "only a few hundred million people will survive." Another site says the gravitational pull of Nibiru might even stop the Earth`s rotation for three days, citing the "three days of darkness" predicted in the Bible.

Some of the Nibiru researchers also cite the prophecies of Edgar Cayce who predicted that we would soon suffer monumental Earth changes and a pole shift, even though he did not attribute them to anything as specific as a visiting planet. And, of course, the much-analyzed Mayan calendar is said to set the "end of world" in December, 2012.

Astronomers and other scientists who would seem to be in a position to know such things have made no announcements about the approach of any planet-sized body. Apparently, they have not detected anything of the kind. Those who believe Nibiru is approaching, however, say that scientists do know all about it and are just covering it up.

As with any such predictions, time will tell.