>100 Explosions Recorded on the Moon (Are we at war with Aliens?)

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Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under “L” … for lunatic.

Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times.

“They’re explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon,” explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). “A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope.”

The impactor was a tiny fragment of extinct comet 2003 EH1. Every year in early January, the Earth-Moon system passes through a stream of debris from that comet, producing the well-known Quadrantid meteor shower. Here on Earth, Quadrantids disintegrate as flashes of light in the atmosphere; on the airless Moon they hit the ground and explode.

“We started our monitoring program in late 2005 after NASA announced plans to return astronauts to the Moon,” says team leader Rob Suggs of the MSFC. If people were going to be walking around up there, “it seemed like a good idea to measure how often the Moon was getting hit.”

“Almost immediately, we detected a flash.”

That first detection — “I’ll never forget it,” he says — came on Nov. 7, 2005, when a piece of Comet Encke about the size of a baseball hit Mare Imbrium. The resulting explosion produced a 7th magnitude flash, too dim for the naked eye but an easy target for the team’s 10-inch telescope.

A common question, says Cooke, is “how can something explode on the Moon? There’s no oxygen up there.”

These explosions don’t require oxygen or combustion. Meteoroids hit the moon with tremendous kinetic energy, traveling 30,000 mph or faster. “At that speed, even a pebble can blast a crater several feet wide. The impact heats up rocks and soil on the lunar surface hot enough to glow like molten lava — hence the flash.”

During meteor showers such as the Quadrantids or Perseids, when the Moon passes through dense streams of cometary debris, the rate of lunar flashes can go as high as one per hour. Impacts subside when the Moon exits the stream, but curiously the rate never goes to zero.

“Even when no meteor shower is active, we still see flashes,” says Cooke.

These “off-shower” impacts come from a vast swarm of natural space junk littering the inner solar system. Bits of stray comet dust and chips off old asteroids pepper the Moon in small but ultimately significant numbers. Earth gets hit, too, which is why on any given night you can stand under a dark sky and see a few meteors per hour glide overhead — no meteor shower required. Over the course of a year, these random or “sporadic” impacts outnumber impacts from organized meteor showers by a ratio of approximately 2:1.

“That’s an important finding,” says Suggs. “It means there’s no time of year when the Moon is impact-free.”

Fortunately, says Cooke, astronauts are in little danger. “The odds of a direct hit are negligible. If, however, we start building big lunar outposts with lots of surface area, we’ll have to carefully consider these statistics and bear in mind the odds of a structure getting hit.”

Secondary impacts are the greater concern. When meteoroids strike the Moon, debris goes flying in all directions. A single meteoroid produces a spray consisting of thousands of “secondary” particles all traveling at bullet-like velocities. This could be a problem because, while the odds of a direct hit are low, the odds of a secondary hit may be significantly greater. “Secondary particles smaller than a millimeter could pierce a spacesuit,” notes Cooke.

At present, no one knows how far and wide secondary particles travel. To get a handle on the problem, Cooke, Suggs and colleagues are shooting artificial meteoroids at simulated moon dust and measuring the spray. This work is being done at the Vertical Gun Range at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA.

Meanwhile, back at the observatory, the team has upgraded their original 10-inch (25 cm) telescope to a pair of telescopes, one 14-inch (36 cm) and one 20-inch (51 cm), located at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. They’ve also established a new observing site in Georgia with a 14-inch telescope. Multiple telescopes allow double- and triple-checking of faint flashes and improve the statistical underpinnings of the survey.

“The Moon is still flashing,” says Suggs. Indeed, during the writing of this story, three more impacts were detected, bringing the total to 103. – space

>Supernova sighting leaves astronomers agog

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The death of a star has been witnessed as it occurred for the first time, a remarkable observation that will lead to new insights into this cataclysmic cosmic process, writes Science Editor Roger Highfield.

Galaxies typically host a supernova – star death – only once or twice every century, making it nearly impossible to capture the instant it starts to spew energy into space, briefly shining brighter than billions of stars combined.

But the lucky glimpse by a satellite of the spectacular outburst from the very beginning has allowed astronomers from around the world to quickly follow up with eight other orbiting and ground-based telescopes and collect a wealth of new information on what happens when a star is blown to smithereens.

“We usually only get to see them a good few days after they exploded, usually when they go bright at optical wavelengths,” says Dr Kim Page, University of Leicester, one of the team that reports the discovery today in the journal Nature.

But this time they could pick up a tell- tale burst of X rays, which occurs at the outset of star death. Thanks to a satellite, “we got on to it in nine seconds,” says Dr Page, who led the X-ray analysis.

“Now we have a much better idea of the star that exploded.”

This new supernova, named SN2008D, intrigues scientists because it is closer to Earth – at 90 million light years – than any type of supernova ever observed in the act of exploding, giving them the clearest picture ever of a star at the moment of its explosive death.

They can, for example, deduce that a thin outer layer of the star must have been ejected at velocities up to about 70 per cent the speed of light, much higher than ever thought.

Supernovae are explosions of stars more than eight times the mass of the Sun whose cores run out of nuclear fuel and collapse in on themselves to form a neutron star, an ultradense object, or a black hole.

During the conflagration one can think of the dying star as a leaky bottle containing light radiation. It turns out it is leakier when it comes to higher energy radiation – X rays – than the reds, greens and blues of optical light.

Previous X-ray observations of normal supernovae have been at later stages in the explosion, when stellar material collides with the surrounding envelope of gas and dust shed earlier by the star, generating high-energy radiation.

This is the first time a normal supernova has been glimpsed at the moment of “shock breakout,” when the shock wave rebounding from the collapsed core breaks though the star’s surface to produce a shower of X-rays.

Dr Paul O’Brien, also from Leicester, says, “understanding supernovae is important as these nuclear furnaces make the heavy elements from which planets like ours form.”

Astronomers were fortunate because when the star death occurred, on January 9, Nasa’s Swift satellite was already monitoring X-rays from another supernova in the same galaxy when the second one exploded. At the same time, astronomers and their colleagues were monitoring the first supernova from the ground and caught images of the new one only hours after the explosion.

“We were in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope on January 9th and witnessed history,” remarks Dr Alicia Soderberg of Princeton University.

“We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy, when the one now known as SN 2008D went off. We would have missed it if it weren’t for Swift’s real-time capabilities, wide field of view, and numerous instruments.

“This newly born supernova is going to be the Rosetta stone of supernova studies for years to come.”

Dr Soderberg adds that Swift and other planned X-ray satellites designed to scan the sky for such X-ray flashes should see hundreds more like this in the future, making all-wavelength, cradle-to-grave analyses of supernovae common.

“This first instance of catching the X-ray signature of stellar death is going to help us fill in a lot of gaps about the properties of massive stars, the birth of neutron stars and black holes, and the impact of supernovae on their environments,” said Dr Neil Gehrels, principal investigator of the Swift satellite.

“We also now know what X-ray pattern to look for. Hopefully we will be able to find many more supernovae at this critical moment.” – te

>Update: Congresswoman denies foreclosure report

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Update: California Rep. Laura Richardson today denied a published report that her $535,000 Sacramento home had slipped into foreclosure, saying she had renegotiated her loan to keep the home.

The house “… is not in foreclosure and has NOT been seized by the bank,” Richardson, a Democrat from Long Beach, said in a statement. “I have worked with my lender to complete a loan modification and have renegotiated the terms of the agreement — with no special provisions.” (Richardson’s entire statement is at the bottom of this article).

Earlier, Capitol Weekly reported that Richardson walked away from the mortgage on her $535,000 Sacramento home, letting the house slip into foreclosure and disrepair less than two years after she bought it with no money down.

“While being elevated to Congress in a 2007 special election, Richardson apparently stopped making payments on her new Sacramento home, and eventually walked away from it, leaving nearly $600,000 in unpaid loans and fees,” the publication reported.

Richardson declined to comment for the Capitol Weekly story. Her office issued a written statement Wednesday afternoon.

Capitol Weekly, citing tax records at the Sacramento County assessor’s office, reports “… in January 2007, Richardson took out a mortgage for the entire sale price of the house — $535,000. The mortgage amount was equal to the sale price of the home, meaning she was able to buy the house without a down payment, even though the housing market was beginning to turn. A March 19, 2008 notice of trustee’s sale indicates that the unpaid balance of Richardson’s loan, which is held by Washington Mutual, is more than $578,000 –- $40,000 more than the original mortgage.”

In addition to 100% financing on the home itself, the report quotes the woman who sold the house to Richardson as saying she also gave Richardson $15,000 toward closing costs.

The weekly reports that Richardson’s residence quickly became an eyesore, angering neighbors. The report says she recused herself on two key House votes on government efforts to address the foreclosure crisis.

Richardson’s statement, however, said she did not recuse herself from those votes, and was instead absent from the House. – lat

>Pentagon 9/11 Flight ‘Black Box’ Data File Created Before Actual ‘Black Box’ Was Recovered?

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A flight data file created by the downloaded Flight Data Recorder information of American Airlines flight 77 was created on Thursday, September 13, 2001 at 11:45pm.

However, as reported by USA Today, Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. George Rhynedance reported that the FDR for AA 77 was recovered on Friday, September 14, 2001 at 4am, 4 hours and 15 minutes after the creation of the AA 77 FDR data file.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Searchers on Friday found the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the hijacked plane that flew into the Pentagon and exploded, Department of Defense officials said. The two “black boxes,” crucial to uncovering details about the doomed flight’s last moments, were recovered at about 4 a.m., said Army Lt. Col. George Rhynedance, a Pentagon spokesman.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/14/pentagon-fire.htmThe AA 77 FDR file was contained within a May 2008 release obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request of the National Transportation Safety Board. –9b

>Tape of Air Traffic Controllers Made on 9/11 Was Destroyed

>Just ask “why?” regarding this undisputed strange fact and you can’t help but open the door to the 9/11 conspiracy.

At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording a few hours later describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said Thursday.

The taping began before noon on Sept. 11 at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., where about 16 people met in a basement conference room known as the Bat Cave and passed around a microphone, each recalling his or her version of the events of a few hours earlier. The recording included statements of 5 or 10 minutes each by controllers who had spoken by radio to people on the planes or who had tracked the aircraft on radar, the report said.

Officials at the center never told higher-ups of the tape’s existence, according to a report made public on Thursday by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.

A quality-assurance manager at the center destroyed the tape several months after it was made, crushing the cassette in his hand, cutting the tape into little pieces and dropping them in different trash cans around the building, according to the report. The tape had been made under an agreement with the union that it would be destroyed after it was superseded by written statements from the controllers, the report said.

The quality-assurance manager told investigators that he had destroyed the tape because he thought making it was contrary to Federal Aviation Administration policy, which calls for written statements, and because he felt that the controllers ”were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping” because of the stress of the day.

None of the officials or controllers were identified in the report.

The inspector general, Kenneth M. Mead, said that keeping the tape’s existence a secret, and then destroying it, did not ”serve the interests of the F.A.A., the department, or the public,” and would raise suspicions at a time of national crisis.

The value of the tape was not clear, Mr. Mead said, because no one was sure what was on it, although the written statements given later by five of the controllers were broadly consistent with ”sketchy” notes taken by people in the Bat Cave. (The sixth controller did not give a statement, apparently because that controller did not speak to either of the planes or observe them on radar.)

Mr. Mead had been asked by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, to look into how well the aviation agency had cooperated with the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. McCain said in a statement that he looked forward to ”appropriate disciplinary actions” and that he might investigate this matter further.

A spokesman for the 9/11 commission, Al Felzenberg, said Mr. Mead’s report was ”meticulous” and ”came through the efforts of a very conscientious senator.” Mr. Felzenberg said that the commission would not comment now on the content of the report, but that it ”does speak to some of the issues we’re interested in.”

The quality-assurance manager destroyed the tape sometime in December 2001, January 2002 or February 2002. By that time he and the center manager had received an e-mail message from the F.A.A. instructing officials to safeguard all records and adding, ”If a question arises whether or not you should retain data, RETAIN IT.”

The inspector general ascribed the destruction to ”poor judgment.”

An F.A.A. spokesman, Greg Martin, said that ”we have taken appropriate disciplinary action” against the quality-assurance manager. – nytimes

>Slavery Today: A Clear and Present Danger

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Slavery never ended in the United States; it continues here and across the globe, facilitated by globalization, corruption and greed. There are more people enslaved today – controlled by violence and forced to work without pay – than at any time in human history.

Experts put the number of slaves at 27 million worldwide. These men and women work across many sectors of the global economy, raking in profits for the criminals who hold them against their will. The US State Department estimates that 17,500 slaves are brought into the United States every year. An estimated 50,000 slaves are forced to work as prostitutes, farm workers and domestic servants in the US.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain recently mentioned domestic slavery during a stump speech. He pledged to establish a task force to coordinate various federal law enforcement agencies to target human trafficking – the process of smuggling slaves between countries. However, the Think Progress blog pointed out that such an agency already exists. Shortly after the speech, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Damien LaVera pointed out in an email that McCain had complained about and voted against a $200,000 earmark intended to fund a conference on human trafficking in 2001. “Once again McCain’s earmark obsession conflicts with his campaign rhetoric,” Lavera wrote.

McCain’s campaign failed to return repeated calls for comment on the issue.

This was the first mention of modern slavery on the campaign trail. Little attention has been paid to the issue by the media, with stories about isolated incidents of slavery in other countries occasionally making headlines. However, international activists and scholars have been leading a movement to eradicate global slavery.

Free The Slaves, an organization founded by acclaimed human rights activist and scholar Kevin Bales, works on the front lines of slavery to find, rescue and rehabilitate slaves. – to

>Lobbying for Armageddon

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Some influential evangelical leaders are lobbying for an attack on Iran. But it’s not about geopolitics — it’s about bringing about the End Times.

Rev. John Hagee, a leading cheerleader for the countdown to Armageddon.

In a perfect world, a reporter at last week’s press conference with George Bush and Tony Blair would have asked Bush, in the presence of his principal European ally, if he believes the European Union is the Antichrist.

Although it sounds like the kind of Pat Robertson lunacy that makes even the wingnuts run for the nearest exit, it’s a question Bush should be forced to answer. Bush and other leading Republicans have lined up behind a growing movement of Christian Zionists for whom a European Antichrist figures prominently in an end-times scenario. So they should be forced to explain to the rest of us why they’re courting the votes of people who believe our allies are evil incarnate. Could it be that the central requirement for their breathlessly anticipated Armageddon — that the United States confront Iran — happens to dovetail so nicely with the neoconservative war agenda?

At the center of it all is Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book’s publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause “a political earthquake.” – in

>Clinton campaign’s new strategy … vote for Chelsea in 2016

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The souvenir vendors outside Hillary Clinton’s campaign appearances have added a new badge to their wares that reads “Chelsea in 2016” with a picture of the former first daughter.

Attention, whether from badge sellers or the national media, is leaving the fading presidential candidacy of Senator Hillary Clinton behind as the former front-runner faces what most see as impossible odds to win the Democratic nomination.

Now in the spotlight is her rival, fellow Senator Barack Obama, who has solidified his lead among Democrats and is setting his sights on Republican candidate John McCain in the November election.

While Mr Obama and Mr McCain spar – the two clashed this week over whether the United States should talk to leaders of hostile nations – Mrs Clinton’s struggle to collect votes in Florida that were cast months ago but invalidated feels like a sideshow.

Mr Obama’s milestone victory in Oregon on Tuesday that gave him a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic nominating convention graced front pages of U.S. newspapers.

Mrs Clinton’s simultaneous victory in Kentucky, which did little to close her gap with Mr Obama, was a much smaller story.

“The shrinking candidacy of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton all but vanished from the television set,” wrote The New York Times. – dm

>Gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules

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High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.

T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.

“This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”
And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm.

“We’ve been using them quite a bit,” he said.

Brother Robert Raymond added, “It’s the way of the future.” – az

>Officials Had No Right To Take Polygamists’ Kids, Court Rules

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A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered “legally and factually insufficient” grounds for the “extreme” measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.

The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.

It also failed to show evidence that more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.

It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents. The ruling gave Texas District Judge Barbara Walther 10 days to vacate her custody order, and the state could appeal.

FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said sect members feel validated, having argued from the beginning that they were being persecuted for their beliefs.

“They’re very thrilled. They’re looking forward to seeing the children returned,” he said.

The appellate decision technically applies only to 38 of the roughly 200 parents who challenged the seizure. But their lawyer, Julie Balovich of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said she expected attorneys for all the other parents to seek to join the ruling.

“It’s a great day for Texas justice. This was the right decision,” said Balovich, who was joined by several smiling mothers who nonetheless declined to comment at a news conference outside the courthouse here.

Every child at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado was taken into state custody more than six weeks ago, after Child Protective Services officials argued that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and groomed boys to become adult perpetrators. Only a few dozen of the roughly 440 children seized are teenage girls; half were under 5.

The appeals court said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that the state couldn’t take all the children from a community on the notion that some parents in the community might be abusers.

“The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger,” the court said in its ruling.

The court said that although five girls had become pregnant at age 15 or 16, the state gave no evidence about the circumstances of the pregnancies. It noted that minors as young as 16 can wed in Texas with parental consent, and even younger children can marry if a court approves it.

Balovich said the appeals court “has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together.”

CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said department attorneys had just received the ruling and would make any decision about an appeal later.

“We are trying to assess the impact that this may have on our case,” he said.

Even before Thursday’s ruling, the state’s allegations of teenage girls being pushed into sex appeared to be deflating.

Of the 31 sect members CPS once said were underage mothers, 15 have been reclassified as adults — one was 27 years old — and an attorney for a 14-year-old girl said in court that she had no children and was not pregnant, as officials previously asserted.

Five judges in San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, have been hearing CPS’s plans for the parents seeking to regain custody. Those hearings, which began Monday, were suspended after the appellate ruling Thursday.

The custody case has been chaotic from the beginning. The hearing in which Walther ruled that the children should all enter state custody ran two days.

Hundreds of lawyers crammed into a courtroom and nearby auditorium, queuing up to voice objections or ask questions on behalf of the mothers who were there in their trademark prairie dresses and braided hair.

CPS has struggled with even the identities of the children for weeks and scattered them across foster facilities all over the sprawling state, with some siblings separated by as much as 600 miles.

The sect children were removed en masse during a raid that began April 3 after someone called a domestic abuse hot line claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Members contend they are being persecuted by state officials for their religious beliefs. – kutv