The spacecraft was about to enter the outermost reaches of our solar system.
They'd aimed toward Pluto, which lives in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt.
Just before arriving at the dwarf planet, the team noticed an object nearby. And it was acting very strange.
NASA: "Never a Straight Answer"
This object, whatever it was, was spinning faster than everything else around it, too fast, artificially fast. And the object reflected light in an odd way.
New Horizons changed course to do a fly-by. They wanted a better look at this bizarre behavior.
But as the spacecraft approached the object, all communications went down. NASA wasn't able to see or hear anything.
The New Horizons spacecraft suddenly put itself into safe mode.
But nothing was broken.
Something or someone was blocking the signal.
Whoever it was did not want NASA to know they were here.
And that they’ve been watching us for a very long time.
SPONSOR: Thanks to Huel for sponsoring this video. Start eating healthier with Huel HERE: my.huel.com/thewhyfilesoctober. Huel Instant Meals is brand new! The delicious new Huel Instant Meals are nutritionally complete vegan meals packed with rice, quinoa, vegetables, herbs, and spices. It’s ready in under 5 minutes and it contains a balance of carbs, protein, fats, fiber, and all 27 [of the 92] essential vitamins and minerals. First time ordering Huel? Claim FREE Huel T-shirt at checkout. All first orders of at least 3 bags of Instant Meals include a FREE pot and scoop.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:
Gino Gentile
Jennifer Gentile
AJ Gentile
Patreon Members
THANKS, MODS:
jengen13 (Mrs. Why Files)
Victoria Young
Loolykins
Hybrid
Paul Rohrbaugh
Mischief
Kiam
Timothy Weal
Messor
SnowCrash
RobinSparkles
BeezySmeezy
Pathos
TrashPanda
Original Jim. The Why Files theme lyrics by @straightjacketspaceman9223
Arvin Ash, 12/22; Secrets of U, 4/22; Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Black holes are even weirder than thought
(Arvin Ash) SUMMARY: Karl Schwarzschild crafted the first exact solution to Einstein's equations of general relativity. He found that as gravity increased around an object, there must be a point where even light could not escape.
Genius Einstein had regard for Buddhism?
He theorized black holes.
Stars are in a balance between gravity trying to collapse it inward, and energy of fusion in its core which pushes outward. But when large stars run out of fuel, gravity causes it to collapse.
If the star is massive enough, this results in a supernova. A black hole remains in the center of the debris, if the collapsed core has a mass of 2 to 3 times the mass of our sun.
In a black hole, general relativity says all its mass is collapsed into an infinitesimally small volume, called a singularity. A singularity has all its mass in zero volume of space, thus it has infinite density.
But infinities usually mean errors in math, so singularities may not be real.
The singularity is enclosed by a boundary, the event horizon, within which the curvature of spacetime is so strong that light cannot escape. #blackhole#eventhorizon
CHAPTERS
0:00 Karl Schwarzschild theorizes black holes
1:58 Inspiration for this video
3:16 How black holes form
5:28 What is the event horizon? 7:25
How time flows near and inside a black hole
9:57 How can black holes be so bright if no light escapes?
11:34 How do we detect black holes if we can't see them?
12:29 Can life form on a planet orbiting a black hole?
The radius of this sphere is called the Schwarzschild radius. Since no light can escape from the event horizon, anything inside, including the singularity, can’t be directly seen. Anything that crosses into this horizon is swallowed forever [or no time at all, or for two Tuesdays, or we have no objective idea].
For this reason, black holes are considered the of edge of space, a one-way exit from our universe.
The size of a black hole is defined by its event horizon and is very small. If the sun were a black hole, it would be a sphere 6 km or 4 miles wide, and earth would be the size of a ping pong ball.
As you get closer to the event horizon, the flow of time slows, compared to flow of time from a point far away from it.
From the perspective of an observer far from the black hole, time stops completely at the event horizon. General relativity still works inside it but not at the singularity.
According to relativity, time and space trade places inside the black hole. Relativity predicts that time gets destroyed at the singularity. So a black hole is like the "reverse of creation."
Whatever is inside the event horizon is causally disconnected from us. It remains forever in the future. Whatever is inside hasn't happened yet from our perspective.
Since no light can escape, we can only “see” black holes indirectly because of the way their gravity affects stars and pulls matter into orbit.
As gas flows around some black holes, it heats up, paradoxically making them some of the brightest things in the universe.
But most black holes don’t have accretion discs, so they are not easily seen. Other methods have to be used to find them.
The supermassive black hole near the center of our Milky way galaxy called Saggitarious A* was found because of the tight orbits of stars we COULD see orbiting it.
Black holes are [now thought] rather common. Scientists estimate that a new black hole is formed in our universe every second [because this is a multiverse after all].
There are an estimated 100 million black holes [or zero] floating around in the Milky Way. So for every 1,000 stars we can see in the sky, there is a black hole among them that we can’t see.
The gravitational gradient around a black hole is so steep that it allows for MILLIONS of potential orbiting planets around them, whereas a regular stars can only support a fraction of that.
The maximum theoretical number of Earth-like planets that could exist around our Sun in the habitable zone is six. Replace our Sun with a black hole a million times its mass but about the same size and 550 Earth-size planets could orbit in the same region without bumping into each other.
A black hole’s gravity is so dominant, it negates how planets disrupt each other, and that allows for far more stable orbits to exist.
It is possible that a planet around a black hole could support life.
Black holes last much longer than our sun, 10^84 years vs 10^10 years. They are going to be around for a long time, after the all the stars have died out, and the universe goes dark [again in this cyclical process as explained in Buddhist cosmology].
Claim SPECIAL OFFER for MagellanTV here: try.magellantv.com/arvinash. Start FREE trial today to watch “The Most Powerful Black Holes in the Universe" about the extremes of time and space and the rest of MagellanTV’s science collection: magellantv.com/watch/the-...
Einstein Questions, Buddha Answers
This thought-provoking book (Einstein Questions, Buddha Answers) uses Einstein’s interest in wanting to find the absolute ruling point in nature and his quest for the theory of everything as the basis to connect with the Buddha’s wisdom regarding the existence of the ultimate, which he called "Nirvana." The author's prime duty is to help understand that this ultimate, absolute, unconditioned element has everything to do with each of us, intimately and significantly.
This is reflected in the contents of the book: finding our true "self" [in an impersonal universe], the state of a normal mind, the final frontier, and so on.
It also reveals the nature of the ultimate truth by connecting it with neutral terms such as "here and now," "truth and reality," and "the innocent perception."
No one, no idea, no concept, no theory, no solution can be called "perfect"; things can only be as perfect as they can be in relation to time and space.
Even the absolute truth is within the realm of constant movement [impermanence]. So even a fully enlightened person is not perfect; the perfection of an arhat (a fully enlightened/liberated person) is strictly in the relative sense.
We merely learn how to live in harmony with change if we know the ultimate truth.
Stunning PLUTO images show something unusual going on there
(The Secrets of the Universe) Pluto is an icy world that was once considered the ninth planet of the solar system. It's so far away that ground-based telescopes can hardly reveal any surface images of the dwarf planet.
Hence, Pluto remained a mystery for several decades after its discovery.
[NOTE: Never mind the terrible CGI that conceals real images.]
In 2006, NASA launched the New Horizons probe to study Pluto, which was still considered the ninth planet.
New Horizons reached Pluto after more than nine years and became the first spacecraft to fly by the far-flung world.
It [allegedly] sent back stunning images of the dwarf planet that revealed striking details of its surface.
Although New Horizons has now crossed the mark of 50 AU ("astronomical units") from Earth, data from the space probe is still being analyzed after six years of the Pluto flyby. And now research has shown that Pluto is not as calm as it seems. It is covered with ice volcanoes and the icy body might harbor liquid-water ocean underneath its surface.
In the fifth episode of the Sunday Discoveries Series, let's learn about the discovery of ice volcanoes on Pluto in detail.
(TheRichest.com) Top 10 amazing new discoveries that can re-write the pages of history.
When it comes to history, recent discoveries prove that time and time again history is being rewritten.
As we grow and evolved as a species, one of the first things we have to acknowledge is that we don’t have all of the answers. Even though inventions have greatly assisted us in research, we aren’t right 100% of the time.
Regardless of whether we are correct in our research and theories about the past, it doesn’t stop the educational system from teaching the latest information at the time. But once a contradicting fact is released, the textbooks and history books have to be rewritten. They are not for a long time.
FEATURING: Stonehenge, UFOs at Area 51, the Buddha’s Birthday, Ardi the first "human," the discovery of Australia, space water, Jamestown, the other planet in our solar system Eris, ancient spiritual site Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the bones of England's Richard III.
The Buddha wasn't born in Nepal
It is an odd thing to think about in terms of rewriting our history. It is also a good indicator to remind us that nothing is ever set in stone. For example, for decades it was thought that Stonehenge was a remote location that was dedicated to mysteries and magic. But archaeological digs on the site are now discovering that Stonehenge was closer to civilization than previously thought, thus forcing historians to reconsider what Stonehenge was actually used for.
It was once believed that James Cook discovered (i.e., Columbusing) the country of Australia in 1770. This "fact" has been cemented into history books and is "common knowledge" for most Eurocentric people around the world. However, a soldier discovered a set of coins in 1944, and they were sent to a museum in 1979 with a map indicating the location where the coins were found with an X. Once historians looked more closely at the coins, it was discovered that they dated back between 900-1300. This means that James Cook could NOT have discovered Australia, not by a long shot.
One of the most popular stories in our last decade was when Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet. People couldn’t comprehend the change or accept that Pluto is no longer a major planet in our solar system. This is all thanks to the discovery of the dwarf planet Eris, which is bigger than Pluto. Petitions and debates still continue as to whether to reinstate Pluto as a planet, and hopefully the mystery and question will be answered in the next few years. But until then, those textbooks from pre-1990 are pretty much useless.
(Michael Cremo) The Hidden History of the Human Race January 2015
Non-human skulls are ignored by science.
An amazing updated chat with Michael Cremo about Extreme Human
Antiquity. Incredible evidence points to a much different and far older origin of the human race than currently presented through the well-funded mainstream Darwinian
model. Over the past two centuries, archaeologists have found bones,
footprints, and artifacts showing that humans like ourselves have
existed on earth for many millions of years. But many scientists have
forgotten or ignored these remarkable facts. Why? “In connection with
the California gold mine discoveries we find not only evidence for
extreme human antiquity but also evidence illuminating the processes by
which dominant groups in science exclude controversial facts from
scientific discussion and public attention. These processes, which I
collectively refer to as the “knowledge filter,” are a powerful factor
in removing certain kinds of evidence from scientific discourse and
research. Because of the very effective knowledge filtering efforts of
Holmes, Sinclair, and other scientists in the late nineteenth century
and the early twentieth century, the California gold mine discoveries
from Table Mountain are hardly known today.” – Michael Cremo The
Nineteenth Century California Gold Mine Discoveries: Archeology,
Darwinism, and Evidence for Extreme Human Antiquity. (modernknowledge.ca/michael...)
Speaking of planets, it was believed for the longest time that life couldn’t exist on any other planet besides Earth. But when the Mars Rover discovered evidence of not only water, but traces of life, scientists had to go back and revisit the history books and scientific journals. If Mars has water, then it means that life can potentially be supported on the red planet. What does this mean for the future of the human race? Perhaps, should the Earth no longer be habitable, there are other options out there to ensure our survival.
There are more discoveries where this came from. If anything, these discoveries all prove that nothing is ever set in stone because history can change in an instant.
(NASA.gov) After zooming into base of the heart-shaped feature on Pluto to
highlight a new image captured by NASA's New Horizons, the image seen in black and white against a previously released color image of
Pluto shows a mountain range with peaks jutting as high as 11,000 feet
(3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy dwarf planet.
This is one of the biggest days in the exploration of our solar system since Voyager 2 approached Neptune in 1989 -- and there may not be a day like it again. According to NASA's calculations, its New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto at 31,000 mph at 7:49 am EDT today; confirmation of that will come tonight, some 13 hours later, reports the AP.
The confirmation will mark the completion of NASA's tour of the "classical nine" planets, reports the AP, which notes that Pluto was considered a full-fledged planet instead of a dwarf one when the probe began its journey in 2006. Some things to know about the historic flyby, which comes 50 years to the day after the first successful flyby of Mars, are:
New Horizons will have to capture a vast amount of data in a short time. The probe will be pushed to its limits as it pivots to capture photos and information on Pluto and its moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra during the flyby. "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," principal New Horizons scientist Alan Stern tells the BBC.
We don't know whether it was a success. The probe is far too busy to "phone home," the AP notes, but it's expected to send a confirmation signal at around 9:00 pm tonight [July 14, 2015]. The eagerly awaited first photos from the flyby should be released tomorrow night, The Guardian reports, though it will take 16 months to send all the data from the flyby back to Earth. More
Icy mountains of living Pluto
Tricia Talbert, NASA.gov, July 15, 2015
New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant
surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet
(3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.
The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago --
mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar
system -- and may still be in the process of building, says Geology,
Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team leader Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, California.. That suggests the
close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface,
may still be geologically active today.
Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack
of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would
presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and
would have once been heavily cratered -- unless recent activity had
given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.
“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.
Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by
gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other
process must be generating the mountainous landscape. More
U.S. travels 3 billion miles to come within 7,800 miles of planet-like Pluto (LATimes)
The sky (akasha, "space") is FULL of complex intelligent life in Buddhist cosmology.
Provided by NASA/Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics
Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute shows Pluto, right, and its
moon, Charon, from the New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager
(LORRI) combined with lower-resolution color information from the
spacecraft's Ralph instrument (NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI via AP).
It's showtime for Pluto; prepare to be amazed by NASA flyby
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - Pluto, reveal thyself, and Earthlings, enjoy the show.
On Tuesday, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will sweep past Pluto and present the previously unexplored world in all its icy glory. It promises to be the biggest planetary unveiling in a quarter-century. The curtain hasn't been pulled back like this since NASA's Voyager 2 shed light on Neptune in 1989.
Now it's little Pluto's turn to shine way out on the frigid fringes of our solar system. New Horizons has traveled 3 billion miles over 9½ years to get to this historic point. The fastest spacecraft ever launched, it carries the most powerful suite of science instruments ever sent on a scouting and reconnaissance mission of a new, unfamiliar world.
Pretending to scour space: Planetfinder is sent out when other arms of the government know full well that there are other worlds and life and culture on them (msnbc.msn.com).
Guarantees principal scientist Alan Stern, "We're going to knock your socks off." The size of a baby grand piano, the spacecraft will come closest to Pluto on Tuesday morning -- at 7:49 am EDT. That's when New Horizons is predicted to pass within 7,767 miles of Pluto. Fourteen minutes later, the spacecraft will zoom within 17,931 miles of Charon, Pluto's jumbo moon.
For the plutophiles among us, it will be cause to celebrate, especially for those gathered at the operations center at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The lab designed and built the spacecraft for NASA, and has been managing its roundabout route through the solar system.
"What NASA's doing with New Horizons is unprecedented in our time and probably something close to the last train to Clarksville, the last picture show, for a very, very long time," says Stern, a planetary scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
It is the last stop in NASA's quest to explore every planet in our solar system, starting with Venus in 1962. And in a cosmic coincidence, the Pluto visit falls on the 50th anniversary of the first-ever flyby of Mars, by Mariner 4.
Yes, we all know Pluto is no longer an official planet, merely a dwarf, but it still enjoyed full planet status when New Horizons rocketed from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 19, 2006. Pluto's demotion came just seven months later, a sore subject still for many.
"We're kind of running the anchor leg with Pluto to finish the relay," Stern says. The sneak peeks of Pluto in recent weeks are getting "juicier and juicier," says Johns Hopkins project scientist Hal Weaver. "The science team is just drooling over these pictures."
The Hubble Space Telescope previously captured the best pictures of Pluto. If the pixelated blobs of pictures had been of Earth, though, not even the continents would have been visible. The New Horizons team is turning "a point of light into a planet," Stern says. More
Plutonium and uranium cores and fuel rods at three world-class nuclear power plants are melting down in Japan like Chernobyl (Russia) and Three Mile Island (USA) did in the past. Meanwhile, Obama joins Republicans to build more nuclear power plants in US.
SOMA, Japan (HuffPost) – The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of [radiactive] smoke into the air and wounding 6 workers. The plant's operator said radiation levels at the reactor were still within legal limits.
The explosion at the plant's Unit 3, which authorities have been frantically trying to cool following a system failure in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami, triggered an order for hundreds of people to stay indoors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. More>>
Fukushima "worse than Three Mile Island" PARIS - The Fukushima nuclear accident is "worse than Three Mile Island but not as great as Chernobyl," Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of France's safety agency...
Artist’s impression of how the surface of Pluto might look according to new atmospheric study. The image shows patches of pure methane on the surface (ESO/L. Calçada).
Spacecraft Hits Midpoint on Flight to Pluto Feb. 26, 2010
A NASA spacecraft speeding across the solar system has officially covered half the distance of its trip to Pluto and its moons. On Thursday, NASA's New Horizons probe zoomed past the 1.48 billion-mile (2.39 billion-km) mark, completing half the travel distance between Earth in 2006, when it launched, and where Pluto will be when the spacecraft arrives in July 2015.
"From here on out, we're on approach to an encounter with the Pluto system," said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "The second half of the journey begins."
New Horizons has been billed as NASA's fastest mission to visit another world. It is zooming across the solar system at about 36,000 mph (nearly 58,000 kph). Next month, it will cross the orbit of Uranus.
The spacecraft is headed to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its three moons — Nix, Hydra and Charon. New Horizons will not stop and orbit Pluto. Instead, it will record detailed observations during a flyby and then head out into the Kuiper Belt on the edge of the solar system to study the icy objects lurking in that cosmic realm.
Thursday's distance marker is the latest in a string of mission milestones for New Horizons. In December 2009, the probe hit its first waypoint directly between the sun and Pluto's location. On April 20, the spacecraft will be at the midpoint between the sun and where Pluto will be in 2015.
On Oct. 17, New Horizons will have completed the first half of its decade-long trip, by flight time. Pluto is an oddball world that was discovered 80 years ago this month by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. In 2006, it was downgraded from a planet to dwarf planet.
HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in today on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place. European researchers said they not only found the smallest "exoplanet" ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.
"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.
An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary."
Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth — while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.
Gliese 581 e sits close to the nearest star, making it too hot to support life. Still, Mayor said its discovery in a solar system 20 1/2 light years away from Earth is a "good example that we are progressing in the detection of Earth-like planets."
Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the "habitable zone" — a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mayor said.
He spoke at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.
Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said, adding it was possible the planet had a "large and deep" ocean.
"It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate," Udry said.
Mayor's main planet-hunting competitor, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, praised the find of Gliese 581 e as "the most exciting discovery" so far of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system.
"This discovery is absolutely extraordinary," Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets.
While Gliese 581 e is too hot for life "it shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers," Marcy commented. "Surely the galaxy contains tens of billions of planets like the small, Earth-mass one announced here."
Nearly 350 planets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one of them was found to be extremely unlikely to harbor life.
Most were too close or too far from their sun, making them too hot or too cold for life. Others were too big and likely to be uninhabitable gas giants like Jupiter. Those that are too small are highly difficult to detect in the first place.
Both Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e are located in constellation Libra and orbit around Gliese 581.
Like other planets circling that star — scientists have discovered four so far — Gliese 581 e was found using the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile.
The telescope has a special instrument which splits light to find wobbles in different wavelengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.
"It is great work and shows the potential of this detection method," said Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. ___
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington.
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
