Climate change is not just earth bound

By measuring the temperature of the gas present between galaxies, using quasar light that was more than ten billion years old by the time it reached Earth, astronomers have found evidence of a climate change  in our Universe. In the beginning the Universe went through a warming trend which was  caused by the huge amount of energy output from young, active galaxies. The vast majority of matter was not in stars or galaxies University of Cambridge astronomer George Becker explains but was spread out in a very thin gas that filled up all of space. Just as Earth's climate can be studied from ice cores and tree rings, the quasar light contains a record of the climate history of the cosmos. There is a connection between temperature, time and expansion of the Universe. As the cosmos expands, the gas should get colder and the Universe is expected to cool down over time. "The likely culprits in this intergalactic warming are the quasars themselves", explains fellow team member Martin Haehnelt, who is also at Cambridge University's newly-established Kavli Institute for Cosmology.  "Over the period of cosmic history studied by the team, quasars were becoming much more common.  These objects, which are thought to be giant black holes swallowing up material in the centres of galaxies, emit huge amounts of energetic ultraviolet light.  These UV rays would have interacted with the intergalactic gas, creating the rise in temperature we observed." "One of the lightest and most abundant elements in these intergalactic clouds, helium, played a vital role in the heating process.  Ultraviolet light stripped the electrons from a helium atom, freeing the electrons to collide with other atoms and heat up the gas.  Once the supply of fresh helium was exhausted, the universe started to cool down again. Astronomers believe this probably occurred after the cosmos was one quarter of its present age."

Did you know?

A molecule called fulvalene diruthenium can store and release heat on demand, in effect making it possible to produce a "rechargeable heat battery" that can repeatedly store and release heat gathered from sunlight or other sources.
I want one!

Way to go Jetman

Yves Rossy, the Swiss adventurer who has flown across the English Channel using a winged jet-pack, pulled off another exploit on Friday, flying two aerial loops in a new version of his invention. Rossy, who was testing a new, more aerodynamic model of the jet-pack, jumped from a hot-air balloon at 2400 metres and performed the stunt during an 18-minute flight before making a parachute landing."He flew a few minutes to stabilise his wing and find the optimal angle to begin two loopings," said a statement on his website, www.jetman.com.Rossy, 51, said his new model of the jet-pack, which has a two-metre wingspan instead of the 2.5-metre model and no unfoldable parts, was both more aerodynamic and stable.He designed it along with Swiss collaborators, the RUAG Company."It was fantastic," Rossy said in comments posted on the website after the test flight, which was carried out in the skies above the Swiss canton of Vaud."The flight went well, despite a little problem when starting my engines. I was able to do my two loopings and I am very happy."The Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes reported that Rossy had not, however, gone through with an initial plan to fly a complete circuit of the hot-air balloon for "technical and security reasons".In September 2008 Rossy, whose jet-pack can reach speeds of about 200km/h, gained international attention when he became the first winged person to make a successful crossing of the Channel.He took about 10 minutes to cover the 35 kilometres.

Italian gem

Nestling in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, 30 miles from the ancient city of Turin, lies the valley of Valchiusella. Peppered with medieval villages, the hillside scenery is certainly picturesque.
But it is deep underground, buried into the ancient rock, that the region's greatest wonders are concealed.
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Hall of the Earth: An amazing room built on the 'supernatural' visions of its creator

Here, 100ft down and hidden from public view, lies an astonishing secret - one that has drawn comparisons with the fabled city of Atlantis and has been dubbed 'the Eighth Wonder of the World' by the Italian government.
For weaving their way underneath the hillside are nine ornate temples, on five levels, whose scale and opulence take the breath away.
Constructed like a three-dimensional book, narrating the history of humanity, they are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Big Ben is 15,000 cubic feet.
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Light fantastic: The giant glass dome of the Hall of Mirrors

Play time: Children look happy in the amazing surroundings

Few have been granted permission to see these marvels.
Indeed, the Italian government was not even aware of their existence until a few years ago.
But the 'Temples of Damanhur' are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.
It all began in the early Sixties when Oberto Airaudi was aged ten. From an early age, he claims to have experienced visions of what he believed to be a past life, in which there were amazing temples.
Around these he dreamed there lived a highly evolved community who enjoyed an idyllic existence in which all the people worked for the common good.
More bizarrely still, Oberto appeared to have had a supernatural ability: the gift of "remote viewing" - the ability to travel in his mind's eye to describe in detail the contents of any building.
"My goal was to recreate the temples from my visions," he says.
Oberto - who prefers to use the name 'Falco' - began by digging a trial hole under his parent's home to more fully understand the principals of excavation.
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Breathtaking: The miles of tunnels enable air to circulate

House of secrets: Below this house is the Damanhurian temple which is one of the largest temple complexes in the world

But it was only as he began a successful career as an insurance broker that he began to search for his perfect site.
In 1977, he selected a remote hillside where he felt the hard rock would sustain the structures he had in mind.
A house was built on the hillside and Falco moved in with several friends who shared his vision. Using hammers and picks, they began their dig to create the temples of Damanhur - named after the ancient subterranean Egyptian temple meaning City of Light - in August 1978.
As no planning permission had been granted, they decided to share their scheme only with like-minded people.
Volunteers, who flocked from around the world, worked in four-hour shifts for the next 16 years with no formal plans other than Falco's sketches and visions, funding their scheme by setting up small businesses to serve the local community.
By 1991, several of the nine chambers were almost complete with stunning murals, mosaics, statues, secret doors and stained glass windows. But time was running out on the secret.
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Hall of Spheres: Creator Oberto Airaudi based his creation on wonderful visions

Bright window: The window decorations have a church-stained window theme

The first time the police came it was over alleged tax evasion and still the temples lay undiscovered. But a year later the police swooped on the community demanding: "Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside."
Falco and his colleagues duly complied and opened the secret door to reveal what lay beneath.
Three policemen and the public prosecutor hesitantly entered, but as they stooped down to enter the first temple - named the Hall of the Earth - their jaws dropped.
Inside was a circular chamber measuring 8m in diameter.
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Hall of mirrors: The hall has a classical Greek feel

Egyptian wall paintings: Damanhurian art is greatly influenced by both Egyptian and Celtic sytles

A central sculpted column, depicting a three dimensional man and woman, supported a ceiling of intricately painted glass.
The astonished group walked on to find sculpted columns covered with gold leaf, more than 8m high.
Stunned by what they had found, the authorities decided to seize the temples on behalf of the government.
"By the time they had seen all of the chambers, we were told to continue with the artwork, but to cease further building, as we had not been granted planning permission," says Esperide Ananas, who has written a new book called Damanhur, Temples Of Humankind.
Retrospective permission was eventually granted and today the 'Damanhurians' even have their own university, schools, organic supermarkets, vineyards, farms, bakeries and award-winning eco homes.
They do not worship a spiritual leader, though their temples have become the focus for group meditation.
'They are to remind people that we are all capable of much more than we realise and that hidden treasures can be found within every one of us once you know how to access them,' says Falco.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-495538/Eighth-wonder-world-The-stunning-temples-secretly-carved-ground-paranormal-eccentric.html#ixzz0xWY1vLiP

Levels of consciousness

According to measurements taken the world's collective consciousness quantitatively, as outlined in the book POWER vs. FORCE by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. © 1995 - 2002.), the average number for scientifically measured world collective consciousness has shot up from 223 in September 2005, to 500 as of June 26, 2009, at which time everyone in the world was placed into a consciousness acceleration program that had previously been available ONLY to a few select people with personal consciousness measuring 500 and up.  The world's AVERAGE consciousness number, as of today, is almost 600!  This "AVERAGE" is not an arithmetic average, but rather is a number that calculates the net effect of everyone's consciousness interacting with each other, wherein people with higher consciousness neutralize the negative influence of many thousands or millions of people with low consciousness.

 

This means that people with high consciousness, presumably including those reading this post, are so effective at neutralizing those with low consciousness (many billions of "new souls" once described colorfully as being for the "first time on two legs"), that the net effect is to drag ALL the precious souls of Earth into a very high level of deserving ability implied by the consciousness number 600, once the province of only 1 in 10 million people.

 

To put this in context, when David Hawkins wrote POWER vs. FORCE © 1995 - 2002, only 15% of the world's population was above the critical consciousness level of 200, where "Power" in the sense of power for good first appears as the critical point in human development that distinguishes positive and negative influences of life.  A consciousness measurement of 200 or higher marks the point in development of human consciousness at which a person is capable for the first time of beginning to embrace positive influences and not be attracted to negative influences. (when we have negative thoughts from time to time this is a reference to embracing negativity, not occasional lapses.)

 

The 500 level of consciousness development is characterized by the development of a love that is unconditional.

 

The 600 level is associated with an experience of life in which transcendence, self-realization, and God-consciousness start to be available as conscious experiences, as distinguished from things one can only read about, for example in sacred literature like the Bible.

 

When a person is developing consciously below the 600 level, they can read and take to heart expressions such as,"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself."

However, no matter how much one reads the Bible and takes everything one reads completely to heart, the kind of love Jesus was describing is simply not available as a conscious experience when consciousness measures under 500.  It starts to be conceivable when consciousness develops to 600, and it is fully realized when consciousness develops to 1545.

Dr. Hawkins said in his book that as of the time when he took the measurements that went into his book, the 600 consciousness level was extremely rare, attained by only 1 in 10 million people.  Now this is completely changed!  As mentioned above, the world's scientifically measured "average consciousness number" as defined above, as of today" is almost 600 and rising fast - just under 100 points of rise in little more than a year!

This is a rocket ship, and it has implications for world events is huge!

An interstellar discovery

December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will eventually bump into other, similar clouds in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy.Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it."The observed temperature and density of the local cloud do not provide enough pressure to resist the 'crushing action' of the hot gas around it," says Opher.So how does the Fluff survive? The Voyagers have found an answer. "Voyager data show that the Fluff is much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected—between 4 and 5 microgauss*," says Opher. "This magnetic field can provide the extra pressure required to resist destruction."
NASA's two Voyager probes have been racing out of the solar system for more than 30 years. They are now beyond the orbit of Pluto and on the verge of entering interstellar space—but they are not there yet. The Voyagers are not actually inside the Local Fluff," says Opher. "But they are getting close and can sense what the cloud is like as they approach it."The Fluff is held at bay just beyond the edge of the solar system by the sun's magnetic field, which is inflated by solar wind into a magnetic bubble more than 10 billion km wide. Called the "heliosphere," this bubble acts as a shield that helps protect the inner solar system from galactic cosmic rays and interstellar clouds. The two Voyagers are located in the outermost layer of the heliosphere, or "heliosheath," where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.Voyager 1 entered the heliosheath in Dec. 2004; Voyager 2 followed almost 3 years later in Aug. 2007. These crossings were key to Opher et al's discovery.The size of the heliosphere is determined by a balance of forces: Solar wind inflates the bubble from the inside while the Local Fluff compresses it from the outside. Voyager's crossings into the heliosheath revealed the approximate size of the heliosphere and, thus, how much pressure the Local Fluff exerts. A portion of that pressure is magnetic and corresponds to the ~5 microgauss Opher's team has reported in Nature. The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now. Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space. On the other hand, astronauts wouldn't have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next."There could be interesting times ahead!" says Opher.
To read the original research, look in the Dec. 24, 2009, issue of Nature for Opher et al's article, "A strong, highly-tilted interstellar magnetic field near the Solar System."Author: Dr. Tony Phillips Credit: science@NASA

Earth's upper atmosphere cooling dramatically

New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag.
© UCAR
When the sun is relatively inactive - as it has been in recent years - the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.
The results could help scientists better understand the swelling and shrinking of our planet's atmosphere, a phenomenon that affects the orbits of satellites and space junk.
The data, from NASA's TIMED mission, show that Earth's thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth's surface) "responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle," Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said here this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man's emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)
Earth's thermosphere is one of the least explored parts of the atmosphere, but it is important because "the thermosphere is where the sun first interacts with our atmosphere," said James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Va.
http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=34479085 Space.com 10:48 AM EST December 18, 2009