Why meteors explode

Above is footage from the dramatic exploding meteor which streaked across the skies of Russia over the Urals on February 15 (Friday).

The billowing white trail has led some to conclude that the meteor was actually shot down by some sort of anti-aircraft or anti-missile system.

While all possibilities should of course be left open to examination based on the evidence, it is quite possible that the dramatic breakup of this meteor, as well as the white cloud trail, are consistent with a disintegrating meteor.

What would cause a meteor to come apart prior to hitting the ground?  If the meteor were a solid rock hurtling towards the earth, the mere fact of passing through the atmosphere would not be expected to cause it to explode.  Neither would it be expected to cause it to leave such a billowing trail of white cloud.

If you saw vapor of that color streaming out of the tailpipe of your car or truck, what would you immediately conclude?  White clouds like those seen in the video footage taken by those on the scene would, if coming out of your car, cause you to suspect that your engine was burning water.  Water can get into the engine cylinders on a car or truck engine through eroded rubber valve seals or through a faulty head gasket.  These problems can cause the engine to belch white smoke out the exhaust because water is being introduced into the internal combustion in the cylinders.

While conventional theories about meteors do not generally explain the amount of white smoke filmed by observers of Friday's meteor in Russia, the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown does.  On this page of the online book in which Dr. Brown presents his evidence for anyone to access free of charge, he explains that  according to the hydroplate theory, meteors (and meteoroids and meteorites) originally came from earth, launched by the tremendous forces that ejected water from under the earth and caused a catastrophic global flood, forces powerful enough to eject some material (both rocks and water) out of earth's orbit and into space.

Dr. Brown provides evidence that the rocks launched into space by the events surrounding a global flood on earth often formed large orbiting bodies composed of many smaller chunks of rock held together by frozen water acting as a weak glue.  He explains:

The fountains of the great deep launched rocks and water from Earth. Later, most of those rocks merged within their growing spheres of influence (and the help of gravity and water vapor) to become asteroids.  [. . .]  Water droplets in the fountains partially evaporated and quickly froze. Large rocks had large spheres of influence which grew as the rocks traveled away from Earth. Larger rocks became “seeds” around which other rocks and ice collected as spheres of influence expanded. Because of all the evaporated water vapor and the resulting aerobraking, even more mass concentrated around the “seeds.” [See page 294.]  Clumps of rocks became asteroids.  [see "Hydroplate Explanation," near the top of this online page]. 

Among the evidence that Dr. Brown offers in support of this theory is the spin rate of the objects orbiting the sun that are classified as asteroids -- most of the larger objects, with diameters greater than 200 meters, do not spin faster than ten times per day.  He explains that if they did, the weak ice bonds holding these clumps of rock together would be overcome, and the larger clumps of rock would break apart into smaller pieces:  

Clumps of rocks in space, held together only by their weak mutual gravity, will fly apart if they spin faster than ten times a day. Asteroids larger than 200 meters across never spin faster than ten times a day, so those bodies may be clusters of loose rocks. Asteroids smaller than 200 meters often spin hundreds of times a day. Therefore, they are probably single rocks,⁹ although it is possible that multiple rocks are held together by ice. 

One of the strongest arguments in favor of Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory is the fact that his theory enables him to make predictions.  He has published many predictions based upon his theory which have later been found to be correct. In the case of his theory that asteroids, meteoroids, and comets are formed from material that was originally ejected from earth itself, Dr. Brown has offered some predictions, including this one, which was later discovered to be correct:

Prediction 36. [. . .] Most asteroids are rock piles, often with ice acting as a weak “glue” inside. Large rocks that began the capture process are nearer the centers of asteroids. Comets, which contain much ice, have rocks in their cores.

Four years after this prediction was published in 2001 (In the Beginning, 7th edition, page 220), measurements of the largest asteroid, Ceres, found that it does indeed have a dense, rocky core and primarily a water-ice mantle.¹⁰

All of the above discussion is significant when trying to determine what happened in the sky over Russia this Friday.  If the object seen streaking across the sky in the video was a large meteor, one that was composed (in accordance with Dr. Brown's theory) of smaller rocks ejected from earth during the events surrounding the flood, and held together by a weak "glue" of internal ice (formed from the ejected water when the "fountains of the great deep" erupted), then this theory would explain why the meteor might come apart during its violent encounter with the earth's atmosphere.  It would also explain the trail of white smoke from the disintegrating meteor.  It might even explain the series of explosions heard by those on the ground and recorded in many of the videos posted to the web.

The hydroplate theory would seem to support the explanation that a large meteoroid, a composite of smaller rocks held together by a weak ice "glue," intersected earth's atmosphere and the heat of the friction of this hurtling object caused the frozen water to vaporize, leaving the dramatic trail and also leading to the breakup of the composite object into many smaller pieces.  Some of those pieces may have actually hit the ground, with explosive effects (the video above seems to support that assertion).  Previous posts have also discussed this phenomenon, in conjunction with the disintegration of comets, such as Comet Elenin in 2011 (Dr. Brown's theory asserts that comets, asteroids, and meteoroids are all related phenomena, caused by the catastrophic flood on our planet).

Of course, it is always possible that something else took place over Russia -- that this dramatic footage was not caused by a meteor at all but was some form of man-made rocket or weapon over the Urals.  However, if indeed it was a meteor, the white trail does not mean that human missiles of some sort actually shot it down.  It is quite possible that, if it was indeed a meteor, the footage now appearing on the web provides yet more evidence that the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown is correct.

A good day to contemplate the concept of comets

 

Today is a good day to spend some time contemplating comets, those lonely travelers of the solar system, whose orbits sometimes take them on incredibly remote journeys far from the familiar planets.

The reason July 23 is such a good day to consider the mysterious case of the solar system's comets is that July 23 is the day of the year that Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp simultaneously and independently of one another discovered the comet in 1995 when they saw it in the constellation Sagittarius, which is one of the more brilliant constellations dominant in the night sky this time of year, guarding the southern end of the Milky Way not far from the Scorpion. 

Here is a link to a blog post I published a year ago, on the previous anniversary of the discovery of the comet that would become one of the most spectacular comets for viewing in modern history.  That post and other previous posts dealing with the phenomenon of comets (such as this post and this one) discusses the aspects of comets which defy the conventional explanations for the origin of comets (all of which have serious difficulties with observed comet behavior, and the reason that Walt Brown's hydroplate theory may provide the best explanation for the origin of these icy apparitions.

To help appreciate the incredible distances that comets such as Hale-Bopp travel (and to see how very different the plane of orbit of some of these comets can be from the plane of orbit followed by the earth and the other planets), take a look at this excellent site provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  That site contains a graphic "map" of the orbit of Hale-Bopp in relation to the solar system, with three different "slide bars" that you can manipulate in order to shift and rotate the viewing angle, as well as zoom in and zoom out to get a real feeling for the enormity of that comet's orbit.  There is also a series of controls that enable you to change the date (and year) and go forward into the future (only until the year 2200, it seems) and backwards into the past.

Below is the view from the outer reaches of the solar system, showing the extreme angle that Hale-Bopp enters the solar system when it visits -- it follows a plane of orbit almost perpendicular to the plane of earth's orbit, and spends almost all of its time "below" the plane of the solar system, shooting above it only as it approaches perihelion (closest orbital point to the sun) before turning and diving back down again.

As you can see from the image, which is for the current date, the comet has already moved so far from the sun and the solar system that it doesn't even fit into this screen shot.  It is already 33.113 Astronomical Units (AU) from the sun (one AU is the approximate mean earth-sun distance).

The screen shot below is zoomed out much further, in order to get a glimpse of Hale-Bopp on its incredible orbit.  Even at this range, we cannot fit the entirety of the orbital path onto the screen.

Hale-Bopp's orbit was apparently altered by a close encounter with Jupiter on its last visit to the solar system, and so it will "only" get out to about 370 AU, rather than 575 AU as it previously did.  The comet is not scheduled to make another return until approximately AD 4385.

Dr. Walt Brown devotes an entire chapter in his book on the hydroplate theory (the entire text of which is available for free viewing online) to the question of the origin of comets, here.   He provides extensive scientific evidence to support the theory that comets originated from a catastrophic eruption of high-pressure water from beneath earth's crust (the same event which unleashed a global flood responsible for most of the geology we see on earth today).

In that chapter, he explains why long-period comets (Hale-Bopp is certainly a long-period comet) often have steeply-inclined orbital planes, in contrast to short-period comets, which often orbit in planes close to the plane of the earth and the other planets.  He also explains that long-period comets often have retrograde orbits (clockwise in motion around the sun) rather than orbiting counter-clockwise the way that the earth and the other planets -- as well as almost all the short-period comets -- orbit the sun.  He explains:

A ball tossed in any direction from a high-speed train will, to an observer on the ground, initially travel almost horizontally and in the train’s direction. Likewise, low-velocity cometary materials launched in any direction from Earth received most of their orbital velocity from Earth’s high, prograde velocity (18.5 miles per second) about the Sun. Earth, by definition, has zero angle of inclination. This is why almost all short-period comets, those launched with low velocity, are prograde and have low angles of inclination.

Cometary materials launched with greater velocities than Earth’s orbital velocity traveled in all directions. They formed long-period comets with randomly inclined orbital planes. Prograde cometary materials launched with the highest velocities escaped the solar system, because they had the added velocity of Earth’s motion. This is why so many of the remaining long-period comets are retrograde. [See Table 12 on page 288.] (Almost all other bodies orbiting the Sun are prograde: planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and short-period comets.) 

Sure enough, Comet Hale-Bopp also orbits the sun in a clockwise (retrograde) orbit, in addition to being steeply inclined.

The enormity of the distance that Hale-Bopp travels should fill us with awe if we really sit down and contemplate the path of this comet.  It should also cause us to question the origin of comets and the many aspects of their mysterious orbits which are better explained by the hydroplate theory than by the theories currently in vogue among conventional academics.

Strictly speaking, it should be noted that Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp only re-discovered this incredible comet.  There is some evidence that the ancient Egyptians saw it the last time it came through prior to 1997 (in the 23rd century BC).  

Even though Comet Hale-Bopp is not visible right now, it is still streaking along its orbital path, although so far away from everything else in the solar system that it almost boggles the mind to think about it.  Today is a good day to spend a little time focusing on that lonely far-traveling object, the incredible vastness of space, and the amazing forces that move the symphony of objects that speed along their many paths around our sun.

April Lyrid meteor shower for 2012, what causes it, and how to see it

The April Lyrid meteor shower takes place each year as the earth reaches the portion of its orbit designated by the dates April 20 through 26. This meteor shower is the product of the dust trail left by the long-period Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). The earth reaches the heaviest part of the residue cloud on April 21 or 22 each year, and this year it should be on April 21. Since these meteors can generally only be seen at night, the night of April 21 is probably the best night to see the shower, so make your plans now!

Here is a previous post featuring a rough sketch I drew to help illustrate the connection between the paths of comets traveling through the inner solar system and the meteor showers that are associated with different nights of the year. That diagram shows the meteor showers created by the debris from Comet Halley, the October Orionids and the Eta Aquariids (which take place around May 4). Here is a link to a helpful web page listing the meteor showers of the year.

Note that Comet Halley in the diagram can be seen to approach the inner solar system and earth's orbit from "below" the ecliptic plane (the south-pole-side of the plane of the ecliptic), and then break above the plane for a short time before diving back down on its way out. This diagram shows the plane of Halley's Comet more clearly.

In contrast, the image above from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows that Comet Thatcher spends most of its time "above" the ecliptic plane (on the north-pole-side, that is) and dives in from a fairly steep angle. In these diagrams, the path of the comet is light blue when it is above the ecliptic plane of the earth, and darker blue when it is below it.

The image also clearly shows another striking aspect of Comet Thatcher: it is a long-period comet, with an aphelion over 110 astronomical units from the sun (an astronomical unit or AU is a unit of measurement corresponding to the mean earth-sun distance). In contrast, Halley's Comet is a short-period comet, with an aphelion of only 35.1 AU. Comet Thatcher only comes by every 415 years or so, while Halley's Comet appears every 75 or so years.

The images below show Comet Thatcher's path from a closer and closer vantage point (to give a full appreciation for the amazing orbit of this far-traveling space object: after you stare at those for a few minutes to let it really sink in, we can go on to discuss the meteor shower that its trail causes each year):

As the earth passes through the line marked on the images above representing the path of Comet Thatcher, the debris left by the comet causes the April Lyrid meteor shower (you can see why Comet Thatcher only causes one meteor shower each year, while Halley's Comet causes two if you compare the third image above with the image of Comet Halley's orbital path).

This post from last year describing a different meteor shower (the June Lyrids, which also appear to radiate from the region of the constellation Lyra, but which are caused by a completely different comet trail and are not as strong as the April Lyrids nor as anciently attested) gives a mental image you can use to explain the predictable meteor showers of the year to your friends (it is also a helpful mental construct for understanding the important phenomenon of precession, as discussed in this post and in greater detail in the Mathisen Corollary book).

As that post from last year's June Lyrids explains, meteor showers are named for the constellation from which they appear to radiate (they may be seen all over the sky, but they will seem to be coming from a certain point called the radian, and their tails will generally appear to point back towards the radian). Meteor showers named Lyrids feature meteors which appear to streak away from a point in the constellation Lyra the Lyre. This diagram of the night sky for the early morning hours of April 22 gives a good depiction of that concept.

The Lyre is a small but easily-identified constellation, because it contains the star Vega, the fifth-brightest in the sky. Also, for viewers in the most heavily-populated regions of the northern hemisphere, Lyra is visible every night of the year (although sometimes only during the post-midnight hours when most people are fast asleep). For observers in San Luis Obispo, California (W120°39'36.0", N35°16'48.0") on the night of April 21, 2012, the bright star Vega rises at 9:14 pm (and about four minutes earlier each night after that). For New Paltz, New York (W 74°04'48.0", N41°44'24.0"), Vega rises at 10:23 pm on the night of April 21 (and about four minutes earlier each night after that).

Vega is one of the three stars of the brilliant Summer Triangle, discussed in this previous post. That post features several diagrams to help you locate Vega and the Lyre (in conjunction with the Swan and the Eagle and the Milky Way).  You can also use the interactive sky chart available at Sky & Telescope which enables you to enter different locations and times and view the sky and constellations for those different places and times (you can get to that by starting at this Sky & Telescope article about this month's Lyrids).

Because the moon will be at New Moon on April 21 (between the earth and the sun and hence out of the sky during the night), it should be an ideal night to try to observe the Lyrid meteor shower.

In fact, the conditions are good enough that NASA scientists will be attempting to photograph some of the meteors from the International Space Station, and simultaneously from locations on the earth (which may enable them to create a "3-D view" of the meteor if they can catch one from two directions at once). This article from NASA's Science News page has some helpful advice from NASA scientist Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Science Office, who will be staying up all night on April 21-22 to chat with the general public about the shower at this URL (thanks to the astute Mr. Mark D. S. for alerting me to this!).

Here's hoping that this year's April Lyrids are a positive and memorable event for all observers. As you observe a few of the meteors, think about their origin in that lonely ball of ice orbiting far, far beyond Pluto right now (see top diagram). If you want to learn more about the difference between long-period and short-period comets, and the possibility that this bi-modal distribution of comets may support the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown, check out this and other previous posts about comets.

The Orionid meteor shower

The earth has reached a special point on its orbit, a point it passes through every year at about this time, when the Orionid meteor shower is visible.

The Orionids are not as spectacular as the Perseids in August, numbering around 30 per hour in contrast with the almost one hundred-per-hour that the Perseids can muster, but they are remarkable for three reasons.

First, they can be seen to radiate from a point near the constellation Orion, one of the most recognizable and dramatic constellations in the night sky, and one which plays a very important role in ancient mythology (see this previous post for more detail).

Second, the Orionid meteor streaks themselves are dramatic, often having long tails and exhibiting distinctive colors before they burn up.

Finally, the space debris that causes the Orionid showers (burning up in the earth's atmosphere as our globe plows through the debris field) is left by one of the most famous denizens of the solar system: Halley's Comet.

To understand why we encounter this particular debris at this particular point in our orbit each year, and why it is associated with the constellation Orion, visit this previous post entitled "Meteor shower tonight, and why they have calendar-dates and constellation names."

The diagram above (admittedly a rather rough sketch) may help in conceptualizing the Orionids. As earth makes its annual circuit around the sun, different constellations are seen in the night sky by observers when the daily rotation on the axis turns them away from the sun (although those constellations that are "on the ceiling" in the direction of the north pole for those in the northern hemisphere, or "on the floor" in the direction of the south pole for those in the southern hemisphere, are visible at night year-round).

As earth began approaching the point where Orion would become seen again, he was first visible rising in the east just prior to the sun rise: look at the diagram above, note the direction the earth is turning around its axis, and envision Orion being revealed just above the eastern horizon right before the turning revealed the sun. However, as earth progressed, he rose above the eastern horizon a bit earlier each 24-hour period, and he is now making his way pretty far across the sky before the turning of the earth brings the sun back up to drown out the night stars.

As earth progresses around its path, it runs into various clouds of debris left by comets and other phenomena, and each October it reaches the trail of particles left by the famous comet Halley (for more on the importance of comets as clues to the geology of the earth, see the discussion in this post, and the other posts referenced in that one). Because of the angle that the earth plows into this field, the stars in the background for an observer gazing into the heavens looking for meteors happen to be the stars of Orion, as shown in the drawing (of course, Orion's stars would be very far "into" the surface of the drawing; he looks too close in this drawing because to make his stars easy to see I had to draw them big -- he would look farther away if his stars were drawn as tiny dots but then you might not notice them very easily).

The path of Halley's Comet and the debris that it leaves is shown by a cloudy trail of dots in the above diagram. Note that the earth crosses through this track of debris again in late April / early May, when Halley's dust is again responsible for a meteor shower, this one seen with Aquarius in the background, giving rise to that meteor shower's name, the Eta Aquariid shower. The Eta Aquariids also have tails with colorful streaks just as the Orionids do.

One thing to note that doesn't come out perfectly clearly in the rough sketch is the fact that Halley's comet has a path which is not on the same plane that the earth and the other planets follow (it is not on the ecliptic plane). Its plane comes "up" from the south pole side of earth, goes around the sun, and then exits back "down" towards the direction that the south pole is pointing, not at a 90° angle to our ecliptic plane but at a shallower angle of attack, as shown in this helpful diagram.

Here are a couple of articles that explain how to view the Orionids this weekend:

• From a San Diego newspaper.
• From National Geographic.
• From Meteor Showers Online (apparently this is from 2010, but the diagrams are still very helpful).
  

Comet Garradd in Sagitta and the Coathanger

A comet designated C/2009 P1 Garradd (aka "Comet Garradd") has been making its way through the solar system and is now crossing through some fairly easily-identifiable territory in the band of the Milky Way galaxy.

As this description of Comet Garradd explains, the comet's path makes a fairly wide pass around the sun, and will not get closer than about 1.55 AU (astronomical units, a measurement equal to the mean distance of the earth from the sun). This means that it will remain pretty far away from earth and be difficult to see with the naked eye even at its brightest (which will be in March 2012). The orbit of Mars averages 1.52 AU, which means that Garradd's path swings it around the sun such that even in its closest approach it is only about the distance of Mars to the sun and no closer.

Currently, Garradd cannot be seen with the naked eye, but it is passing near some constellations and asterisms this week that allow observers to track it down using a telescope or binoculars.

To find Garradd at all, you will need a dark night, away from light pollution. The waxing crescent moon is still very young and following close behind the sun, which just "passed it up" over the weekend, creating a new moon (to see how the waning crescent moon is just ahead of the sun before it is overtaken and swallowed up in the sun's glare to form a new moon, and then emerges on the other side as a waxing crescent trailing the sun, see this previous post).

Because it is so close behind the sun right now, it is far in the west at sunset and exits the scene as night falls, leaving a nice dark sky for stargazing and comet-tracking. However, as it trails further and further behind the sun, it will be higher and higher in the sky later and later into the night after sunset, and as it does so it will also get thicker and thicker, on its way to a full moon on 12 September. Therefore, the next few nights might be good opportunities to look for Comet Garradd.

To get yourself oriented to the right portion of the sky, you will first want to find the constellation Aquila, or the Eagle. If you are using binoculars (which have some definite advantages for stargazing, as explained in this previous post), you will probably do best to actually lie down on the ground looking up, so that you can relax your neck and hold the binos steady. You will also want to remove your glasses if you wear glasses, and use the focus dial to bring the stars into focus with the binoculars instead of with your glasses. Doing so will allow you to get the eyepieces right up to your eyes the way they were intended to work, rather than keeping them a distance away because of your glasses.

To find Aquila if you are not familiar with this constellation, the best place to go is to the marvellous and practical book by H.A. Rey which we have discussed in several previous posts. However, if you want to track it down without his help, you should first find the southernmost beginning of the track of the Milky Way, which rises like the smoke from a campfire between the tail of the Scorpion and the jewel-like stars of the Archer, Sagittarius and then arcs right across the vault of the heavens.

In the Milky Way, two beautiful bird constellations are flying towards one another -- Aquila the Eagle (which you will encounter first on your way up the Milky Way from the Scorpion) and Cygnus the Swan (which is flying towards Aquila from north to south and is quite distinctive with its cross-shaped pattern and very symmetrical triangle wings).

Aquila is pretty easy to identify by its three stars in a row with bright Altair in the center (see the diagram above). Altair in the Eagle and Deneb in the Swan form two corners of the bright Summer Triangle, along with Vega (which, at a declination of +38°, is nearly straight up for observers in much of the US in latitudes close to N 38°). If you remove your binoculars while lying on the ground and look straight up and begin to squint (so that the fainter stars are all squeezed from view) you should be left with the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle being visible through your squinting eyes: Vega, Deneb, and Altair.

The three stars in a row that are the most distinctive feature of Altair reminded the ancient and medieval Arab astronomers of a balance on a scale, and they gave all three the Persian name Tarazed, or "the beam of the scale," as explained in this informative website written by Professor Jim Kaler, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy of the University of Illinois. Over time, this name became affixed to the second-brightest of the three (the upper one for viewers in the northern hemisphere), and the lowest of the three became known as Alshain. The center of the three and by far the brightest of them is, of course, Altair itself.

Using your binoculars or telescope, find the (now enormous) landmark of the three stars of the "beam of the scale" in Aquila, and continue up (north) to locate the constellation of Sagitta, or the Arrow (see diagram above). It consists of stars in a narrow "Y-shape" and a line from the three prominent stars in Aquila will take you right to its "fletching" in the tail of the arrow (the forked part of the "Y"). For a really excellent zoomed-in photograph of Sagitta, along with the three most distinctive stars of Aquila, and two tiny circles marking the comet as it passed by the M71 star cluster in Sagitta, check out this link, and then you can click on the photo one more time to zoom in even further.

Comet Garradd recently crossed through this constellation and is now heading across the rest of the narrow band of airspace belonging to Sagitta (see the dotted yellow boundary around the Arrow itself in the diagram above), enroute to an asterism known as "the Coathanger." An asterism is a group of stars that is not an official constellation but is located within the "airspace" of another constellation, or is part of another constellation (the Big Dipper is an asterism, and is actually a part of Ursa Major, the Great Bear).

To find the Coathanger, use your binos to draw a mental line between the two stars in Sagitta's Y-shaped tail and follow this line upwards (perpendicular to the line that forms the body of the Arrow itself) until you hit a single star, and take a right (for viewers in the northern hemisphere). You will come across the Coathanger -- it's really quite distinctive and unmistakable with binoculars. The comet is now heading for the Coathanger and will pass through it over the next few days (and nights).

To see what the Coathanger looks like, and the star where you "hang a right" to get to the Coathanger from a line going upwards from the tail of the arrow, look at this fantastic map of the area, which also depicts Garradd's progress through the sky in the coming weeks and months. Note that in that map (or, more properly, that chart), the positions of Comet Garradd are given for UTC hour 0 -- midnight in Greenwich, England. Therefore, the chart explains that observers far to the west of Greenwich (such as those in the US or in the Pacific even further west) should subtract a day from those numbers.

Note that this comet will continue to track across our night sky for the next several months, becoming brighter as March 5, 2012 approaches, when earth will come closest to Comet Garradd and observers should be able to make it out with the naked eye (although binos will probably still be preferable). At that time it will have made its way all the way north to the vicinity of the Little Dipper. According to the authors of the previously-linked article from Sky & Telescope, "Not since Hale-Bopp has any comet remained so bright for so long."

Comet Garradd was only discovered two years ago, in August of 2009, by astronomer Gordon J. Garradd, working from Australia's Siding Spring Observatory, in Coonabarabran, New South Wales (west and north of Sydney).

For a discussion of the properties of comets which appear to support the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown (and which conventional theories have a very difficult time explaining), see this previous post and especially this previous post.

Best wishes in finding Comet Garradd between Sagitta and the Coathanger!

Liquid water on Mars

Yesterday, the journal Science published a paper by planetary scientist Alfred S. McEwen, along with colleagues Lujendra Ojha, Colin M. Dundas, Sarah S. Mattson, Shane Byrne, James J. Wray, Selby C. Cull, Scott L. Murchie, Nicholas Thomas, and Virginia C. Gulick entitled "Seasonal Flows on Warm Martian Slopes."

In it, they analyze new high-resolution images from a special camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and argue that ongoing seasonal temperature changes appear to be causing what may be salty water near the surface of Mars to flow in liquid form even today, which is the first time anyone has determined that this is happening. The article's lead author, Dr. McEwen of the University of Arizona, is the principle investigator on that camera, which is called the HiRise camera (for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment).

Planetary scientist Oded Aharonson says, "This is the best evidence yet of liquid water emerging on the surface of Mars" in an accompanying story in Science Now entitled "Is Mars Weeping Salty Tears?" That story argues that the salty content of the water lowers the freezing point, and that the surface may get close to freezing, warm enough to allow meager flows (which have been designated "recurring slope lineae," or RSL) to melt and make their way down steep crater slopes prior to drying up or evaporating.

A NASA article published Thursday on the same subject says that sunlight sometimes warms temperatures to 80° F in parts of the Martian surface. In this interview which aired on NPR yesterday, Dr. McEwen confirms that the surface can get up to "a balmy eighty degrees Fahrenheit or so, maybe even warmer" but that at night it gets much colder and thus the temperatures just a few inches below the surface stay extremely cold. He notes that "some of this activity occurs when the surface temperatures are too cold for pure water to melt," which indicates that the water (if it is water) must be salty, and explains the temperatures described in the Science Now article referenced above. He also notes that the atmospheric pressure is so low on Mars that pure water would actually boil at temperatures near freezing, but that salty water which has a higher boiling point would not.

The abstract for Professor McEwen's paper notes that "the exact mechanism and source of the water are not understood." However, it is impossible (for me) not to point out that these findings are very much consistent with the predictions of the hydroplate theory, as discussed in this previous post entitled "Let's go to Mars," published before these new findings became known to the general public (or at least to me).

In that post, we saw that hydroplate theory creator Dr. Walt Brown believes that salty water remains frozen at the surface of Mars and that it came from above in the form of comets and icy asteroids which bombarded the Martian surface (creating the craters where this activity is being noted). According to his theory, this water originated on earth and was blasted into space during the violent eruption of underground water which initiated the flood event. We have seen that there are hundreds of data points on earth which appear to support such an event (some of those are described in the posts linked in this previous post).

We should all congratulate the scientists who have discovered this ongoing dynamic activity on the surface of Mars and wish them the best with their continuing investigation of this phenomenon. Additionally, it would not be a bad idea for them to become acquainted with the hydroplate theory, no matter how different it is from the reigning conventional theories, because it provides an explanation which appears to shed light on these recent findings, as well as an explanation which accords well with phenomena here on earth which can be studied in person.

What about Vesta and the asteroid belt?

You may know that NASA's Dawn spacecraft successfully entered orbit around the asteroid Vesta earlier this month, on July 16th. It began taking photographs and other data -- a recent photo of the asteroid is shown above. Dawn, which launched in September, 2007, is scheduled to remain in orbit around Vesta for a year, departing in July of 2012, after which it will head to the asteroid Ceres, with a scheduled arrival in February, 2015.

Vesta is formally designated as "4 Vesta," since it was the fourth object in the asteroid belt to be successfully identified, on March 29, 1807. The previous three bodies identified were Ceres (or "1 Ceres"), Pallas ("2 Pallas"), and Juno ("3 Juno"). In spite of being number four, Vesta is the second most-massive object known in the asteroid belt, behind Ceres. It is actually slightly smaller in size than Pallas, but about 20% more massive. The somewhat unusual mass characteristics of asteroids is an important clue to their origin, as we will see.

Current literature often designates Vesta a "protoplanet," believing that it is a more "evolved" object than a simple asteroid -- perhaps a remnant of an early forming planet that was interrupted in its development by the intrusive formation of massive Jupiter. In fact, the NASA webpage for the Dawn spacecraft (so-called, evidently, because it was intended to study the "dawn" of the planets when it visited the protoplanets of Ceres and Vesta) states that:

During the earliest epochs of our solar system, the materials in the solar nebula varied with their distance from the sun. As this distance increased, the temperature dropped, with terrestrial bodies forming closer to the sun, and icy bodies forming farther away.

The asteroid Vesta and the recently categorized dwarf planet Ceres have been selected because, while both speak to conditions and processes early in the formation of the solar system, they developed into two different kinds of bodies. Vesta is a dry, differentiated object with a surface that shows signs of resurfacing. It resembles the rocky bodies of the inner solar system, including Earth. Ceres, by contrast, has a primitive surface containing water-bearing minerals, and may possess a weak atmosphere. It appears to have many similarities to the large icy moons of the outer solar system.

By studying both these two distinct bodies with the same complement of instruments on the same spacecraft, the Dawn mission hopes to compare the different evolutionary path each took as well as create a picture of the early solar system overall. Data returned from the Dawn spacecraft could provide opportunities for significant breakthroughs in our knowledge of how the solar system formed.

However, the idea that Ceres and Vesta formed before the rest of the planets, and that they represent primitive "protoplanets" that were arrested in their development before they could become planets, has some problems. In fact, the conventional explanation for the entire asteroid belt is fraught with difficulties from the perspective of physics. Just like the theories for the origin of comets and for numerous other phenomena in the solar system and on earth, the conventional theories have numerous flaws, while the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown provides very satisfactory explanations which are in line with the principles of physics.

Dr. Brown devotes an entire section of his book to the origin of asteroids, giving solid arguments that refute the conventional explanations, and which demonstrate that asteroids and comets are extremely similar both in their composition and origins.

In that section, he points out that there are big problems with both the idea that asteroids are the remnants of an exploded planet and the theory that they are prototype planets (or "failed planets"). Some of the powerful evidence against these two explanations includes:

• The fact that orbiting rocks do not come together to form composite bodies without special circumstances, which argues against the failed planet hypothesis. These unique conditions would have been present if the rocks were initially ejected from earth, in the presence of water, which would have led to the coagulation of some composite bodies made up of smaller rocks held together both by gravity but also by ice, which is what we find in the larger asteroids. The low density of many asteroids is supporting evidence for this explanation.
• The discovery by spacecraft since Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 that microparticles thought to have come from asteroids and collisions with asteroids were much more prevalent close to earth than close to the asteroid belt, indicating that asteroids were probably not the source of these microparticles but rather earth itself at some point in the past.
• The fact that some larger asteroids, including Ceres, have actually captured and retained smaller asteroids as "moons." Some even have two such moons. Because of their small size and the principles of physics, Dr. Brown explains that the only way this could happen would be if the asteroids and their moons were ejected with similar velocities and similar trajectories -- it would not be expected to take place in either the "failed planet (protoplanet)" or the "exploded planet" scenarios. In fact, when observations of such moons paired with asteroids were first described, many astronomers scoffed because they knew that their models did not admit such a possibility (the fact of such moons is now impossible to deny).
• The "peanut shape" of several asteroids indicates that they are composed of smaller bodies joined together. However, for such a shape to be formed in outer space, the smaller bodies had to come together at a relatively slow velocity, probably buffered by the presence of gaseous water. Such conditions would be extremely difficult to explain under the conventional "failed planet" scenario or the "exploded planet" scenario, but would fit the model of the hydroplate theory perfectly.
• The minerals of the asteroids, including the prevalence of iron and nickel in most asteroids (including Vesta) is difficult to explain using conventional theories, but accords perfectly with the hydroplate theory, as Dr. Brown explains. The main problem is that the geology of asteroids including Vesta indicates that they were heated successively to very high temperatures many times, which is difficult to explain in the cold reaches of space where the asteroids are found today and where the conventional theories (especially the "protoplanet" explanation) argue that they have been since before the formation of the earth. However, Dr. Brown's theory argues that the asteroids were on earth, deep beneath the surface, and subject to conditions that would create the kind of intense heating and mineral composition that we find in the asteroids before they were ejected into space, which lines up with known rules of physics and geology just as the conventional explanations do not.
• Meteorites, which conventional theories say must have come from asteroids (including Vesta -- see the discussion in this Wikipedia article) often contain remanence or remanent magnetism. Dr. Brown explains that this remanent magnetism is consistent with an origin on a large, magnetized body such as earth, but not consistent with origin on asteroids, even origins on Vesta. Because the hydroplate theory argues that asteroids (including Vesta) are composite bodies, they do not have a single strong magnetic field, but are instead the compound jumble of magnetic fields from their component rocks, which generally cancel one another out and leave an overall lack of remanent magnetic readings.
  
• The spin of most asteroids is consistent with rocks ejected from the earth, and in fact consistent with the spin direction of earth itself.
• Because larger asteroids are held together with a "weak glue" of ice (which originated in the water blasted into space along with the rocks during the violent explosion that initiated the global flood event), impacts from other space rocks sometimes cause this water to melt and to begin to vent into the vacuum of space. When this happens, asteroids resemble comets: in fact, comets and asteroids are pretty much the same animal, except that asteroids have spent most of their existence in closer orbits to the sun and most of them have lost all of their ice -- with some of the larger ones retaining icy mantles below the surface which are still subject to being released later on by imacts. Most comets, on the other hand, have wider orbits and still retain ice, which is still venting.
  
• The hydroplate theory argues for a fairly recent origin for both asteroids and comets. Just as there are sound principles of physics to argue that comets could not have survived in their present numbers for billions of years, there are also sound reasons to argue that asteroids probably have life spans below a million years (particularly those asteroids which have been found orbiting near the orbit of earth, such as 3753 Cruithne). Some of these are outlined in Dr. Brown's discussion of the origin of asteroids.

In spite of the fact that NASA webpages and the popular press present 4 Vesta as an object whose origin is well known and well understood, the fact is that it is very difficult to argue that it is either a protoplanet that never quite "evolved" into a planet, or a remnant of an exploded planet. The reasons above are elaborated upon more fully on the website of Dr. Brown.

On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that asteroids, including Vesta, provide more powerful evidence for the hydroplate theory and a catastrophic flood on earth within the past 10,000 or so years. Such an event, if it took place, would also shed light on the mysterious capabilities of the civilzations that bequeathed their knowledge to the most ancient builders of the Giza Pyramids, Stonehenge, and to the authors of myths which were recorded in extreme antiquity. This connection is the subject of the Mathisen Corollary book, and this blog.