Have you ever noticed that since everyone now has a digital camera in their cell phone UFO sightings hav dropped to almost nil?
Oh yeah, why is it that Aliens never land in New York or Tokyo (except in movies), but always pick searchlight, NV, or Cowtip, OH?
Yeah, me too.
The Perfessor
Yep, apparently there either was (or was not) a ship of some sort hovering above the Kremlin. Yep, you heard that right, there was (or was not) a mile-wide ship of some sort that was hovering over the Kremlin for several hours the other day:
Sitting motionless in the sky above the Kremlin in Moscow, clips of the unexplained object have become the most-viewed videos on Russia’s YouTube.
The two videos, one taken at night from a car and one during the day, were both filmed by amateurs.
The Perfessor
OK, OK, all the uber-Trek Geeks already know that JJ Abrams new vision of Trek hits DVD and Blu-Ray any moment now, and virtually everybody else knows that there were two pilots of Trek (the first, if not only TV show in history to have two pilots) The first, The Cage, which was rejected by NBC for being “too cerebral†and the second, Where No Man Has Gone Before, which replaced Jeffrey Hunter (who played the captain) with William Shatner.
Well, it has just been learned that there was actually a third pilot with an alternate version that was largely lost and has before never aired. According to reports, a film collector in Germany recently acquired this print and brought it to the attention of CBS/Paramount. CBS is now releasing this version on Blu-ray Dec. 15.
Here are some clips that have been previously circulated from the alternate version....
While I’m not going to go out and buy a Blu-Ray player just to see this full episode, I’m guessing that there are some that just might.
The Perfessor
So, Did you hear the story about the team of scientists that created a super particle accelerator that in turn created a micro-black hole? Yeah, you know the story, its the one where they wind up creating this black hole that grows exponentially into an Earth-eating behemoth, ultimately destroying all life as we know it.
Nope, it isn’t the latest Roland Emmerich Earth-destroying disaster flick, it is basically what some scientists though would happen when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) when on-line back in September of 2008, only it (obviously) didn’t quite happen that way. Well, we now know that the Earth-munching, LHC-generated black hole theory has more flaws in it than Europa’s crust, but scientists do think the next-generation particle accelerator could generate tiny black holes.
This is actually rather exciting. If micro-black holes are generated after the high-energy collisions inside the LHC, they could provide the first experimental evidence of Hawking Radiation, the only radiation predicted to be emitted from a black hole's event horizon. If the radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking is discovered (via the detection of evaporating black holes), a Nobel Prize for Physics wouldn't be far away.
To learn more about the LHC go here. To read about the end of the world as we know it go here.
I don’t know about you, but even though I didn’t waste any of my time watching CNN follow the Balloon Boy’s flight, I am happy to announce that it seems that the parents are going to wind up being brought up on charges for the event after all.
The parents of a 6-year-old boy who was thought to be trapped in a runaway balloon but was later found hiding in his family's garage will probably face criminal charges, authorities said Saturday night -- the latest indication that the surreal drama that captivated the nation might have been a publicity stunt.
Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden, who previously said he thought the boy’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, had not staged the escapade, told reporters Saturday night, “We anticipate at some point in the future there will be some criminal charges filed in this incident.’
I seriously couldn’t be happier. Like I said, I didn’t waste any of my time watching, but I know that quite a few of you folk out there did, and I know that several Federal, State, and local law enforcement folk were rounded up trying to track and “rescue†the kid only to have the boy admit on TV “you told me to do it for the show.â€
The Perfessor
No, really, Bomb the Moon
Quite frankly, given this country’s previous administration penchant for randomly bombing foreign countries, you would have think that this was something that they would have developed. Still, you’d be wrong, because it is not that kind of bombing.
Astronomers and space enthusiasts around the world watched as Nasa sent a rocket into the lunar surface.
The 2.2tonne rocket that launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) created 'a dimple' a third the size of a football pitch on the Moon at 12.31pm (BST).
The LCROSS probe followed four minutes later. It detected the heat signature from the first crash although no flash was immediately evident. It searched for ice and water before colliding with the surface.
It will have relayed this data back to Earth including pictures from the onboard cameras. Anyone can watch analysis of the event online through the Nasa TV website.
You can read a long, dry and probably boring article here (and Walt probably will), or you can just watch this vid and get the highlights. Still, it is worth at least scanning the article, as it does have some cook images attached to it.
The Perfessor
Well, not so much in “our†old town as in another old town on another planet, in another solar system.
That’s right kids, scientists have discovered a planet in another solar system. Now while this may not be so exciting to some of you you (OK, any of you), due to the fact that they have already discovered some 800 planets outside our solar system already, but here’s the kicker.
This particular planet just may be the first one that is solid rock.
That’s right, a team of European astronomers has confirmed the first rocky extrasolar planet.
Scientists have long figured that if life begins on a planet, it needs a solid surface to rest on, so finding one elsewhere is a big deal.
"We basically live on a rock ourselves," said co-discoverer Artie Hatzes, director of the Thuringer observatory in Germany. "It's as close to something like the Earth that we've found so far. It's just a little too close to its sun."
So close that its surface temperature is more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 466,000 mph. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.
"It's hot, they're calling it the lava planet," Hatzes said.
I’m posting it here because I was thinking that our resident geologist, science geek, and Imperious leader would find it fascinating. The planet (called Corot-7b) was first discovered earlier this year by the Europeans, who then watched it dozens of times to measure its density to prove that it is rocky like Earth. What’s even cooler, is that Corot-7b is apparently in our general neighborhood. It circles a star in our winter sky that is only some 500 light-years away. (Each light-year is about 6 trillion miles, so if Walt goes off to explore it he won’t be back for dinner, Alison, sorry.)
Now that another rocky planet has been found so close to its own star, it gives scientists more confidence that they'll find more Earth-like planets farther away, where the conditions could be more favorable to life, Boss said.
"The evidence is becoming overwhelming that we live in a crowded universe," Boss said.
So, I’m off to having a good day today. Hot Jets!
The Perfessor
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past month or so, you know that there is a debate on Health Care in this country. Well, watch the fun, as The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart skewers right wing pundit Bill Kristol as he gets Kristol to admit that the government can provide first-class health care to its citizens.
Dont ya just love it when a basic cable faux news show like Daily Show and a comedian like Jon Stewart is so easily capable of destroying someone like the Republican Bill Kristol on Health Care. Turly the ultimateUltimate Health Care Smackdown!
The Perfessor
So, we’ve all heard the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was (gasp) staged.
(Oh yeah, and before I forget, there was the film Capricorn One (1978) wherein the government attempted to fake a Mars landing.)
There are some that say Stanley Kubrick did the fakery, well regardless of that, it was just revealed that NASA probably taped over the only high-resolution images it had of the original moon landing.
Nasa probably taped over its only high-resolution images of the first moon walk with electronic data from a satellite or a later manned space mission, officials said today."We all wish that somebody had said 'those tapes are special, let's pull them aside'," he said.
Instead, their loss apparently went unnoticed for 35 years, until 2004, when an archive in Australia alerted Nasa that it believed it had found the lost tapes from the Apollo 11 mission. It shipped the tapes to Goddard, where Nasa maintains what officials say is the only machine in the world capable of reading the old tape technology. The first tapes did not have moon footage, but touched off a massive search for those that did in archives stored in dusty basements across the world.
And then, of course there is the quote from Joy Behar from The View that sits off to the left (reprinted from Entertainment Weekly from July 31).
Still, we shouldn’t worry, the Government is going to fix health care...
The Perfessor
A couple of days ago Walt told us all about the black spot on the surface of Jupiter. Well, today, we have more info on the topic, this time from The New York Times Blog.
NASA has confirmed the discovery of a new hole the size of the Earth in Jupiter’s atmosphere, apparently showing that the planet was hit by something large in recent days. The impact mark was first spotted on Monday morning by an amateur astronomer in Australia, who then drew the attention of scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the dark mark on Jupiter’s south polar region.
NASA even posted some of the pictures on their web site. The Times went on to say:
Glenn Orton, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said “It could be the impact of a comet, but we don’t know for sure yet.â€
Mr. Orton told New Scientist magazine that the planet could have been hit by a block of ice or a comet that was too faint for astronomers to detect before the impact. Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Lab told the magazine the impact scar “is about the size of the Earth.â€
In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley, a 44-year-old computer programmer from a village north of Canberra, made the discovery “using his backyard 14.5-inch reflecting telescope.†The Herald explained: “Wesley, who has been keen on astronomy since he was a child, said telescopes and other astronomy equipment were so inexpensive now that the hobby had become a viable pastime for just about anybody. His own equipment cost about $10,000.â€
Sure we’ve been joking about the resulting cataclysmic disaster here on Cuppa, but it’s all fun and games until a planet-sized comet hits the Earth. Still, the good news is, that if we have even a 30-day warning, then not only will you be able to not worry about paying your bills ever again, but you are going to witness the biggest Bacchus Festival the world has ever seen.
The Perfessor
I just know that the Trekkies who hated the film will go totally around the twist when they see this...
So, so totally wrong, on so many levels, yet so hilariously funny.
Sound required.
The Perfessor
Walt is looking for oil. he’s been gone for six or seven months. Occasionally he has posted from his travel while on the road. (Personally, don’t know what his problem is, I found some Olive Oil in aisle 5 the last time I went to the Grocery store, but he’s from Texas, so he might have to make it harder just to prove his manhood. Apparently everything is difficult bigger in Texas.
Anyway, he has beamed some pics back to us, as his travels have brought him to all sorts of, well, out of this world places.
Well, as it turns out, in his epic search for oil, he accidentally not only discovered water on Mars:
Images Suggest Water Once Covered Mars
WASHINGTON (July 16) - Minerals in the soil of Mars show it was covered once by lakes, rivers and other bodies of water that could have supported life, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
Last month the Mars Phoenix Lander found ice on the surface of the planet, but it is frozen hard and covered by red dust. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of scientists shows that the ice is left over from warmer, wetter times."This is really exciting because we're finding dozens of sites where future missions can land to understand if Mars was ever habitable and if so, to look for signs of past life," said John Mustard of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who worked on the study.(Via AOL News)
Then, well, he went just a bit further out and located an entire (mini) planet:
Dwarf Planet Near Pluto Gets a Name
WASHINGTON (July 20) - A dwarf planet orbiting beyond Neptune has been designated the third plutoid in the solar system and given the name Makemake, the International Astronomical Union said on Saturday.
The red methane-covered dwarf planet formerly known as 2005 FY9 or "Easterbunny" is named after a Polynesian creator of humanity and god of fertility.(Via AOL News)
No, no, I’m not talking about the area between Walt’s ears, but rather the area that is not on the Green Hills of Earth. We are once again returning to out in space. Today we bring you a couple of interesting (well, interesting to us) unEarthly stories. The first one is a story regarding a 30-year-old mystery regarding Mercury, the planet nearest to the Sun. Apparently to people who think about this sort of stuff, volcanism has long been thought to be a major force in shaping the rocky, terrestrial planets.
Obviously, there are still volcanoes that run hot here on Earth, while on Mars, there is more of a subdued volcanism that may or may not still be alive. Then there is Venus which is riddled with old volcanoes. Well, scientists may now have more info on the subject, due to MESSENGER (short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) which made its debut flyby of Mercury on Jan. 14, passing about 124 miles (200 kilometers) over the planet's surface.
Images of Mercury from the Mariner 10 mission showed areas of smooth plains covering parts of the planet's surface. Scientists speculated that these could be volcanic deposits, similar to the basaltic maria (seas) on the Moon. But unlike the maria, these plains were lighter, not darker, than the surrounding landscape, and Apollo 16 astronauts had just discovered that similarly light plains on the Moon were actually impact breccia, or rock that was smashed apart and then re-welded together again.
Next up; ever wonder what has become of all of those moon rock that came back from all of those Apollo missions. Well, truth to tell, neither have we, but apparently they are still around, and are revealing something of our celestial past:
HOUSTON — In the lab, the Moon rocks look nondescript — dark gray basalt, a whitish mineral called anorthosite and mixtures of the two with crystals thrown in. Yet nearly 40 years after the Apollo astronauts brought the first rocks back to Earth, these pieces of the Moon are still providing scientists with new secrets from another world.
Well, that’s it for now, perhaps tomorrow we’ll be able to find something interesting here on Earth.
The Perfessor
No, I’m neither being paranoid, nor am I being Chicken Little. I happened across this very cool slide show yesterday, and I figured that I’d share it with you all.
It seems that we here on Earth are in this great big space ship, traveling through the great vastness of space and, well, so too are other stuff — and, well, sometimes they hit us. No, really, check it out. Just watching it might make films like Armageddon and Deep Impact, not so much fun entertainment, as a harbinger of a deadly reality.
Go ahead, laugh now.
The Perfessor
Here is (yet another) Mars post, apparently a few million years in our past, our nearest neighbor in space (the Red Planet) was bitch-slapped by a cosmic event, causing a deep gash in the planet. You see, according to Scientists (who should know this sort of thing, apparently) there is some evidence that a huge object struck Mars at some point in its distant past, leaving behind what may be the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.
Below is an artist's rendition of what that impact could possibly could have looked like:
LOS ANGELES (June 25) - Why is Mars two-faced? Scientists say fresh evidence supports the theory that a monster impact punched the red planet, leaving behind perhaps the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.
Today, the Martian surface has a split personality. The southern hemisphere of Mars is pockmarked and filled with ancient rugged highlands. By contrast, the northern hemisphere is smoother and covered by low-lying plains.
I’m posting this because, well, as we all know Walt’s screwy for this sort of stuff, and I figure if I keep posting crap stuff like this, he’ll come back and let me go back to doing stuff that pays.
The Perfessor