Fruit of the Contemplative Life
Fruit of the contemplative life: => Unpacking Religion => : Jhanon September 03, 2014, 04:22:53 AM
-
I had a "rapture" experience in 2012 (Kundalini). I was gone, man. I mean it. I didn't go to other realms or anything like that. It wasn't that. I never felt like that. It felt like straight up Union. It was just light and ecstatic bliss. But at one point, I was gone, but not gone. This Union, I somehow didn't finish it. That was the biggest one. When I came back, I felt like I wasn't able to let go all the way. That's just how i felt. It may have been for other people, at least in the context i am presenting it. Because as soon as I was done, I called tons of people.
So, *sigh*, you know all that 2012 stuff? And then, I dunno, I heard that there was a "first rapture" (2012) and then a much larger "second rapture" (2030-ish) for everyone else (revelations.) I lost the most benevolent friend I'd ever met--in 2012. She was also prophetic, or seemingly. Before she went, she told many people to get out of America. I'm basically asking if we have about 16 years left to attain enlightenment--assuming we live that long.
Look, I don't know any of this stuff. I know how crazy it sounds. And I tend to stay away from prophecy, because it can be distracting and anxiety-ridden. But, what is everyone's take on all this? More specifically, I am looking for direct knowledge anyone has. Is there basically 16 years or so left before all this "mark of the beast" and what not happens?
I've had some insight/kundalini blasts (just a few minutes ago) that weren't exactly indicative that this is incorrect. Rather, I got a distinct "non-answer"
I just wanna be on the straight and narrow, so to speak. And I've never addressed this part of all of it. I have a lot of fundamentalist friends who are very gifted, and this is something I feel I should know about.
-
Here is my perspective on it. The world we are living in is changing dramatically every day. So, for me it is not destruction, but transformation.
The word "rapture" you used is from the mystic language. Its meaning is "samadhi." When you hear people who use this word mean "ascend bodily into heaven," that is a product of an American theology which developed in the 1800s. It has no basis in the Christian tradition.
-
When I say rapture, I mean Kundalini of the strong variety. The one that destroys everything, yet heals it, and suddenly you're gone. No where. Nothing. Not even "nothing." And yet vast. My perspective is that this kind of experience is the final event before full enlightenment. It also seems to be recurring when each stage of enlightenment is fulfilled. So, "rapture" means Enlightenment. Then the world being destroyed in many ways would be a "get out of jail free card", because why would a fully Enlightened Being care if they die? Would they even suffer? The only reason I see to keep this body alive is enlightenment and enlightenment of others.
I've only experienced kundalini/God/whatever you wanna call it, to that intensity once, or well, 2-3 times. I can't remember the very first one that well.
Okay, so is Revelations all imagery of repeating transformative cycles of earth? This is the heart of my question
-
Revelation is a bizarre part of the Bible. I have never studied it in-depth. But, I don't take the popular Christians' view of it seriously. If you're really interested you could email my friend Father Roger, who could probably answer your question.
-
It's unfortunate that the sheer number of people who take it literally has lead to a large quantity of theories and back stories to substantiate it. It appears to be both literal and figurative. I think I do want to e-mail your friend Father Roger, if you would do me the kindness, please.
-
Eventually an asteroid large enough to collapse civilization, if not completely bring humans to extinction, will one day occur; and it might be any minute now. So, let us all give up our cravings and spend the rest of our lives cultivating the bliss, joy, and ecstasy of direct spiritual communion.
-
Eventually an asteroid large enough to collapse civilization, if not completely bring humans to extinction, will one day occur; and it might be any minute now. So, let us all give up our cravings and spend the rest of our lives cultivating the bliss, joy, and ecstasy of direct spiritual communion.
Jhananda, you are right. I've considered this recently, but you saying it, again, has a power behind it.
-
Eventually an asteroid large enough to collapse civilization, if not completely bring humans to extinction, will one day occur; and it might be any minute now. So, let us all give up our cravings and spend the rest of our lives cultivating the bliss, joy, and ecstasy of direct spiritual communion.
-Que Michel with N8P :D (I jest, it is actually something that I have found very humbling. It even allows me to relate the particular instance exactly to what it should be related to, Thanks Michel ) ;D
To Michel- I have been struggling with the aggregates as of late, may I entreat you to conversation about them? I think it is safe to say that you have been most critical about them and have an intuitive knowledge of their nuances. I am not sure I could bring anything more than appreciation to the table, though.
To the GWV-Doesnt it say in the discourses that one should study those who are dead? I think they meant this was in hopes that one will realize that they are already dead. All humans die. Therefor one should be "dead" while they are alive. I believe this to mean the 4th Jhana in everyday (outside of formal meditative) activity.
With that said, there is great wisdom in your words, if this was the intention Jhanananda. Of course it was, it always is. You inspire me to revisit your previous posts, yet again =) I dont think one could ask for a better way of learning, nor is there a better teacher. ;D
-
Ebola Spreads through the Air. First case in Dallas
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/10/ebola-youre-told.html
I feel like I am broken when it comes to stuff like this because it seems like I'm the only concerned one.
-
Ebola Spreads through the Air. First case in Dallas
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/10/ebola-youre-told.html
I feel like I am broken when it comes to stuff like this because it seems like I'm the only concerned one.
Nah, you're not alone. When ya roll out of bed I'll come get ya and well go pick a couple things up. There's a few books on edibles in the wild for this area. I also want to head out to the foot of the Blue Mountains. I was born in that area, there's a large glacial lake and fair amount of wild game. Let's go poke around and scout it out. It's a rural area, but I'd like to be more familiar with the roads and accesses to the mountains, trails etc. I don't think it possible to go west in an emergency. There's 3 passes over those mountains and with panic and the area being so populated, we'd have to go either north or south. With warning we should be able to cross the Columbia rather easily. Also, I'll teach ya a couple ways to snare :)
-
Ebola Spreads through the Air. First case in Dallas
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/10/ebola-youre-told.html
I feel like I am broken when it comes to stuff like this because it seems like I'm the only concerned one.
It is wise to take precautions, and do wilderness training. One should keep in mind that the Spanish Flue killed something like 50 million people world wide in a 2 year period. Ebola could be the next great plague. Also, don't forget a major asteroid impact is due any minute now. So, spend every moment in meditation, and give up all of your craving.
-
Any minute an asteroid impact? Do you mean in the near future?
-
Any minute an asteroid impact? Do you mean in the near future?
The more that impact theory is embraced by geologists, the more they realize that most, if not all, of the major geological periods, and thus the accompanying ecological changes, were the consequence of a major asteroid impact. Thus, it is a fact of the geological record that a major asteroid impact will inevitably come, and it will cause extinctions, and the most complex organism are more likely to go extinct at that time.
The most complex organism at this time is the human species. Thus, unless we get serious about supporting hunter-gatherer societies, then we are the most likely to go extinct due to an asteroid impact, and one is likely to happen any minute now in geological time.
Does that means that I am predicting a holocaust? Not really. It is just a fact of the geological record that a major asteroid impact will happen any second now for the next few million years.
-
Assessing the Asteroid Impact Threat: Are We Doomed Yet? (http://www.science20.com/astro_watch/blog/assessing_the_asteroid_impact_threat_are_we_doomed_yet-151198)
"Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour," could be still an actual description of our ability to predict asteroid threats to Earth.
The Coronal Mass Ejection is yet another way that civilization could be brought down. (Note: I am reposting this from Electromagnetic radiation and health (http://fruitofthecontemplativelife.org/forum/index.php/topic,697.msg5012.html#new), because it is relevant here as well.
Homeland Security: 100 million Americans could lose power in major sun storm (http://www.examiner.com/article/homeland-security-100-million-americans-could-lose-power-major-sun-storm)
Solar storm of 1859, AKA the Carrington Event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859).
The solar storm of 1859, also known as the Carrington Event,[1] was a powerful geomagnetic solar storm in 1859 during solar cycle 10. A solar coronal mass ejection hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record. The associated "white light flare" in the solar photosphere was observed and recorded by English astronomers Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson.
Studies have shown that a solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would likely cause widespread problems for modern civilization. There is an estimated 12% chance of a similar event occurring between 2012 and 2022.[2]
Carrington Super Flare
From August 28 through September 2, 1859, numerous sunspots were observed on the Sun. On August 29, southern aurorae were observed as far north as Queensland in Australia.[3] Just before noon on September 1, the English amateur astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently made the first observations of a solar flare.[4] The flare was associated with a major coronal mass ejection (CME) that travelled directly toward Earth, taking 17.6 hours to make the 93 million mile journey. It is believed that the relatively high speed of this CME (typical CMEs take several days to arrive at Earth) was made possible by a prior CME, perhaps the cause of the large aurora event on August 29, that "cleared the way" of ambient solar wind plasma for the Carrington event.[4]
Because of a simultaneous "crochet" observed in the Kew Observatory magnetometer record by Scottish physicist Balfour Stewart and a geomagnetic storm observed the following day, Carrington suspected a solar-terrestrial connection. Worldwide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis, which support the observations of Carrington and Stewart.
On September 1–2, 1859, one of the largest recorded geomagnetic storms (as recorded by ground-based magnetometers) occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere even as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.[4] People who happened to be awake in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by the aurora's light.[5] The aurora was visible as far from the poles as Cuba and Hawaii.[6]
Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks.[7] Telegraph pylons threw sparks.[8] Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.[9]
On Saturday, September 3, 1859, the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser reported, "Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights. The phenomenon was very similar to the display on Sunday night, though at times the light was, if possible, more brilliant, and the prismatic hues more varied and gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested. Between 12 and 1 o'clock, when the display was at its full brilliancy, the quiet streets of the city resting under this strange light, presented a beautiful as well as singular appearance."[10]
In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the United States used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the current cost of a similar event to the US alone at $0.6–2.6 trillion.[11]
Similar events
Ice cores containing thin nitrate-rich layers have been analyzed to reconstruct a history of past solar storms predating reliable observations. Data from Greenland ice cores, gathered by Kenneth G. McCracken[12] and others, show evidence that events of this magnitude—as measured by high-energy proton radiation, not geomagnetic effect—occur approximately once per 500 years, with events at least one-fifth as large occurring several times per century.[13] However, more recent work by the ice core community (McCracken et al. are space scientists) shows that nitrate spikes are not a result of solar energetic particle events, so use of this technique is in doubt. 10Be and 14C are considered to be more reliable indicators by the ice core community.[14] These similar but much more extreme cosmic ray events, however, may originate outside the solar system and even outside the galaxy. Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported. The March 1989 geomagnetic storm knocked out power across large sections of Quebec. On July 23, 2012 a "Carrington-class" Solar Superstorm (Solar flare, Coronal mass ejection, Solar EMP) was observed; its trajectory missed Earth in orbit. Information about these observations was shared first publicly by NASA on April 28, 2014.[2][15]
If we had another one of these events the entire industrial age would collapse and billions of people would starve to death in weeks. Records indicate we have one ever couple of centuries.
There is also some evidence that Coronal mass ejections stimulate conflict among human populations.
The American Civil War, widely known in the United States as simply the Civil War as well as other sectional names, was fought from 1861 to 1865. Seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, known as the "Confederacy" or the "South". They grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never recognized by a foreign country. The states that did not declare secession were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories.[N 1] After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead, and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves began.
My medical response to geomagnetic disturbances suggests that there would also be wide spread illness, or at least joint pain experienced by people all over the world.
To keep from causing billions of people from starving to death due to a Carington level Solar Event causing the permanent damage of computers, which are the backbone of the infrastructure of the industrial age, which will cause it to collapse; then Radiation hardening of the entire global infrastructure of the power generation, power transmission, transportation and communication network is necessary. Radiation Hardening (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening) is the technology that might protect such equipment.
Radiation hardening is the act of making electronic components and systems resistant to damage or malfunctions caused by ionizing radiation (particle radiation and high-energy electromagnetic radiation),[1] such as those encountered in outer space and high-altitude flight, around nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, or during nuclear accidents or nuclear warfare.
Most semiconductor electronic components are susceptible to radiation damage; radiation-hardened components are based on their non-hardened equivalents, with some design and manufacturing variations that reduce the susceptibility to radiation damage. Due to the extensive development and testing required to produce a radiation-tolerant design of a microelectronic chip, radiation-hardened chips tend to lag behind the most recent developments.
Radiation-hardened products are typically tested to one or more resultant effects tests, including total ionizing dose (TID), enhanced low dose rate effects (ELDRS), neutron and proton displacement damage, and single event effects (SEE, SET, SEL and SEB).
Radiation-hardening techniques
Physical:
Hardened chips are often manufactured on insulating substrates instead of the usual semiconductor wafers. Silicon on Insulator (SOI) and sapphire (SOS) are commonly used. While normal commercial-grade chips can withstand between 50 and 100 gray (5 and 10 krad), space-grade SOI and SOS chips can survive doses many orders of magnitude greater. At one time many 4000 series chips were available in radiation-hardened versions (RadHard).[3]
Bipolar integrated circuits generally have higher radiation tolerance than CMOS circuits. The low-power Schottky (LS) 5400 series can withstand 1000 krad, and many ECL devices can withstand 10 000 krad.[3]
Magnetoresistive RAM, or MRAM, is considered a likely candidate to provide radiation hardened, rewritable, non-volatile conductor memory. Physical principles and early tests suggest that MRAM is not susceptible to ionization-induced data loss.
Shielding the package against radioactivity, to reduce exposure of the bare device.
Capacitor-based DRAM is often replaced by more rugged (but larger, and more expensive) SRAM.
Choice of substrate with wide band gap, which gives it higher tolerance to deep-level defects; e.g. silicon carbide or gallium nitride.
Shielding the chips themselves by use of depleted boron (consisting only of isotope Boron-11) in the borophosphosilicate glass passivation layer protecting the chips, as boron-10 readily captures neutrons and undergoes alpha decay (see soft error).
Logical:
Error correcting memory uses additional parity bits to check for and possibly correct corrupted data. Since radiation effects damage the memory content even when the system is not accessing the RAM, a "scrubber" circuit must continuously sweep the RAM; reading out the data, checking the parity for data errors, then writing back any corrections to the RAM.
Redundant elements can be used at the system level. Three separate microprocessor boards may independently compute an answer to a calculation and compare their answers. Any system that produces a minority result will recalculate. Logic may be added such that if repeated errors occur from the same system, that board is shut down.
Redundant elements may be used at the circuit level.[4] A single bit may be replaced with three bits and separate "voting logic" for each bit to continuously determine its result. This increases area of a chip design by a factor of 5, so must be reserved for smaller designs. But it has the secondary advantage of also being "fail-safe" in real time. In the event of a single-bit failure (which may be unrelated to radiation), the voting logic will continue to produce the correct result without resorting to a watchdog timer. System level voting between three separate processor systems will generally need to use some circuit-level voting logic to perform the votes between the three processor systems.
Hardened latches may be used.[5]
A watchdog timer will perform a hard reset of a system unless some sequence is performed that generally indicates the system is alive, such as a write operation from an onboard processor. During normal operation, software schedules a write to the watchdog timer at regular intervals to prevent the timer from running out. If radiation causes the processor to operate incorrectly, it is unlikely the software will work correctly enough to clear the watchdog timer. The watchdog eventually times out and forces a hard reset to the system. This is considered a last resort to other methods of radiation hardening.
Since learning about the very real danger of the Coronal Mass Ejection, I have taken to keeping all of my electronics, backup drives, and flash drives in a tin box that I found at a thrift store for $.50. It might work to protect my data from destruction during a Coronal Mass Ejection.
There is also a steel 4-drawer filing cabinet here, that I plan to use as a safe and for its EMF shielding. All I will need to do is lag bolt it from inside to wall studs, then ground the cabinet, then lock it securely.
-
130 million Americans could suffer due to intense solar storm (http://www.dailyiowegian.com/news/local_news/million-americans-could-suffer-due-to-intense-solar-storm/article_6abbdfe6-3e5e-502d-9b65-c9531944c8ec.html)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the latest official confirmation about the acute vulnerability of the U.S. electric grid, the Washington Free Beacon has revealed that a Freedom of Information Act request produced a fact sheet describing a 2012 Federal Emergency Management Agency interagency plan for severe space weather. The FEMA document refers to a 2010 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that “an extreme solar storm could leave 130 million people without power for years, and destroy or damage more than 300 hard-to-replace electrical grid transformers.”
According to Dr. William Graham, President Reagan’s Science Advisor and chairman of the congressionally mandated Electromagnetic Pulse Threat Commission, in the wake of widespread and prolonged blackouts, nine out of 10 Americans could perish.
Importantly, the level of damage described by FEMA and NOAA could be caused by what is known as a G5 class storm, the last of which hit the earth in 1921. That geomagnetic disturbance is estimated to have been roughly one-tenth the power of an 1859 solar storm known as a Carrington Event. Congressional testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this year established that the likelihood of another Carrington-class solar storm, to say nothing of less powerful ones, striking our planet in the foreseeable future is 100 percent.
In fact, on Dec. 5, Robert Rutledge, who directs NOAA’s Space Weather Forecast Office, advised the DuPont Summit – a conference in Washington, D.C. on grid vulnerability and steps needed to mitigate it – that such storms are as certain as earthquakes and hurricanes, and should be planned for accordingly.
The closer to either pole is consider greater risk during a coronal mass ejection; whereas, the closer to the equator the safer people and technology are. 60° toward either pole, or more, is consider at most risk. Below are some maps that might help you to determine your risk factor during a coronal mass ejection.
(http://www.davidchandler.com/images/USMap.gif)
(http://perso.orange.fr/artivision/docs/NorthPolarOpening2.jpg)
(http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/5400/5530451/AAAHGTL0.jpg)
(http://www.quia.com/files/quia/users/cgirtain/World-Map)
-
It would be cool if we had a site or webpage which lists all the affordable preventative measures as mathematically compared to the statistical likelihood of all known global dangers, and which of these preventative measures are most likely to be needed. I'm referring to individuals, as I highly doubt the government will do anything more than protect itself.
Human life blows.
-
Well, my answer is, if everyone were a mendicant, then the Sun, earth, and stars can do whatever they want, and all mendicants will be fine.
-
It would be cool if we had a site or webpage which lists all the affordable preventative measures as mathematically compared to the statistical likelihood of all known global dangers, and which of these preventative measures are most likely to be needed. I'm referring to individuals, as I highly doubt the government will do anything more than protect itself.
Human life blows.
We can start listing some basic survival strategies here, then build a webpage out of our discussion.
1] It is my premise that the most basic survival strategy is the hunter-gather lifestyle, which the mendicant life compares well to.
2] Therefore learning how to camp, forage, fish and hunt will make one more resilient in any disaster.
3] This means owning a complete camping, foraging, fishing and hunting kit, and knowing how to use it, will make one more resilient in any disaster.
-
More thoughts on the mendicant life and resiliency. One will need a mode of transportation whether one takes up the mendicant life, or seeks to survive a global disaster, like a direct hit from a coronal mass ejection; or a regional disaster, like flooding, famine, plague, war, tidal waves, earth quakes, and volcanoes.
Modes of transportation for the mendicant life:
4] The most basic mode of transportation is walking, so be able to put your entire survival kit on your back and walk into the wilderness at a moment's notice.
5] A touring bike, or mountain bike, will get one further with less effort. A bicycle that is set up for long distance riding and camping is all too easy to own these days; and having it fully outfitted with panniers and camping gear is possible given the time and money ahead of time to put it together. The camping gear for tour cycling is not much different from backpacking, so the same kit could be used for both. The only difference is panniers are made to fit onto racks on a bicycle, and you can carry more on a bike than you can on your back.
I have both kits and could be ready to hit the road in a few hours of packing. I would go with the touring bicycle first, if I had a choice.
In the case of a coronal mass ejection it is likely that every computer on the planet will be fried permanently, so every automobile with a computer will be dead at the curb. However, if one had the resources to own more than one auto, then one could have a modern automobile, and have a second auto that is pre-computer. This would be up to the 70s for most gasoline engines, and up to 1990 for a diesel engine. Thus the advantage of owning a pre-computer automobile following a global disaster, there is likely to be a nearly infinite supply of auto parts, batteries, tires, motor oil, and fuel in those many abandoned dead automobiles sitting at the curb.
If the industrial revolution comes to a grinding halt because of a global disaster, such as a coronal mass ejection, then the entire global transportation system will collapse, along with the global electric grid; and it is not likely to come back. This means within the first 2 weeks of such an event billions of people will starve to death; and the human population is likely to be cut in half every week following the disaster for the first year. This is the time to disappear into the wilderness, because people will be desperate, and do desperate things to each other to survive.
A coronal mass ejection is the most probably source of a global disaster. The solar cycle (see below) will give you some insight into the frequency of coronal mass ejections. Previous coronal mass ejections caused social problems, such as war, witch burnings, etc. For instance, the American Civil War broke out 1 year after the 1859 Carington Event. I do not believe that is a coincidence.
From 1859, when the Carington event took place, and afterwards, we have become increasingly dependent upon technological advancements. So, it is possible that the human world could fall back to a mid-19th century technology; however, we have left behind those technologies, so it would be very difficult to restore them. Thus, the Mennonites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonite) and Amish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish) are the most resilient social group who is likely to survive a global disaster, because of their simple lifestyle that depends upon community, and 19th century technology.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png)
The solar cycle
List of solar storms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_storms)
Electromagnetic, geomagnetic, and/or proton storms
2225 BCE[5]
1485 BCE[5]
95 CE[5]
265 CE[5]
774–775 carbon-14 spike (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_carbon-14_spike)
993-994 CE[6] (another significant carbon-14 spike)
1460 CE[5]
1505 CE[5]
1719 CE[5]
1810 CE[5]
Solar storm of 1859 ("Carrington event") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859)
Aurora of November 17, 1882 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_of_November_17,_1882)
May 1921 geomagnetic storm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1921_geomagnetic_storm)
March 1989 geomagnetic storm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm)
August 1989[7]
Bastille Day event of July 14, 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille_Day_event)
Halloween solar storms, 2003[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_solar_storms,_2003)
Recent coronal mass ejections (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)
On 1 August 2010, during solar cycle 24, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) observed a series of four large CMEs emanating from the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Sun. The initial CME was generated by an eruption on 1 August that was associated with NOAA Active Region 1092, which was large enough to be seen without the aid of a solar telescope. The event produced significant aurorae on Earth three days later.
On 23 July 2012, a massive, and potentially damaging, Solar Superstorm (Solar flare, CME, Solar EMP) barely missed Earth, according to NASA.[19][20] There is an estimated 12% chance of a similar event hitting Earth between 2012 and 2022.[19]
On 31 August 2012 a CME connected with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, with a glancing blow causing aurora to appear on the night of 3 September.[21][22] Geomagnetic storming reached the G2 (Kp=6) level on NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center scale of geomagnetic disturbances.[23][24]
Global catastrophic risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk)
A global catastrophic risk is a hypothetical future event with the potential to inflict serious damage to human well-being on a global scale.[2] Some such events could destroy or cripple modern civilization. Other, even more severe, scenarios threaten permanent human extinction.[3] These are referred to as existential risks.
Natural disasters, such as supervolcanoes and asteroids, pose such risks if sufficiently powerful. Human-caused, or anthropogenic, events could also threaten the survival of intelligent life on Earth. Such anthropogenic events could include catastrophic global warming,[4] nuclear war, or bioterrorism. The Future of Humanity Institute believes that human extinction is more likely to result from anthropogenic causes than natural causes.[5][6]
Researchers experience difficulty in studying human extinction directly, since humanity has never been destroyed before.[7] While this does not mean that it will not be in the future, it does make modelling existential risks difficult, due in part to survivorship bias.
-
(http://en.es-static.us/upl/2015/01/asteroid-2004-BL86.gif)
Asteroid 2004 BL86 to sweep close on January 26 (https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2004-bl86-to-sweep-close-on-january-26)
-
This was a near catastrophic impact. The sad part is NASA missed it. As a tax payer who supports the sciences, I would like to see NASA find out where this asteroid is, track it, determine its orbit, and keep an eye on it.
(http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/9e3bff266982469a700bebacaefc86fdaa29e89c/c=242-0-1678-1080&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/01/21/KHOU/KHOU/635574258504675890-Fireball-01.JPG)
Expert explains strange fireball flying over Houston area (http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/2015/01/21/expert-explains-strange-fireball-flying-over-houston-area/22088689/)
-
Maybe it is time this place came to an end...
-
I agree. I expect that a sustainable ecosystem needs to have periodic extinctions to remove species that have dominated the ecosystem too long, and have become unsustainable due to lack of resilience. The periodic extinction then promotes evolution by removing the dominate species.
-
Recurring Meteor Shower On Mercury? NASA’s MESSENGER Suggests So (http://planetsave.com/2015/02/03/recurring-meteor-shower-mercury-nasas-messenger-suggests/). The finding also suggests that there might be a tie between the cyclic Meteor Showers On Mercury and the earth, which suggests that the debris fields that cause these meteor showers are in orbit around the sun. If so, then there might be larger chunks that may impact us causing some damage and loss of life.
-
These articles might be worth reading:
North American Drought Atlas (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.LDEO/.TRL/.NADA2004/.pdsi-atlas.html), A History of Meteorological Drought Reconstructed from 835 Tree-Ring, Chronologies for the past 2005 years.
U.S. Droughts Will Be the Worst in 1,000 Years (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-droughts-will-be-the-worst-in-1-000-years1/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20150213).
Two years on, source of Russian Chelyabinsk meteor remains elusive (http://phys.org/news/2015-02-years-source-russian-chelyabinsk-meteor.html)
Russian meteorite sheds light on dinosaur extinction mystery (http://phys.org/news/2014-07-russian-meteorite-dinosaur-extinction-mystery.html#inlRlv)
List of solar cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_cycles)
major space weather events in history (http://www.solarstorms.org/SRefStorms.html)
Florida Tech Researchers Get Rare Lightning on Video (http://newsroom.fit.edu/2015/02/03/florida-tech-researchers-capture-rare-lightning-on-video/)
The Doomsday Clock, which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe, last month ticked a minute closer to "midnight" (http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/world-thunderstorm-map-key-to-assessing-climate-change.html)
Monthly and smoothed sunspot numbers (http://www.sidc.be/silso/monthlyssnplot)
-
New Study Reveals Link between Mass Extinction Events and Comet/Asteroid Showers (http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-mass-extinction-events-comet-asteroid-showers-03359.html)
According to a study that will be published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet/asteroid showers.
For more than three decades, researchers have argued about a controversial hypothesis relating to periodic mass extinctions and asteroid/comet impact craters on Earth.
Dr Ken Caldeira of Carnegie Institution and Dr Michael Rampino of New York University offer new support linking the age of these craters with recurring mass extinctions of life, including the demise of the dinosaurs.
Specifically, they show a cyclical pattern over the studied period, with both impacts and extinction events taking place every 26 million years.
This cycle has been linked to periodic motion of the Sun and planets through the dense mid-plane of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Scientists have theorized that gravitational perturbations of the distant Oort comet cloud that surrounds the Sun lead to periodic comet showers in the inner Solar System, where some comets strike our planet.
To test their hypothesis, the team performed time-series analyses of impacts and extinctions using available data offering more accurate age estimates.
(http://cdn4.sci-news.com/images/2015/10/image_3359_2-Mass-Extinctions.jpg)
“The correlation between the formation of these impacts and extinction events over the past 260 million years is striking and suggests a cause-and-effect relationship,” said Dr Rampino, who is the lead author on the study.
The scientists found that six mass extinctions of life during the studied period correlate with times of enhanced impact cratering on Earth.
“One of the craters considered in the study is the Chicxulub impact structure in the Yucatan, which dates to about 65 million years ago – the time of a great mass extinction that included the dinosaurs.”
“Moreover, five out of the six largest impact craters of the last 260 million years on Earth correlate with mass extinction events,” they said.
“This cosmic cycle of death and destruction has without a doubt affected the history of life on our planet,” Dr Rampino concluded.
Big Five mass extinction events (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_events)
Although the Cretaceous-Tertiary (or K-T) extinction event is the most well-known because it wiped out the dinosaurs, a series of other mass extinction events has occurred throughout the history of the Earth, some even more devastating than K-T. Mass extinctions are periods in Earth's history when abnormally large numbers of species die out simultaneously or within a limited time frame. The most severe occurred at the end of the Permian period when 96% of all species perished. This along with K-T are two of the Big Five mass extinctions, each of which wiped out at least half of all species. Many smaller scale mass extinctions have occurred, indeed the disappearance of many animals and plants at the hands of man in prehistoric, historic and modern times will eventually show up in the fossil record as mass extinctions. Discover more about Earth's major extinction events below.
Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction
443 million years ago
The third largest extinction in Earth's history, the Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction had two peak dying times separated by hundreds of thousands of years. During the Ordovician, most life was in the sea, so it was sea creatures such as trilobites, brachiopods and graptolites that were drastically reduced in number.
Late Devonian mass extinction
359 million years ago
Three quarters of all species on Earth died out in the Late Devonian mass extinction, though it may have been a series of extinctions over several million years, rather than a single event. Life in the shallow seas were the worst affected, and reefs took a hammering, not returning to their former glory until new types of coral evolved over 100 million years later.
Permian mass extinction
248 million years ago
The Permian mass extinction has been nicknamed The Great Dying, since a staggering 96% of species died out. All life on Earth today is descended from the 4% of species that survived.
Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction
200 million years ago
During the final 18 million years of the Triassic period, there were two or three phases of extinction whose combined effects created the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction event. Climate change, flood basalt eruptions and an asteroid impact have all been blamed for this loss of life.
Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction
65 million years ago
The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction - also known as the K/T extinction - is famed for the death of the dinosaurs. However, many other organisms perished at the end of the Cretaceous including the ammonites, many flowering plants and the last of the pterosaurs.
Impact events (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_causes/Impact_event)
Impact events, proposed as causes of mass extinction, are when the planet is struck by a comet or meteor large enough to create a huge shockwave felt around the globe. Widespread dust and debris rain down, disrupting the climate and causing extinction on a global, rather than local, scale. The demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous has been linked to an impact that left a crater in the seabed off the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Impacts have also been blamed for other mass extinctions, but the timing and links between cause and effect for these is still debated by scientists.
-
An extinction event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event) (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the amount of life on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the rate of speciation. Because the majority of diversity and biomass on Earth is microbial, and thus difficult to measure, recorded extinction events affect the easily observed, biologically complex component of the biosphere rather than the total diversity and abundance of life.[1]
Extinction occurs at an uneven rate. Based on the fossil record, the background rate of extinctions on Earth is about two to five taxonomic families of marine animals every million years. Marine fossils are mostly used to measure extinction rates because of their superior fossil record and stratigraphic range compared to land organisms.
The Great Oxygenation Event was probably the first major extinction event. Since the Cambrian explosion five further major mass extinctions have significantly exceeded the background extinction rate. The most recent and debatably best-known, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which occurred approximately 66 million years ago (Ma), was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time. In addition to the five major mass extinctions, there are numerous minor ones as well and the ongoing mass-extinction caused by human activity is sometimes called the sixth extinction. Mass extinctions seem to be a Phanerozoic phenomenon, with extinction rates low before large complex organisms arose.[2]
Estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty. These differences stem from the threshold chosen for describing an extinction event as "major", and the data chosen to measure past diversity.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png)
Major extinction events
In a landmark paper published in 1982, Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup identified five mass extinctions. They were originally identified as outliers to a general trend of decreasing extinction rates during the Phanerozoic,[3] but as more stringent statistical tests have been applied to the accumulating data, the "Big Five" cannot be so clearly defined, but rather appear to represent the largest (or some of the largest) of a relatively smooth continuum of extinction events.[3]
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (End Cretaceous, K-T extinction, or K-Pg extinction): 66 Ma at the Cretaceous(Maastrichtian)-Paleogene(Danian) transition interval.[4] The K–T event is now officially called the Cretaceous–Paleogene (or K–Pg) extinction event in place of Cretaceous-Tertiary. About 17% of all families, 50% of all genera[5] and 75% of all species became extinct.[6] In the seas it reduced the percentage of sessile animals (those unable to move about) to about 33%. All non-avian dinosaurs became extinct during that time.[7] The boundary event was severe with a significant amount of variability in the rate of extinction between and among different clades. Mammals and birds, the latter descended from theropod dinosaurs, emerged as dominant large land animals.
Triassic–Jurassic extinction event (End Triassic): 201.3 Ma at the Triassic-Jurassic transition. About 23% of all families, 48% of all genera (20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera) and 70% to 75% of all species went extinct.[5] Most non-dinosaurian archosaurs, most therapsids, and most of the large amphibians were eliminated, leaving dinosaurs with little terrestrial competition. Non-dinosaurian archosaurs continued to dominate aquatic environments, while non-archosaurian diapsids continued to dominate marine environments. The Temnospondyl lineage of large amphibians also survived until the Cretaceous in Australia (e.g., Koolasuchus).
Permian–Triassic extinction event (End Permian): 252 Ma at the Permian-Triassic transition. Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families, 83% of all genera and 90% to 96% of all species[5] (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species, including insects).[8] The highly successful marine arthropod, the trilobite became extinct. The evidence of plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction.[9] The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years,[10] but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying".
Late Devonian extinction: 375–360 Ma near the Devonian-Carboniferous transition. At the end of the Frasnian Age in the later part(s) of the Devonian Period, a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 19% of all families, 50% of all genera[5] and 70% of all species.[citation needed] This extinction event lasted perhaps as long as 20 million years, and there is evidence for a series of extinction pulses within this period.
Ordovician–Silurian extinction events (End Ordovician or O-S): 450–440 Ma at the Ordovician-Silurian transition. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families, 57% of all genera and 60% to 70% of all species.[5] Together they are ranked by many scientists as the second largest of the five major extinctions in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct.
Despite the popularization of these five events, there is no fine line separating them from other extinction events; using different methods of calculating an extinction's impact can lead to other events featuring in the top five.[11]
The older the fossil record gets, the more difficult it is to read. This is because:
Older fossils are harder to find as they are usually buried at a considerable depth.
Dating older fossils is more difficult.
Productive fossil beds are researched more than unproductive ones, therefore leaving certain periods unresearched.
Prehistoric environmental events can disturb the deposition process.
The preservation of fossils varies on land, but marine fossils tend to be better preserved than their sought after land-based counterparts.[12]
It has been suggested that the apparent variations in marine biodiversity may actually be an artifact, with abundance estimates directly related to quantity of rock available for sampling from different time periods.[13] However, statistical analysis shows that this can only account for 50% of the observed pattern,[citation needed] and other evidence (such as fungal spikes)[clarification needed] provides reassurance that most widely accepted extinction events are real. A quantification of the rock exposure of Western Europe indicates that many of the minor events for which a biological explanation has been sought are most readily explained by sampling bias.[14]
Research completed after the seminal 1982 paper has concluded that a sixth mass extinction event is ongoing:
6. Holocene extinction: Currently ongoing. Extinctions have occurred at over 100 times the background extinction rate since 1900. The mass extinction is considered a result of human activity.[15][16]
Patterns in frequency
It has been suggested variously that extinction events occurred periodically, every 26 to 30 million years,[22] or that diversity fluctuates episodically every ~62 million years.[23] Various ideas attempt to explain the supposed pattern, including the presence of a hypothetical companion star to the sun,[24] [25] oscillations in the galactic plane, or passage through the Milky Way's spiral arms.[26] However, other authors have concluded the data on marine mass extinctions do not fit with the idea that mass extinctions are periodic, or that ecosystems gradually build up to a point at which a mass extinction is inevitable.[3] Many of the proposed correlations have been argued to be spurious.[27][28] Others have argued that there is strong evidence supporting periodicity in a variety of records,[29] and additional evidence in the form of coincident periodic variation in nonbiological geochemical variables.[30]
Mass extinctions are thought to result when a long-term stress is compounded by a short term shock.[31] Over the course of the Phanerozoic, individual taxa appear to be less likely to become extinct at any time,[32] which may reflect more robust food webs as well as less extinction-prone species and other factors such as continental distribution.[32] However, even after accounting for sampling bias, there does appear to be a gradual decrease in extinction and origination rates during the Phanerozoic.[3] This may represent the fact that groups with higher turnover rates are more likely to become extinct by chance; or it may be an artefact of taxonomy: families tend to become more speciose, therefore less prone to extinction, over time;[3] and larger taxonomic groups (by definition) appear earlier in geological time.[33]
It has also been suggested that the oceans have gradually become more hospitable to life over the last 500 million years, and thus less vulnerable to mass extinctions,[note 1][34][35] but susceptibility to extinction at a taxonomic level does not appear to make mass extinctions more or less probable.[32]
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Phanerozoic_biodiversity_blank_01.png/300px-Phanerozoic_biodiversity_blank_01.png)
Causes
There is still debate about the causes of all mass extinctions. In general, large extinctions may result when a biosphere under long-term stress undergoes a short-term shock.[31] An underlying mechanism appears to be present in the correlation of extinction and origination rates to diversity. High diversity leads to a persistent increase in extinction rate; low diversity to a persistent increase in origination rate. These presumably ecologically controlled relationships likely amplify smaller perturbations (asteroid impacts, etc.) to produce the global effects observed.[3]
Identifying causes of particular mass extinctions
A good theory for a particular mass extinction should: (i) explain all of the losses, not just focus on a few groups (such as dinosaurs); (ii) explain why particular groups of organisms died out and why others survived; (iii) provide mechanisms which are strong enough to cause a mass extinction but not a total extinction; (iv) be based on events or processes that can be shown to have happened, not just inferred from the extinction.
It may be necessary to consider combinations of causes. For example, the marine aspect of the end-Cretaceous extinction appears to have been caused by several processes which partially overlapped in time and may have had different levels of significance in different parts of the world.[36]
Arens and West (2006) proposed a "press / pulse" model in which mass extinctions generally require two types of cause: long-term pressure on the eco-system ("press") and a sudden catastrophe ("pulse") towards the end of the period of pressure.[37] Their statistical analysis of marine extinction rates throughout the Phanerozoic suggested that neither long-term pressure alone nor a catastrophe alone was sufficient to cause a significant increase in the extinction rate.
Most widely supported explanations
Macleod (2001)[38] summarized the relationship between mass extinctions and events which are most often cited as causes of mass extinctions, using data from Courtillot et al. (1996),[39] Hallam (1992)[40] and Grieve et al. (1996):[41]
Flood basalt events: 11 occurrences, all associated with significant extinctions[42][43] But Wignall (2001) concluded that only five of the major extinctions coincided with flood basalt eruptions and that the main phase of extinctions started before the eruptions.[44]
Sea-level falls: 12, of which seven were associated with significant extinctions.[43]
Asteroid impacts; One large impact associated with a mass extinction; there have been many smaller impacts but they are not associated with significant extinctions.[clarification needed]
-
The above article suggests that we have 11 million years more before the next major extinction; however, there are likely to be many smaller impacts in the intervening period, which could cause a major disruption of the habitable zones of earth.
The article below reports that it has been found that comet Love-Joy contains alcohol and sugar molecules which would certainly be the building blocks for life. While I reject the hypothesis of an Oort cloud, and a belief that comets are "left over from the formation of the solar system;" and consider it far more reasonable that comets are frosty asteroids with highly elliptical orbits, which allow them to collect free-floating molecules from the cooling solar wind at the edge of the solar system, much like a vacuum cleaner; nonetheless, I do find it quite reasonable that comets can carry the building blocks for life, as well as protecting the odd micro organism under a thick sheet of frozen volatiles, whereby it eventually might be deposited on a world where the conditions for life may allow it to come to life, reproduce and even evolve into more complex organisms, as long as the conditions for life are sustained long enough.
Ingredients for Life Were Always Present on Earth, Comet Suggests (http://www.space.com/30911-comet-lovejoy-organic-molecules-earth-life.html)
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | October 23, 2015 03:10pm ET
-
Ice cores confirm colossal solar storms (http://earthsky.org/space/ice-cores-solar-storms-swedish-study-2015-antarctica-greenland)
Evidence that Earth was hit by two solar storms – 10 times larger than those observed recently – 1,000 years ago. If they occurred today, they’d have devastating effects on power supplies, satellites and communications.
This week – October 26, 2014 – scientists in Sweden published a study in the journal Nature Communications suggesting that solar storms – streams of charged particles from the sun – could be much more powerful than previously assumed. Researchers at Lund University say they’ve now confirmed that Earth was hit by two extreme solar storms more than 1,000 years ago. These storms were at least 10 times larger than those observed in recent decades. The evidence for these storms is trapped in ice in Greenland and Antarctica.
Many skywatchers at high latitudes look forward to solar storms, because the particles they release may interact with Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in spectacular displays of auroras, or northern and southern lights. However, while solar storms aren’t harmful to us on Earth’s surface – because our atmosphere protects us – they do pose a risk to our earthly technologies.
In extreme cases, solar storms have caused major power outages, such as the one in October 2003 in Sweden and in March 1989 in Canada. They could also lead to breakdowns of satellites and communication systems. Raimund Muscheler of Lund University, speaking of the two enormous solar storms discovered by his research group, said in an October 26 statement:
If such enormous solar storms would hit Earth today, they could have devastating effects on our power supply, satellites and communication systems.
-
The Discovery of Global Warming (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovery-of-global-warming/)
Earlier scientists had sought a single master‑key to climate, but now they were coming to understand that climate is an intricate system responding to a great many influences. Volcanic eruptions and solar variations were still plausible causes of change, and some argued these would swamp any effects of human activities. Even subtle changes in the Earth’s orbit could make a difference. To the surprise of many, studies of ancient climates showed that astronomical cycles had partly set the timing of the ice ages. Apparently the climate was so delicately balanced that almost any small perturbation might set off a great shift. According to the new “chaos” theories, in such a system a shift might even come all by itself — and suddenly. Support for the idea came from ice cores arduously drilled from the Greenland ice sheet. They showed large and disconcertingly abrupt temperature jumps in the past...
One unexpected discovery was that the level of methane and certain other gases was rising, which would add seriously to global warming. Some of these gases also degraded the atmosphere’s protective ozone layer, and the news inflamed public worries about the fragility of the atmosphere. Moreover, by the late 1970s global temperatures had begun to rise again. Many climate scientists were now convinced that the rise was likely to continue as greenhouse gases accumulated. By around 2000, some predicted, an unprecedented global warming would become apparent. Their worries first caught wide public attention in the summer of 1988, the hottest on record till then. (Most since then have been hotter.) An international meeting of scientists warned that the world should take active steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions...
The response was vehement. Corporations and individuals who opposed all government regulation began to spend many millions of dollars on lobbying, advertising, and “reports” that mimicked scientific publications, in an effort to convince people that there was no problem at all. Environmental groups, less wealthy but more enthusiastic, helped politicize the issue with urgent cries of alarm. But the many scientific uncertainties, and the sheer complexity of climate, made room for limitless debate over what actions, if any, governments should take...
There were some things that virtually all experts agreed on as of 1988. A rather straightforward calculation showed that doubling the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere... which would arrive in the late 21st century if no steps were taken to curb emissions... should raise the temperature of the surface roughly one degree C. However, a warmer atmosphere would hold more water vapor, which ought to cause another degree or so of warming. Beyond that the calculations got problematic. Cloudiness was likely to change in ways that could either enhance or diminish the warming, and scientists did not understand the complex processes well. Moreover, humanity was emitting ever increasing amounts of smoke and other pollution; again scientists were not sure how this might affect climate. Only better observations and computer models could attempt to project the outcome...
Meanwhile striking news came from studies of ancient climates recorded in Antarctic ice cores. For hundreds of thousands of years, carbon dioxide and temperature had been linked: anything that caused one of the pair to rise or fall had caused a rise or fall in the other. It turned out that a doubling of carbon dioxide had always gone along with a 3°C temperature rise, give or take a degree or two — a striking confirmation of the computer models, from entirely independent evidence...
Since 2001, greatly improved computer models and an abundance of data of many kinds strengthened the conclusion that human emissions are very likely to cause serious climate change. The IPCC’s conclusions were reviewed and endorsed by the national science academies of every major nation from the United States to China, along with leading scientific societies and indeed virtually every organization that could speak for a scientific consensus. Specialists meanwhile improved their understanding of some less probable but more severe possibilities. On the one hand, a dangerous change in ocean circulation seemed unlikely in the next century or two. On the other hand, there were signs that disintegrating ice sheets could raise sea levels faster than most scientists had expected. Worse, new evidence suggested that the warming was itself starting to cause changes that would generate still more warming.
In 2007 the IPCC reported that scientists were more confident than ever that humans were changing the climate. Although only a small fraction of the predicted warming had happened so far, effects were already becoming visible in some regions — more deadly heat waves, stronger floods and droughts, heat‑related changes in the ranges and behavior of sensitive species. But the scientists had not been able to narrow the range of possibilities. Depending on what steps people took to restrict emissions, by the end of the century we could expect the planet’s average temperature to rise anywhere between about 1.4 and 6°C (2.5–11°F).
Exxon Knew about Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20151027)
Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue, according to a recent investigation from InsideClimate News. This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation—an approach many have likened to the lies spread by the tobacco industry regarding the health risks of smoking. Both industries were conscious that their products wouldn’t stay profitable once the world understood the risks, so much so that they used the same consultants to develop strategies on how to communicate with the public.
-
The monetary system is a deadly cancer that will destroy humanity one day, if this goes on. If global warming doesn't, then I wouldn't be surprised that nuclear warheads will. It is saddening...
-
I agree, bodhimind, the issue I am most worried about is wealth distribution. In our time, inequality is going to be aggravated by technological developments in computers and robotics. Not even the part-time work people can get now will be available, as businesses find more ways to cut costs. Ultimately, I think everyone will need a guaranteed minimum income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income
Unfortunately, at least in the United States, something like this seems far off from happening.
The French economist Thomas Piketty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
-
I agree with both of you. The point of this thread is for people to look at impermanence in another way. And, as said on another thread, this is not about instilling fear, but learning to develop survival skills, and learning to let go at ever deeper levels.
-
I was once an avid reader of articles on peak oil and all sorts of doom and gloom, and I support all those out there working to make a difference on those fronts, but it seems time and energy are just as well spent stopping, living a simple life, and working to undo human compulsion and blindness, in ourselves if nothing else.
A description (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenni) I've always liked:
In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fenni, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones. Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young. Such a condition they judge more happy than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses, than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defense of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.
-
I agree with both of you. The point of this thread is for people to look at impermanence in another way. And, as said on another thread, this is not about instilling fear, but learning to develop survival skills, and learning to let go at ever deeper levels.
4 Noble truths? Wheres Michel??
-
I was once an avid reader of articles on peak oil and all sorts of doom and gloom, and I support all those out there working to make a difference on those fronts, but it seems time and energy are just as well spent stopping, living a simple life, and working to undo human compulsion and blindness, in ourselves if nothing else.
I completely agree.
A description (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenni) I've always liked:
In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fenni, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones. Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young. Such a condition they judge more happy than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses, than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defense of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.
This is a good description of the hunter-gather, which is the lifestyle that is most sustainable, and is our true ecological niche. It is what the mystic often ends up living, if he or she is not martyred first.
4 Noble truths? Wheres Michel??
Let us hope that he is well. I have read Michel state that he prefers not to spend much time on the web, so that he can spend more time meditating and keeping his mind still.
-
This article, The Carolina Bays and the Destruction of North America (http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-science-space/carolina-bays-and-destruction-north-america-004458#ixzz3qrhFJ5h8), is an excellent article that does the necessary research to demonstrate the Younger Dryas impact occurred and what its geological effect was.
(http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/false-color-image_0.jpg?itok=DfZ1WoZD)
Impact craters, which are known as the The Carolina Bays.
(http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/populations-of-Bays.jpg?itok=iSvLPxgf)
The Carolina Bays point to the site of the major impact, for which the Carolina Bays were secondary impacts.
-
This was an interesting read. A meteor shovels out a large amount of ice, throws it into the atmosphere, it melts and creates a literal rain of death. It makes sense though. Like throwing a ball very hard into a water puddle, the shape in which the droplets land would indicate the trajectory they followed. I wonder if scientists might find evidence of such a meteor in the area of the great lakes?
-
Well, the secondary impacts, which the Carolina Bays represent need not be caused by ejected ice, but by ejected soil and rock. Regarding your question about a primary impact point in the great lakes, apparently it has not yet been identified, but after this article, I am quite sure will inspre geologists to be looking in the direction of the Great Lakes for such a primary impactor.
This discussion brought my attention to Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis).
The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, also known as the Clovis comet hypothesis, is one of the competing scientific explanations for the onset of the Younger Dryas cold period after the last glacial period. The hypothesis, which scientists continue to debate, proposes that the climate of that time was cooled by the impact or air burst of one or more comets.[1][2][3]
The general hypothesis states that about 12,900 BP calibrated (10,900 14C uncalibrated) years ago, air burst(s) or impact(s) from a near-Earth object(s) set areas of the North American continent on fire, disrupted climate and caused the Quaternary extinction event in North America. This resulted in the extinction of most of the megafauna, and the rapid demise of the North American Clovis culture.[4] The Younger Dryas ice age lasted for about 1,200 years before the climate warmed again. These events are also seen as part of the Holocene extinction phenomenon.
One or more big explosions may have occurred above or possibly on the Laurentide Ice Sheet in the region of the Great Lakes. Though no major impact crater has been identified, the proponents suggest that it would be physically possible for such an air burst to have been similar to but orders of magnitude larger than the Tunguska event of 1908.[5][6] The hypothesis proposed that animal and human life in North America not directly killed by the blast or the resulting wildfires would have suffered due to the disrupted ecologic relationships affecting the continent.
The impact of this postulated event (or series of events) goes beyond the Americas. A number of studies document this impact around the world. For example, James Wittke et al. document deposition of impact spherules 12,800 years ago across four continents, including Europe and the Middle East.[7]
Another excellent page on impacts is found in a National Geographic article Asteroid Impacts: 10 Biggest Known Hits (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130214-biggest-asteroid-impacts-meteorites-space-2012da14/).
The asteroid known as 2012 DA14 will narrowly miss Earth this Friday, the closest asteroid flyby on record. But the planet has not always been so lucky.
The Chelyabinsk meteor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor) occurred on the same day as 2012 DA14 narrowly miss Earth.
A bolide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolide) (French from the Greek βολίς bolis, "missile" or "to flash"[2][3]) is an extremely bright meteor that explodes in the atmosphere. In astronomy, it refers to a fireball approximately as bright as the full moon, and it is generally considered a synonym of a fireball. In geology a bolide is a very large impactor.
-
(http://motherboard-images.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/28082/1448305882664682.png)
The Small Agency Trying to Prevent Catastrophic Solar Storms (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-small-agency-trying-to-prevent-catastrophic-solar-storms)
Written by Rachel Pick
November 23, 2015 // 02:16 PM EST
In case you weren’t worried about enough things already, there’s a lurking threat to the stability of modern civilization that you may have never even considered: solar storms, which can disrupt the Earth’s geomagnetic field and cause massive power outages...
A geomagnetic storm, or a disruption of the Earth’s magnetic field, is caused by coronal mass ejections from the Sun’s surface. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are a release of charged gas plasma, usually caused by solar flares.
In order to affect electrical systems on Earth, a coronal mass ejection has to be A) pointed at the Earth and B) enormously powerful, but it’s happened before. Hypothetically, a large enough CME could cause a geomagnetic storm large enough to knock out power for months or more.
The last time a massive geomagnetic storm hit Earth was in 1859. Called the Carrington Event, it damaged the growing telegraph network and started fires. A similar storm in the present day would be infinitely more disastrous, because of our complete dependence on electricity. Storms in 1989 and 2003 damaged power grids in Quebec, South Africa, Sweden, and Scotland—these storms being much smaller than the one that hit in 1859.
So although it might sound a little out there on paper, it’s not at all absurd that the government would want to look into possible methods of monitoring and controlling the threat posed by geomagnetic storms. In fact, some experts on the subject think we’re not doing nearly enough as it stands: A truly devastating solar storm could cause damage that would take 10 years to repair at a cost of $10 trillion, Aviation Week reported...
The problem is, the scientific community does not know what causes the solar flares. It is my hypothesis that they solar flares are caused by impacts of small objects on the sun, such as asteroids and comets. This means we need to increase the resolution and frequency of our observation platforms of the sun.
There is an additional problem, and that is the SOHO observatory only sees oxygen, which means it is very good at observing comets, but not asteroids, which do not have volatiles. While LASCO can see asteroids, it is too low resolution to see objects smaller than several kilometers in diameter. It is part of my hypothesis that the objects that are causing solar flares might very well be smaller than 1 kilometer in diameter.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Files re: Risks of Geomagnetic Storms to the Nation, 2012-2015 (http://www.governmentattic.org/18docs/USGSrisksGeoStorms_2012-2015.pdf)
Coronal Mass Ejections (NASA) (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/CMEs.shtml)
Major Solar Event Could Devastate Power Grid (http://aviationweek.com/awin/major-solar-event-could-devastate-power-grid)
-
A prolonged power outage would be a big hit to the US for sure. This has me wondering about nuclear power plants. I spent some years working for the government in the tear-down and buttoning up of the Hanford site. I had to take like 6 months of training before we were ever allowed into the field. In this training they talked about processes and criticalities of Nulcear facilities. Part of the process is the heating and cooling of uranium rods. If a place like this was to lose power, there could be some major problems to deal with. These could vary from explosions, meltdowns, but most importantly radiological release. A radiological release would be one of the worst ways to go, imho.
I might add that Energy Northwest, the closest nuclear power plant to me (like 10 miles away) has a circuit of generators. I rebuilt one during an outage a few years back. So I guess Id be curious what a CME is capable of? Would the damage be to the actual power stations themselves, or to the distribution. I would probably guess it would be to the power lines etc, if the outcome would take so long to fix.
-
You make good points, Cal. Yes, a massive CME has in the past brought down the grid, and yes, most, if not all, reactors, have a bank of generators on hand to keep the reactor running safely under various disaster situations.
However, I was just pondering this issue a few days ago. What occurred to me is nuclear reactor fuel is highly electromagnetically active, which requires nuclear workers to have to ware conductive clothing to protect themselves from the massive EMF fields inside the nuclear reactor. It occurred to me that a massive CME might just over-stimulate the fuel rods, and possibly cause them to go critical, or melt-down.
-
A series of articles have been published in the last 10 years that provide proof, as well as a causal agent, for catastrophic global extinctions and disruptions. It comes from finding Fe60, an isotope of iron, both in sea floor cores, and soil samples from the moon, which both date to about 2.6 million years ago.
It is understood by scientists that Fe60 is produced during the super nova of a massive Star. It just so happens that the massive star that went super nova and deposited Fe60 on our ocean floors and the moon's surface about 2.6 million years ago has been identified. It produced a superbubble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superbubble) of galactic star dust, which our solar system is within. This suggests that at some point in the past there would have been a great deal of debris from this super nova even, which would have overtaken us, and heavily bombarded this planet, as well as the entire solar system.
Below is a photo of the remnant super nova, and below that are links to articles on the event, as well as the Fe60 isotope.
(http://img-3.gizmag.com/supernova-1.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&ch=Width%2CDPR&fit=crop&h=394&q=60&rect=0%2C72%2C1421%2C799&w=700&s=7f5f272a3c07e4d80a975c2f0cfe594a)
Isotopes of iron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iron)
Naturally occurring iron (Fe) consists of four isotopes: 5.845% of 54Fe (possibly radioactive with a half-life over 3.1×1022 years), 91.754% of 56Fe, 2.119% of 57Fe and 0.282% of 58Fe. There are 24 known radioactive isotopes and their half-lives are shown below. See Brookhaven National Laboratory Interactive Table of Nuclides for a more accurate reading.
Much of the past work on measuring the isotopic composition of Fe has centered on determining 60Fe variations due to processes accompanying nucleosynthesis (i.e., meteorite studies) and ore formation. In the last decade however, advances in mass spectrometry technology have allowed the detection and quantification of minute, naturally occurring variations in the ratios of the stable isotopes of iron. Much of this work has been driven by the Earth and planetary science communities, although applications to biological and industrial systems are beginning to emerge.[1]
Relative atomic mass: 55.845(2).
Iron-60
Iron-60 is an iron isotope with a half-life of 2.6 million years,[4][5] but was thought until 2009 to have a half-life of 1.5 million years. It undergoes beta decay to cobalt-60. Traces of Iron 60 have been found in Lunar samples.
In phases of the meteorites Semarkona and Chervony Kut a correlation between the concentration of 60Ni, the granddaughter isotope of 60Fe, and the abundance of the stable iron isotopes could be found, which is evidence for the existence of 60Fe at the time of formation of the solar system. Possibly the energy released by the decay of 60Fe contributed, together with the energy released by decay of the radionuclide 26Al, to the remelting and differentiation of asteroids after their formation 4.6 billion years ago. The abundance of 60Ni present in extraterrestrial material may also provide further insight into the origin of the solar system and its early history.
The stuff of stars found in lunar soil from Apollo missions (http://www.gizmag.com/supernova-iron-on-moon/42817/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=43e6b036ed-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-43e6b036ed-90144161)
"Supernova iron discovered on Earth’s Moon - The Hindu (http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/supernova-iron-discovered-on-earths-moon/article8479170.ece)"
Radioactive Al26 and Fe60 in the Milky Way: implications of the RHESSI detection of Fe60 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0402198)
Supernova left its mark in ancient bacteria (http://www.nature.com/news/supernova-left-its-mark-in-ancient-bacteria-1.12797)
This supernova blast was so close, it littered the ocean floor with radioactive dust (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/supernova-radioactive-blast-litter-ocean-dust/)
Giant Space 'Superbubble' Spawned by Exploding Stars (http://www.space.com/12351-giant-superbubble-photo-supernova-star-explosions.html#sthash.pMDuu56o.dpuf)
Huge "Superbubble" of Gas Blowing Out of Milky Way (https://www.nrao.edu/pr/2006/plume/)
Nearby Supernova Explosions May Have Affected Human Evolution (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nearby-supernova-explosions-may-have-affected-human-evolution-video/?WT.mc_id=SA_SPC_20160414)
-
I have come across this group of people who have predicted ww3. Here is the link :
http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/spiritual-research/global-issues/world-war-3-predictions/
I have even met them personally, they seem authentic.
-
So far most "predictions" of global disasters, like WW3, or an extinction level impact, have been wrong every time. As a scientist with an astronomy background I find it reasonable to consider that there has to be an astronomical explanation for the cyclic nature of the extinction level impact. For instance there is growing evidence that the end of the last ice age was due to an impact event. With recent observations of long-period, sub-planetary objects that are on the size of large moons, with orbital periods of about 13000 years, suggests to me a causal relationship to the cyclic nature of the extinction.
-
I had completely rejected the expanding earth hypothesis as a complete laugh; however, I was forced to accept the distinct possibility that the earth may have doubled in size in the last 100my due to endeavoring to resolve a number of problems in impact theory, archaeology and paleontology.
Essentially the problems are:
1) As pointed out the continents do indeed meet on both sides of the Americas; and this is not based upon a wide fudge factor.
2) There is a paleontological record of closely related species from Africa through South America and even New Zealand which can only be explained by jointing those geographical bodies as late at 4.2mya.
3) Paleontologists have pointed out that the physics of osteology shows that the dinosaurs simply would not have functioned given the force of gravity at it present value.
4) Recent findings have shown that the atmosphere before 65mya was at a far lower pressure than at present.
5) A distinct problem is continental drift is explaining the discrepancy of the ocean basins being an order of magnitude younger than the continents. Continental drift explains this away with subduction. However, the problem with this hypothesis is the ocean basins account of 2/3 of the earths surface, so for subduction to explain this discrepancy, then the subduction rate of the ocean basins has to be about 3 times that of the continents, which makes no sense to me.
The best explanation for the problems suggests an expanding earth hypothesis.
The simplest explanation for an expanding earth is an impact rate, and size of impactor that is far greater than here to for accepted by academia.
Art Medlar but since you asked ... the most obvious reason the expanding earth idea is nonsense is because it includes the earth increasing its surface area by 3 times. increasing the surface area of a sphere 3x requires increasing the radius of the sphere by ~1.7 times. Increasing the radius of a sphere by 1.7 times increases the volume of the sphere by ~4 times. All evidence, and by "all" i mean absolutely all, all evidence indicates that 5 million years ago the earth was not 1/4 of its present size.
Thanks for your numbers, I find them reasonable, except the 5 mya number. I am not sure where you came up with it. That number should be 100mya, which is the age of the oldest ocean floors on earth.
So, no, all of the continents do not need to be connected to explain #2. Only Africa, South America, New Zealand and even Antarctica do. And, I agree, that connection needs to be prior to 4.2mya for this hypothesis to be true.
The anthropological and archeological community explain the presence of closely related fauna on the above continents up until the end of the last ice age is due to members of these species “rafting” across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on “tree-snags;” as laughable as that hypothesis is to anyone who understands biology. For instance elephants simply could not survive the journey across the oceans due to their need for a considerable volume of trees to eat, and fresh water to drink.
Also, if it were true that pachyderms can indeed raft across the oceans then there would have to be at the very least a mating pair to arrive in a close enough time scale to allow for more than 1 reproduction cycle, and there would actually have to have been more than just a mating pair, or otherwise there would have been far more difference in members of the same species to exist on both sides of the oceans. And, we would have seen the evidence of mammalian rafting across the oceans since the last ice age to repopulate those continents since then. And, we would surely have observed this "rafting" in the last 500 years; however, none has been observed.
Therefore, using Occam’s razor, it is more reasonable to accept these continents were indeed connected prior to 4.2mya, and that connection was most likely through Antarctica, which would have to have been in a subtropical temperature zone at the time; and it turns out that the paleontological record shows this to be true.
This also suggests that the rotational axis of the earth may have also shifted, which supports another one of those fringy-science issues. However, it does explain the shifting magnetic field over time, which is not gradual but episotic, and happens to correspond with radical global environmental shifts, which one would expect if an impact with sufficient energy to shift the rotational axis of the earth; as well as raise the mountains and move the continents that have been in the intervening 4.2my.
Just to clarify a point that you made above, I do not reject continental drift. I just see the impact hypothesis is a reasonable explanation for continental drift. And, I readily admit the expanding earth community have a completely lame explanation for the expanding earth hypothesis which does not serve the acceptance of that hypothesis by academia.
Also, I am reminded that prior to about 1960 plate tectonics was completely rejected by academia, and any student who was found to embrace the idea would not have received a graduating degree. Then the data from the ocean core samples were analyzed by the USGS and it was proven that the continents on either side of the Atlantic indeed were once connected. So, I am confident that when more data is in and analyzed that the geological community will have to accept the expanding earth hypothesis.
-
I've read that we've reached the no-return point past global warming. This Earth is done for.
The second thing is that I have a really bad feeling that something will happen. Is the asteroid going to hit in the next 5 years? Or perhaps global disasters, or maybe war? I have a feeling some kind of war may rise.
-
I've read that we've reached the no-return point past global warming. This Earth is done for.
Earth’s CO2 Passes the 400 PPM Threshold—Maybe Permanently (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-s-co2-passes-the-400-ppm-threshold-maybe-permanently/?WT.mc_id=SA_EVO_20161003)
By Brian Kahn, Climate Central on September 27, 2016, Scientific American
"In the centuries to come, history books will likely look back on September 2016 as a major milestone for the world’s climate. At a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 parts per million.
That all but ensures that 2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists."
I do not believe that global warming will turn the Earth into a Venus-like planet, as I believe Venus is half the distance from the sun as the Earth, so it receives energy from the sun to the square of our reception due to the field strength law of physics. However, it seems reasonable to me that global warming will produce more violent storms; and recent weather history in the past 50 years suggests this.
There is, however, an historic record flood in California in about 1850 that flooded the entire central valley for a month. We have not seen that kind of weather since, but it surely will happen again, and it could not have been due to CO2 emissions back then.
The second thing is that I have a really bad feeling that something will happen. Is the asteroid going to hit in the next 5 years? Or perhaps global disasters, or maybe war? I have a feeling some kind of war may rise.
[/quote]
History shows that all empires fall. And, weather records found in tree-ring data suggest that the rise and fall of empires seems to be often connected to extreme weather events.
Geology shows that there is a remarkable periodicity to both the ice-ages, and the periodic extinctions.
The periodic extinctions, like the one that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct is a roughly 30 million year cycle, which has recently been shown to be due to our sun and solar system orbiting in the galaxy, which takes us through the galactic plane, which is a lot more dense in matter than where we are at present, which is out in a very quiet and debris-free zone of the galaxy, but this current quiescent period will come to an end in about 25 million years.
The odd periodicity of the ice-ages, on the other hand is a bit more disturbing, because the ice-ages tend to have 12,500 year cycles, and it has been 12,900 years since the last one. Any cycle that is so regular, and on such a large scale must surely have an astronomical cause to it.
So, far astronomy has not found a cause for this cycle. However, in the last 10-15 years new objects past Pluto have been observed and recorded, and their orbits plotted. The plotted orbits suggest that all of these detected trans-Neptunian objects have a common center, which suggests a large undetected 9th planet.
I do not see how the orbit of the 9th planet has much to do with us; however, one of its moons has been shown to have a 12,9000 orbit. And, it orbit takes it inside the orbit of Pluto. Thus, my hypothesis at this time is that moons with a 12,9000 orbit, which takes it inside the orbit of Pluto is surely related to the periodicity of the ice-ages.
It has been shown that at least some of the ice-ages have been associated with large asteroid impacts and/or the eruption of super volcanoes. One of my hypotheses is super volcanoes are the direct product of a massive asteroid impact. The volcanic event of a super volcano obscures the evidence of the original asteroid impact that caused that volcanic event.
So, one of my other hypotheses is putting all of this evidence together that moon of planet 9 that has a 12,9000 orbit impacts Pluto, which is a debris field, not planet, which releases debris from that impact some of which is thrown into the inner solar system, which causes a cascade of very large impacts on all of the inner planets, which eventually results in one or more massive impacts to the earth, which are of such magnitude as to shift the polar axis, and bring on the next ice-age.
However, back to a shorter cycle event that could cause a major disruption of the social structure of the Earth, is a massive coronal mass ejection, which has been shown recently to have a periodicity of roughly 150 years. The Carrington event was one of the them. It was a little over 150 years ago. So, we are due for another one any minute now. When the next Carrington-level coronal mass ejection event occurs, then we can expect all technologies that depend upon computers, which is most, will fail permanently, and the entire planet will be propelled back into pre-industrial technology. Since most cities depend upon transportation networks that transport food and water, which depend upon computers, then a Carrington-level coronal mass ejection event will surely propel all cultures back to pre-industrial technology, which will cause massive starvation, witch is surely going to cause the collapse of the empires at that time.
So, the take-home message for the contemplative, is the world is impermanent, so give up your worldly attachments, and meditate deeply, and arrange your lifestyle to support deep meditation.
-
The meteorite that is discussed in the following two articles contained minerals that could not have been created naturally on earth, which could be used to argue that technology developed somewhere else in the universe, and ended up in a meteorite in Russia, and it dates to 4.5 billion years ago.
Crystal with "Forbidden Symmetry" Found in 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite (http://www.iflscience.com/space/crystal-forbidden-symmetry-found-45-billion-year-old-meteorite/)
Still unnamed, this second quasicrystal was found in the same meteorite but in different grain (circled in red above). It’s made up of aluminum, nickel, and iron—three things that aren’t usually found together since aluminum binds so quickly to oxygen, blocking attachment to the other two. Finding a second naturally occurring quasicrystal confirms that these can, in fact, form in nature and remain stable over cosmic time scales.
Physicist Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and geologist Luca Bindi from the University of Florence, Italy cracked open a meteorite found in the Koryak mountains of east Russia in the late 1970s, and found the first example of naturally formed quasicrystals. (http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-might-have-finally-figured-out-where-the-rarest-crystals-on-earth-formed)
An analysis of the microscopic structure of the meteorite suggested that this collision happened before it slammed into Earth, and its outer space origin was made more likely by the fact that the Khatyrka meteorite contained a metallic copper-aluminium alloy that's not be found anywhere else on Earth.
-
This is worth paying attention to: Executive Order -- Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/13/executive-order-coordinating-efforts-prepare-nation-space-weather-events).
-
If a new estimate for the impactor that created the Imbrium Basin on the moon puts the rock at the size of New Jersey (1,200 kilometers/745.645431 miles) across, in this article, How the Man in the Moon Got His Enormous Right Eye (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-man-in-the-moon-got-his-enormous-right-eye/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20161104), then we should consider that the earth, which is a larger gravity well than the moon, most probably had impacts at least as large, if not larger.
(https://www.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/17AECEDA-38B2-4C81-990121F06D03D9FD_source.png)
A new estimate for the impactor that created the Imbrium Basin puts the rock at the size of New Jersey
The Man in the Moon has an enormous right eye: the crater known as the Imbrium Basin, which is 1,200 kilometers across. The cavity was created roughly four billion years ago during a collision with something big. How big? “About the size of New Jersey,” says Peter H. Schultz, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University who published a new estimate of the object's heft in Nature. To figure out the impactor's dimensions, Schultz and his colleague David A. Crawford turned to the surface features of the moon—in particular the grooves that emanate from the collision site, which were carved by flying chunks of the impactor. The researchers usedmeasurements of those grooves and laboratory experiments to calculate the rock's size, speed and impact angle. The updated magnitude is 10 times more massive than previous estimates, which were based on computer simulations, and is a reminder of how little we know about the early solar system, Schultz says.
By the Numbers
10 kilometers (6.2 miles)
Estimated diameter of the Chicxulub impactor, which struck modern-day Mexico approximately 66 million years ago and contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs.
10 kilometers (6.2 miles)
Estimated diameter of the asteroid that formed South Africa's Vredefort Crater, the largest confirmed crater on Earth's surface.
250 kilometers (155 miles)
Newly estimated diameter of the asteroid that created the moon's Imbrium Basin.
-
This response adds to the portions of this thread that started at this message (http://fruitofthecontemplativelife.org/forum/index.php/topic,803.msg5053.html#msg5053). It examines longer periodicity of the sun. I often examine charts of various cycles that could reveal a longer period study of solar activity.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Solar_Cycle_Prediction.gif/1024px-Solar_Cycle_Prediction.gif)
This image above is three cycles in about 40 year.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png)
This image above is the 400 years of data that we have from observations starting with Galileo.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg/885px-Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg.png)
This image above is solar activity events recorded in radiocarbon. Present period is on right. Values since 1900 not shown.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Sunspots_11000_years.svg/1360px-Sunspots_11000_years.svg.png)
This image above is a reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked.
What I see in the Solar Cycles (above).
It looks like that in addition to a well accepted 11-year cycle of the sun there are also larger cycles effecting the sun, about 140 years, and 2,000 years, and possibly about 12,900 years. Since about 1960 we are starting a new 140 year cycle, cycling down toward. There was a 30 year minimum from about 1890 to 1920. We are now cycling down to another 30 year longer period minimum from roughly 2010 to 2040. We have also just passed a 2,000 year peak, which was part of an 8,000 year cycle, with its low about 2 centuries ago, and are heading into 11-year and a 140-year low cycles, and progressing into a 2,000 year low, which is part of an 8,000 year high cycle. I suppose that might reduce x-ray exposure for all of us for the next century or so. These lows should produce less global precipitation.
-
An ice age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age) is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods" (or alternatively "glacials" or "glaciations" or colloquially as "ice age"), and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres.[1] By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene—of the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.[2]
Evidence for ice ages
There are three main types of evidence for ice ages: geological, chemical, and paleontological.
Geological evidence for ice ages comes in various forms, including rock scouring and scratching, glacial moraines, drumlins, valley cutting, and the deposition of till or tillites and glacial erratics. Successive glaciations tend to distort and erase the geological evidence, making it difficult to interpret. Furthermore, this evidence was difficult to date exactly; early theories assumed that the glacials were short compared to the long interglacials. The advent of sediment and ice cores revealed the true situation: glacials are long, interglacials short. It took some time for the current theory to be worked out.
The chemical evidence mainly consists of variations in the ratios of isotopes in fossils present in sediments and sedimentary rocks and ocean sediment cores. For the most recent glacial periods ice cores provide climate proxies from their ice, and atmospheric samples from included bubbles of air. Because water containing heavier isotopes has a higher heat of evaporation, its proportion decreases with colder conditions.[29] This allows a temperature record to be constructed. However, this evidence can be confounded by other factors recorded by isotope ratios.
The paleontological evidence consists of changes in the geographical distribution of fossils. During a glacial period cold-adapted organisms spread into lower latitudes, and organisms that prefer warmer conditions become extinct or are squeezed into lower latitudes. This evidence is also difficult to interpret because it requires (1) sequences of sediments covering a long period of time, over a wide range of latitudes and which are easily correlated; (2) ancient organisms which survive for several million years without change and whose temperature preferences are easily diagnosed; and (3) the finding of the relevant fossils.
Despite the difficulties, analysis of ice core and ocean sediment cores[30] has shown periods of glacials and interglacials over the past few million years. These also confirm the linkage between ice ages and continental crust phenomena such as glacial moraines, drumlins, and glacial erratics. Hence the continental crust phenomena are accepted as good evidence of earlier ice ages when they are found in layers created much earlier than the time range for which ice cores and ocean sediment cores are available.
There have been at least five major ice ages in the earth's past (the Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Karoo Ice Age and the Quaternary glaciation). Outside these ages, the Earth seems to have been ice-free even in high latitudes.
The current ice age, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, started about 2.58 million years ago during the late Pliocene, when the spread of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere began. Since then, the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000- and 100,000-year time scales called glacial periods, glacials or glacial advances, and interglacial periods, interglacials or glacial retreats. The earth is currently in an interglacial, and the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago. All that remains of the continental ice sheets are the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and smaller glaciers such as on Baffin Island.
Here is another useful chart to compare to the above charts.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg/1024px-Vostok_Petit_data.svg.png)
Variations in temperature, CO2, and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400,000 years
-
Our Solar System Was Born through High-Energy Crashes, Not Stately Growth (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-solar-system-was-born-through-high-energy-crashes-not-stately-growth/?WT.mc_id=SA_SA_20161115_Art_News)
Our neighborhood of planets was not created slowly, as scientists once thought, but in a speedy blur of high-energy crashes, destruction and rebuilding.
-
This New Map Shows Frequency of Small Asteroid Impacts, Provides Clues on Larger Asteroid Population (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4380). It clearly shows that asteroid impacts to the earth's atmosphere since 1994 shows the impact rate to the earth, and therefore other celestial bodies in this solar system, is clearly at a much higher rate than was accepted in the scientific community.
-
What happens if the polar ice caps melt, and the problem is not the rising water-tides, but the shift in the planetary rotational axis as a result of the difference in water-distribution? There would be dreadful floods.
If I'm not wrong, the shift in the planetary rotational axis happened once before in the Earth's history, causing a 'tilt'. What if the tilt was not 23.5 degrees, but the tilt was actually an inversion, of nearly 66.5 degrees in the opposite direction? Maybe "Noah's flood" in the past caused this.
If the cause of destruction is flooding, then perhaps the only place we can flee to is the Himalayas...
-
Interesting thoughts, bodhimind. My point in contributing to this thread is not to make people afraid, but to inspire them to take up a rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life that bares fruit; because life on earth is not as secure or as constant as we once thought. Below is another interesting article worth reading.
Earth’s Lost History of Planet-Altering Eruptions Revealed (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-rsquo-s-lost-history-of-planet-altering-eruptions-revealed/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20170314)
-
Hi Jhananda,
I'm just wondering if there is any refuge (perhaps less impermanent than staying on earth) in getting reborn in the deva realms, from the sensual to immaterial ones?
-
Well, that is my point, Jauho1979. Lead a rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life that bares fruit. Master the 8 stages of samadhi, and traverse the immaterial domains. When death comes for such a person, they just leave the body when it drops, and go into the immaterial domains.
-
I see your point. However, with that said, wouldn't Nibanna be the ultimate solution since even the immaterial domain also can be impermanent in the long run?
-
I see your point. However, with that said, wouldn't Nibanna be the ultimate solution since even the immaterial domain also can be impermanent in the long run?
Sure, but one can only do the best one can. Otherwise people are doing everything they can to avoid leading a rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life that bares fruit.
-
Understood. So you are saying that Nibanna, while being the ultimate refuge, is also very hard to attain. Therefore, being able to reach the deva states (while not as good) is still very commendable.
-
Whatever floats your boat.
-
[quote-wiki]Supernova (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova)
A supernova (/ˌsuːpərnoʊvə/ plural: supernovae /ˌsuːpərnoʊviː/ or supernovas, abbreviations: SN and SNe) is a transient astronomical event that occurs during the last stellar evolutionary stages of a star's life, either a massive star or a white dwarf, whose destruction is marked by one final, titanic explosion. This causes the sudden appearance of a "new" bright star, before slowly fading from sight over several weeks or months.
Supernovae are more energetic than novae. In Latin, nova means "new", referring astronomically to what appears to be a temporary new bright star. Adding the prefix "super-" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which are far less luminous. The word supernova was coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1931.[1]
Only three Milky Way naked-eye supernova events have been observed during the last thousand years, though many have been seen in other galaxies using telescopes. The most recent directly observed supernova in the Milky Way was Kepler's Supernova in 1604, but two more recent supernova remnants have also been found. Statistical observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur on average about three times every century in the Milky Way, and that any galactic supernova would almost certainly be observable with modern astronomical telescopes.
Supernovae may expel much, if not all, of the material away from a star[2] at velocities up to 30,000 km/s or 10% of the speed of light. This drives an expanding and fast-moving shock wave[3] into the surrounding interstellar medium, and in turn, sweeping up an expanding shell of gas and dust, which is observed as a supernova remnant. Supernovae create, fuse and eject the bulk of the chemical elements produced by nucleosynthesis.[4] Supernovae play a significant role in enriching the interstellar medium with the heavier atomic mass chemical elements.[5] Furthermore, the expanding shock waves from supernovae can trigger the formation of new stars.[6][7] Supernova remnants are expected to accelerate a large fraction of galactic primary cosmic rays, but direct evidence for cosmic ray production was found only in a few of them so far.[8] They are also potentially strong galactic sources of gravitational waves.[9]
Theoretical studies indicate that most supernovae are triggered by one of two basic mechanisms: the sudden re-ignition of nuclear fusion in a degenerate star or the sudden gravitational collapse of a massive star's core. In the first instance, a degenerate white dwarf may accumulate sufficient material from a binary companion, either through accretion or via a merger, to raise its core temperature enough to trigger runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting the star. In the second case, the core of a massive star may undergo sudden gravitational collapse, releasing gravitational potential energy as a supernova. While some observed supernovae are more complex than these two simplified theories, the astrophysical collapse mechanics have been established and accepted by most astronomers for some time.
Due to the wide range of astrophysical consequences of these events, astronomers now deem supernova research, across the fields of stellar and galactic evolution, as an especially important area for investigation.
Observation history
Main article: History of supernova observation
The earliest recorded supernova, SN 185, was viewed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. The brightest recorded supernova was SN 1006, which occurred in 1006 AD and was described in detail by Chinese and Islamic astronomers.[10] The widely observed supernova SN 1054 produced the Crab Nebula. Supernovae SN 1572 and SN 1604, the latest to be observed with the naked eye in the Milky Way galaxy, had notable effects on the development of astronomy in Europe because they were used to argue against the Aristotelian idea that the universe beyond the Moon and planets was static and unchanging.[11] Johannes Kepler began observing SN 1604 at its peak on October 17, 1604, and continued to make estimates of its brightness until it faded from naked eye view a year later.[12] It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia).[13]
There is some evidence that the youngest galactic supernova, G1.9+0.3, occurred in the late 19th century, considerably more recently than Cassiopeia A from around 1680.[14] Neither supernova was noted at the time. In the case of G1.9+0.3, high extinction along the plane of the galaxy could have dimmed the event sufficiently to go unnoticed. The situation for Cassiopeia A is less clear. Infrared light echos have been detected showing that it was a type IIb supernova and was not in a region of especially high extinction.[15]
Before the development of the telescope, there have only been five supernovae seen in the last millennium. Compared to a star's entire history, the visual appearance of a galactic supernova is very brief, perhaps spanning several months, so that the chances of observing one is roughly once in a lifetime. Only a tiny fraction of the 100 billion stars in a typical galaxy have the capacity to become a supernova, restricted to either having large enough mass or under extraordinarily rare kinds of binary star in configurations containing white dwarf stars.[16]
However, observation and discovery of extragalactic supernovae are now far more common; that started with SN 1885A in the Andromeda galaxy. Today, amateur and professional astronomers are finding several hundreds every year, some when near maximum brightness or others unrecognised on old astronomical photographs or plates. American astronomers Rudolph Minkowski and Fritz Zwicky developed the modern supernova classification scheme beginning in 1941.[17] During the 1960s, astronomers found that the maximum intensities of supernovae could be used as standard candles, hence indicators of astronomical distances.[18] Some of the most distant supernovae recently observed appeared dimmer than expected. This supports the view that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.[19] Techniques were developed for reconstructing supernovae events that have no written records of being observed. The date of the Cassiopeia A supernova event was determined from light echoes off nebulae,[20] while the age of supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 was estimated from temperature measurements[21] and the gamma ray emissions from the radioactive decay of titanium-44.[22]
The most luminous supernova ever recorded is ASASSN-15lh. It was first detected in June 2015 and peaked at 570 billion L☉, which is twice the bolometric luminosity of any other known supernova.[24] However, the nature of this supernova continues to be debated and several alternative explanations have been suggested, e.g. tidal disruption of a star by a black hole.[25]
Among the earliest detected since time of detonation, and for which the earliest spectra have been obtained (beginning at 6 hours after the actual explosion), is the Type II SN 2013fs (iPTF13dqy) which was recorded 3 hours after the supernova event on 6 October 2013 by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF). The star is located in a spiral galaxy named NGC 7610, 160 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus.[26][27]
On 20 September 2016, amateur astronomer Victor Buso from Rosario, Argentina was testing out his new 16 inch telescope.[28][29] When taking several twenty second exposures of galaxy NGC 613, Buso chanced upon a supernova that had just become visible on earth. After examining the images he contacted the Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata. "It was the first time anyone had ever captured the initial moments of the “shock breakout” from an optical supernova, one not associated with a gamma-ray or X-ray burst."[28] The odds of capturing such an event were put between one in ten million to one in a hundred million, according to astronomer Melina Bersten from the Instituto de Astrofísica.
The supernova Buso observed was a Type IIb made by a star twenty times the mass of the sun.[28] Astronomer Alex Filippenko from the University of California remarked that professional astronomers had been searching for such an event for a long time. He stated: "Observations of stars in the first moments they begin exploding provide information that cannot be directly obtained in any other way."[28]
Discovery
Main article: History of supernova observation § Telescope observation
Early work on what was originally believed to be simply a new category of novae was performed during the 1930s by two astronomers named Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky at Mount Wilson Observatory.[30] The name super-novae was first used during 1931 lectures held at Caltech by Baade and Zwicky, then used publicly in 1933 at a meeting of the American Physical Society.[1] By 1938, the hyphen had been lost and the modern name was in use.[31] Because supernovae are relatively rare events within a galaxy, occurring about three times a century in the Milky Way,[32] obtaining a good sample of supernovae to study requires regular monitoring of many galaxies.
Supernovae in other galaxies cannot be predicted with any meaningful accuracy. Normally, when they are discovered, they are already in progress.[33] Most scientific interest in supernovae—as standard candles for measuring distance, for example—require an observation of their peak luminosity. It is therefore important to discover them well before they reach their maximum. Amateur astronomers, who greatly outnumber professional astronomers, have played an important role in finding supernovae, typically by looking at some of the closer galaxies through an optical telescope and comparing them to earlier photographs.[34]
Toward the end of the 20th century astronomers increasingly turned to computer-controlled telescopes and CCDs for hunting supernovae. While such systems are popular with amateurs, there are also professional installations such as the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope.[35] Recently the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) project has begun using a network of neutrino detectors to give early warning of a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy.[36][37] Neutrinos are particles that are produced in great quantities by a supernova,[38] and they are not significantly absorbed by the interstellar gas and dust of the galactic disk.
Supernova searches fall into two classes: those focused on relatively nearby events and those looking farther away. Because of the expansion of the universe, the distance to a remote object with a known emission spectrum can be estimated by measuring its Doppler shift (or redshift); on average, more-distant objects recede with greater velocity than those nearby, and so have a higher redshift. Thus the search is split between high redshift and low redshift, with the boundary falling around a redshift range of z=0.1–0.3[39]—where z is a dimensionless measure of the spectrum's frequency shift.
High redshift searches for supernovae usually involve the observation of supernova light curves. These are useful for standard or calibrated candles to generate Hubble diagrams and make cosmological predictions. Supernova spectroscopy, used to study the physics and environments of supernovae, is more practical at low than at high redshift.[40][41] Low redshift observations also anchor the low-distance end of the Hubble curve, which is a plot of distance versus redshift for visible galaxies.[42][43] (See also Hubble's law).
Effect on Earth
Main article: Near-Earth supernova
A near-Earth supernova is a supernova close enough to the Earth to have noticeable effects on its biosphere. Depending upon the type and energy of the supernova, it could be as far as 3000 light-years away. Gamma rays from a supernova would induce a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere converting molecular nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, depleting the ozone layer enough to expose the surface to harmful ultraviolet solar radiation. This has been proposed as the cause of the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, which resulted in the death of nearly 60% of the oceanic life on Earth.[134] In 1996 it was theorized that traces of past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Iron-60 enrichment was later reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean.[135][136][137] In 2009, elevated levels of nitrate ions were found in Antarctic ice, which coincided with the 1006 and 1054 supernovae. Gamma rays from these supernovae could have boosted levels of nitrogen oxides, which became trapped in the ice.[138]
Type Ia supernovae are thought to be potentially the most dangerous if they occur close enough to the Earth. Because these supernovae arise from dim, common white dwarf stars in binary systems, it is likely that a supernova that can affect the Earth will occur unpredictably and in a star system that is not well studied. The closest known candidate is IK Pegasi (see below).[139] Recent estimates predict that a Type II supernova would have to be closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) to destroy half of the Earth's ozone layer, and there are no such candidates closer than about 500 light years.[140] [/quote]
List of supernova remnants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supernova_remnants)
List of supernovae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supernovae)