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The Playful side of Space

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Stories in the sky:
Legos, Disney, births & lawsuits in Space

Science can be fun! That’s what I’m finding. Maybe you’re like me and you didn’t really look forward to biology, chemistry or physics. Or maybe you were lucky to have an instructor who knew how to engage you. Space IS an exciting story and astrophysicists, theorists and scientists DO have a playful approach to it all. And if you’ve spent any time listening to some of them you’ve probably noticed they have a deep passion for the cosmos and for sharing their knowledge, which is the creative fuel behind the fun stories in the sky.

Did you know there are three LEGOs orbiting Jupiter?!  

Legos in Space

True Story! An outreach program to inspire children (and intrigue us all) to explore science and technology was the fuel that launched THREE LEGOS into space in August 2011. They arrived at Jupiter in July 2016 and will continue to orbit the planet until 2021. The Lego crew members on board the spacecraft include: The Roman God Jupiter and his wife Juno. In Greek and Roman mythology, Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. This is descriptive of Jupiter’s stripes and swirls which are cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. As ancient Roman mythology goes, Juno as able to peer through the clouds from Mount Olympus and observe Jupiter’s true nature. Isn’t it true? We women KNOW! LEGO Juno holds a magnifying glass to signify her search for truth.

The third Lego crew member is astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei, who made several important discovers about planet Jupiter, including the four largest satellites of Jupiter. LEGO Galileo holds a telescope.


Credit: NASA

Not your standard Lego figurines, these legonauts (see what I did there?) are made of Spacecraft-grade aluminum to withstand the radiation of space. This mission is intended to improve our understanding of the solar system’s beginnings. The mission will measure Jupiter’s composition and temperature and map its magnetic and gravity fields to reveal the planet’s structure. According to NASA, the mission will give more clues as to how the giant planet formed and the influence it had in the development of our solar system.

Pluto becomes a Dwarf

Not to be confused with Snow White and her little friends, but an equally dramatic storyline… Pluto the planet was demoted to “Dwarf Planet” in 2006. Poor Pluto! Why? Are you having flashbacks to that fateful day in the woods when Bambi’s mom is killed by a hunter? Me too.

To understand the logic, we must understand planet criteria, as per the IAU (International Astronomical Union). In order to be considered a full-fledged planet, it must:

  1. Orbit the sun
  2. Have enough mass and a nearly round shape
  3. Must dominate its space, or cleared its space

While smaller than our moon, Pluto meets the first two criteria; however, loses out on the third. It has not cleared its space and, instead, shares orbit with Kuiper belt objects such as the pllutinos. And, while not a planetary-determining factor, it’s interesting to note that Pluto orbits a slightly different plane (a 17◦ incline and an oval shape) than the eight planets in our solar system.

Births and Baby Blankets in Space

Nebulae, the beautiful colorful swirls, are regions of dust and gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) in space where new stars are beginning to form. For this reason, they are called “star nurseries.” Awe!!! Feels like puppies! Or kittens, depending on who you are.


Orion Nebula, Credit: NASA

How do stars form? Gravity pulls together the clumps of dust and gas. As the clumps get bigger, their gravity gets stronger, and the clump eventually collapses from its own gravity. The collapse causes the material at the center of the cloud to heat up, and this hot core is the beginning of a star.

The RHO OPHiuchi system is one of our closest star-forming nurseries. It’s 460 light years away. That is, traveling at the speed of light, it would take 460 years to reach. The beautiful colors result from high temperature gas emitting radiation (red) or dust and gases reflecting light from a nearby star (blue). Pink objects are young stars and the cloud enveloping them is called it’s “baby blanket.”

Some nebulae have descriptive names like butterfly, horsehead, rose, cat’s eye, elephant trunk and lemon slice, to name a few; while others are more utilitarian, such as NGC6357.

Lawsuits in Space?

APOLLO 8 was the first MANNED spacecraft to leave Earth’s orbit. This was in December 1968. You’ve probably seen the famous Earthrise photograph taken by Astronaut William Anders. This is one of many gorgeous images available to us because of science. The mission had an ironic twist because their motivation was to study the moon and yet when the three astronauts caught sight of the Earth rise they were in awe. Anders, whose job it was to photograph the moon, is quoted as saying “We came all this way to discover the moon. And what we really did discover is Earth.”

The Apollo 8 crew took turns reading the first 10 verses of the book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast, while beaming images of the lunar surface to a billion viewers. “In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” This launched a lawsuit by atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, citing her first Amendment rights had been violated. The case was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction.

While the lawsuit succeeded in silencing astronauts from future expression of spiritual beliefs, the United States Post Office was not deterred and issued a commemorative stamp with the iconic Earthrise photo, captioned “In the beginning, God…”

Selfies from Mars

Mars is the only planet to be solely inhabited by robots. Curiosity, pictured in the header image, was the 6th rover to land on the red planet (since 2012). Designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small microbial life, Curiosity analyzes samples it has scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. Curiosity is a post- millennial that knows how to take SELFIES! It has beamed many selfies back to earth. And, all alone on Mars, Curiosity sang Happy Birthday to itself on August 5, 2013, commemorating its 1st birthday (the year after it landed on the planet).

Message in a Bottle

On a grand scale, we sent a message in a bottle, a time capsule, into space. Voyager I and II launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Both did fly-bys of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager I then headed for the edge of our solar system, reaching Interstellar Space in 2012, while Voyager II flew by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. It too reached Interstellar space in November 2018. The first closest star will not be reached for another 40,000 years (at 10 miles/second).

Should the crafts meet ET along the way, both spacecrafts carry Golden LPs with sounds and images of life and culture on earth:  115 images (including our solar system), DNA, human anatomy, animals, food, architecture; sounds of nature (surf, wind, thunder, birds, whales, other animals, etc); music selections (including Beethoven) from different cultures and eras; and greetings in 55 languages.


Credit: NASA

A kickstarter program makes a copy available to anyone who still owns a phonograph. There’s also a CD version for those who are undesirable of nostalgia.

We think of Earth as being our home, and it is, but we can also think of the solar system as our neighborhood, and the rest of the Universe offers all the places you may never have the chance to visit but can EXPLORE because of science.

Juliana is an entertainer and writer. She’s currently working on a book about her Life With A Monkey. Check out her website at www.julianafay.com.

 

 

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Intriguing people

108 Year old woman survives Covid!

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2020’s Most INRIGUING news stories

July 23 we talked about The Possibility of Bull Sharks finding their way up the mississippi  River into the Great Lakes.

And I provided a plausible theory how a Bull Shark can hitch a ride in the ballast tanks of a freighter and make it all the way to the Great lakes.  
LAST WEEK”   Well a week later I find this story in my Google Alerts!

2 – Shark Sighted

August 14th- the Story broke from the AP?  Associated Press?

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) – On August 10, 2020, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson commissioned the Duluth Autonomous Navy to eradicate the bull shark terrorizing Duluth’s beaches. Only four days later, the DAN co-Admirals have announced “mission accomplished.”

The UMD Biology Department issued a press release about the shark, stating, “Lake Superior cannot support a breeding shark population. This was a lonely, hungry, tired shark.”

Richardson took issue with that: “I can assure you, that shark may have been lonely and hungry, but it was not tired.”

Speargun traps are being installed in the Soo Locks to keep sharks out of the lake from now on. A spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers confirmed, “Sharks are a Lake Michigan problem, not a Lake Superior problem.”

3 Its a hoax

4 – UFOS ARE OUT!

The Creation of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).
What does the Pentagon’s new UFO task force mean?https://www.space.com/ufo-sightings-pentagon-task-force.html

On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF).  The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the UAPTF. 

The Department of Defense established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs.  The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.



5 – Sen Marco Rubio says

“We have things flying over our military bases and places where we are conducting military exercises, and we don’t know what it is and it isn’t ours, so that’s a legitimate question to ask,” Sen. Marco Rubio told Miami’s WFOR-TV.“Frankly, if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better than the fact that we’ve seen some sort of technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians or some other adversary.

6 – Asteroid to hit earth

About the Asteroid That Will Destroy Earth Right Before Election Day..
“Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approx. 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth!” NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office tweeted on August 23. “It currently has a 0.41 [percent] chance of entering our planet’s atmosphere, but if it did, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size.”

But what in the middle of all the chaos we are experiencing in this country with Riots and Plagues and a lot of accusations and finger pointing – this Asteroid might be Gods way of saying, “Settle down – or I will give you something to get worked up about.”

NASA established its Near-Earth Object Observations Program in 1998 and has since discovered around 19,000 near-Earth objects. In 2005, Congress asked the agency to find 90 percent of all near-Earth asteroids approximately 460 feet or larger. These rocky bodies are big enough to, at the very least, cause regional damage to the planet and destabilize the global atmosphere and impact crop production.

What do you think?  Could we get hit by a meteor or a Asteroid?   According to the Near-earth object observation program – They aren’t seeing any threats coming any time soon!

 

7 – Sylvia Goldsholl

Sylvia Goldsholl at her 108th birthday party last December at the nursing home in New Jersey where she lives.

This is Sylvia Goldsholl – and in December she celebrated her 108th birthday.

That Means she lived thru the Spanish Flu of 1920, 2 World Wars, and the Great Depression. America Idol – shes been thru it all.

Last month, relatives of Sylvia Goldsholl received troubling news from her New Jersey nursing home: She had contracted the coronavirus and was in isolation.

With the virus proving especially deadly for older people, the prognosis seemed dire for Ms. Goldsholl, who turned 108 in December.

Two weeks later, relatives received another call.

8 – NEXT SLIDE

“They told us, ‘She’s fully recovered,’” said Ms. Chazen, whose aunt has become one of the oldest Covid-19 survivors in the world.

Ms. Goldsholl’s case is a rare bright spot in New Jersey, whose current death toll from the virus — 9,946 through Thursday — is second only to New York State’s.

Roughly half of the deaths in New Jersey — 5,168 through Thursday — have come at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

“She’s got a survivor’s mentality,” he said. “Her family supported her through all this and, like she says, love helps you get through things.”

 

But 108 years old!  And when I come back – lets talk about immortality and aging is

 

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Intriguing people

Mars Rover launched – success?! [BEHIND THE SCENES]

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ghosts

Tesla & Edison’s Ghost Machines!

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If you enjoy this story and want to support us – please CLICK THE Youtuvbe BUTTON BELOW AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL. We are posting new segments EVERY THURSDAY when it airs on Ozarks Fox AM!

 

The Edison Ghost Phone and the Tesla Spirit Radio!  In 1920 tom Edison and Nikola Tesla independently

experimented in Inventing Machines to communicate with spirits and GHOSTS!

Even today on Shows like Ghost Adventures and Holzer’s Files – they are making use of something called a “ghost Box” which is similar but a much evolved version of a concept that originated 100s years ago during the Spanish Flu – when more than 50 million people died from an incurable disease..

The grieving survivors were desperate to connect with the poor souls that they lost – and Inventors Edison and Tesla believed they could provide an electronic device to help connect people with their deceased relatives.
 
Edison called it his Ghost Phone and Tesla called it his Spirit Radio!      I spoke with our Friend NY Times Best Selling author Bill Birnes and he explained how these 2 brilliant ment thought it could be possible!

2 Brilliant and respected inventors experimented with developing machines that could contact the Dead. 

We spoke Bill Birnes – who is the founder of Ancient Aliens and UFO Hunters and
And contributor of Unsealed files and the author of   Edison vs. Tesla: The Battle over Their Last Invention   

He tells about about the rivalry between the 2 famous inventors and not just why they wanted to create a device to communicate with Ghosts but also HOW they believed it was possible.
But before we unfold the whole story – have you ever used a spirit board, or consulted a medium to reach out to a departed one?  Do you believe in Ghosts?   Please let us know in the comments below – and if are not part of our group – we would be honored to have you as a subscriber and please click the Bell for notifications as we are adding you segments  every Thursday!

At the time of this recording – the cases of Covid 19 seem to be rising as our population is coming out from lock down – but the good news is PEOPLE ARE RECOVERING – Case seem to be not as severe – AND THE DAILY DEATH RATE SEEMS TO BE STEADILY DECLINING.   Obviously we don’t want to lose one single life but at least things seem to be moving in the right direction.   

While the Covid 19 pandemic is more than nearly anyone alive can imagine – this situation pales in comparison to what happened almost exactly 100 years ago.

Tesla Believed ENERGY NEVER DIES!     The voices of the dead were still out there in a frequency that could be detected   8:50 – 11:01

You can even get the plans on line and for around $30 you can buy the parts and build your own version of Telsa’s spirit Radio.


Well – what do you think?   Is there something to these theories?

Who had a better chance of making CONTACT?  Edison or Tesla?

And if you don’t know – you can try to find out for yourself – Just Google Tesla Spirit Radio and you can get yourself the PLANS to build a Spirit Radio – it will just cost you around 30 dollars in parts.  

And good luck with that.

Of course some people might think you’re crazy – in fact – Thomas Edison’s own Family had a big problem with his ideas about a Ghost phone.

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