Monthly Archives: March 2013

Andaman Sea

The Andaman Sea welcomes you with a warm embrace. Stepping into the water is like stepping into slightly thicker air.

I was astonished at the beauty and feel of the ocean.

The pics will give you a feel of the seclusion and serenity.

Off the grid

I just spent a week off the grid.

No access to my blog, email, social media, SMS or any of the other trappings of our connected lives. It felt good.

I grew up in a world without computers and it is nice to remember that people can live without them. Naturally, that proposition is becoming more difficult each day in the developed world.

Do take the time to disconnect once in a while. It will refresh you and might even allow you to reconnect with yourself and your fellow travelers on this, our adventure.

High Strangeness II LUNA

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7. Seismic Activity: Hundreds of “moonquakes” are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes. In November, 1958, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory photographed a gaseous eruption of the moon near the crater Alphonsus. He also detected a reddish glow that lasted for about an hour. In 1963, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region. These observations have proved to be precisely identical and periodical, repeating themselves as the moon moves closer to the Earth. These are probably not natural phenomena.

8. Hollow Moon: The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated,

“If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere.”

Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is “simply a cavity.”

MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote,

“the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field… indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow.”

In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, “A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object.”

9. Moon Echoes: On November 20, 1969, the Apollo 12 crew jettisoned the lunar module ascent stage causing it to crash onto the moon. The LM’s impact (about 40 miles from the Apollo 12 landing site) created an artificial moonquake with startling characteristics—the moon reverberated like a bell for more than an hour.

This phenomenon was repeated with Apollo 13 (intentionally commanding the third stage to impact the moon), with even more startling results. Seismic instruments recorded that the reverberations lasted for three hours and twenty minutes and traveled to a depth of twenty-five miles, leading to the conclusion that the moon has an unusually light—or even no—core.
10. Unusual Metals: The moon’s crust is much harder than presumed. The maria is composed primarily of illeminite, a mineral containing large amounts of titanium, the same metal used to fabricate the hulls of deep-diving submarines and the skin of the SR-71 “Blackbird”. Uranium 236 and neptunium 237 (elements not found in nature on Earth) were discovered in lunar rocks, as were rustproof iron particles.

11. Moon’s Origin: Before the astronauts’ moon rocks conclusively disproved the theory, the moon was believed to have originated when a chunk of Earth broke off eons ago (who knows from where?). Another theory was that the moon was created from leftover “space dust” remaining after the Earth was created. Analysis of the composition of moon rocks disproved this theory also.

Another popular theory is that the moon was somehow “captured” by the Earth’s gravitational attraction. But no evidence exists to support this theory. Isaac Asimov, stated,

“It’s too big to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible.”

12. Weird Orbit: Our moon is the only moon in the solar system that has a stationary, near-perfect circular orbit. Stranger still, the moon’s center of mass is about 6000 feet closer to the Earth than its geometric center (which should cause wobbling), but the moon’s bulge is on the far side of the moon, away from the Earth. “Something” had to put the moon in orbit with its precise altitude, course, and speed.

13. Moon Diameter: How does one explain the “coincidence” that the moon is just the right distance, coupled with just the right diameter, to completely cover the sun during an eclipse? Again, Isaac Asimov responds,

“There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion.”

14. Strangeness:

Apparently, Professional astronomers have been gradually discouraged from investigating a phenomenon that has been reported on the Moon for 1,000 years. It is short-lived light, color, or other changes in the appearance of the lunar surface, referred to as Transient Lunar Phenomena.

High Strangeness I LUNA

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1. Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected. Maybe even older than the Earth or the Sun. The oldest age for the Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old; moon rocks were dated at 5.3 billion years old, and the dust upon which they were resting was at least another billion years older.

The chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sit is remarkably different from the rocks themselves. This indicates that the lunar surface may have been moved from somewhere else and placed on the Moon. Some of the Moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the Moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions. Hundreds of moonquakes are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes. Some of the quakes seem to follow a specific schedule. 
 

2. Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon.

“The abundance of refractory elements like titanium in the surface areas is so pronounced that several geologists proposed the refractory compounds were brought to the moon’s surface in great quantity in some unknown way. They don’t know how, but that it was done cannot be questioned.”

 

3. Water Vapor: On March 7, 1971, lunar instruments placed by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon. The cloud lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.

4. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a “close call” with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.

5. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.

6. Moon Mascons: Mascons, which are large, dense, circular masses lying twenty to forty miles beneath the centers of the moon’s maria,

“are broad, disk-shaped objects that could be possibly some kind of artificial construction. For huge circular disks are not likely to be beneath each huge maria, centered like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each, by coincidence or accident.”

 

 

Ruminations

Life is not just.

Nobody should ever think that it is. Life is naked and brutal and beautiful and breath taking and surprising.

But  not just.

Justice is a concept, even though coined by us humans, which is poorly understood at best. Who is the authority of arbitration when it comes to justice. Who has the wisdom, insight, neutrality and ultimately power to mete out justice?

The answer, unfortunately, is, nobody. At least nobody mortal. We seek out God, the Gods, Fate and Karma to be the ultimate arbiters of justice. We thus recognised long ago that justice is something that cannot be left in human hands.

So, what good is it? Must we wait to be judged by a higher authority? An ultimate power? And whose justice will it be? Who, in the final analysis is just? Justified in having taken the action that was taken?

Not an answer to be found in a blog – that much is certain.

How about this then? Let us treat each other with respect and dignity. Let us treat each other in a way that encourages smiles and hugs and giving way and getting up to offer one’s seat and helping the weak with the heavy loads and the strong to realise the value of humility.

After all, justice will be a long time coming.