It should be noted that what you see here does not necessary reflect the opinion of S.C.L Mystic Times:
Enigmas : Something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained.
Within our world, science establishes boundaries. Beyond those boundaries, lie the paranormal. The mysteries science cannot explain or they deny it's existence. Those are some of the stories you will find here.
NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science@NASA Web Site
FEATURE
A Star with a Comet's Tail
08.15.2007
August 15, 2007: Astronomers using a NASA space telescope, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, have spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space. The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years, yet this is the first time the tail has been seen.
Galaxy Evolution Explorer--"GALEX" for short--scanned the popular star during its ongoing survey of the entire sky in ultraviolet light. Astronomers then noticed what looked like a comet with a gargantuan tail. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star.
Above: Mira's comet-like tail stretches more than 13 light years.
"I was shocked when I first saw this completely unexpected, humongous tail trailing behind a well-known star," says Christopher Martin of the California Institute of Technology. "It was amazing how Mira's tail echoed on vast, interstellar scales the familiar phenomena of a jet's contrail or a speedboat's turbulent wake." Martin is the principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and lead author of a Nature paper appearing today to announce the discovery.
Astronomers say Mira's tail offers a unique opportunity to study how stars like our sun die and ultimately seed new solar systems. Mira is an older star called a red giant that is losing massive amounts of surface material. As Mira hurtles along, its tail sheds carbon, oxygen and other important elements needed for new stars, planets and possibly even life to form. This tail material, visible now for the first time, has been released over the past 30,000 years.
"This is an utterly new phenomenon to us, and we are still in the process of understanding the physics involved," says co-author Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena. "We hope to be able to read Mira's tail like a ticker tape to learn about the star's life."
Billions of years ago, Mira was similar to our sun. Over time, it began to swell into what's called a variable red giant - a pulsating, puffed-up star that periodically grows bright enough to see with the naked eye. Mira will eventually eject all of its remaining gas into space, forming a colorful shell called a planetary nebula. The nebula will fade with time, leaving only the burnt-out core of the original star, which will then be called a white dwarf.
Compared to other red giants, Mira is traveling unusually fast, possibly due to gravitational boosts from other passing stars over time. It now plows along at 130 kilometers per second, or 291,000 miles per hour. Racing along with Mira is a small, distant companion thought to be a white dwarf. The pair, also known as Mira A (the red giant) and Mira B (the white dwarf), orbit slowly around each other as they travel together through the constellation Cetus 350 light-years from Earth.
In addition to Mira's tail, GALEX also discovered a bow shock, a type of buildup of hot gas, in front of the star, and two sinuous streams of material coming out of the star's front and back. Astronomers think hot gas in the bow shock is heating up the gas blowing off the star, causing it to fluoresce with ultraviolet light. This glowing material then swirls around behind the star, creating a turbulent, tail-like wake. The process is similar to a speeding boat leaving a choppy wake, or a steam train producing a trail of smoke.
The fact that Mira's tail only glows with ultraviolet light might explain why other telescopes have missed it. GALEX is very sensitive to ultraviolet light and also has an extremely wide field of view, allowing it to scan the sky for unusual ultraviolet activity.
"It's amazing to discover such a startlingly large and important feature of an object that has been known and studied for over 400 years," says James D. Neill of Caltech. "This is exactly the kind of surprise that comes from a survey mission like the Galaxy Evolution Explorer."
Victim of the beast 666
This gravestone is somewhat of a legend in Salt Lake City. I had heard vague stories about it for years, and finally found good online directions to finding it. I set off to see it for myself and since have become somewhat obsessed with discovering the true story behind its mysterious, dark inscription. Part of its unfolding legend seems to be mystery itself, that there is no information to be had. Of course, obituaries and public records are not going to state what the provocative inscription means, but I am hoping to come to some general conjecture with as many facts and records that I can obtain. There are many strange things I am uncovering with my investigation. I thought Coast To Coast listeners would be interested in this photo and story, and because my investigation is in its infancy, I would also love any information anyone might have concerning this stone that is not already on my website.
--Richelle
cemeterylegends@yahoo.com
Morgellons disease
Mysterious microscopic fibrils attached to excised skin lesion.
Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas
If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.
"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.
Patients get lesions that never heal.
"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.
Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors. "He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.
While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.
"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.
While Savely sees this as a legitimate disease, there are many doctors who simply refuse to acknowledge it exists, because of the bizarre symptoms patients are diagnosed as delusional.
"Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all — down to the most minute detail — saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."
Travis Wilson developed Morgellons just over a year ago. He called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion.
"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson said. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out."
The Wilson's spent $14,000 after insurance last year on doctors and medicine.
"Most of them are antibiotics. He was on Tamadone for pain. Viltricide, this was an anti-parasitic. This was to try and protect his skin because of all the lesions and stuff," Lisa said. However, nothing worked, and 23-year-old Travis could no longer take it.
"I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," Lisa Wilson said. Just two weeks ago, Travis took his life.
Stephanie Bailey developed the lesions four-and-a-half years ago.
"The lesions come up, and then these fuzzy things like spores come out," she said.
She also has the crawling sensation.
"You just want to get it out of you," Bailey said.
She has no idea what caused the disease, and nothing has worked to clear it up.
"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," Bailey said. Harriett Bishop has battled Morgellons for 12 years. After a year on antibiotics, her hands have nearly cleared up. On the day, we visited her she only had one lesion and she extracted this fiber from it.
"You want to get these things out to relieve the pain, and that's why you pull and then you can see the fibers there, and the tentacles are there, and there are millions of them," Bishop said. So far, pathologists have failed to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions. "Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences.
Wymore examines the fibers, scabs and other samples from Morgellon's patients to try and find the disease's cause.
"These fibers don't look like common environmental fibers," he said.
The goal at OSU is to scientifically find out what is going on. Until then, patients and doctors struggle with this mysterious and bizarre infection. Thus far, the only treatment that has showed some success is an antibiotic.
"It sounds a little like a parasite, like a fungal infection, like a bacterial infection, but it never quite fits all the criteria of any known pathogen," Savely said
No one knows how Morgellans is contracted, but it does not appear to be contagious. The states with the highest number of cases are Texas, California and Florida.
The only connection found so far is that more than half of the Morgellons patients are also diagnosed with Lyme disease.
Goa Gajah (the Elephant Cave)
The entrance of the cave, with its menancing face. You can make out the profile of an elephant if you look at the face's hair; the elephant's trunk is hanging over its ear to the right.
Goa Gajah (the Elephant Cave) ,is located in a steep valley just outside of Ubud near the town of Bedulu (see map). Built at least 700 years ago, the cave was rediscovered in the 1920s and fully excavated 30 years later.
A view of the site from above the valley.
In front of the cave are enormous rectangular bathing pools with water fountains.
Pura Taman Ayun southeast of Ubud
Ramayana story in painted stone Lovina
Space
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V838MonBurst
Uranus Rings
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Strange 'twin' new worlds found
The planemo twins: Two peculiar planet-like worlds
A pair of strange new worlds that blur the boundaries between planets and stars have been discovered beyond our Solar System.
A few dozen such objects have been identified in recent years but this is the first set of "twins". Dubbed "planemos", they circle each other rather than orbiting a star. Their existence challenges current theories about the formation of planets and stars, astronomers report in the journal Science.
"This is a truly remarkable pair of twins - each having only about 1% the mass of our Sun," said Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto, co-author of the Science paper. "Its mere existence is a surprise, and its origin and fate a bit of a mystery." 'Double planet'
The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or "planemos", which are not bound to stars.
Now we're curious to find out whether such pairs are common or rare. The answer could shed light on how free-floating planetary-mass objects form
Valentin Ivanov. They appear to have been forged from a contracting gas cloud, in a similar way to stars, but are much too cool to be true stars.
And while they have similar masses to many of the giant planets discovered beyond our Solar System (the largest weighs in at 14 times the mass of Jupiter and the other is about seven times more massive), they are not thought to be true planets either. "We are resisting the temptation to call it a 'double planet' because this pair probably didn't form the way that planets in our Solar System did," said co-researcher Valentin Ivanov of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Santiago, Chile. 'Amazing diversity' The two objects have similar spectra and colours, suggesting that they formed at the same time about a million years ago.
They are separated by about six times the distance between the Sun and Pluto, and can be found in the Ophiuchus star-forming region some 400 light years away. They go under the official name Oph 162225-240515, or Oph 1622 for short. "Recent discoveries have revealed an amazing diversity of worlds out there," said Dr Jayawardhana. "Still, the Oph 1622 pair stands out as one of the most intriguing, if not peculiar." His colleague, Dr Ivanov, said they were curious to find out whether such pairs are common or rare. "The answer could shed light on how free-floating planetary-mass objects form," he added. Oph 1622 was discovered using the ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla, Chile. Follow-up studies were conducted with the ESO's Very Large Telescope.
Floating Pyramids
This photo was taken on a pilgrimage to the Great Pyramid and surrounding structures on the Giza Plateau. The photo was taken on 11/11/04 right after an impromptu meditation in the middle of the shadows of 4 red granite pillars that cast a shadow of 1111. The time was 11:11. The location of the Funerary Temple was next to the Sphinx, which is about one mile or so from the Great Pyramid.
At the time of this photo, my husband and I were walking out of the Funerary Temple to the Sphinx for a meditation for World Peace. When we developed our film, we saw these 11 floating Pyramids captured only on this one shot. We did not use a flash. It was with a digital camera: Sony Cyber-shot: 5.0 Mega Pixel camera. We thought this was pretty amazing to find 11 floating pyramids just one minute after our impromptu meditation on 11/11/04 at 11:11.
--Cheryl Scott
Mysterious Clouds Creeping Out of the Arctic
By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer
A new NASA satellite has recorded the first detailed
images from space of a mysterious type of cloud called
“night-shining” or “noctilucent." The clouds are on the move
brightening and creeping out of polar regions, and researchers
don't know why. "It is clear that these clouds are changing, a
sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not
understand how, why or what it means," said atmospheric
scientists James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton,
Virginia. "These observations suggest a connection with global
change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early
warning that our Earth environment is being changed."
The "Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere”
(AIM) satellite first imaged the noctilucent clouds
May 25. People on the ground began seeing them
June 6 over Northern Europe. The clouds form 50 miles above the
Earth’s surface, in an upper layer of the atmosphere called the
mesosphere. The puffs of water vapor and crystals appear during
summer months above the Northern Hemisphere's pole as
well the Southern Hemisphere’s pole in summer. AIM will record
two complete cloud seasons over both regions, effectively
documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds
for the first time. Researchers hope to figure out why
noctilucent clouds form and how they might be related
to global climate change.