Hubble's role in search for aliens

Very distant galaxies have been spotted in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field By Sir Martin Rees Astronomer Royal Source: BBC News, today. The powerful vision of the Hubble Telescope - which turns 20 this week - has expanded our cosmic horizons and brought into sharper focus a new set of mysteries about the universe that is our home. To those whose science is gleaned from the media, astronomy may seem to be on a roll. And it is. We have established, in outline, a consensus picture of how, from a hot dense beginning nearly 14 billion years ago, our expanding universe developed galaxies, stars and planets. We can set our entire solar system in a grand evolving scenario stretching back to a Big Bang - an era when everything was hotter than the centres of stars, and expanding on a timescale of a few seconds. Iconic image of the "Butterfly Nebula", showing the end stages of a star Only in the past 10 years have we learnt that large numbers of "worlds" exist in orbit around other stars. Present techniques aren't sensitive enough to find an earth-like planet, but the ones so far detected - mostly as big as Jupiter or Saturn, the giants of our own solar system - may well be the largest members of other planetary systems as varied and interesting as ours. If there is life on Mars, it is very primitive. But could some newly discovered planets orbiting other stars harbour biospheres as complex as our Earth's, perhaps with intelligent life? That question can now be seriously addressed. There are on-going searches for transmissions that might be "artificial" in origin. These efforts are privately funded: they have a hard time getting public funding because the topic is encumbered by "flaky" associations with UFOs, and so forth. Despite the heavy odds against success, I certainly support these efforts, because of the philosophical import of any detection of a manifestly artificial signal. Even if we couldn't make much sense of it, we'd have learnt that "intelligence" wasn't unique to the hardware inside human skulls, and had emerged elsewhere. Peering back in time But let's now enlarge our cosmic horizon further. Our galaxy, with its hundred billion stars, is similar to millions of others visible with large telescopes. Andromeda, the nearest big galaxy to our own lies about two million light years away. Its constituent stars are orbiting in a disc, seen obliquely. The nearest few thousand galaxies - those out to about 300 million light years - have been mapped out in detail. As we probe deeper into space, towards our horizon, we probe further back in time (because the light now reaching us set out a long time ago): we see the universe as it was when it was younger and more close-packed. And we can now see very far back. Hubble's 3D map showing the cosmic "scaffold" of dark matter, upon which stars and galaxies are assembled More details Among the iconic images from the Hubble Space Telescope are those that show a small patch of sky, less than a hundredth of the area covered by a full moon. Viewed through a moderate-sized telescope, these patches would look completely blank. But these ultra-sensitive long exposures reveal many hundreds of faint smudges of light - a billion times fainter than any star that can be seen with the unaided eye. But each is an entire galaxy, thousands of light years across, which appears so small and faint because of its huge distance. A huge span of time separates us from these remote galaxies. They are being viewed when they have only recently formed: we are looking back more than 90% of the time to the Big Bang. In the beginning... These remote galaxies have not yet settled down into steadily-spinning "pinwheels" like Andromeda. Some consist mainly of glowing diffuse gas that hasn't yet condensed into stars. SOME KEY HUBBLE TELESCOPE DISCOVERIES TO DATE In what was a prime mission objective, Hubble fixed the Universe's age at about 13.7 billion years - later confirmed by other instruments Hubble's ability to detect faint supernovae contributed to the discovery that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating Hubble was one of two telescopes to make the first direct images of planets orbiting another star - historic images made public last November Hubble provided the first direct measurements of the three-dimensional distribution of dark matter in space When we look at Andromeda, we sometimes wonder if there may be other beings looking back at us. Maybe there are. But on these remote galaxies there surely aren't. Their stars haven't have had time to fuse pristine hydrogen into carbon, oxygen and silicon - the atoms needed for planets and life. What about the far future? Six billion years from now, when the sun dies, the galaxies will be more widely dispersed, and will be intrinsically somewhat fainter because their stellar population will have aged, and less gas will survive to form bright new stars. But what might happen still further ahead? A very surprising discovery aided by the Hubble Telescope is that the galaxies are dispersing at a rate that is actually accelerating, under the influence of some mysterious force. The best long-range forecast, therefore, is that the cosmos will continue to expand, becoming ever emptier, ever darker and ever colder. We can't predict what role life will eventually carve out for itself: it could become extinct; on the other hand, it could achieve such dominance that it can influence the entire cosmos. The latter is the province of science fiction, but it can't be dismissed as absurd. After all, it's taken little more than one billion years for natural selection to lead from the first multi-cellular organisms to Earth's present biosphere (including us). And what about the very beginning? The first tiny fraction of a second of cosmic history is still shrouded in mystery, because the conditions then - the densities, temperatures, and so forth - would have been far beyond those we can simulate in the lab. Here we enter a realm where theorists can only speculate. One of my favourite magazine covers showed a red circle, beneath the caption "the universe when it was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old -- actual size". According to a popular theory, our universe "inflated" from a hyper-dense blob no bigger than that, under the influence of a cosmic repulsion 120 powers of ten fiercer than the force that drives the galaxies ever-further apart today. In the past two decades, the Hubble Telescope (and its counterparts on the ground) have hugely expanded our cosmic horizons - but, as always in science, this progress brings into sharper focus a new set of mysteries which will challenge the next generation of astronomers and fascinate all who wonder about the universe that is our home. Sir Martin Rees is astronomer royal, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and president of the Royal Society

CODEPINK: Between Iraq and a Hard Place

September 24th, 2009 6:05 AM

Robert Singer

thepeoplesvoice.org

CODEPINK wants to end the war in Iraq.

It is now 2009, when will Jodie Evans, Diane Wilson and Medea Benjamin realize the obvious: We aren’t leaving Iraq for at least 100 years.

The House, Senate and the Bush Administration are gone but the troops are permanently deployed in the "Cradle of Civilization.” [1]

Jodie, Diane and Medea: You can’t “bring the troops home” if you don’t know why the U.S. is building permanent headquarters, a $592 million "Embassy in Baghdad.”

And luckily for the embassy officials, their water, electricity and sewage treatment plants will all be independent from Baghdad's city utilities. The total site will be two-thirds the area of the National Mall in Washington, DC. [2]

We are not in Iraq because we are addicted to war or to liberate the people from the tyranny of Hussein's version of Ba'athism.

And as far as that nonsense about WMDs and Valerie (Plame) Wilson, we should be asking ourselves why did Cheney organize an elaborate PR campaign to disparage Wilson, instead of directing the CIA to hide a few WMDs prior to the invasion: “We found them, he had them, look, here they are, Bush and Cheney were telling the truth.”

But you can forget about oil and geopolitics. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put that assertion to rest when he claimed, "The Iraq war is largely about oil."

The intentional outing of Bush, Cheney and Valerie Plame is so absurd they expected you to believe the administration was acting on behalf of Bush’s buddies in the oil industry. [3]

There is little or no evidence that Big Oil favored a war, particularly one carried out unilaterally that risked destabilizing the world's most oil-rich region, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

Exopolitics

Exopolitics is a study based on the belief there is an extraterrestrial (ET) presence on Earth and clandestine government organizations have intentionally withheld the information from the population.

The work of Dr.Michael E. Salla, PhD in government from the University of Queensland and William Henry conclude the U.S. and German governments believe there is a Stargate (portal to another world) in Iraq, a country also known as Ancient Mesopotamia, the land of Babylonia and the Cradle of Civilization.

What's the evidence for an historic ET presence in Iraq?

The strongest available evidence comes from the work of the Sumerian scholar, Zecharia Sitchin. Sitchin translated the cuneiform tablets recording the beliefs and activities of the ancient Sumerians whose civilization began almost overnight in 3800 BC. The Sumerians had detailed knowledge of all the planets in the solar system, understood the precession of the equinoxes, and also had an understanding of complex medical procedures. [5]

If there is a Stargate in Southern Iraq, then clandestine government organizations that controlled the Bush Administration are aware the Stargate will play a role in a “prophesied return of the gods.”

Saddam Hussein wanted to cement his place in history by reviving the grandeur of early Mesopotamian civilizations because he was allegedly aware of the existence of a Stargate.

Prior to the US invasion, Hussein performed a detailed underground mapping of the area around the Sumerian city of Uruk and had given permission for a German team of archaeologists to resume excavations in the most likely location of the Sumerian Stargate. [6]

This is consistent with the German government’s public opposition to the invasion of Iraq. [7]

Sitchin's thesis of an ancient ET presence in Sumer combined with the notion of a variety of ET transportation devices described by other authors in their research of ancient civilizations gives support to William Henry's thesis of a Stargate that lies buried in the sands of southern Iraq.

Consider the following classified events of September 11:

[Note 1: Strategic information about the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is classified by the U.S. Military.]

[Note 2: Paul O'Neill's revelations that the Bush administration planned to invade Iraq long before September 11, 2001 have been widely publicized]

On September 10th the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) chopped (turned around) in the straits of Hormoz, went to Battle Condition II, and prepared to invade Iraq. The order to stand down came 5 hours after the 2nd tower collapsed.

The USS Carl Vinson was in the gulf with orders to invade Iraq, logic would dictate the invasion would go forward when the buildings collapsed and not be called off. [8]

Therefore, we must dismiss any mainstream disinformation regarding the reasons we are in Iraq and look for a “Third Story” (i.e. Stargate).

Close up UFO snapped over Thames river

Saturday, 09 May 2009
A student was left shocked when she checked her tourist snaps of the London skyline - and spotted what looks like a flying saucer. University Of Exeter academic Karolina-Slavka Mueller was in London for the weekend, when she took some shots with her camera phone of the sights.

But when she looked back at the January 19 night time pictures of Tower Bridge and the London Eye, she was shocked to see an apparent UFO.
And experts claim it is the real thing.

Karolina said in an email: "What's very strange about this is the fact that we didn't actually see this object in the sky while I was taking the photos.

"I only discovered it once I loaded the photos onto my computer as I didn't even look at the photos until then."

The images - taken around 3.50am - were taken eight minutes apart as Karolina and two pals drove through Central London.

The apparent UFO is at an angle and appears to emit a mysterious blue light.
Karolina added: "None of us can come up with a reasonable answer to what this might have been.

"One of my friends, the driver, has grown up in London and he can't find a reasonable answer.

"He says he's never seen anything like it and that there definitely isn't any building in this area that could look like this."

UFO experts have been left scratching their heads over the sighting.
Editor, cameraman and UFO researcher Chris Martin said: "I was looking for evidence that these have been fabricated.

"I couldn't find any evidence. It's unprecedented because she produced three pictures, which seems to show it's flying.
"My own evaluation is that these photographs are genuine and have not been digitally manipulated or hoaxed."

He added: "These photos are, in my opinion as a UFO researcher, absolutely astounding and show a real object seemingly under intelligent control.

"This is a classic flying saucer-shaped UFO."

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson did not comment on the sighting, saying: "The MoD examines reports solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromisedby hostile or unauthorised military activity.

"Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported."

Source: Macedonia Online