This section is for anything Space related. Other than Space Pictures.
UFOs. Videos. News Stories.Whatever.....
UFOs. Videos. News Stories.Whatever.....
Last edited:
Space News/UFO's Etc...(Discussion/Pics/Vids)
- Thread starter Capt.Kangaroo
- Start date
CaptainK, just wanted to let you know my son purchased his telescope last week. He found a Celestron SkyProdigy 130 online that was an open box situation for less than $300. He said it's a good starter scope with a motorized mount that automatically finds stars and planets by using a "cellestial" GPS database. He just moved to Colorado on a new assignment so he can't wait for it to arrive.
The Akashic Records
View attachment 432
this is an interesting read if you think outside of the box.
Reality is a consciousness hologram. The Akashic Records refer to the matrix of consciousness programs that create our reality within that hologram. One could look upon it as a library of light wherein one can access all information.
The Akashic records (Akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") are collectively understood to be a collection of mystical knowledge that is encoded in the aether; i.e. on a non-physical plane of existence. The concept is prevalent in New Age discourse.
The Akashic Records are understood to have existed since the beginning of The Creation and even before. Just as we have various specialty libraries (e.g., medical, law), there are said to exist various Akashic Records (e.g., human, animal, plant, mineral, etc) encoding Universal lore. Most writings refer to the Akashic Records in the area of human experience but it is understood that all phenomenal experience as well as transcendental knowledge is encoded therein.
History of Akashic Records
Those who champion the truth of the Akashic Records assert that they were accessed by ancient people of various cultures, including the Indians, Moors, Tibetans, Bonpo and other peoples of the Himalaya, Egyptians, Persians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Chinese, Hebrews, Christians, Druids and Mayans. It is held that the ancient Indian sages of the Himalayas knew that each soul, jiva, atma, or entity recorded every moment of its existence in a "book", and that if one attuned oneself properly then one could access that book (refer mindstream for example).
Nostradamus claimed to have gained access to the Akasha, using methods derived from the Greek oracles, Christian and Sufi mysticism, and the Kabbalah. Other individuals who claim to have consciously used the Akashic Records include: Charles Webster Leadbeater, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, Samael Aun Weor, William Lilly, Manly P. Hall, Lilian Treemont, Dion Fortune, George Hunt Williamson, Rudolf Steiner, Max Heindel and Edgar Cayce amongst others.
A Chinese man named Sujujin was reported to need only the first name of anyone to access the Akasha and describe their life history. Another Chinese seer, named Tajao, explored a variety of topics in the Records which span over two thousand years.
In Surat Shabda Yoga cosmology, the Akashic Records would be located within the causal plane of Trikuti.
Description and Explanation of the Akashic records
The Akasha is said to be the library of all events and responses concerning consciousness in all realities. Every lifeform therefore contributes and has access to the Akashic Records. It is asserted that to gain access into the Akashic Records, every individual human can become the physical medium, and various techniques and spiritual disciplines (e.g., yogic, pranayama, meditation, prayer, visualization) can be employed to quiet the mind, become a "witness", and achieve the focused, preconscious state necessary to access the Records.
While accessing the Akashic Records, both the events and responses are said to be perceived. This is analogous to having a meta-enhanced cinematic experience. When accessing the future, the events are known, but the responses are only probable. Based on an individual's responses in the past, the Akashic seer/reader can investigate probable future responses and give the highest future probability. A simple illustration of this might be witnessing several alternate endings to the main characters in a movie (e.g., Run, Lola, Run). At some point in the evolution of the Akashic reader, however, a state of unification and awareness can be achieved whereby even the future responses are known with absolute clarity instead of only as a probability.
Claims and Skepticism
Believers in the Akasha make many claims about how widely the Akasha was used, including:
The claim that the Vedas of Hindus and the language of Sanskrit itself were extracted from Akasha.
The claim that in Egypt, those who could read the Akasha were held in high standing and would advise the Pharaohs on daily activities and dream interpretation.[citation needed]
The claim that the Druid cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (???-500 (est.)) demonstrated the ability to access the Akasha.[citation needed]
The claim that the Bible refers to the Akasha records as the Book of Life in both the Old Testament (Psalm 69:28) and the New Testament (Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15 and Revelation 21:27 "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.")
Despite claims that the Akashic Records have been used by mystics throughout history, there are not any direct references to the Akasha to be found in any of the historical documentation of the aforementioned groups. The term Akasha itself, along with the concept of an etheric library, originated with the 19th century movement of Theosophy. Skeptics say that the concept of Akashic Records has been attributed indiscriminately and inappropriately to a wide range of historical religious figures and movements.
Traditionally the theory has also been rejected by the scientific community, due to a lack of any independently verifiable evidence. Interestingly, Ervin Laszlo (2004) explores science and the Akashic Records in the spirit of Occam's razor, and champions the theory of the Records as resolving many anomalies within history, science and experience with simplicity.
Specific Accounts of the Akashic Records
In Theosophy and New Age discourse the Akashic Records are records of all knowledge, including all human experience, held in the Universe. The Akashic Records are metaphorically described as a library and are also likened to a universal computer or the 'Mind of God'.
The Akashic Records are referred to by Edgar Cayce, who stated that each person is held to account after life and 'confronted' with their personal Akashic record of what they have or have not done in life in a karmic sense. The idea is comparable to the biblical Book of Life which is consulted to see whether or not the dead are admitted to heaven.
Jane Roberts in the Seth books describes a different version of a similar idea when Seth asserts that the fundamental stuff of the universe is ideas and consciousness, and that an idea once conceived exists forever. Seth argued that all ideas and knowledge are in principle accessible by "direct cognition". Direct cognition shares semantic congruency with intuition and allows for the possibility of direct knowing without time elapsing and without knowledge needing to be transferred e.g. in speech or text. This is similar to what Robert Monroe refers to as rotes in his out-of-body book trilogy.
Some writers believe that, free from and independent of all religions and faiths, there exist many libraries or record repositories such as the Akashic library throughout the universe, albeit on various planes of existence.
According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings, the Memory of Nature (Akashic Records) may be read in three different inner worlds. In the reflecting ether of the Etheric region there are pictures of all that has happened in the world - at least several hundred years back, or much more in some cases - and they appear almost as the pictures on a screen, with the difference that the scene shifts backward.
The Memory of Nature may be read, in an entirely different manner covering the essence of a whole life or event, in a higher world, in the highest subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought of the World of Thought, and, last, it may be read in the World of Life Spirit, covering events from the earliest dawn of our present manifestation, but only spiritual adepts, spiritual entities and through grace is access to the Records granted.
View attachment 432
this is an interesting read if you think outside of the box.
Reality is a consciousness hologram. The Akashic Records refer to the matrix of consciousness programs that create our reality within that hologram. One could look upon it as a library of light wherein one can access all information.
The Akashic records (Akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") are collectively understood to be a collection of mystical knowledge that is encoded in the aether; i.e. on a non-physical plane of existence. The concept is prevalent in New Age discourse.
The Akashic Records are understood to have existed since the beginning of The Creation and even before. Just as we have various specialty libraries (e.g., medical, law), there are said to exist various Akashic Records (e.g., human, animal, plant, mineral, etc) encoding Universal lore. Most writings refer to the Akashic Records in the area of human experience but it is understood that all phenomenal experience as well as transcendental knowledge is encoded therein.
History of Akashic Records
Those who champion the truth of the Akashic Records assert that they were accessed by ancient people of various cultures, including the Indians, Moors, Tibetans, Bonpo and other peoples of the Himalaya, Egyptians, Persians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Chinese, Hebrews, Christians, Druids and Mayans. It is held that the ancient Indian sages of the Himalayas knew that each soul, jiva, atma, or entity recorded every moment of its existence in a "book", and that if one attuned oneself properly then one could access that book (refer mindstream for example).
Nostradamus claimed to have gained access to the Akasha, using methods derived from the Greek oracles, Christian and Sufi mysticism, and the Kabbalah. Other individuals who claim to have consciously used the Akashic Records include: Charles Webster Leadbeater, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, Samael Aun Weor, William Lilly, Manly P. Hall, Lilian Treemont, Dion Fortune, George Hunt Williamson, Rudolf Steiner, Max Heindel and Edgar Cayce amongst others.
A Chinese man named Sujujin was reported to need only the first name of anyone to access the Akasha and describe their life history. Another Chinese seer, named Tajao, explored a variety of topics in the Records which span over two thousand years.
In Surat Shabda Yoga cosmology, the Akashic Records would be located within the causal plane of Trikuti.
Description and Explanation of the Akashic records
The Akasha is said to be the library of all events and responses concerning consciousness in all realities. Every lifeform therefore contributes and has access to the Akashic Records. It is asserted that to gain access into the Akashic Records, every individual human can become the physical medium, and various techniques and spiritual disciplines (e.g., yogic, pranayama, meditation, prayer, visualization) can be employed to quiet the mind, become a "witness", and achieve the focused, preconscious state necessary to access the Records.
While accessing the Akashic Records, both the events and responses are said to be perceived. This is analogous to having a meta-enhanced cinematic experience. When accessing the future, the events are known, but the responses are only probable. Based on an individual's responses in the past, the Akashic seer/reader can investigate probable future responses and give the highest future probability. A simple illustration of this might be witnessing several alternate endings to the main characters in a movie (e.g., Run, Lola, Run). At some point in the evolution of the Akashic reader, however, a state of unification and awareness can be achieved whereby even the future responses are known with absolute clarity instead of only as a probability.
Claims and Skepticism
Believers in the Akasha make many claims about how widely the Akasha was used, including:
The claim that the Vedas of Hindus and the language of Sanskrit itself were extracted from Akasha.
The claim that in Egypt, those who could read the Akasha were held in high standing and would advise the Pharaohs on daily activities and dream interpretation.[citation needed]
The claim that the Druid cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (???-500 (est.)) demonstrated the ability to access the Akasha.[citation needed]
The claim that the Bible refers to the Akasha records as the Book of Life in both the Old Testament (Psalm 69:28) and the New Testament (Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15 and Revelation 21:27 "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.")
Despite claims that the Akashic Records have been used by mystics throughout history, there are not any direct references to the Akasha to be found in any of the historical documentation of the aforementioned groups. The term Akasha itself, along with the concept of an etheric library, originated with the 19th century movement of Theosophy. Skeptics say that the concept of Akashic Records has been attributed indiscriminately and inappropriately to a wide range of historical religious figures and movements.
Traditionally the theory has also been rejected by the scientific community, due to a lack of any independently verifiable evidence. Interestingly, Ervin Laszlo (2004) explores science and the Akashic Records in the spirit of Occam's razor, and champions the theory of the Records as resolving many anomalies within history, science and experience with simplicity.
Specific Accounts of the Akashic Records
In Theosophy and New Age discourse the Akashic Records are records of all knowledge, including all human experience, held in the Universe. The Akashic Records are metaphorically described as a library and are also likened to a universal computer or the 'Mind of God'.
The Akashic Records are referred to by Edgar Cayce, who stated that each person is held to account after life and 'confronted' with their personal Akashic record of what they have or have not done in life in a karmic sense. The idea is comparable to the biblical Book of Life which is consulted to see whether or not the dead are admitted to heaven.
Jane Roberts in the Seth books describes a different version of a similar idea when Seth asserts that the fundamental stuff of the universe is ideas and consciousness, and that an idea once conceived exists forever. Seth argued that all ideas and knowledge are in principle accessible by "direct cognition". Direct cognition shares semantic congruency with intuition and allows for the possibility of direct knowing without time elapsing and without knowledge needing to be transferred e.g. in speech or text. This is similar to what Robert Monroe refers to as rotes in his out-of-body book trilogy.
Some writers believe that, free from and independent of all religions and faiths, there exist many libraries or record repositories such as the Akashic library throughout the universe, albeit on various planes of existence.
According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings, the Memory of Nature (Akashic Records) may be read in three different inner worlds. In the reflecting ether of the Etheric region there are pictures of all that has happened in the world - at least several hundred years back, or much more in some cases - and they appear almost as the pictures on a screen, with the difference that the scene shifts backward.
The Memory of Nature may be read, in an entirely different manner covering the essence of a whole life or event, in a higher world, in the highest subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought of the World of Thought, and, last, it may be read in the World of Life Spirit, covering events from the earliest dawn of our present manifestation, but only spiritual adepts, spiritual entities and through grace is access to the Records granted.
Mysterious 'Cold Spot' May Be The Largest Structure In The Universe
View attachment 489
The largest known structure in the universes might just be a giant void – at least, evidence found by astronomers seems to point to that. While more observations are needed to confirm the discovery of the “supervoid”, it is likely that it can explain the origin of an enormous and abnormally cold region of the sky.
The “cold region” was spotted for the first time back in 2004 by NASA, and it can be observed with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Its existence has so far remained unexplained in spite of the growing amount of literature constituting of possible theories, many of which are contradictory to others. The new study has focused on one of the hypotheses put forward in the past involving a supervoid.
An international team of astronomers, with lead author Istvan Szapudi from the Institute for Astronomy at The University of Hawaii at Manoa, have come up with evidence of a supervoid. It is said that the density of galaxies in a supervoid is much lower than what is considered to be usual in the known universe.
The team of researchers made use of two groups of data by matching objects spotted at infrared wavelengths by Nasa’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE) with colours in visible light measured by the robotic telescope Pan-STARRS1. A map of the distribution of galaxies located in the cold region was thus made.
It was found that in the center of the cold spot, there was a decrease in the number of galaxies. This suggests the presence of the largest known structure in the universe: the supervoid. The supervoid is said to stretch 1.8 billion light years across heaven when the universe was 11.1 billion years old.
The universe would consist of holes, voids that are devoid of matter and gravitational pull. Were a photon from the CMB to meet a void, it would lose its energy to ultimately retrieve it upon exiting the void. Now, given that the universe is forever expanding, the photon would only exit in a medium less dense than before it entered the void. Lower density is, in turn, associated with weaker gravitational pull exerted on the photon exiting the hole. As a consequence, the photon would not be able to compensate for the totality of the energy it lost, and it would end up with less energy. Less energy is associated with a lower temperature. Therefore, that photon would have less energy and lower temperature than light from other regions of the sky where it would not pass through voids.
The cold spot in question is actually 70 μK colder than the chilly CMB radiation in the surroundings, which is 2.7 K. The fluctuations that do exist are very small: the temperature would differ by only around 18μK.
More observations need to be made to create enhanced maps of the supervoid in order to have additional information. For instance, it is not known if it has any substructure given the limited data.
View attachment 489
The largest known structure in the universes might just be a giant void – at least, evidence found by astronomers seems to point to that. While more observations are needed to confirm the discovery of the “supervoid”, it is likely that it can explain the origin of an enormous and abnormally cold region of the sky.
The “cold region” was spotted for the first time back in 2004 by NASA, and it can be observed with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Its existence has so far remained unexplained in spite of the growing amount of literature constituting of possible theories, many of which are contradictory to others. The new study has focused on one of the hypotheses put forward in the past involving a supervoid.
An international team of astronomers, with lead author Istvan Szapudi from the Institute for Astronomy at The University of Hawaii at Manoa, have come up with evidence of a supervoid. It is said that the density of galaxies in a supervoid is much lower than what is considered to be usual in the known universe.
The team of researchers made use of two groups of data by matching objects spotted at infrared wavelengths by Nasa’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE) with colours in visible light measured by the robotic telescope Pan-STARRS1. A map of the distribution of galaxies located in the cold region was thus made.
It was found that in the center of the cold spot, there was a decrease in the number of galaxies. This suggests the presence of the largest known structure in the universe: the supervoid. The supervoid is said to stretch 1.8 billion light years across heaven when the universe was 11.1 billion years old.
The universe would consist of holes, voids that are devoid of matter and gravitational pull. Were a photon from the CMB to meet a void, it would lose its energy to ultimately retrieve it upon exiting the void. Now, given that the universe is forever expanding, the photon would only exit in a medium less dense than before it entered the void. Lower density is, in turn, associated with weaker gravitational pull exerted on the photon exiting the hole. As a consequence, the photon would not be able to compensate for the totality of the energy it lost, and it would end up with less energy. Less energy is associated with a lower temperature. Therefore, that photon would have less energy and lower temperature than light from other regions of the sky where it would not pass through voids.
The cold spot in question is actually 70 μK colder than the chilly CMB radiation in the surroundings, which is 2.7 K. The fluctuations that do exist are very small: the temperature would differ by only around 18μK.
More observations need to be made to create enhanced maps of the supervoid in order to have additional information. For instance, it is not known if it has any substructure given the limited data.
Eta Aquarid Shower visible overnight
Sky watchers, get that pot of coffee ready, this could be a late night for you, a meteor shower should be visible overnight.
What we could see is made up of debris from Halley's comet, which is only visible to the naked-eye every 75 years, this from the folks at NASA. While, we can't see the comet as it passes, its tail leaves remnants that transform into a beautiful sight visible from earth called the Eta Aquarid Shower.
Sky watchers, get that pot of coffee ready, this could be a late night for you, a meteor shower should be visible overnight.
What we could see is made up of debris from Halley's comet, which is only visible to the naked-eye every 75 years, this from the folks at NASA. While, we can't see the comet as it passes, its tail leaves remnants that transform into a beautiful sight visible from earth called the Eta Aquarid Shower.
Universe A Matrix Computer Game Designed By Aliens, Say NASA
British philosopher Nick Bostrom says he believes that the reality we perceive around us may be the product of a highly-advanced computer program, much like the plot of the Matrix movies – and surprisingly NASA have said they agree with him.
Dr Bostrom proposed in a paper he wrote that an evolved race of aliens have imprisoned the human-race in what he refers to as a “digital imprisonment”.
These aliens, or super-humans, are using virtual reality to simulate space and time, according to Bostrom
NASA scientist Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, thinks Dr Bostrom may be onto something.
Speaking to Vice the NASA scientist said, “Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain …If you make a simple calculation using Moore’s Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you’ll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.”
Express.co.uk reports:
“In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they’re being observed.
“Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.
“One explanation is that we’re living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.
“What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that’s cool.”
The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.
The first is the Fermi Paradox – proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1960s – which highlights the contradiction between the apparent high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations within our ever-expanding universe and humanity’s lack of contact with, or lack of evidence for, these alien colonies.
“Where is everybody?” Mr Fermi asked.
It could simply be that Earth and mankind truly is the centre of the universe.
Another mystery explained by Dr Bostrom’s Matrix-like theory is the role of Dark Matter.
US theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner has called the hypothetical material “the most profound mystery in all of science”.
Dark Matter is one of many hypothetical materials used to explain a number of anomalies in the Standard Model – the all-encompassing theory science has used to explain the particles and forces of nature for the last 50 years.
The Standard Model of particle physics tells us that there are 17 fundamental particles which make up atomic matter.
The Higgs boson, which was first theorised by scientists during the 1960s, is amongst these 17 fundamental particles.
In summer 2012, scientists at CERN observed what is now believed to be the elusive “God particle”.
But the Standard Model is as-yet unable to explain a number of baffling properties of the universe – including the fact that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed.
Dark Matter is believed to be a web-like matter that binds visible matter together.
If it exists, it would explain why galaxies spin at the speed they do – something which remains unexplained based only on what we can currently observe.
The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.
The as-yet unproven existence of Dark Matter could be explained by a virtual universe.
But not everybody is convinced about The Matrix explanation.
Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University, thinks the virtual reality explanation is flawed.
“The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them,” he said.
“If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?
“They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can’t be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.
“We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid.”
“It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas,” he told The Telegraph.
“You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.
“You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.
“This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago.
“Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all".
Yournewswire.com
British philosopher Nick Bostrom says he believes that the reality we perceive around us may be the product of a highly-advanced computer program, much like the plot of the Matrix movies – and surprisingly NASA have said they agree with him.
Dr Bostrom proposed in a paper he wrote that an evolved race of aliens have imprisoned the human-race in what he refers to as a “digital imprisonment”.
These aliens, or super-humans, are using virtual reality to simulate space and time, according to Bostrom
NASA scientist Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, thinks Dr Bostrom may be onto something.
Speaking to Vice the NASA scientist said, “Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain …If you make a simple calculation using Moore’s Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you’ll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.”
Express.co.uk reports:
“In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they’re being observed.
“Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.
“One explanation is that we’re living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.
“What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that’s cool.”
The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.
The first is the Fermi Paradox – proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1960s – which highlights the contradiction between the apparent high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations within our ever-expanding universe and humanity’s lack of contact with, or lack of evidence for, these alien colonies.
“Where is everybody?” Mr Fermi asked.
It could simply be that Earth and mankind truly is the centre of the universe.
Another mystery explained by Dr Bostrom’s Matrix-like theory is the role of Dark Matter.
US theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner has called the hypothetical material “the most profound mystery in all of science”.
Dark Matter is one of many hypothetical materials used to explain a number of anomalies in the Standard Model – the all-encompassing theory science has used to explain the particles and forces of nature for the last 50 years.
The Standard Model of particle physics tells us that there are 17 fundamental particles which make up atomic matter.
The Higgs boson, which was first theorised by scientists during the 1960s, is amongst these 17 fundamental particles.
In summer 2012, scientists at CERN observed what is now believed to be the elusive “God particle”.
But the Standard Model is as-yet unable to explain a number of baffling properties of the universe – including the fact that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed.
Dark Matter is believed to be a web-like matter that binds visible matter together.
If it exists, it would explain why galaxies spin at the speed they do – something which remains unexplained based only on what we can currently observe.
The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.
The as-yet unproven existence of Dark Matter could be explained by a virtual universe.
But not everybody is convinced about The Matrix explanation.
Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University, thinks the virtual reality explanation is flawed.
“The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them,” he said.
“If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?
“They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can’t be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.
“We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid.”
“It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas,” he told The Telegraph.
“You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.
“You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.
“This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago.
“Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all".
Yournewswire.com
You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.
Philae comet lander wakes up, says European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth.
Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November.
It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat.
The comet has since moved nearer to the Sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos.
An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"
On its blog, Esa said Philae had contacted Earth, via Rosetta, for 85 seconds on Saturday in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.
"Philae is doing very well. It has an operating temperature of -35C and has 24 watts available," said Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec.
Scientists say they now waiting for the next contact.
ESA scientist Mark McCaughrean told the BBC: "It's been a long seven months, and to be quite honest we weren't sure it would happen - there are a lot of very happy people around Europe at the moment."
Philae was carrying large amounts of data that scientists hoped to download once they made contact again, he said.
"I think we're optimistic now that it's awake that we'll have several months of scientific data to pore over," he added.
This is one of the most astonishing moments in space exploration and the grins on the faces of the scientists and engineers are totally justified, says BBC science editor David Shukman.
For the first time, we will have a hitchhiker riding on a comet and describing what happens to a comet as it heats up on its journey through space, he adds.
When Philae first sent back images of its landing location, researchers could see it was in a dark ditch. The Sun was obscured by a high wall, limiting the amount of light that could reach the robot's solar panels.
Scientists knew they only had a limited amount of time - about 60 hours - to gather data before the robot's battery ran flat.
But the calculations also indicated that Philae's mission might not be over for good when the juice did eventually run dry. The comet is currently moving in towards the Sun, and the intensity of light falling on Philae, engineers suggested, could be sufficient in time to re-boot the machine.
And so it has proved. There is some relief also, because the very low temperatures endured by the lander in recent months could have done irreparable damage to some of the circuitry.
The fact that both the computer and transmitter have fired up indicate that the engineering has stood up remarkably well to what must have been really quite extreme conditions. Scientists must now hope they can get enough power into Philae to carry out a full range of experiments.
One ambition not fulfilled before the robot went to sleep was to try to drill into the comet, to examine its chemical make-up. One attempt was made last year, and it failed. A second attempt will now become a priority.
Philae is designed to analyse the ice and rocky fragments that make up the comet.
The Rosetta probe took 10 years to reach 67P, and the lander - about the size of a washing-machine - bounced at least a kilometre when it touched down.
Before it lost power, Philae sent back images of its surroundings that showed it was in a dark location with high walls blocking sunlight from reaching its solar panels.
Its exact location on the duck-shaped comet has since been a mystery
Esa had a good idea of where it was likely to be, down to a few tens of metres, but could not get Rosetta close enough to the comet to acquire conclusive pictures.
Continued radio contact should now allow precise coordinates to be determined, correspondents say.
Comet 67P is currently 205 million km (127 million miles) from the Sun, and getting closer.
It is due in August to get as close as 186 million km, before then sweeping back out into the outer Solar System.
As it nears the sun, the comet will warm and its ices will melt.
This process will throw out a huge shroud of gas and dust, and if Philae can continue to keep working it will provide scientists with an extraordinary view of what is happening right at the surface of 67P.
The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth.
Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November.
It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat.
The comet has since moved nearer to the Sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos.
An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"
On its blog, Esa said Philae had contacted Earth, via Rosetta, for 85 seconds on Saturday in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.
"Philae is doing very well. It has an operating temperature of -35C and has 24 watts available," said Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec.
Scientists say they now waiting for the next contact.
ESA scientist Mark McCaughrean told the BBC: "It's been a long seven months, and to be quite honest we weren't sure it would happen - there are a lot of very happy people around Europe at the moment."
Philae was carrying large amounts of data that scientists hoped to download once they made contact again, he said.
"I think we're optimistic now that it's awake that we'll have several months of scientific data to pore over," he added.
This is one of the most astonishing moments in space exploration and the grins on the faces of the scientists and engineers are totally justified, says BBC science editor David Shukman.
For the first time, we will have a hitchhiker riding on a comet and describing what happens to a comet as it heats up on its journey through space, he adds.
When Philae first sent back images of its landing location, researchers could see it was in a dark ditch. The Sun was obscured by a high wall, limiting the amount of light that could reach the robot's solar panels.
Scientists knew they only had a limited amount of time - about 60 hours - to gather data before the robot's battery ran flat.
But the calculations also indicated that Philae's mission might not be over for good when the juice did eventually run dry. The comet is currently moving in towards the Sun, and the intensity of light falling on Philae, engineers suggested, could be sufficient in time to re-boot the machine.
And so it has proved. There is some relief also, because the very low temperatures endured by the lander in recent months could have done irreparable damage to some of the circuitry.
The fact that both the computer and transmitter have fired up indicate that the engineering has stood up remarkably well to what must have been really quite extreme conditions. Scientists must now hope they can get enough power into Philae to carry out a full range of experiments.
One ambition not fulfilled before the robot went to sleep was to try to drill into the comet, to examine its chemical make-up. One attempt was made last year, and it failed. A second attempt will now become a priority.
Philae is designed to analyse the ice and rocky fragments that make up the comet.
The Rosetta probe took 10 years to reach 67P, and the lander - about the size of a washing-machine - bounced at least a kilometre when it touched down.
Before it lost power, Philae sent back images of its surroundings that showed it was in a dark location with high walls blocking sunlight from reaching its solar panels.
Its exact location on the duck-shaped comet has since been a mystery
Esa had a good idea of where it was likely to be, down to a few tens of metres, but could not get Rosetta close enough to the comet to acquire conclusive pictures.
Continued radio contact should now allow precise coordinates to be determined, correspondents say.
Comet 67P is currently 205 million km (127 million miles) from the Sun, and getting closer.
It is due in August to get as close as 186 million km, before then sweeping back out into the outer Solar System.
As it nears the sun, the comet will warm and its ices will melt.
This process will throw out a huge shroud of gas and dust, and if Philae can continue to keep working it will provide scientists with an extraordinary view of what is happening right at the surface of 67P.
Mirrors / Moon and Laser - Distance to the moon
Hi All,
Does anyone know about a laser that is somewhere in the USA - it fires a beam to a mirror that is placed on the moon. I know that they use it to measure the distance from the earth to the moon.
D
Hi All,
Does anyone know about a laser that is somewhere in the USA - it fires a beam to a mirror that is placed on the moon. I know that they use it to measure the distance from the earth to the moon.
D
Thanks blackbear- don't know how I missed that one. I'm in Wikipedia a lot.
Do you think they would be annoyed if a group of geeks started to build and aim a laser beam up
I'm sure there are enough geeks in here to be able to build something
Do you think they would be annoyed if a group of geeks started to build and aim a laser beam up
I'm sure there are enough geeks in here to be able to build something
They probably wouldn't mind someone else bouncing off the mirror, but I would probably check into things like fcc rules and airplane flight paths first. A laser capable of scattering some photons back from the moon could cause havoc if a passing airline pilot happened to look down at the time. Just a thought.....
I have to say I love this group. It's more than just TV. It makes you think.
So I'm guessing somewhere the universe has a 9pin d serial connector so some alien can watch the scrolling lines of verbose logging like most admins do
So I'm guessing somewhere the universe has a 9pin d serial connector so some alien can watch the scrolling lines of verbose logging like most admins do
yeah - knowing my luck - I would end up causing a national incident and featuring on the top of the hour news for CNN