McNaught Caught!

Faintly starting to glow right at the top, in the centre, at last! Comet McNaught caught 19/01/2007... then the camera battery's died! I will be back again tomorrow if the horizon is clear.

Pondering the question...

was this a "Strafing Run" by ET's? You be the judge...
I would rather use Occam's Razor by comparing this to what we have seen in recent history, that gives me one answer and that is asteroids/comets/other bits of space rock still floating around the sun that happen to get torn up and come down in a line like what we saw happening on Jupiter a few years ago with the Shoemaker-Levy comet demise...
My question would also be... Where are the remains of the "target"?
That would be the kicker...

The Solar Spectrum

APOD: 2006 April 23 - The Solar Spectrum
"Explanation: It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device. The above spectrum was created at the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory and shows, first off, that although our yellow-appearing Sun emits light of nearly every color, it does indeed appear brightest in yellow-green light. The dark patches in the above spectrum arise from gas at or above the Sun's surface absorbing sunlight emitted below. Since different types of gas absorb different colors of light, it is possible to determine what gasses compose the Sun. Helium, for example, was first discovered in 1870 on a solar spectrum and only later found here on Earth. Today, the majority of spectral absorption lines have been identified - but not all."
An amazing picture with gaps in the knowledge and spectrum which will most probably be filled one day...

Comets 'are born of fire and ice'

Comets 'are born of fire and ice' The findings are very interesting and should teach us more on how our corner of the Galaxy originated, however ultimately we and our solar system are the progeny of previous suns... even in the Universe there is evolution. Especially on a elemental scale. As the Universe gets older it gets populated with heavier and heavier elements, maybe this is one way a "Big Crunch" will be initiated?

Mars 'more active than suspected'

Mars is having a climate change... Interesting snippet of information... I wonder what is causing it? Must be the 2 rovers running about the place... Oh I forgot... they are solar powered.

Barred Spiral Milky Way

From APOD: 2005 August 25, The Milky Way, if this is what our home Galaxy looks like, we live in an amazingly beautiful Galaxy. This site has some more info and our solar systems approximate location. One can but only speculate as to the extreme conditions at Galactic Centre where a super massive Black Hole probably resides.
This makes me come to the conclusion that spiral systems are a feature of our universe, from atomic level to galactic level and maybe even beyond. Everything spins around something that in turn spins around some more massive thing. Amazing...

Latest Supernovae

Latest Supernovae This is now a permanent link on my bookmarks/favourites. Some more more images here, I like the one from Michael Howell image best and it is the one posted. So now I will be able to keep track of the latest Supernovae and maybe even get to see one soon.

Life... Beating the cosmic odds

Is there life out there... yes I believe so... Is there Intelligent life? Not likely... Seems like I am not alone in this view, I think the chances on this is much more slender and that we live on a Privileged Planet... I will detail some reasons why I believe so. Bear with me as this page will be expanded upon from time to time.
The points I will cover will make things clearer. This has also been debated on Space.com.

The Cosmos is inherently hostile to life
Consider the creation of our universe, it was an extremely violent thing and early stars did not have planets at all, planet forming elements just did not exist. If one considers that stars run out of drive so to speak at the Iron stage it was many billions of years before the first protoplanet may have formed.
When one looks at most Galaxies we also see violent environments that to my mind preclude any existence of life. Supernovae and galactic centres beam out massive doses of cosmic radiation that sanitize the surrounding cosmos for thousands of light years.

The green band
Astronomers discover where to find ET
It seems that any life has only a 10% region of possible habitation in most galaxies, the outer regions are poor in elements for life and the central regions are just too hostile for life to exist let alone form.

Two is not company
Recent studies have shown that around more than 50 % of observed stars are Binary Systems and in some cases Quadruple systems. The turmoil in such systems to my logic would just be too much for any lifeforms. We are thus an exception to the rule.

DisaStars
Possible Hyper nova Could Affect Earth
Coming back to Supernovae, there is a class of Nova that spews out such radiation that even being 3000 light years away is no guarantee of safety.

How far is a light year
Then there is the distance factor, even at faster than light speeds it would take years to traverse the galaxy, at sub light speeds it is an insurmountable obstacle to my mind.

Physics or the lack thereof
If there is intelligent life they will have to overcome the laws of physics to travel from one star to another to even make it worth their while.

Do they need us
Any civilization capable of faster than light travel would to my mind find us as interesting as an elephant would an ant.

Do we need them
Here the plight of the Inca springs to mind... when they were conquered by the Conquistadors they had no answer for the technological capability of the Spaniards as well as the biological impact that European illnesses also had on them. What would happen if we were to be invaded by space traveling aliens?

Rare Earth
This is where I come back to my basic argument, when one looks at all the factors that have made this blue dot such a special planet one has to believe that we are rather unique in the Galaxy if not the Universe...
Our Solar system is in a quite backwater of the Milky Way, no big star fields or star forming areas with stars threatening to go nova or other galactic bullies.
Our planet is in the sweet spot... not too close or too far from the single sun, protected by 3 gas Giants from incoming strays.
It has a moon that contributed to setting up geologic conditions for life to evolve.
It has water in the right proportion, not so much to drown the continents and not so little that things have gone into deep freeze like Mars.
In fact the chances are so astronomical that to my mind it is not chance but very much by forethought that we are where we are in the universe. Truly we live on a Rare Earth...
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Cosmic blast among brightest recorded - Feb 18, 2005

CNN.com - NASA: Cosmic blast among brightest recorded - Feb 18, 2005
Had this happened within 10 light-years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass extinction.
-- Bryan Gaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics