March 4, 2013

• NoTeWorthy News

  Y’know, half the time I never know what I’m going to post when I wake up…  Today was one of those days.  ((The past three WEEKS have been one of those days…))  Anyhow, there’s some weird stuff going on out there, and I don’t know if it’s significant or not, so I’m going to do a NoteWorthy(ish) post about it.

   COMET PanSTARRS
  http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php…2013
  
  

  Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) is inside the orbit of Mercury, brightening as it plunges toward the sun. Observers in the southern hemisphere say they can see Pan-STARRS with the unaided eye in the evening sunset sky. Michael White sends this view from Manawatu, New Zealand:

  
  

  On March 5th, Comet Pan-STARRS makes its closest approach to Earth followed on March 10th by its closest approach to the sun.  As Comet Pan-STARRS passes the sun, solar glare might make it difficult to see even as the nucleus vaporizes and brightens. By March 12/13th, the comet will reappear in the sunset skies of the northern hemisphere not far from the crescent Moon; think photo-op!

  aNNa’S NoTe:  Dates, dates, dates!  I’m watching for important dates.  You see, we’re pope-less.  By Easter – meaning in thirty days – Peter the Roman will be chosen.  Which means I’m looking for events to happen that might affect that decision.  Like the entire Cardinal council being wiped out by a massive earthquake brought on my a near approach of a comet that fricks up the atmosphere, for example?  Or signs in the sky that have significant meaning in spiritual ways?  I don’t know.  But I’m WATCHING.  ALL of it.  And speaking of the Pope and dates…

   ELECTION BUMPED UP? 
  http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/16/world/europe/pope-resignation

  
  

  The cardinals who must pick a successor to Pope Benedict XVI after he steps down on February 28 could meet to make the decision sooner than thought, a Vatican spokesman said Saturday. The conclave, the meeting which will bring together the 117 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, could start before March 15 if all the cardinals are already in Rome, Father Federico Lombardi said.  Lombardi had previously said the conclave was likely to start between March 15 and 19.

  But he gave new details Saturday, saying that because the pope had resigned rather than the conclave being triggered by his death, there was scope for the time frame to be brought forward.

  …More than two-thirds of the final number of cardinals must agree on the next pope. The announcement that a decision has been made will come in the form of a puff of white smoke emerging from a chimney in the Vatican.

  aNNa’S NoTe:  As I said, likely there will be a Peter the Roman by the end of THIS MONTH.  Unless something happens in Rome… and either way, something big happens at the end of the month.  And I have to be honest – I’m antsy.  Super, really, very-very-very-very antsy.  So many BIG things happen between now and then.  Pan-STARRS.  Pesach.  Unleavened.  Firstfruits.  Ishtar(Easter).  The new moon falls on 3/11… and that date in and of itself…

   THIRD BELT AROUND THE EARTH 
  http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/28feb_thirdbelt/

  Earth’s radiation belts were one of the first discoveries of the Space Age. A new finding published in today’s issue of Science shows that we still have much to learn about them.  NASA’s twin Van Allen Probes, launched just last August, have revealed a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth.

  …Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics  Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “We thought we knew the radiation belts, but we don’t.” Previous observations of the Van Allen belts dating back to the late 1950s have documented two distinct regions of trapped radiation surrounding our planet, known as the inner and outer radiation belts. Particle sensors aboard the twin Van Allen Probes quickly revealed to scientists the existence of a transient, third radiation belt.  Scientists observed the third belt for four weeks before a powerful interplanetary shock wave from the sun annihilated it.

  aNNa’S NoTe:  I… do NOT understand this. A belt that is there, but isn’t there?  Or was it there, and it’s no longer there, and the destruction of it is why they even ended up seeing it?  I’m confused.  Except to say that it’s very interesting, regardless.  And so is this last bit of news…

   DOUBLE PEAK SOLAR MAXIMUM?
  http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/01mar_twinpeaks/
  
  

  Something unexpected is happening on the sun.  2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low.  Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months.

  …Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a[n]… explanation: “This is solar maximum,” he suggests. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked.”

  Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum.  At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares.  At the other end, Solar Max brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.

   … “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.”  Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years.  The same thing could be happening now.  Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,” he predicts…

  

  Credit: Dr. Tony Philips & NOAA/SWPC

  Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. …No one knows for sure what the sun will do next.  It seems likely, though, that the end of 2013 could be a lot livelier than the beginning.

  aNNa’S NoTe:  When something is said (or done) twice in scripture, it means that it’s VERY important.  Since the sun is so vital to the trump judgments, a ‘double peak’ would be likely, IMO.  Now, I already posted about this about a month ago – there was a 3-ish year period of NOTHING on the sun, and the solar maximum’s ascent didn’t start until 2010.  This NOAA chart shows what’s happening with that… and Pesnell is just confirming my own suspicions.  So it’s interesting, to say the least!
  

  • 9:52 am
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