Lost 1967 spacecraft found crashed on the Moon NASA scientists believe they may have found the final resting place of a 1960s space probe which took "the picture of the [last] century" before crashlanding on the far side of the Moon. A snapshot from the past... The information comes in new imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), sent up to circle the Moon …
The 'paper' said at the time that it was a B17, but the picture showed a B-29, or similar, and most of the letters to the paper were correcting the papers aircraft-identification, rather than the fact that the vacuum would have made flying it there in the first place impossible (though the B29 did have a pressurised cabin).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/a-headline-you-can-believe-the-sport-closes-2260126.html
ttfn
And if you look, you can clearly see clouds near the horizon. Clouds? On the moon?
If you zoom in and look at the second hill on the right, you can see clear evidence of a wind blowing the clouds over the hill.
In the bottom right you can also see what looks like fog in a crater.
This was clearly taken before they'd agreed the protocol for creating the fake moon pictures.
Time NASA 'fessed up to their New World Order conspiracy and admitted the truth.
The Earth is the centre of the Universe, it is flat in all directions and we were made in the Perfect Image of the One True God! Throw down the Copernican Conspiracy and the Evolution Falsehood.
Set yourself FREE into the glory of GOD!
It could all be artefacts of processing/compression of course. There's less stars than one can see with the naked eye on Earth, so perhaps this was near the Lunar dawn and that not much reflected light. But really; which explanations are more likely?
The stars are visible only within the first few degrees above the surface and the length of the shadows show that it is fairly close to sunset (or sunrise). As expected you do not see any stars higher above.
If anything this picture confirms the pictures from the moon landings which all took place more or less at "Moon Noon". If the landings took place towards moon dawn or moon evening like this picture you would have seen stars on their pictures too.
The surface area of the moon is just under 38 million square kilometers. This probe takes up, what, 10 square meters, tops? That's the equivalent of a grain of dust in your house. It's nothing.
And let's not forget, until mankind sets up a colony on another planet or moon, our chances of long term survival are exactly 0. The space program is the most important research we do. Why not save this kind of hand-wringing for heavy industry? One probe on the moon nearly 50 years old is hardly an enviromental concern.
Well, that raises an interesting quandry there. (My intent is not to patronise with the next bit, bear with me)
1st law of thermodynamics - energy cannot be created or destroyed.
2nd law of thermodynamics - energy within a closed system will eventually all even out via entropy.
If we assume the 1st law is true, then all of the universes energy must have *always* been here. If it has *always* been here, and the 2nd law is true, then entropy would have already occured.
It's a fair assumption that both laws are true - the have both been under considerable scientific scrutiny for a couple of hundred years, with no sign of any way of side-stepping them. And, of course, it's fair to say that total entropy has not occured.
So one of the following is true:
1) The 1st law of thermodynamics is false. (very unlikely)
2) The 2nd law of thermodynamics is false. (very unlikely)
3) The energy within the universe was created by a supernatural force. :|
This is often used as evidence of a God, and is the main reason why Stephen Hawking believes in some sort of creator. I think most scientists just find the whole thing rather embarassing -2 of the most core tenants of physics coming together to basically prove the existance of meta-clangers.
I think there's a potentially viable 4 however:
4) The universe is not a closed system.
Our actual knowledge of the universe is primitive at best (many of the things we quote as absolute fact have only really been observed from on this one tiny little rock), and I think to sugest that we KNOW 100% that this is not the case is a stretch.
All that said, any one of them *could* be the case. The 2 laws are very much "good science" though, easily demonstrable and repeatable, and "a magic space monster dunnit" doesn't quite do it for me. "The universe is a closed system" is not necassarily "good science" - it's based on a hearty amount of assumption, hence I'm going to put most of my eggs in that particular basket, as it were.
And long-term? From the amount of "overdue" major life-ending events the earth is casually trying to ignore, I think we can give ourselves a hearty pat on the back if we make it another 10,000 years, let alone the *160 million* years the dinosaurs were lurking about for.
I'd pin the falsehood of either law of thermodynamics as being substantially more likely than supernatural explanations. It wouldn't be the first time that a long-held law that matches reality very nicely eventually turns out to have important exceptions. A single exception that explains the Big Bang would be sufficient. As for the universe not being a closed system, isn't that just shifting the problem around? Just redefine the universe as also including everything outside the previous definition.
I couldn't agree more, the supernatural theory is the last one I'd expect.
One explaination could well be that the Big Bang can do things that nothing else can, but however you cut it, that would mean that energy CAN be created, and would mean the 1st law is incorrect, even if it is only in a single exception. As you say, this is far from impossible, but I think the notion that the universe as it is defined now is definately the totallity of existance is based on more guess work than the first law. From everything else I see in physics, I somehow doubt totallity is finite, but that's a lot of guess work too, obviously!
I still think that the multiverse theory is the most substantial. While you could change the defintion of the universe to incorporate the new external bits / other universes as well, I'm referring to the universe as it is defined now.
And of course, if there is a multiverse, it's entirely possible that <insert space phenomenon here> is spewing energy into our universe from another, meaning our universe would not be a closed system, and entropy heat death MIGHT not be it's eventual fate.
To the couple of others here:
To survive to experince total entropy of the universe really is "long-term"! That's not what I meant by long term, and your argument seems dangerously similar to this:
"I'm not going to live to be 1,000,000, so why worry if I live to see 40?"
We still need to get off the planet and found a colony in the relatively VERY near future. Essentially, I agree! - I'm not at all worried about our fate in *10 trillion* years time! :P
However, our fate in the next 10,000 is looking very shaky until we can spread the risk of our extinction around a bit.
..if you add 3 as a predicate, then you are by definition adding 4, as it is necessary but not sufficient for 3 - ie 3 implies 4.
Unfortunately, as 3 only implies 4, then we can construct a viable argument that as 4 is necessary to accept 3, then 3 is not defacto a requirement in the broader argument and there exists a valid case where 1,2 and 4 are true, yet 3 is false.
Ie, your argument is not logically sound. Shame really.
I might have misunderstood you, but I didn't think 3 really required anything to be assumed, as 3 was basically that physics applied to the natural universe, and that the energy had been created by a SUPER natural force, meaning that 1 and 2 could be true, 4 false, and 3 still true.
Certainly I think it's possible that 1, 2 and 4 are all true, and that 3 is false - I don't think the thermodynamics being correct, yet the universe not being a closed system really implies that there is a supernatural creation force. As I say, I may well have just misunderstood you though.
Tenants: lol - thanks. I don't think I've ever actually written it down. I did wonder at the time if that was right. I suppose as long as they don't get evicted we'll probably be OK ;)
Well, by stating that 3 is outside the universe yet affecting it, then you are by very definition of terms stating 4 - that it is not a closed system.
Therefore, by accepting 4 as true and as necessary but not sufficient for 3 ( ie for an external entity to afffect the universe, the universe must by definition not be a closed system, but that it not being a closed system does not prove the external entity ), then it is simple to construct a truth table where 1,2,4 are true, yet 3 is not, but you cannot construct one where 3 is true and 4 is false.
Well, I'd say that 3 doesn't have to be outside the universe necessarily. It simply has to comprise a force or beast which for whatever reason does not have to conform to the same physical laws everything else does.
For example, here we have an Islamic site proclaiming that 3 is basically Allah, using this exact same entropy paradox:
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/part_4_section_6.html
I think if 3 was to prove to be the reason, chances are it would not be something which could be represented within what we know as the physical dimensions. 3 is really the wildcard - it can't be rationalised in the same way as 1, 2 or 4.
If we are to assume that 3 is God, in whatever form, I don't think that presumes that he would be an outside force - could well be inside, in a closed system, he's just got op, and hence does not have to conform to 1 or 2.
.. Now that you've mentioned it though, the notion of a God could actually vaguely fit in with the first 2 laws, if he was just considered to be an outside force, and as few regard a God as a physical manifestation, I suppose he sort of would be. What does "within" really mean, when you remove the concept of 3 dimensional space?
(Purely for the record, I don't personally believe in the existance of 3... :P)
"If we assume the 1st law is true, then all of the universes energy must have *always* been here. If it has *always* been here, and the 2nd law is true, then entropy would have already occured."
Total entropy has not occurred because the universe's age is not infinite. There rest of your post is as superfluous as the supernatural non-sequitur.
Google "heat death" once your knickers have untwisted.
If the universe is not of an inifinite age, then the energy was created at some point, hence the first law of thermodynamics is incorrect.
If the energy was not created, then it has always been present, and hence total entropy shave have already occured, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics is incorrect.
It is possible that the big bang created the energy, which is what you loosely suggest; if that is the case, the 1st law of thermodynamics needs revising, as the big bang contains the mechanism to create energy, which should be absolutely impossible. The only other option is that the big bang itself is supernatural, which in itself raises all kinds of interesting questions.
Or, as I suggested, the energy has always been there, and the universe is not a closed system, hence is not destined to suffer from eventual total entropy. Heat death would only occur if the universe was a closed system, and we really don't KNOW that this is the case.
But, who really knows? A significant amount of this stuff is basically guess work.
I personally favour the "Big Rip" theory over the Big Freeze. As universal expansion accelerates over time, the Hubble radius (the distance at which the expansion reaches the speed of light) gets correspondingly smaller. Follow that to its logical conclusion - eventually all other galaxies are receding from us at light speed and thus no longer exist in our frame of reference, then other stars, then planets. In the last fraction of a second your feet are accelerating away from your head at light speed, shredding you into your component subatomic particles, which are themselves subsequently ripped apart, until the Hubble radius equals the Planck length, at which point nothing resembling a universe can exist. This final spaghettification is expected to come about 22 billion years from now, according to the authors of the theory.
I rather hope it all ends this way. At least it's nice, quick, clean and final, unlike the slow multi-billion-billon year running down of entropy, with the last surviving civilisations cadging the last few ergs of heat from fading white dwarfs. And what an experience it would be to watch, in the last few hours as the planets, then the sun, then the moon, then other countries, and finally your friends in the pub around you disappear at near light speed!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_big_rip
In fact, our chances of long-term survival are exactly 0 until we learn how to reverse entropy, since this will inevitably lead to the heat-death of the universe. Please forgive me if I pass on contributing to the research budget, though - I don't view the problem with the urgency that you seem to.
That probe might actually have carried viable microscopic life to the moon. It's happened before when camera lenses brought back from one of the Apollo missions turned out to contain life.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980902055654.htm
The probe might therefore actually have been the biggest positive 'environmental' impact the Moon has ever known.
There was nothing wrong with the maps derived from Lunar Orbiter 2's images ... Armstrong had to steer the LM away from a boulder field because the LM's flight computer had been given an incorrect initial value for the LM's velocity.
I wasn't actually there making first hand measurements of the parameters, but I've read that there was a residual pressure in the tunnel between the CM and the LM. This unaccounted-for pressure, upon release of the LM, imparted a small excess velocity to the LM causing it to travel slightly further downrange than expected.
If this is all true, then perhaps it is a slightly more complete and accurate explanation.
Residual pressure in the CM-LM tunnel would have imparted a very small excess velocity indeed. I doubt however this effect, even if large enough to be noticeable to the astronauts when the craft separated, would have made much of a difference in the landing.
The trouble, IIRC, was that lunar orbit is not a smooth, easily predictable motion. Thanks to "masscons" (mass concentrations) one's orbit around the moon will speed up and slow down a little, depending on where you are. So choosing the exact time and position in lunar orbit for Apollo 11 to fire the engines and start the descent process was very hard. They used their best guess, and the result was a landing a bit downrange of where they wanted to be.
Neil Armstrong was understandably unhappy about this, despite his looking like a hero for landing safely anyway. He credits a NASA engineer, Emil Schiesser (sp?) with solving the problem (using analysis of radio frequency modulation as craft orbited the moon) in time for Apollo 12, where they made a near perfect, pinpoint landing.
"GO" for landing.
I know a 'greys' alien face when I see one - look at those eyes.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=greys+aliens
I suspect the probe was crashed on the 'dark side' facing a way from the earth so that this wonderful massive 'grey' portrait could be seen far away by other 'greys'. A sort of cosmic bill board advertising the presence of intelligent life in need of a good anal probing.
"and as all students of space history will know the first landing – by Apollo 11 in 1969 – almost ended in disaster as the lunar module's autopilot tried to set it down in a dangerous field of boulders, forcing a hairy manual intervention by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when just 400 feet up."
Luvaduck!! Didn''t know it was only 400 feet from disaster. Did know they were almost completely out of fuel, but, Jeez - my rubbish bin's further away from my apartment...
That's "The Rght Stuff".
Understand they had to use a Biro (probably costing thousands of dollars) to activate a broken switch to get home again.
Yup, Armstrong was a very naughty boy. He went waay beyond the abort point looking for a suitable landing spot, in direct contravention of the mission orders. Fortunately for the success of 11 he's the sort of bloke who can spot the stupidity of aborting an incredibly complex and extremely dangerous mission halfway through for safety reasons and elected to take the "shit or bust" option. You can hear the countdown to bingo fuel and engine cutoff in the background, it gets *very* close. It was the right thing to do. Succeed and you're a hero, so any bollocking will be minor and done in private. Fail and it's not your problem any more.
The biro's true too. I saw an interview with Buzz in which he said he felt his suit snag on something as he reentered the LEM. Looked around, saw nothing and thought nothing of it. When they came to run the departure checklist, that's when they found that the arming pushbutton switch for the LEM ascent engine was missing and a suspicious hole was there on the panel in its stead. Cue panic and a frantic search of the LEM for the missing switch core, whcih produced nothing. Eventually someone on the ground came up with the idea that if they could find something of about the right size that was non-conductive, they could shove it in the hole and push the arming switch contacts together with it. Dismantling a biro for its placcy tube produced the perfect object.
Aldrin kept the bits and reassembled the pen. He still has it.
It could also be the Russian craft that was sent up when the USA landed.
It was looking if the Americans were going to install a big mirrror, to be used as a war weapon.
(That was originally Hitler's idea!).
When the two Russian guys in the "unmanned " craft saw only the little mirror, it was crashed in the back of the Moon. Postumously they got the highest orders of Lenin and Stalin and their family was taken care of.
/
If the moon mission did little else than place a TV&Radio rebroadcast relay into orbit around the moon - to fool the Russians that the faked landing transmissions were actually coming from there - why not just put some astronauts into the spacecraft too?
Conspiracy nuts need medication!
The important question is not how the Universe started but what to do as the final curtain is about to come down.
Do the evolved beings around at that time side with Hawkings and simply accept that they cannot meddle in the affairs of the physics god and the fate of future universes is left hanging on random events and pure chance.
Or do they rebel and seek to recreate the universe in the image of the existing one so it too is as optimized for life as the current one once was.
Please note the evolved beings referred to in this post are not supernatural beings but are based on existing life forms and extrapolations of technological development over the intervening millennia.
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