Fumes of Dry Ice, Not Water, Are Blasting from Comet

A comet visited by a NASA spacecraft this month is spewing jets of vaporized dry ice into space, scientists have found.

"Previously it was thought that water vapor from water ice was the propulsive force behind jets of material coming off of the body, or nucleus, of the comet," said Jessica Sunshine, a professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland who is deputy principal investigator for the mission in which the Deep Impact probe visited Comet Hartley 2.

Deep Impact flew within 435 miles (700 kilometers) of Hartley 2 on Nov. 4 and beamed back to Earth a series of close-up photos of the comet, which has the shape of a chicken drumstick. The images show spectacular jets of gas and particles bursting from many distinct spots on the surface.

Deep Impact's comet flyby, also known as the EPOXI mission, gave scientists the clearest views yet of any comet, and allowed researchers to link the jets of dust and gas with specific surface features. The analysis revealed that the jets are primarily made up of carbon dioxide gas and particles of dust and ice. [Gallery: Photos of Comet Hartley 2 Flyby]

Deep Impact's flyby photos and data showed that buried ? but frozen ? carbon dioxide on Hartley 2 turns directly into gas when heated by sunlight, researchers said. The process is called sublimation.?

"This is a finding that only could have been made by traveling to a comet, because ground-based telescopes can't detect [carbon dioxide] and current space telescopes aren't tuned to look for this gas," Sunshine said.?

Scientists used three instruments on Deep Impact ? two telescopes with digital color cameras, and an infrared spectrometer ? to study the composition of the comet's surface material, its jets and its coma, which is a cloud of particles around its core.

So far the team has found that water and carbon dioxide dominate the infrared spectrum of Comet Hartley 2's environment, and that organic material, including methanol, is present at lower levels.

The scientists were surprised to observe so much carbon dioxide escaping from the comet.

"The distribution of carbon dioxide and dust around the nucleus is much different than the water distribution, and that tells us that the carbon dioxide, rather than water, takes dust grains with it into the coma as it leaves the nucleus," said assistant research scientist Lori Feaga. "The dry ice that is producing the [carbon dioxide] jets on this comet has probably been frozen inside it since the formation of the solar system."

Compounds such as carbon dioxide, and not water, may be a common characteristic of other comets, too.

When Deep Impact flew by its first comet, Comet Tempel 1, in 2005, scientists were ?unable to conclusively trace the carbon dioxide to the comet's surface because the hemisphere that appeared to be enhanced by the dry ice was in darkness during that encounter.

NASA and the science team at University of Maryland recycled Deep Impact to a second comet ? ultimately Hartley 2 ? to learn more about the diversity of comets. This eventually became the EPOXI mission.

The images of Hartley 2 reveal it has an elongated nucleus 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) long and 0.25 miles (0.4 km) wide. The nucleus of Hartley 2 is only the fifth cometary nucleus ever seen, and it exhibits similarities and differences to the bodies or nuclei of other comets.

The team expects to announce more science findings in the coming weeks, as new data from the closest approach continue to be received at a rate of some 2,000 images a day.

NASA plans to hold a press conference to discuss the latest discoveries from the Comet Hartley 2 flyby on Thursday (Nov. 18).

View the original article here

Infamous Contrail (aka the 'Mystery Missile') Spotted in Satellite Image

When an impressive contrail was spotted off the California coast last week, it sparked widespread reports of a mystery missile launch in the area ? a theory the Pentagon squashed after initial investigations. But, the odd contrail fooled more than the public and media, and was even seen from space.

After watching footage of the Nov. 8 contrail, Patrick Minnis, a contrail expert in the Science Directorate at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., assumed it came from a missile, as many others did.

He even said so in response to a phone call from a reporter. [7 Things That Make Great Space Hoaxes]

"She responded with links to two different blogs that compared it to older aircraft contrail pictures, and indicated that the blog authors thought it was an aircraft contrail," Minnis said of the reporter. "I had not really thought about that aspect previously and, at first glance, the video showed what looked like a missile launch. Once the idea that it was an aircraft contrail entered my head, I had to pay closer attention, because aircraft contrails are part of my job description."

Later, he learned that fellow NASA scientist Doug Spangenberg had pieced together a photo of the mystery contrail from space after sifting through weather satellite images.

Missile vs. contrail

Minnis typically studies contrails in order to determine their effect on Earth's climate. He and other scientists have discovered that airplane contrails create cirrus clouds on days they wouldn't usually exist.

According to his calculations, the cirrus-cloud cover over the United States is increasing by 1 percent each decade as a result, effectively contributing to global warming by blocking the release of heat from the planet.

Minnis used that experience to examine the California contrail, which had been seen near Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles.

"It appeared to be between two high clouds, one in foreground and one in the background," Minnis said. "I would have expected that it was at the same level or above the high clouds, so it should have been obscured more by the cloud in the background. Thus, I concluded again that it was a missile."

Satellite photos tell the tale

Minnis then tried a different approach, this time with the Spangenberg, who also works at Langley Research Center. Spangenberg had sequenced imagery from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 11 (GOES-11) that showed a persistent contrail that could match the mystery contrail.

With the help of other Langley researchers, Minnis also learned that on Nov. 9, conditions were "ripe" for persistent contrails over the Pacific west of Los Angeles, but that the contrails would only survive for a short time closer to the coast.

"As it turns out, the high clouds seen in the background of the video were actually behind the contrail because the plane had flown north of the clouds, and changed course to the northeast, so that the clouds were behind the contrail as viewed from Catalina Island," Minnis said. "All of that information changed my mind."

Based on his research, Minnis said he can't definitively prove that the contrail came from an airplane. But, it is the "most likely" scenario given the data.

"Later, while viewing some blogs, I found that the contrail corresponded remarkably well with flight AWE808, which flew from Hawaii to Phoenix; it showed the change in course to the northeast at the same location, further confirming my conclusion."

After an initial investigation, the military quashed the "mystery missile" scenario, with many other experts also suggesting the contrail was caused by a run-of-the-mill jet aircraft.

"While there is nothing at this time that leads the Department of Defense to believe this is a missile launch, the department and other U.S. government agencies with expertise in aviation and space continue to look into the condensation trail (contrail) seen and reported off the coast of southern California on Monday evening," DoD spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said last week.

View the original article here

Small Asteroid to Give Earth a Close Shave

This story was updated at 4:32 p.m. ET.

A tiny asteroid will zip close by Earth tonight (Nov. 16) at a range much closer than the moon, but poses no threat of striking our planet or even entering the atmosphere, NASA has announced.

The asteroid 2010 WA will pass Earth at 10:44 p.m. EST (0344 GMT), missing the planet by about 24,000 miles (38,000 kilometers), NASA's asteroid-watching team wrote on Twitter. It is nearly 10 feet (3 meters wide), so small it would simply break apart if it encountered Earth's atmosphere.

NASA officials said the asteroid is a "very small space rock" that will pass the Earth at roughly one-tenth the distance between our planet and the moon, according to NASA's AsteroidWatch Twitter feed. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]

On average, the moon is about roughly 238,900 miles (384,402 km) from Earth. Some of the highest satellites above Earth fly in geostationary positions about 22,370 miles (36,000 km) up. The International Space Station sails through space about 220 miles (354 km) above Earth.

Asteroid 2010 WA is the fourth space rock in as many months to buzz harmlessly by the Earth within the moon's orbit. The asteroid 2010 TD54 passed the planet at nearly the same miss distance on Oct. 12. In September, a rare sighting of two asteroids ? called 2010 RX30 and 2010 RF12 ? was spotted when they both passed within the moon's orbit on the same day (Sept. 8).

Like 2010 WA, those earlier asteroid flybys posed no threat to Earth and most were small enough that they would burn up in the atmosphere if they hit it.

"Still, a good practice in detection," NASA's asteroid-tracking team wrote of 2010 WA on Twitter.

An asteroid about 16.5 feet (5 meters) across can be expected to pass Earth inside the orbit of the moon about once a day, NASA scientists have said. They typically enter Earth's atmosphere about once every two years, they added.

Bigger asteroids of about 460 feet (140 meters) wide can cause widespread damage around their impact sites. But much larger space rocks would have to strike Earth to cause global devastation.

There are an estimated 30 million unknown asteroids in our solar system, NASA has said.

Asteroid 2010 WA is not even the first space rock to slip by the Earth-moon system this month.

On Nov. 9, the small asteroid 2010 VL65 passed the Earth at a range of 610,000 miles (980,000 km) ? about 2 1/2 times the distance between our planet and moon, NASA officials said. That asteroid was only 23 feet (7 meters) across ? small enough to burn up completely in the atmosphere ? and was only visible to seasoned skywatchers with telescopes.

NASA routinely tracks asteroids and comets that fly near Earth as part of its Near-Earth Object Observations program, which uses a network of ground and space telescopes to monitor the space rock environment around the planet. To date, the program has tracked about 85 percent of the largest asteroids that fly near Earth and 15 percent of asteroids in the 460-foot class, according to the latest report.

The U.S. space agency also plans to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 under a space plan ordered by President Obama. The mission could help scientists better understand the composition of asteroids, as well as develop better methods of deflecting them before they pose a threat to Earth, agency officials have said.

View the original article here

Security Summit to Force Space Station Crew to Land Early

Two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut living on the International Space Station will have to return to Earth a few days early to avoid interfering with an international security summit being held near their landing site in Central Asia.

NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin are now slated to land their Russian Soyuz TMA-19 space capsule on the central steppes of Kazakhstan on Thursday, Nov. 25 at 11:46 p.m. EST (0446 GMT on Nov. 26). The crew is wrapping up a five-month flight to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz landing was originally scheduled to occur four days later, on Nov. 30, but Kazakh officials wanted to restrict air traffic a few days before the start of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit, which is being held in Astana, Kazakhstan, Dec. 1-2.

Astana is approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from the Soyuz landing site.

"Kazakh officials asked our Russian partners if they could make the adjustment to avoid conflicts with the conference," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "There's some preparation work that's going to have to be changed a little bit, and some maintenance work that requires additional crewmembers will be shifted."

The adjustments are not expected to cause any problems, and with the opening of the next space shuttle launch window quickly approaching, the change might even free up some traffic in space.

"There was already work in the mill regarding a Nov. 30th launch of the shuttle to begin that mission," Humphries said. "So, maybe it's going to work out nicely for the crew with this time frame shifted over a little bit."

NASA is preparing space shuttle Discovery is slated to fly on its final voyage on Nov. 30. That launch target, however, depends on the completions of repairs being made to Discovery's external fuel tank. The launch window for Discovery opens on Nov. 30 and closes on Dec. 6.

In the meantime, Yurchikhin, Walker and Wheelock will continue making preparations for their homecoming as they near the end of their long-duration stay aboard the space station.The three spaceflyers launched to the station on a Russian Soyuz rocket on June 15.

After their departure, the station will drop down to a three-person crew ?until mid-December, when Catherine Coleman, Paolo Nespoli and Dmitri Kondratyev journey to the space station to round out the outpost's Expedition 26 crew.

View the original article here

Radioactivity Could Power Hopping Robots on Mars

Hopping rockets powered by radioactive material could help robots leap across the surface of Mars, scientists now suggest.

For decades, wheeled rovers have made extraordinary discoveries on Mars, despite exploring only a tiny fraction of the planet. Rugged Martian terrain is often an overwhelming challenge for them, with cliffs and craters blocking their missions.

Instead, scientists are exploring rocket-propelled hopping vehicles that can wander places wheeled rovers only dream of going. The idea is to blast gas from the Martian atmosphere out in jets for thrust.

A number of ideas for Martian hoppers have been floated, all of which face the challenge of needing a lot of energy and low weight to hop useful distances. One concept from NASA scientists is to use a solar-powered vehicle that splits the carbon dioxide abundant in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen and carbon monoxide, which it could then burn as fuel in conventional rockets. Chinese researchers also explored the notion of using electricity from batteries to suck in and heat carbon dioxide, while a French team suggested bringing along magnesium powder as fuel for a limited number of jumps.

Now scientists in England suggest using radioactive isotopes to help squeeze gas into thrusters and heat it up for propulsion. Such a hopper could study hundreds of locations across Mars over several years, they calculated.

Radioactive isotopes have been used to power spacecraft for decades ? radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that convert the heat from such materials as plutonium into electricity have found use in NASA's Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini and New Horizons spacecraft because they can generate power with relatively little weight. [Video: Hopping Mars Spacecraft Bounces Around Red Planet]

"Radioisotope power sources have been launched as part of spacecraft numerous times," said researcher Hugo Williams, an aerospace engineer at the University of Leicester in England.

Now the researchers, in collaboration with Paris-based space manufacturer Astrium, a subsidiary of the the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS), and the Center for Space Nuclear Research at the Idaho National Laboratory, suggest radioisotopes could power the devices that both compress atmospheric carbon dioxide into a liquid and heat it up as a propellant.

"As with any safety-critical engineering system, including ground-based nuclear power, safety is a primary design driver and any nuclear activity is tightly regulated," Williams said. "A hopper would draw on these experiences and design standards and would be subject to an extensive test program to demonstrate compliance with safety requirements."

The main advantage of using such a power source instead of conventional batteries is that it could yield more energy over time. It also would not need to remain in areas of Mars with plenty of sunlight as solar-powered designs would, and would not have to carry fuel all the way to Mars.

"Because the vehicle can collect propellant in-situ from the atmosphere, it has the potential to have a very long life, and therefore visit many sites of interest," Williams told SPACE.com.

At the very least, the researchers found such a hopper could fly in 0.6-mile (1 kilometer) hops. If they use high-performance ceramics such as boron carbide, they could achieve even greater distances by heating the gas up to 2,780 degrees Fahrenheit (1,525 degrees Celsius) or so.

"Extending the hop range depends essentially on carrying more propellant, less mass and selecting an optimum mass for the core ? this means saving mass, where possible, on components and perhaps reducing the number of scientific instruments carried," said researcher Richard Ambrosi, a space scientist at the University of Leicester. "There is a very interesting compromise between flight range, how frequently you want to land to take measurements, and how many instruments you take. This is a prime example of where discussion between many organizations will be necessary to come to the best solution to match specific science requirements."

The researchers envision a hopper about 10 feet (3 meters) across and about 880 pounds (400 kilograms) in mass.

"Between flights, the vehicle will be re-heating the core, compressing carbon dioxide to fill the propellant tank and conducting science experiments," said researcher Nigel Bannister, a space scientist at the University of Leicester. "A week is a reasonable initial estimate for this turnaround, but in a final design the compression system could be designed so the refueling time is similar to the expected duration of science experiments."

The scientists detailed their findings online Nov. 17 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

View the original article here

NASA Has a Ball on Set of TV's 'Big Bang Theory'

A NASA team recently dropped by the set of "The Big Bang Theory," a popular CBS sitcom about geeky astrophysicists. The NASA reps weren't checking up on the show's scientific accuracy ? they just wanted to see their beach ball.

The beach ball provided by the space agency appears prominently on the set of "The Big Bang Theory," sitting on a bookshelf in the apartment of Leonard and Sheldon, two physicists on the show. [Photo of NASA's 'Big Bang Theory' beach ball]

NASA had developed the ball as an educational tool. It's adorned with data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures the temperature of the radiation left over from the Big Bang ? the explosive event that formed the universe. The data from WMAP created a map of these temperature fluctuations over the entire sky, and that map is now covering the globe of the beach ball. 

"Imagine yourself at the center of this ball, looking in all directions," said the ball's designer, Britt Griswold, a graphics specialist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "What you are seeing is the first visible light in the universe. It has been stretched by the very fabric of space/time as the universe has expanded so it now is microwave light, invisible to our eyes ? but not WMAP's telescopes."

Getting to the set

In August, public-outreach folks at Goddard started working on a story about the use of the beach ball as a teaching tool. They asked a producer of "The Big Bang Theory" for a photo of the ball on the show's set, and he invited them to come take the picture themselves.

A few weeks later, the NASA team dropped by the set in Los Angeles. Waiting for them on the couch ? in the spot where the character Sheldon always sits ? was the WMAP beach ball.

The set was also packed with other astro-nerd paraphernalia: old scientific instruments, bookshelves full of science tomes, and a whiteboard covered in scribbled equations and diagrams.

The show's science adviser, UCLA physicist David Saltzberg, makes sure that the whiteboards aren't covered with faux-scientific gobbledygook, NASA officials said. (When the NASA crew was on set, the whiteboards were an homage to the 1985 movie "Real Genius" and its excimer lasers.)

Parting gifts

The NASA team enjoyed going behind the scenes of "The Big Bang Theory" and seeing how a show about fictional scientists is put together, officials of the space agency said.

As a thank you, the NASA reps brought with them a variety of goodies, including a scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope, currently under development to become a powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Also among the gifts was a special beach ball containing the latest WMAP data ? and the signature of astrophysicist John Mather, who, with fellow scientist George Smoot, won the Nobel Prize for their work on this first light in the universe and its relationship to the Big Bang.

The sitcom showed its appreciation by showing these gifts on the air. In the Nov. 4 episode, the Webb telescope model, plus some stickers, magnets and a poster, decorate the apartment of astrophysicist character Rajesh Koothrappali.

The beach ball, for its part, still rests on the shelf behind Leonard and Sheldon's couch.

The TV comedy "Big Bang Theory" airs Thursdays on CBS at 8:00-8:31p.m. ET/PT. Check local listings.

View the original article here

Essential U.S. Spy Satellite Launching Friday

This story was updated at 7 a.m. ET, NOv. 18.

One cannot overstate the importance of Friday night's Delta 4-Heavy launch from Cape Canaveral to national security, a mission by the massive rocket that will deploy "the largest satellite in the world" to hear the whispers of evil.

Countdown clocks are targeting a liftoff time of 6:06 p.m. EST (2306 GMT) from the Florida spaceport's Complex 37. The evening's available launch opportunity likely extends upwards of four hours.

The original launch date of Thursday was delayed by 24 hours to fix an issue with ground pyrotechnics that release the big booster at liftoff. See our Mission Status Center for live coverage.

United Launch Alliance's Delta 4-Heavy is America's biggest unmanned rocket currently in service, capable of lofting the largest and heftiest cargos. The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores -- the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage -- and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage.

The nighttime blastoff should be visually spectacular, lighting up the Space Coast with three distinct pillars of fire from the main engines trailing more than 200 feet long. Ideal viewing spots include off SR401 at Port Canaveral, along the 528 causeway or on the riverbanks in Titusville.

Thundering eastward across the open Atlantic, the rocket will soar out of sight within a few minutes as it embarks on a multi-hour mission to serve the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for the country's fleet of intelligence-gathering satellites.

The NRO's diverse spacecraft, including telescope-like observers and communications collectors, uncover looming dangers to the nation and provide surveillance over the world's hot spots.

"Always vigilant, the NRO's eyes and ears give America's policy markers, intelligence analysts, warfighters and homeland security specialists the critical information they need to keep America safe, secure and free," the agency says.

The clandestine payload going up this time, known only by its launch identification number of NROL-32, is widely believed to be an essential eavesdropping spacecraft that requires the powerful lift provided by the Delta 4-Heavy to reach its listening post.

In an address to the Air Force Association conference in September, NRO Director Bruce Carlson, a retired Air Force general, said this rocket launch would carry "the largest satellite in the world on it."

The NRO has flown various types of communication-interceptors since the dawn of the space age, and analysts say it is virtually certain this Delta 4-Heavy is hauling another.

"I believe the payload is the fifth in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion, which gather signals intelligence from inclined geosynchronous orbits. They are among the largest satellites ever deployed," said Ted Molczan, a respected sky-watcher who keeps tabs on orbiting spacecraft. [Photo Gallery: Spotting Spaceships From Earth]

Destined for geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the planet, this new spacecraft supposedly will unfurl an extremely lightweight but gigantically huge umbrella-like antenna to overhear enemy communications and aid U.S. intelligence.

"The satellite likely consists of sensitive radio receivers and an antenna generally believed to span up to 100 meters (328 feet) to gather electronic intelligence for the National Security Agency," Molczan said.

Observers think the mesh antenna's diameter is the size of a football field, comparable to the International Space Station's remarkable width. That explains why satellite-tracking hobbyists say these Mentor craft are "by far the brightest" in the high-flying geosynchronous orbital perch to see from the ground, outshining conventional television relay birds, weather sentinels and the like.

Although NRO satellites are secretive by nature, the spacecraft are visible by just looking up. Molczan is member of a hobbyist group that routinely finds and watches the craft while monitoring the skies with precision.

But despite the identity of this particular satellite being obvious, exactly where in the geosynchronous belt it will be positioned and what part of the globe it will cover are details that remain hush-hush.

"The upcoming launch may replace one of the older spacecraft in the series, or augment the fleet by occupying a new location in geosynchronous orbit," Molczan said.

Previous Mentor satellites were launched by Titan 4 rockets from Cape Canaveral in 1995, 1998 and 2003, plus the most recent Delta 4-Heavy in early 2009 carried one, according to the satellite-tracking hobbyists.

The craft lineage can be traced to the two Magnum satellites trucked to orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery during the STS-51C mission in 1985 and STS-33 in 1989, historians have indicated.

An even earlier generation launched in the 1970s using Atlas rockets from the Cape, according to the authoritative Space Page website.

Thursday's rocket launch continues a surge of NRO spy satellite deployments after a lengthy 20-month lull. An Atlas 5 rocket began this ongoing campaign by dispatching a new-generation radar imaging satellite in September from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The upcoming schedule calls for several more significant launches in the next few months:

A Delta 4-Heavy rocket for NROL-49 from Vandenberg on Jan. 11 A Delta 4 rocket for NROL-27 from Cape Canaveral on March 4 An Atlas 5 for NROL-34 from Vandenberg on March 31

Carlson said "this is the most aggressive launch campaign that the National Reconnaissance Office has had in 20 years, almost a quarter of a century."

"The other thing I can tell you is these are very important, because they all go to update a constellation which is aging rapidly. We bought most of our satellites for three, five, or eight years, and we're keeping them on orbit for ten, twelve, and up to twenty years," Carlson said.

"Now, when I buy something people complain about how expensive it is, but nobody ever complains when it's time to die and it keeps right on ticking. Some of these guys are like the Energizer bunny and they have really done marvelous work.

"We're doing things that were designed to essentially operate during the era of the Soviet Union that are today doing tactical intelligence collection that leads us to actionable intelligence on bad guys every day. Every day. And we're doing it with equipment that's 15, 18, and 20 years old."

Copyright 2010 SpaceflightNow.com, all rights reserved.

View the original article here

NASA Drill Team Breaking the Antarctic Ice

Over the course of the past decade, NASA spacecraft have identified several sites on Mars where conditions capable of supporting life existed in the past.

One of the most promising of these sites, and a good candidate for a follow-up mission designed explicitly to look for signs of life, is the shallow subsurface at the Phoenix landing site in the arctic northern plains of Mars. Indeed, some scientists believe the region where Phoenix landed may still be habitable today.

As an early step toward developing the technology for a return mission to the Martian polar north, members of NASA's IceBite team will head out this month to explore University Valley, in Antarctica's Dry Valleys.

Astrobiology Magazine will be following their activity while they're in the field, regularly posting blog entries from IceBite team member Margarita Marinova. Visitors to the Astrobiology Magazine site will be able to ask questions of the IceBite team by clicking the Ask a Scientist button that will appear in our IceBite stories and blog entries.

University Valley is of interest because it never gets warm enough there for subsurface ice to melt, so the overlying layer of soil remains dry year-round. This dry-soil-over-ice arrangement, common on Mars but extremely rare on Earth, resembles the near-surface stratigraphy at the Phoenix landing site.

"Everywhere in the northern hemisphere where there's permafrost, it is wet and it gets muddy in the summer," says Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC) in Moffett Field, California, and the principal investigator of the IceBite team. "In Antarctica, and only in Antarctica, we find a completely different phenomenon called dry permafrost, in which we find ice-cemented ground on top of which we find dry, bone dry soil, and the whole system never gets warm enough for that ice to turn to liquid."

Mars drills on Earth

Last year the IceBite team conducted reconnaissance in University Valley and placed a series of weather stations there to monitor conditions during the Antarctic winter. This year, they will return to test IceBreaker, a drill designed and built by Pasadena, Calif.-based Honeybee Robotics. Ice Breaker can burrow up to a meter (3 feet) into the ice and frozen soil and deliver samples to the surface for scientific analysis.

IceBreaker is a rotary-percussive drill: it both rotates and hammers on its target. By combining percussion with rotary motion, "you get a highly efficient drill system," says Kris Zacny, director of Honeybee's Drilling and Excavation Program.

Rotary-percussive drills are hardly a rarity; you can buy them off the shelf at Home Depot. But IceBite has been optimized for the frigid, near-vacuum conditions on Mars. For example, while most drills are lubricated to prevent their internal parts from sticking to each other, because Mars is so cold, IceBite's internal parts are instead coated with a Teflon-like anti-stick surface.

The IceBite team will perform three series of tests. The first will be in McMurdo Station, a research center in Antarctica with ready access to tools, spare parts, electricity, and the Internet. Hopefully the Internet connection will enable a group of fifth-grade students in Pleasanton, California to operate the drill via remote control.

"Then we're going to pick it up and put it in the back of a truck, and drive it to a remote site near McMurdo, an unaltered site, and drill in the rock of McMurdo, which is probably a better Moon analog than Mars analog," says McKay. The final test will be in the still-more-remote University Valley, accessible only by helicopter.

Frigid field tests

IceBite has been tested successfully in Honeybee's Mars Simulation Chamber, where the temperature and atmospheric conditions can be tuned to approximate those on Mars. But the upcoming tests in the Antarctic will be the first time the drill will be subjected to the uncertainties of field operation.

One thing Zacny and his colleagues will monitor closely during these tests will be the temperature of the drill bit. A temperature sensor in the bit and control software will hopefully guarantee that during drilling operations the bit doesn't get too hot. If it does, the subsurface ice can melt, and if it refreezes before the bit can be pulled out of the hole, the bit will get stuck. If this happens on Mars, says Zacny, "you're done. You'll never be able to pull the drill out of the hole."

They'll also be looking at how effective the drill is at delivering useful samples to the surface for scientific analysis. In the lab, "we prepare our own [rock and ice] simulants," says Zacny, "so we kind of understand what can go wrong. In the field, however, "you have no idea what's below the surface "until you drill and you see the cuttings of samples being conveyed to the surface."

Zacny hopes to learn more about how dry permafrost samples behave during drilling, "how it behaves when you finally pull it out to the surface, what's the best way to transfer it to the instruments. And what happens to the sample when it comes up to the surface, how much mixing there is between samples that come up from different depths."

Mapping Antarctic ice

In addition to testing IceBreaker, the IceBite team plans to map the depth of the subsurface ice, both in University Valley and in other nearby valleys.

"A question has arisen as to what sets [the ice] depth," says Margarita Marinova, a research scientist at ARC. "So a lot of my time will be spent on actually going through the valleys, digging pits or poking holes and trying to figure out what depth to the ground ice is."

Another team member, Andrew Jackson, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, will study perchlorate.

Historically, Jackson's research focus has been on terrestrial perchlorate, in particular its impact on the Earth's ozone layer. On Earth perchlorate occurs primarily in very dry places, such as the Atacama Desert in Chile. It is known to exist in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, but no-one has yet studied its presence there.

In addition to shedding light on Earth's climate, perchlorate, which was found in the soil at the Phoenix landing site, is important to understanding the possibility of life on Mars. Perchlorate acts as a strong anti-freeze, lowering the freezing point of water.

"Most salts do this, but perchlorate is particularly good at it," Jackson said. "If we can see that in Antarctica, if we can show this perchlorate is actually doing that."

Jackson added that "that's really important for Mars," where temperatures rarely get above the freezing point.

In addition, many terrestrial microbes can "breathe" perchlorate in place of oxygen. If perchlorate-respiring microbes are found living in tiny pockets of liquid water within Antarctica's subsurface ice, perhaps the subsurface ice in the frozen northern plains of Mars could also be considered a viable habitat for present-day life.

The IceBite project is funded by NASA's ASTEP (Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets) program.

This story is presented in cooperation with Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program.

View the original article here

Asteroid Dust Successfully Returned by Japanese Space Probe

A Japanese spacecraft that touched down on a space rock during a billion-mile mission successfully returned the first ever samples from the surface of an asteroid, Japan's space agency said today (Nov. 16).

The samples are in the form of tiny dust grains collected directly from the asteroid Itokawa in 2005 by Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft, which returned to Earth in June. It was a 1.25 billion-mile (2 billion-kilometer) trip that took seven years to complete. [Photo of the asteroid samples]

The dust was found inside a sample return capsule that landed in Australia and was flown back to Japan for analysis.

"About 1,500 grains were identified as rocky particles, and most of them were judged to be of extraterrestrial origin, and definitely from Asteroid Itokawa," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said in a statement.

JAXA scientists have known there were particles of material in the Hayabusa sample return capsule since July. But they were unsure if those particles were actually pieces of an asteroid, cosmic dust or contamination from Earth.

Now, they said, it is clear. The Hayabusa spacecraft collected samples of an asteroid.

"Being able to retrieve material from a celestial body beyond Earth was more than we had hoped for," Hayabusa project manager Junichiro Kawaguchi told Japan's Mainichi Daily News. "When the capsule returned, I said, 'Just having it return is like a dream,' so I don't know how to express this, which was beyond my dreams."

This graphic shows how the Hayabusa asteroid mission worked. Itokawa is a silicon-rich asteroid about 1,755 feet (535 meters) long at its longest side. It takes about 556 days to complete one orbit around the sun.

JAXA scientists used a scanning electron microscope to study the asteroid samples collected by Hayabusa. They found signs of minerals such as olivine, pyroxene and others, which matched remote-sensing observations taken by Hayabusa when it visited asteroid Itokawa.

Most of the particles are about 10 micrometers in size, roughly 1/10th the width of a human hair. They were found in one of two compartments inside the Hayabusa sample return capsule and must be handled delicately, JAXA officials said.

"JAXA is developing the necessary handling techniques and preparing the associated equipment for the initial (but more detailed) analyses of these ultra-minute particles," they added.

The fact that the Hayabusa spacecraft returned asteroid samples is the ultimate vindication for Japan's mission team.

JAXA launched Hayabusa (Japanese for "Falcon") in 2003. The spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Itokawa in 2005 while the asteroid was 180 million miles (nearly 290 million km) from Earth ? almost twice the distance between our planet and the sun.

But Hayabusa experienced several crippling problems during the mission, including a fuel leak, communications breakdowns and malfunctions with its ion engines. The setbacks added an extra three years to Hayabusa's mission.

The probe was supposed to drop a lander on Itokawa, but the lander missed the asteroid's surface. Attempts to fire a projectile at the asteroid to kick up dust to be collected also failed.

Ultimately, JAXA directed Hayabusa to directly land twice on asteroid Itokawa in attempts to force some samples into its return capsule.  

The Hayabusa spacecraft returned to Earth on June 13. Most of the craft burned up in Earth's atmosphere as planned during re-entry. Its sample return capsule, which was equipped with a heat shield and parachute, was ejected to make its own successful landing in the Australian outback and was later recovered.

"I'm filled with emotion and I can't believe it," Kawaguchi said. "A long period of hard work has paid off."

With the mission's success, JAXA has already begun planning a follow-up mission ? called Hayabusa 2 ? which would send a $200 million spacecraft to visit a carbon-rich asteroid. That mission is slated to launch in 2014, arrive at the asteroid in 2018 and return samples to Earth by 2020, JAXA officials have said.

View the original article here

Photo of Dying Stars Looks Like Cosmic Jellyfish With Rings

A NASA spacecraft has snapped a photo of two dying stars encircled by vast rings, a view that scientists describe as a cosmic jellyfish floating in a starry sea.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope took the eye-catching snapshot, which depicts a pair of dying stars surrounded by fluorescing gas and two unusual rings, the likes of which astronomers had never seen before. [Photo of the cosmic jellyfish stars]

"I am reminded of the jellyfish exhibition at the Monterey Bay Aquarium ? beautiful things floating in water, except this one is in space," said Ned Wright, principal investigator of the WISE mission at UCLA and a co-author of a new study on the discovery.

Space jellyfish or butterfly?

The structure, known as NGC 1514 ? or the "Crystal Ball Nebula" ? is located about 800 light-years away in the constellation Taurus.

NGC 1514 belongs to a class of objects called planetary nebulas. Nebulas have nothing to do with planets. The term was coined by Sir William Herschel ? who discovered NGC 1514 in 1790 ? to describe similar objects with circular, planet-like shapes.

Planetary nebulas form when dying stars toss off their outer layers of gaseous material. Ultraviolet radiation from a central star ? or, in NCG 1514's case, a pair of central stars ? causes this shed gas to fluoresce with colorful light.

The result is often striking ? in fact, planetary nebulas have sometimes been called "the butterflies of space."

Nebulas with asymmetrical, cloudy wings are common. But nothing like the newfound rings around NGC 1514 had been seen in them before, researchers said.

These rings are made of dust ejected by the dying pair of stars at the center of NGC 1514, researchers said.

This burst of dust collided with the walls of a cavity that was already cleared out by stellar winds, forming the rings.

The research is detailed in a recent issue of the Astronomical Journal.

Spotting the heat glow

The WISE telescope was able to spot the rings for the first time because their dust is being heated and therefore glows with infrared light, which WISE can detect. In visible-light images, the rings are hidden from view, drowned out by the brightly fluorescing clouds of gas.

"This object has been studied for more than 200 years, but WISE shows us it still has surprises," said study lead author Michael Ressler of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Infrared light has been color-coded in the new WISE picture so that the different hues ? such as blue, turquoise, green and red ? represent different wavelengths of light. The dust rings stand out in a vibrant orange color.

The greenish glow at the center of the image is an inner shell of material, blown out more recently than an outer shell that is too faint to be seen in WISE's infrared view. The white dot in the middle is the central pair of stars, which are too close together for WISE to see separately.

NGC 1514's structure, though it looks unique, is probably similar in overall geometry to other hourglass nebulas, Ressler said. The structure looks different in WISE's view because the rings are detectable only by their heat.

WISE: Still scanning the infrared sky

Launched in December 2009, the WISE telescope has catalogued hundreds of millions of asteroids, stars and galaxies, researchers said.

In late September, after covering the sky about 1 1/2 times, WISE ran out of the coolant needed to chill its infrared detectors.

The spacecraft is still scanning the heavens with two of its four detectors, operating under an extended mission called NEOWISE. NEOWISE focuses primarily on comets and asteroids, including near-Earth objects ? bodies whose orbits pass relatively close to Earth's orbit around the sun.

More oddball finds like NGC 1514's rings are likely to turn up in the plethora of WISE observations, researchers said.

The first batch of the probe's data will be released to the astronomical community in spring 2011.

View the original article here

Moderate Leonid Meteor Shower Doesn't Disappoint Skywatchers

The Leonid meteor shower of 2010 may not have dazzled, but it still caught the eyes of die-hard skywatchers who awoke before dawn today to catch the moderate shooting star show at its peak.

Skywatcher Jim Gamble of El Paso, Texas has been observing the Leonids meteor display throughout the month. He used an all-sky camera to record the bright streaks created by the meteors and created a composite snapshot of this year's Leonids shower. [Gamble's composite photo of the Leonid meteor shower]

"Not the best show ... but respectable," Gamble told SPACE.com today (Nov. 18).

The Leonid meteor shower returns every year in mid-November. It occurs when the Earth passes through a stream of dust leftover from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The material hits the atmosphere and then flares up as "shooting stars."

When the Earth passes through the denser parts of the stream, the meteor count can soar to hundreds or thousands in an hour. [Gallery: Spectacular Leonid Meteor Shower Photos]

This year, however, the Earth is passing through a less dense part of the comet debris stream, astronomers have said.

The Leonid meteor shower of 2010 promised between 15 and 20 meteors an hour for skywatchers graced with clear skies, according to predictions from meteor experts. The best time to observe the show was in the hours before sunrise on Wednesday (Nov. 17) and today.

International meteor counts have officially pegged this year's Leonids at less than 25 meteors an hour, according to the website Spaceweather.com, which monitors space weather and skywatching events.

Still, the promise of only a modest meteor show did not dissuade avid meteor gazers.

In Jerusalem, skywatcher Yaron Eini made it a group event, but was sure everyone bundled up warm while observing.

"We had a nice weather for this season," Eini told Spaceweather.com. "It was comfortable for us to lay down in our sleeping bags and enjoy the modest Leonids meteor shower."

The next major meteor show for skywatchers will be the Geminid meteor shower, which will peak on Dec.13 and 14.

View the original article here

Tales of the Ouija

Sometimes it seems like a helpful tool, and other times it appears to be a gateway to more troubling and even sinister entities. Here are several true stories from Ouija users... just like you.

The Ouija Channels the Ghost of a Murderer
I never believed in any of this sort of thing until I saw it with my own eyes. In the fall of 1998, my friends and I spoke of doing a Ouija board. Skeptical as I was, I gladly accepted the opportunity. We did not have a board, and I didn't want to drive forever to look for one. So my friends and I made one. It was a piece of cardboard with the lettering on it. We even put the sun and moon in the top corners. For the indicator we cut out a triangular piece of cardboard, which had to be moved with force since it did not slide smoothly like the ones sold stores. Let me set the scene. We lived in Huntsville, Texas, and the day we decided to do it, Martin Gurule, a prisoner who was on death row for murder and had escaped, had just been found dead in the river not too far from my friend's house. The house was old and decrepit with a middle room that could have been a second living area, but at the time was being used for a bedroom. Ten of us gathered around the board in that room, the only light coming from a large cake candle we had. Now all night, a couple of my friends were saying, "Let's talk to Gurule." We sat around the board, and Tanner and Melissa were the only ones who were going to touch it. Tanner had never done anything like that, but Melissa claimed to have witnessed how it was done. They put their hands over the indicator and Tanner asked, "Are there any spirits out there tonight?" I know it's corny, but that's what somebody said he should say. Then the indicator moved. Now this was very shocking, because their fingers never actually touched the indicator. Each merely had their index and middle fingers hovering two inches above it. As soon as it moved (very slowly, I might add), it amazed everyone. The shock made those who were skeptical, like myself, at least curious and quiet. It moved to YES. From that moment, I only remember a few of the questions. I remember when Tanner asked, "What is your name?" It replied, "Used to be Gurule." At that moment I said, "That isn't how Gurule is spelled." I thought it was spelled Gurulli. Chad retorted and said that he had seen it in the papers and it was Gurule. Then some weird stuff happened. Tommy was sitting next to me and he nudged me. He said, "Did you see that?" Before I could answer, Chad said, "I saw it." Personally, I did not, but later they said the left side of the indicator picked up off the board and was dragging on the right. I did, though, see this amazing impossibility that made me believe even further. Their fingers were over the T, and the indicator quickly slid over to the A. Their fingers were still over the T on the other side of the board. They just pulled their hands away after they saw that. Now this whole time I felt claustrophobic and stifled. My chest felt compressed and there were lumps in my throat. Then we asked the question that verified that it was real. Shay was sitting on the bed, about four feet from the board. He said Martin Gurule went to high school in the Corpus Christi area, but he didn't know where. As he traveled a lot as a high school FFA officer, he knew most of the schools there. No one else that was there had ever been to Corpus Christi or knew anything about it. Tanner asked Gurule where he went to high school. The indicator slid to the R and then to the A, and Shay's eyes watered and he moved to sit right by the board and said, "No way." Then it went to the Y. Shay said, "The Ray Texans. It's a school in Corpus." This shocked everyone, and I think they all felt stifled in the same way I did. At this point Tanner ran into the kitchen and turned on the light. He had goosebumps, and his eyes were watering. He said (I remember it as if it were yesterday), "I'm not going back in there, Tommy. There was something around me in there." This house belonged to Tommy, so he said, "Well, go ask it to leave then, because if there is something in here, I want it to go." After he was coaxed, Tanner went in and asked it to leave. The indicator went to NO. He asked it again and he still replied NO. He asked a third time, and it went toward NO, then went to the middle of the board and stopped all movement. It would not move again. So we went to the back porch and we burned the board while some of us smoked. When we went inside, as soon as the last person entered the kitchen and shut the door, the pots fell off the counter and the pictures under the magnets on the refrigerator fell to the floor. Everyone was silent. Tommy and Shay slept in the other room that night, and took the deer heads off the wall. They didn't want them to talk to them in the middle of the night. I understand completely how the mind makes people think they see things they do not. But that night, there is no other explanation. No one in that room knew where Gurule went to school, and the only one who knew any schools in that area was sitting away from the board. It could not have just randomly gone to those letters. I got on the Internet and found out by the end of that semester that Gurule did attend Ray High School! Lots of strange things happened around that house after that night. I spent a lot of time over there, and screen doors would swing wide open and shut. The power breaker would flip on and off for no reason. They said the television would turn on and off. I know that it is possible that this could have possibly been explained, but that night was the only time I was absolutely sure that I had witnessed a supernatural phenomenon. - William S.

Little Boy Led to Rest
I used to live in a haunted house. In fact, we were in a book called The Pocono Ghost Book. A huge family was massacred by the Indians and their souls are still wandering. We had many, many experiences with the children of the family. We started using the Ouija board and I found a spirit, a little boy, who was killed with an axe by a man he thought was his father. A few years later, I decided to use my board again. The spirit located me again and led me to his grave. Interestingly enough, on the gravestone was a carving of a little boy with a man behind him, and behind the man, an Indian with what was probably their version of an axe back then. I believe the Indian killed the boy, but the boy thought it was his father. When I reported back to him, he seemed to be at peace with this information and I have never heard from him since. I've communicated with spirits for years, but this was the first "interactive" type of experience I ever had. - Rachel Thomas [Rachel Thomas is the About.com Guide for TV/Movies for Teens.]

Ouija Levitation
This happened when I was nine years old. I had spontaneously purchased a Ouija board from the toy store because it looked like an exciting game. I'd never heard of them before and had no idea what it was. Consequently, I was confused when I brought it home and my mother became very angry when she saw it. She said, "Those things are not toys. In fact, God forbids using them because they're considered a tool of sorcerers and black magic." I was raised in a very religious family. She didn't take it away from me, but I was scared to use it. A few months later, though, during summer vacation, my sister and I decided to take it out and give it try. The usual thing happened: nothing. My sister, who is four years older, then decided to try and contact my dead grandmother, Dorothy (called Dot), who died before I was born. We asked for our grandma and the board spelled out, HELLO GIRLS. Before I continue, it's important to understand how we were positioned in the living room. My sister was sitting on the couch and I was sitting on the edge of the coffee table. The board was between us on a large footstool. We'd been watching movies earlier in the day and there was an orange plastic bowl of leftover popcorn on the other side of the room on the floor. My back was to the bowl, but my sister could see it clearly. Anyway, I was about to ask "grandma" a question, when my sister took her hands off the planchette and screamed. She cried, "Oh my God!" and pointed over my shoulder. I turned around to see the bowl of popcorn hovering about two feet off the ground! For some reason, I was really mad. I knew it wasn't our grandma, but something else. The planchette was skidding across the board wildly with my hands still on it, so I took my hands off it and cried, "Knock it off!" The bowl flipped over and fell to the ground as popcorn scattered everywhere. The planchette stopped skidding and flipped itself over. I believed mom's warnings after that! My sister was so scared that she refused to ever touch a Ouija board again. I broke the board in two and threw it away right then and there. It was a little too weird for the both of us. I've played with Ouija boards since then, but nothing as strange as that has ever happened again. - LadyMasque

Skinwalkers

"Frances didn't know what was happening, but one hand instinctively reached over and held down the button for the door lock, and the other tightly grabbed the the door handle. She braced her back against her small brother and held firmly onto the door, still not knowing quite why.

Her brother was now yelling, "What is it? What is it?" Her father immediately flipped on the interior cab light, and Frances could see that he was petrified. "I have never, ever seen my father that scared in my whole life," Frances says. "Not when he came home from his tours in Vietnam, not when he came home from 'special assignments,' not even when someone tried to firebomb our house."

Frances's father was as white as a ghost. She could see the hair on the back of his neck standing straight out, like a cat's, and so was the hair on his arms. She could even see the goose bumps on his skin. Panic was filling the small cab. Frances's mother was so frightened that she began shouting in her native Japanese in a high, squeaky voice as she frantically wrung her hands. The little boy just kept saying, "Oh my God!"

Skinwalker Legend

Is the Navajo Skinwalker the same as the white man's werewolf? Yes, if the Navajo witch wears the skin of a wolf. But the Navajo witches can mimic any animal they choose, not just the wolf. They can be a cat, a coyote, a dog, a bear, whatever the Navajo witch wants to be. The Navajo witches pick their skins for the type of job they plan to do. The coyote skin is for high speed, accurate sense of smell, and the acute agility. The bear skin is for brute strength, however the bear is not as fast as the coyote. Along with their new abilities, the Navajo Skinwalkers still retain their full mental capacities. If the Navajo witch is a fairly or highly intelligent person, when he or she changes into a Skinwalker they carry that intelligence with them and you have a very dangerous opponent. Unlike the wolf man, the Skinwalker will use their whole bag of tricks - mind control, disease, and immobilization powder.

- from Navajo Skinwalkers

From out of the ditch
As the pickup sped around the bend in the road, Frances could see that the shoulder dropped off deeply into a ditch. Her father slammed on the brakes to prevent the truck from swerving into the ditch. As the pickup was slowing to a stop, something leapt out of the ditch at the side of the truck. And now Frances could clearly see what had started the panic.

It was black and hairy and was eye level with the passengers in the cab. If this was a man, it was like no man Frances had ever seen. Yet despite its monstrous appearance, whatever this thing was, it wore a man's clothes. "It had on a white and blue checked shirt and long pants - I think jeans," Frances testifies. "Its arms were raised over its head, almost touching the top of the cab."

This creature remained there for a few seconds, looking into the pickup... and then the pickup was past it. Frances could not believe what she had seen. "It looked like a hairy man, or a hairy animal in man's clothing," she says. "But it didn't look like an ape or anything like that. Its eyes were yellow and its mouth was open."

Although time seemed frozen and distorted in this moment of fantastic horror, it was all over within a few minutes - the headlights, her little brother coming into the cab and the "thing."

By the time the family reached Kayenta for gas, they had finally calmed down. Frances and her father climbed out of the pickup and checked the side of the truck to see if the creature had done any damage. They were surprised to see that the dust on the side of the truck was undisturbed, and so was the dust on the hood and roof of the truck. In fact, they found nothing out of the ordinary. No blood, no hair... nothing. The family stretched their legs and rested at Kayenta for about 20 minutes. The car that had been following them never did show up. It's as if the car simply vanished. They drove home to Flagstaff with the cab light on and the doors securely locked.

"I wish I could say this was the end of the story," Frances says, "but it's not."

The "men" at the fence
A few nights later, around 11:00 p.m., Frances and her brother were awakened by the sounds of drumming. They looked out his bedroom window into the backyard, which was surrounded by a fence. At first, they saw nothing but the forest beyond the fence. Then the drumming grew louder, and three or four "men" appeared behind the wooden fence. "It looked like they were trying to climb the fence, but couldn't quite manage to bring their legs up high enough and swing over," Frances says.

Unable to get into the yard, the "men" began to chant. Frances was so scared, she slept with her little brother that night.

Sometime later, Frances sought out her Navajo friend, hoping she could offer some explanation for these strange incidents. She told Frances that it was a Skinwalker that had tried to attack her family. Skinwalkers are creatures of Navajo legend - witches that can shape-shift into animals.

That a Skinwalker attacked them was quite unusual, Frances's friend told her, as it had been a long time since she has heard of any activity about Skinwalkers, and that they normally don't bother non-natives. Frances took her friend back by the fence where she had seen the strange men trying to climb in. The Navajo woman considered the scene for a moment, then revealed that three or four Skinwalkers had visited the house. She said that they wanted the family, but could not gain access because something was protecting the family.

Frances was astonished. Why, she asked. Why would the Skinwalkers want her family? "Your family has a lot of power," the Navajo woman said, "and that they wanted it." Again she said that Skinwalkers usually don't bother non-natives, but she believed that they wanted the family enough to expose themselves. Later that day, she blessed the perimeter of the property, the house, the vehicles and the family.

"We haven't been bothered by Skinwalkers since then," Frances says. "Then again, I haven't been back to Kayenta. I have gone through other towns on the reservation - yes, at night. But I'm not alone; I carry a weapon. And I carry protective amulets."

The Ancient Secrets of Levitation

The Ancient Secrets of Levitation Great stone structures and megaliths around the world stand as mysteries to how they were constructed. Is it possible their builders possessed the powers of defying gravity?

Did ancient civilizations possess knowledge that has since been lost to science? Were amazing technologies available to the ancient Egyptians that enabled them to construct the pyramids - technologies that have somehow been forgotten?

The ruins of several ancient civilizations - from Stonehenge to the pyramids - show that they used massive stones to construct their monuments. A basic question is why? Why use stone pieces of such enormous size and weight when the same structures could have been constructed with more easily managed smaller blocks - much like we use bricks and cinderblocks today?

Could part of the answer be that these ancients had a method of lifting and moving these massive stones - some weighing several tons - that made the task as easy and manageable as lifting a two-pound brick? The ancients, some researchers suggest, may have mastered the art of levitation, through sonics or some other obscure method, that allowed them to defy gravity and manipulate massive objects with ease.

The Egyptian Pyramids

How the great pyramids of Egypt were built has been the subject of debate for millennia. The fact is, no one really knows for certain exactly how they were constructed. The current estimates of mainstream science contends that it took a workforce of 4,000 to 5,000 men 20 years to build the Great Pyramid using ropes, pulleys, ramps, ingenuity and brute force.

And that very well may have been the case. But there is an intriguing passage in a history text by the 10th century Arab historian, Abul Hasan Ali Al-Masudi, known as the Herodotus of the Arabs. Al-Masudi had traveled much of the known world in his day before settling in Egypt, and he had written a 30-volume history of the world. He too was struck by the magnificence of the Egyptian pyramids and wrote about how their great stone blocks were transported. First, he said, a "magic papyrus" (paper) was placed under the stone to be moved. Then the stone was struck with a metal rod that caused the stone to levitate and move along a path paved with stones and fenced on either side by metal poles. The stone would travel along the path, wrote Al-Masudi, for a distance of about 50 meters and then settle to the ground. The process would then be repeated until the builders had the stone where they wanted it.

Considering that the pyramids were already thousands of years old when Al-Masudi wrote this explanation, we have to wonder where he got his information. Was it part of an oral history that was passed down from generation to generation in Egypt? The unusual details of the story raise that possibility. Or was this just a fanciful story concocted by a talented writer who - like many who marvel at the pyramids today - concluded that there must have been some extraordinary magical forces employed to build such a magnificent structure?

If we take the story at face value, what kind of levitation forces were involved? Did the striking of the rock create vibrations that resulted in sonic levitation? Or did the layout of stones and rods create a magnetic levitation? If so, the science accounting for either scenario is unknown to us today.

Other Astonishing Megaliths

The Egyptian pyramids are not the only ancient structures constructed of huge blocks of stone. Far from it. Great temples and monuments around the world contain stone components of incredible size, yet little is known about their means of construction.

The Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, Lebanon has a foundation that contains the three largest stone blocks ever used in a man-made structure. Each block is estimated to weigh as much as 1,000 tons! No super crane in existence today could lift one, yet they are positioned together with such precision that not even a needle could fit between them. Nearby is an even bigger stone. Known as Hajar el Hibla - the Stone of the Pregnant Woman - it lies abandoned in its quarry, never used. But the giant rectangular block is the largest piece of stone ever cut by humans, weighing an incredible 1,200 tons. It is estimated that it would require the strength of 16,000 men to even budge it, and represents a formidable challenge to 20th century machines and technology.On an isolated plateau at Tiahuanaco Bolivia, 13,000 feet above sea level, stands an impressive monument called Puerta del Sol, or Sun Gate. The elaborately carved gate weighs an estimated 10 tons, and how it arrived at its present location is a mystery.Nan Madol, sometimes called "the Machu Pichu of the Pacific," is a great ruins on the island of Pohnpei, capitol of the Federated States of Micronesia. This lost city, constructed around 200 B.C., is made up of hundreds of stacked stone logs, each about 18-feet-long and several feet in diameter. The logs, stacked like cordwood, constitute walls that are 40 feet high and 18 feet thick. Each stone log is estimated to weigh about 2.5 tons. How they were moved and lifted into position is unknown.

What was the secret these diverse and ancient cultures possessed to manipulate these great stone blocks? A massive supply of slave labor straining human muscle and ingenuity to their limits? Or was there another more mysterious way? It's remarkable that these cultures leave no record of how these structures were constructed. However, "in almost every culture where megaliths exist," according to 432:Cosmic Key, "a legend also exists that the huge stones were moved by acoustic means - either by the chanted spells of magicians, by song, by striking with a magic wand or rod (to produce acoustic resonance), or by trumpets, gongs, lyres, cymbals or whistles."

The Haunted Railroad Crossing

"THE HAUNTED RAILROAD CROSSING"

What Are the Facts?

Is there any factual merit to the story? Do cars really roll uphill? And do tiny handprints really appear?

Several investigations into the legend have come up empty-handed when it comes to documentation of the accident. A precise (or even consistent) date has never been determined. There seem to be no records or archived newspaper articles about such a tragic accident. And the much-used excuse of "well, records weren't kept very well back then" seems inept at best. A San Antonio police officer, who regularly patrolled that district and had heard the ghost story, researched police records for such an accident and found nothing.

The results showed that, despite an illusionary appearance of a level, or even slightly inclined road, the street surface was actually at a 2 degree declination.

So what about the gravity-defying cars? Are they pushed or not? According to The Haunted "Ghost Tracks" of San Antonio at Abstract Dreamteching, a local television station hired a surveyor to determine whether or not there was an upward grade on the road running toward the tracks. "They claimed the results showed that, despite an illusionary appearance of a level, or even slightly inclined road, the street surface was actually at a 2 degree declination as it approached the railroad track crossing."

In other words, the road runs downhill slightly, so naturally a car in neutral will roll in that direction of its own accord.

And what of the fingerprints and handprints? The logical explanation is that a light powder reveals prints that are already there; in fact, that's the basis of fingerprint detection in police work. "Latent fingerprints can be lifted from some objects years after they are made; crimes have been solved thusly," says the author at Abstract Dreamteching.

Other Weird Things

So there's a logical explanation for everything that occurs at this railroad crossing, right? Well, maybe and maybe not. Whether there ever was an accident involving children on a school bus at this spot is open to serious question. Nevertheless, many people report other strange phenomena taking place there:

The author at Abstract Dreamteching, using an audio cassette recorder in the course of his investigation, recorded an unexplained heartbeat. He also had "a genuinely frightening psychic/spiritual experience" of an undisclosed nature.The author also reported that during a few of his experiments at the intersection, his car unexplainably slowed down and stopped squarely on the tracks. "It was truly startling moment," he says. "There was no reasonable explanation for the occurrence, only the odd thought that the ghosty kids wanted some company."At least one other person, a native San Antonian, had car trouble on the tracks. "We did start out about 30 yards from the tracks," she told mysa.com. "But as we got closer my husband would press on the brakes. When he let go the car would go faster. He did it again and again and the car went until the last time. He stopped on the tracks and the car did not go. To top that, the car did not start either. We stayed there for about 5 or 10 minutes and decided to push it under the Loop 410 overpass. We were there all day until someone came to help us tow the car home."Brenda Pacheco experienced more than the ghostly handprints. "The four of us heard children's voices... loud and clear, like children playing on a school ground. We listened in amazement, then it stopped abruptly!"Pacheco claims another bizarre event occurred when her sister tried the experiment. Because she had a white car, they did not spread powder on it. "When her car was pushed over, we were shocked! No handprints, but there were little blood droplets all over her trunk! They continued down the sides and there were blood droplets on the inside of the car where her daughter had the window down on the back door!""When her car was pushed over, we were shocked! No handprints, but there were little blood droplets all over her trunk!"

Janis Raley, writing at mysa.com, explains how several photographs she took at the tracks with a digital camera contained anomalous elements:

"We started getting the fairly common phenomena called orbs or spheres. Although no one can really explain what this is, we have gotten the same thing repeatedly at burial sites and other areas of high energy. After a half hour of shooting, we starting getting vapor or mists, those unshaped forms more associated with the popular Hollywood, conception of ghosts. The energy seemed to be most noticeable directly behind one of the X-shaped railroad crossing signs, on the north side. For a short time the orbs seemed to be hanging back in the heavy brush behind the sign. After a few minutes of constant camera flashes, they moved toward the center of the tracks. As the energy forms moved, we tried to follow, focusing our attention on the cars and trucks as they crossed over the tracks. Some slowly, some quickly. We ended up with photographs of the orbs behind and in the back of a pick-up as it rolled over the tracks."

Ghosts of Hollywood

Thomas Ince

Ince is considered one of the visionary pioneers of American movies. He was one of the most respected directors of the silent era, best known, perhaps, for his westerns starring William S. Hart. He partnered with other early Hollywood giants such as D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, and founded Culver Studios, which later became MGM. Ironically, Ince's death overshadowed his film legacy. He died aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924, and although the official record shows the cause of death as heart failure, the hot rumor is that he was shot by Hearst in a fit a jealousy over Hearst's wife, Marion Davies. Ince's ghost - as well as several other ghostly figures - have been seen in the lot that was once Culver Studios. Film crew members have seen the specter of a man matching Ince's description on several occasions; in one instance, when the workers tried to speak to the spirit, it turned and disappeared through a wall.

Ozzie Nelson

Ghosts and hauntings are the last thing that come to mind when you think of the perpetually cheerful Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. The couple, with their real-life sons Ricky and David, were stars of the long-running sitcom "Ozzie and Harriet," noted for its good-natured, gentle humor. Yet poor Ozzie doesn't seem to be as contented in the afterlife. Family members, it is said, have seen Ozzie's ghost in the family's old Hollywood home, and it always appears to be in a somber mood. Perhaps he's unhappy about how another Ozzy and his family have gained notoriety on TV.

George Reeves

From 1953 to 1957, George Reeves was TV's Superman. Reeves had been around Hollywood for a while, playing bit parts in such films as Gone with the Wind and dozens of B-movies, but it was "The Adventures of Superman" on TV that brought him fame. Reeves died of a gunshot at his home in 1959. The official cause of death was suicide, but that conclusion has been hotly disputed, with some believing that Reeves was murdered. Whether it was suicide or murder, Reeves ghost has been seen in his Beverly Hills home. A couple claims to have seen the ghost of Reeves - decked out in his Superman costume - materialize in the bedroom where he died, after which it slowly faded away.

Others believe that Reeves succumbed to the "Superman curse," in which those associated with the fictional character over the years allegedly have met with disaster or death. But is there really a curse? Read "The Truth About the Superman Curse" by Superman expert Brian McKernan.

More Celebrity Ghosts Rudolph Valentino - This silent film heartthrob has been seen in the bedroom and stables of his old Hollywood home. Jean Harlow - The spirit of this blonde bombshell is said to haunt the bedroom of her home on North Palm Drive, where her husband allegedly used to beat her. Mary Pickford - This legend of the silent era - actress, writer and producer - was co-founder of United Artists with her husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin. Comic Buddy Rogers, who lived in the house Pickford once owned, saw her ghost appear in a white ruffled dress. Grace Kelly - Princess Stephanie of Monaco believes that the ghost of her mother, Grace Kelly, helped her write a song from the spirit world.

Journeys into the Hollow Earth

This diagram shows how an entrance to a hollow planet might look.

• In 1824, a wealthy doctor is said to have mounted an expedition to find Symmes' Hole at the south pole, but the journey was unsuccessful.

• In 1893, Dr. Fridtjof Nansen designed his own ship, the Fram, to explore the north pole. Hollow earth followers have cited his reports of warm winds coming from the north, of red and green pollen covering the snow in some areas, and of fresh driftwood found in the Arctic Ocean ice, where there are no trees. All of these anomalies, hollow Earthers say, have come out of the warm northern opening.

• In 1926, Admiral Richard E. Byrd became the first person to fly over the North Pole. In 1929, he successfully flew over the South Pole. Although officially, of course, Byrd discovered no entrances into the Earth's interior at either pole (he certainly wasn't looking for any), staunch hollow Earthers contend that he really did find a hole at the North Pole. They say he may have even flown as far as 4,000 miles into the interior, although there's no evidence to support this.

• In 1939, the Americans and Germans were in a race to explore and claim lands in Antarctica. President Roosevelt sent Admiral Byrd to the frozen continent to thwart any German claims to Antarctic lands in the Western Hemisphere. Hollow Earthers have proclaimed that this was actually a secret mission to beat the Nazis in the exploration of "the land beyond the poles."

• In 1947, Admiral Byrd is said to have made a secret flight to the North Pole to find this land beyond the pole. The "evidence" for this flight comes from a highly controversial "lost diary" kept by Byrd and miraculously found in the 1970s by "The Society for a Complete Earth." In it he writes that as he looked down from his plane, he saw not snow, but green vegetation, grassy valleys and mountains not shown on any map. Very few take this diary - or the flight itself - seriously.

The Most Perplexing Anomalies of Mars

The Most Perplexing Anomalies of MarsMysterious boulders, strange pyramids, amazing city-like structures and startling, unexplained "glass worms" are all a part of the enigmatic landscape of the Red Planet.

Mars is a world of mysteries. And on February 14, 2001, a new mystery surfaced on the Red Planet - almost quite literally.

Valley of the Boulders
On that date, an international group of nine 10- 15-year-old boys and girls - known as the Red Rover Goes to Mars Team - were invited by NASA to direct the camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). The MGS probe has been orbiting Mars since March, 1998 and has sent back many spectacular images of the planet's surface in stunning detail. But when these kids took the controls of the camera, they picked up an image of an anomaly that has scientists puzzled. It's the latest in a long list of pictures from Mars that keeps scientists, amateur astronomers and explorers of the unknown scratching their heads.

The picture, seen below, shows a scattering of large, dark boulders in the middle of a relatively flat, light-colored plain. The puzzle is: Where did they come from? There are no mountains or large hills that the boulders could have broken off from. And their color is in sharp contrast to anything in the surrounding area.

"It's puzzling," said Michael Carr of the US Geological Survey. "I looked at a few pictures around [the area] and couldn't find anything to explain it. Very puzzling! These are huge boulders. There are no indications of any outcrops that could shed such boulders."

NASA - Click photo for enlargementHow huge are they? It is estimated that they are between 50 and 80 feet in diameter! Those are big rocks!

"Wow! These have me totally stumped," commented Ron Greeley of Arizona State University. "Not only is the dark color of the boulders a surprise, but they appear totally out of context in the surrounding terrain. There is nothing in the rest of the image to suggest a source for such large boulders, nor their arrangement on the surface."

One proposed theory is that the boulders are the remains of a meteor that shattered on impact. Yet there is no impact crater; the meteor would have had to have been moving quite slowly to make no crater and keep its fragments in such a close grouping. The meteor theory is highly unlikely. Planetary scientists have yet to come up with a plausible, satisfactory explanation for the boulders.

Martian pyramids.

Giza pyramids.

The Pyramids
The Cydonia region of Mars seems to be chock full of weird anomalous structures. Southwest of the infamous "face" is a group of features that have been called "pyramids." With their relatively smooth, triangular sides, they bear a striking resemblance from the air to the pyramids at Giza, Egypt (see photos at right).

One of the most closely studied is the so-called D&M pyramid. According to researcher Mark Carlotto, "the three illuminated faces of the D&M appear to be relatively flat with well defined edges in between. Buttress like structures at the base of several edges are also evident. In the MGS image the edge between the northeast and northwest faces resembles a spine running from the apex of the D&M down to the ground. At the base of the spine lies a circular depression, possibly an opening. A dark feature seems to emanate northward from this depression or opening, which then leads into a sinuous channel off to the right."

Carlotto also has examined "the City Pyramid," a five-sided structure whose spines "resemble the five pointed Egyptian symbol for a star." In the most high-resolution photos of these structures taken by MGS, the pyramids look somewhat less pyramid-like, but their geometric shapes are still intriguing.

Messages from the Afterlife

GONE, BUT NOT GONE

Chris had always told me he would never leave home or leave me behind, that he would always take care of me. He was going to make sure that neither I nor his dad would ever be in an old folks' home. Now he was gone. Why? They could not give us a reason for his death. His death certificate read the cause of death "unknown" until August of 2003. They finally amended it to read "Cardiomegaly with left ventricular hypertrophy." Basically, he had a hole in the left ventricle of his heart that gave out, causing a massive heart attack. So they say.

In April, 2003 we had a memorial birthday gathering for him. Almost all of his friends were able to make the event. None of them will ever be able to forget that day. We had a tape that Chris and his band had made the summer before his death. I decided to have the band members play with the tape in tribute and memory of Chris. I thought it would be like having him there with us again.

I was both surprised and happy that he made an appearance for the crowd.

We put the tape in and pressed play, the band started playing with the tape. As Christopher's voice sang on the player, that's when it started: first it was just a blink of a light, then a few lights blinked in unison. Then it spread to the rest of the house. Every light, TV, computer, stereo in the house was not only blinking on and off, but going on and off at different, random times. Then suddenly it all went dark.

"He's here," I said. "Chris is with us!" All the kids there snickered nervously. One of them said jokingly, "Chris, if it's really you, turn the lights back...!" Every light in the house roared to life, before he could utter the word "on". Seventeen young people went running out my front door. Party over. Not too many of them want to come over and visit too often anymore, but some still call to keep in touch.

A VISIT WITH CHRIS

A week from that day, I had a dream (that's what I call it), where I was riding on a road up a mountainside. I experienced wonder at why I was on the mountain in the first place. I did not know anyone who lived in the mountains, but the vehicle continued up the mountainside. I wasn't driving the vehicle, but I never saw anyone driving, nor were any words spoken. I don't know what type of vehicle it was. Then it turned off the road and came to a stop in front of a nice wood log cabin. It had a wrap-around porch and seemed very well maintained. I remember looking down and reaching for the door handle and opening the door. I just knew that I was at my destination.

Keeping my eyes on the cabin's door, I stepped out and without looking, shut the door behind me. I experienced bewilderment, still trying to figure it out. When the front door flew open, out walked my baby, Christopher! I screamed his name out loud and started running toward the cabin steps as Chris ran toward me. I literally jumped into his arms and hugged him crying, kissing him, touching him. I couldn't believe it was him. He laughed, then we cried as we held on to each other tightly.

He guided me inside the cabin. It was very nice, not overly done, no electronics, and I could see his room in back. I told him how much I missed him, how we all missed him. How it was all a mistake, how we wanted him to come home. He hugged me tight. "It wasn't anyone's fault," he said. "There was nothing you could do, Mom."

He assured me that he was fine - lonesome, but fine. He told me he missed his brother, sister, me and dad, and the nieces and nephews that he loved so much. And he gave me a message to give to his friends: He will be waiting for them and us and he is okay. I told him I wasn't going back. I was going to stay with him. I grabbed him tightly and told him I was never turning him loose, ever. I wasn't about to lose him again!

It went dark, like someone turned off the light. I felt vibrations. My whole body seemed to be violently shaking back and forth. Christopher and his cabin were now gone lost in darkness. Then I heard, faintly at first, someone shouting my name, a voice in the dark crying out, "Where are you? Where have you gone?" The shaking became more violent, and I realized that someone was shaking me back and forth. The voice was getting louder. Finally I recognized the voice. It was my husband.

"Open your eyes, baby!" he shouted. "Breathe, baby, breathe!" I felt a slap. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. I was back in my home. I burst into tears. He grabbed me sobbing, "Where have you been? Where did you go?" I was so overwrought and crying so hard, I whispered, "I was with Christopher!" I had lost him again. My husband had awakened at 2 a.m., went to the bathroom and when he returned he had noticed that I was unusually quiet for sleeping. He listened to me and could hear nothing. When he tried to wake me, there was no response. He had started shaking me to wake me up. He said he thought it took him 5-10 minutes before I opened my eyes.

The Real-Life Wizard Behind "Harry Potter"

The Real-Life Wizard Behind "Harry Potter"Over 600 years before Hogwarts School was created, an alchemist claimed to have discovered the incredible secrets of "the sorcerer's stone" - possibly even immortality

The phenomenal success of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and the film based on "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," is introducing a whole new generation of children (and their parents) to the world of magic, sorcery and alchemy.

What is not widely known, however, is that at least one of the characters - and his magical quest - referred to in "Harry Potter" is based on a real alchemist and his strange experiments.

According to the Harry Potter stories, Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, earned his reputation as a great wizard due, in part, to his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. And although Dumbledore, Harry and all the other teachers and students at Hogwarts are fictional, Nicholas Flamel was a real-life alchemist who dabbled in some of the most mystical corners of the magical arts, including the quest for an Elixir of Life. Some wonder, in fact, if Flamel is still alive!

When "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was written, Flamel's age was pegged at 665 years. That would be just about right since the real Flamel was born in France around 1330. Through an astonishing series of events, he became one of the most famous alchemists of the 14th century. And his story is almost as fantastic and enchanting as Harry Potter's.

An Incredible Dream Comes True

As an adult, Nicholas Flamel worked as a bookseller in Paris. It was a humble trade, but one that provided him with the relatively rare abilities to read and write. He worked from a small stall near the Cathedral of Saint-Jacques la Boucherie where, with his assistants, he copied and "illuminated" (illustrated) books.

One night, Flamel had a strange and vivid dream in which an angel appeared to him. The radiant, winged creature presented to Flamel a beautiful book with pages that seemed to be of fine bark and a cover of worked copper. Flamel later wrote down what the angel spoke to him: "Look well at this book, Nicholas. At first you will understand nothing in it - neither you nor any other man. But one day you will see in it that which no other man will be able to see."

Just as Flamel was about to take the book from the angel's hands, he awoke from his dream. Soon after, however, the dream was to weave its way into reality. One day when Flamel was working alone in his shop, a stranger approached him who was desperate to sell an old book for some much-needed money. Flamel immediately recognized the strange, copper-bound book as the one offered by the angel in his dream. He eagerly bought it for the sum of two florins.

The copper cover was engraved with peculiar diagrams and words, only some of which Flamel recognized as Greek. The pages were like none he had ever encountered in his trade. Instead of parchment, they seemed to be made from the bark of sapling trees. Flamel was able to discern from the first pages of the book that it was written by someone who called himself Abraham the Jew - "a prince, priest, Levite, astrologer and philosopher."

The strong memory of his dream and his own intuition convinced Flamel that this was no ordinary book - that it contained arcane knowledge that he feared he might not be qualified to read and understand. It could contain, he felt, the very secrets of nature and life.

Flamel's trade had brought him familiarity with the writings of the alchemists of his day, and he knew something of transmutation (the changing of one thing into another, such as lead into gold) and knew well the many symbols that alchemists used. But the symbols and writing in this book were beyond Flamel's understanding, although he strove to solve its mysteries for over 21 years.

The Quest for Translation

Because the book had been written by a Jew and much of its text was in ancient Hebrew, he reasoned that a scholarly Jew might be able to help him translate the book. Unfortunately, religious persecution had recently driven all of the Jews out of France. After copying only a few pages of the book, Flamel packed them and embarked on a pilgrimage to Spain, where many of the exiled Jews had settled.

The journey was unsuccessful, however. Many of the Jews, understandably suspicious of Christians at this time, were reluctant to help Flamel, so he began his journey home. Flamel had all but given up his quest when he chanced upon an introduction to a very old, learned Jew by the name of Maestro Canches who lived in Leon. Canches, too, was not eager to help Flamel until he mentioned Abraham the Jew. Canches had certainly heard of this great sage who was wise in the teachings of the mysterious kabbalah.

Canches was able to translate the few pages that Flamel brought with him and wanted to return to Paris with him to examine the rest of the book. But Jews were still not allowed in Paris and Canches' extreme old age would have made the journey difficult anyway. As fate would have it, Canches died before he could help Flamel any further.

Unknown Sea Creature

Unknown Sea Creature

This rotting "sea serpent" carcass was captured by the Japanese fishing boat, the Zuiyo-Maru off the coast of New Zealand.

View the original article here

What You Need to Know About... Dowsing

"WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT... DOWSING" > Page 1, 2

Who Can Dowse?
Dowers say that anyone can do it. Like most psychic abilities, it may be a latent power that all humans possess. And, like any other ability, the average person might become better at it with practice. However, there are some people whose dowsing powers are extraordinary:

Emmy Kittemann, daughter of a dowser, was one of the most acclaimed dowsers in Germany. In her most famous case, she correctly dowsed the location of a mineralized spring for the village of Tegernsee. All previous drillings found only water with heavy sulfur content. Yet Kitteman accurately predicted the depth at which the water would be found as well as its iodine-rich content.In 17th century France, Jacques Aymar Vernay, a stonemason by trade, used his dowsing talents to successfully track criminals. His dowsing rod, on more than one occasion, led authorities to the whereabouts of murderers.In December, 1992, a Mr. and Mrs. Anders and Berith Lindgren were hunting with their friends when their dog ran off and disappeared. An extensive search proved fruitless. A few days later they sought the help of dowser Leif Andersson. His dowsing techniques led the hunters to a small lake where they indeed found the body of the dog, where it had apparently fallen through the thin ice and died.

Dowsing is one of the few psychic talents that can be applied directly for profitable result or as a business. Some well-known names from history practiced dowsing, including Leonardo De Vinci, Robert Boyle (considered the father of modern chemistry), Charles Richet (a Nobel Prize winner), General Rommel of the German Army, and General George S. Patton. "General Patton," writes Don Nolan in his article A Brief History of Dowsing, "had a complete willow tree flown to Morocco so that a dowser could use branches from it to find water to replace the wells the German Army had blown up. The British army used dowsers on the Falkland Islands to remove mines."

Dowsing, the Ancient Art relates this remarkable information:

Professor Hans Dieter Betz (professor of physics, Munich university) headed a team of scientists that investigated the ability of dowsers to find underground drinkable supplies, taking them to 10 different countries and, on the advice of dowers, sank some 2,000 wells with a very high success rate. In Sri Lanka, where the geological conditions are said to be difficult, some 691 wells were drilled for, based on the advice of dowsers, with a 96% success rate. Geohydrologists given the same task took two months to evaluate a site where a dowser would compete his survey in minutes. The geohydrologists had a 21% success rate, as a result of which the German government has sponsored 100 dowers to work in the arid zones of Southern India to find drinkable water.

Types of Dowsing
There are several types or methods of dowsing:

Forked stick. The most traditional method uses a small Y-shaped tree branch (most often from a willow). The dowser holds the branch parallel to the ground by the top of the Y shape, then walks over the area to be probed. When the dowser passes over the sought object, the end of the branch is drawn down, pointing to the spot at which the object can be found.Rods. An alternate method uses two L-shaped metal rods, one held in each hand parallel to the ground and parallel to each other. In this case, when the dowser passes over the sought object, the rods either swing apart or cross each other. You can easily make dowsing rods from wire coat hangers.Map Dowsing. Some dowsers don't even have to visit the location to be dowsed. For them, a map of the area is sufficient over which they hold pendulum. They know they have located the target area when the pendulum begins to move in a circle or back and forth.

Y-rods, L-rods, pendulums and other dowsing equipment can be purchased from the American Society of Dowsers.

How You Can Dowse
It's easy to try dowsing yourself. Here are some steps for a dowsing test:

Make or purchase the dowsing tool with which you will be most comfortable.Ask a friend to bury an object (try a metal object or small bottle of water) somewhere in your yard, just a few inches below the surface. Be sure your friend is careful to conceal the burial spot so that it is not at all obvious where they have dug.Before starting, mentally ask your dowsing tool to indicate to you when you are passing over the hidden object. (Be sure to consult some of the sources listed in this article for the proper way to hold the dowsing tool.)Start walking. You can either take a methodical approach, walking in a defined pattern up and down the yard, or you can walk randomly, following your instincts.Walk slowly, concentrating on the object and trying to remain open and sensitive to the movements of the dowsing tool.When your dowsing tool reacts and indicates a specific spot, stop and see if you have succeeded. If not, try again.

If at first you don't succeed, try a different dowsing tool or a different type of target. Try it at different times of day and in different frames of mind; these may all affect the outcome. Keep a record of your attempts and keep at it. You might find that you have a strong ability for dowsing. Finally, let me know how well you dowsed.