MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Luke 21:25, “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring …”

By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press – “An extreme solar flare is blasting its way to Earth and could mess up some power grids, satellites and radio transmissions, scientists say.

It’s been several years since Earth has had a solar storm of this size coming from sunspots smack in the middle of the sun, said Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Solar storms happen often, especially during peaks in the solar cycle, and don’t directly harm people. But what makes this one more worrisome is its location on the sun along with its strength, he said.

‘There’s been a giant magnetic explosion on the sun,’ Berger said. ‘Because it’s pointed right at us, we’ll at least catch some of the cloud’ of highly energized and magnetized plasma that can disrupt Earth’s magnetic sphere, which sometimes leads to temporary power grid problems.

Forecasters don’t yet know when Wednesday’s solar storm will arrive here and which part of the planet will be facing the sun and bear the brunt of the effects. It could arrive as early as Thursday morning or may take a few days.” Read more.

God is in control …

By Jason Samenow, Washington Post – “On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere.  These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

‘If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,’ physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.

Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth.  Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.

‘I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,’ Baker tells NASA.  ‘If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.’

A CME double whammy of this potency striking Earth would likely cripple satellite communications and could severely damage the power grid. NASA offers this sobering assessment:

Analysts believe that a direct hit … could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket.  Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.

. . .

According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.

CWG’s Steve Tracton put it this way in his frightening overview of the risks of a severe solar storm: ‘The consequences could be devastating for commerce, transportation, agriculture and food stocks, fuel and water supplies, human health and medical facilities, national security, and daily life in general.'” Read more.

Job 11:7, “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”

Yet again, even though scientists sometimes have a habit of speaking as though they have the answers to everything, God always has a way of saying, “No, you don’t” …

The “X” Structure in the core of the Whirlpool Galaxy. Even at 31 million light-years away, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalms 19:1).

CBS Tampa Bay – “A succinct blip of sound detected from far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy amid deep space has left scientists saying they ‘really have no handle on’ the mysterious ‘fast radio burst.’

The split-second burst of radio waves discovered through the Arecibo radio telescope has given scientists new evidence of the rare, mysterious pulses emanating from deep outer space – well beyond the ends of the galaxy. Published July 10 in The Astrophysical Journal, the ‘fast radio burst’ is the first of similar sounds to be detected by an installation other than the Parkes radio telescope in Australia.

The Arecibo Observatory is the world’s largest single-aperture telescope located in Puerto Rico. The radio telescope has been featured in numerous movies and television shows including 1995’s James Bond film ‘Goldeneye.’

‘Our result is important because it eliminates any doubt that these radio bursts are truly of cosmic origin,’ said Victoria Kaspi, an astrophysics professor at McGill University in Montreal and principal investigator for the pulsar-survey project that detected this fast radio burst. ‘The radio waves show every sign of having come from far outside our galaxy – a really exciting prospect.’

Although exact origins for the sound bursts are still an enigma for astrophysicists, proposed possibilities include evaporating black holes, merging neutron stars, or flares from extremely powerful deep-space magnetic fields.” Read more.

Flashback: Scientists Puzzled By Massive Gamma-Ray Burst In Space Suggesting A ‘Common Central Engine’ To ‘Contemporary’ And Distant Universe – “An exploded star some 3.8 billion light-years away is forcing scientists to overhaul much of what they thought they knew about gamma-ray bursts – intense blasts of radiation triggered, in this case, by a star tens of times more massive than the sun that exhausted its nuclear fuel, exploded, then collapsed to form a black hole. Last April, gamma rays from the blast struck detectors in gamma-ray observatories orbiting Earth, triggering a frenzy of space- and ground-based observations. Many of them fly in the face of explanations researchers have developed during the past 30 years …” Read more.

Flashback: Expert: Something Massive Might Be ‘Tilting’ The Universe, But We Have No Idea What It Is – “Scientists have started to look more carefully at the structure of the universe by analysing light from distant galaxies to look at the speed and direction of moving objects like planets and stars. They have observed that rather than moving apart as expected, some distant clusters of galaxies actually appear to be caught in a space current, much like a river. And they are moving at incredibly fast velocities or around two million miles an hour, along a certain path. Scientists are unsure why but have labeled the phenomenon ‘dark flow’. To work out why this must be happening, Glenn said scientists believe there must be ‘something huge out there.’” Read more.

Flashback: Planet-Forming Dust Disc Surrounding Distant Star Disappears, Astronomers Now Question How Planets Formed – “A disc of planet-forming dust around a distant star has disappeared unexpectedly, leaving astronomers scratching their heads and questioning current theories of how planets are formed. ‘It’s like the classic magician’s trick: Now you see it, now you don’t,’ said astronomer Carl Melis of UC San Diego, who led the team that discovered the phenomenon. ‘Only in this case, we’re talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system and it is really gone.’ The team has proposed several possible explanations for the disappearance, but ‘none are really compelling,’ Melis said.” Read more.

A solar flare erupts on the surface of the sun, June 10, 2014. (Goddard/SDO/NASA)

By Colleen Curry, ABC News – “The sun has had three major solar flares on its surface in the past two days that have affected communications on Earth and could send a shockwave through Earth this Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The ‘solar events’ caused brief blackouts in high frequency communications when they struck, twice on Tuesday morning and once this morning, all between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. EDT.

Solar flares are bursts of radiation on the sun’s surface. The disturbance to Earth’s atmosphere can disrupt GPS and communications signals, according to NASA.

One of the flares created a ‘coronal mass ejection’ that actually could come into contact with Earth on Friday, according to NOAA. The ejection is essentially a huge cloud of plasma that could hit the Earth and cause a shock wave, affecting communications systems. If an ejection were to hit Earth on Friday, scientists expect it would only cause a minor geo-magnetic storm, according to NOAA.

The flares were observed by NASA, which posted stunning photos and videos of the events on its website.” Source – ABC News.

Boy, that would leave a mark …

Luke 21:10-11, 27, “Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven… And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.’”

By Mike Wall, Space.com – “Humanity should be thankful ‘The Beast’ doesn’t have Earth in its crosshairs.

This Sunday (June 8), the near-Earth asteroid 2014 HQ124 — which some observers have nicknamed ‘The Beast’ — will give the planet a relatively close shave, coming within 777,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers) at its closest approach, or about 3.25 times the distance from Earth to the moon.

There is no chance of an impact on this pass, researchers stress. But at 1,100 feet (335 meters) wide, 2014 HQ124 could do some serious damage if it slammed into us.

‘This one would definitely be catastrophic if it hit the Earth,’ asteroid impact expert Mark Boslough, of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, said Thursday (June 5) during a webcast produced by the online Slooh community observatory that previewed 2014 HQ124’s upcoming flyby.

‘If it hit a city, it would definitely wipe out an entire metropolitan area,’ Boslough added.

Asteroid 2014 HQ124 is currently traveling about 31,000 mph (50,000 km/h) relative to Earth, Boslough said. But if the asteroid were on a collision course, our planet’s gravity would boost its speed up to about 40,000 mph (64,000 km/h) at the time of impact.

If 2014 HQ124 is one solid piece of rock — its composition isn’t known for certain — the strike would unleash an explosion with a yield of about 2,000 megatons, Boslough added. For comparison, the atomic bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II packed about 15 kilotons. (One megaton is equivalent to 1,000 kilotons.)

‘You’d end up with a crater about 3 miles across,’ Boslough added. ‘An event like that would break windows over 100 kilometers away.’

Asteroid 2014 HQ124 was discovered on April 23, just six weeks ago — not nearly enough time to deflect the asteroid if it were on a collision course with Earth.” Read more.

Another one closer than the moon. And this one was only discovered a few days ago. Certainly makes you wonder how many are out there that they’ve yet to discover …

By Tariq Malik, Space.com – “A small asteroid about the size of a city bus zipped by Earth at a range closer than the moon early Saturday (May 3), but posed no threat to our planet.

The newly discovered asteroid 2014 HL129 came within 186,000 miles (299,338 kilometers) of Earth when it made its closest approach on Saturday morning, which is close enough to pass between the planet and the orbit of the moon. The average distance between the Earth and moon is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km).

You can watch a video animation of asteroid 2014 HL129’s orbit around the sun on Space.com. The asteroid is about 25 feet (7.6 meters) wide, according to NASA’s Asteroid Watch project based at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It made its closest approach to Earth at 4:13 a.m. EDT (0813 GMT).

Saturday’s close shave by asteroid 2014 HL129 came just days after its discovery on Wednesday, April 28 …” Read more.

What If An Asteroid Hit The Earth? – “An asteroid striking our planet — it’s the stuff of science fiction… An asteroid impact is also the stuff of science fact… Let’s say that an asteroid the size of a house crashed on Earth at 30,000 mph. It would have an amount of energy roughly equal to the bomb that fell on Hiroshima — perhaps 20 kilotons. An asteroid like this would flatten reinforced concrete buildings up to half a mile from ground zero, and flatten wooden structures perhaps a mile and a half from ground zero. It would, in other words, do extensive damage to any city… if an asteroid strikes Earth, it will be a really, really bad day no matter how big it is.” Read more.

Fortunately, it was temporary. This time …

By Tariq Malik, Space.com – “The sun erupted with a massive solar flare late Thursday (April 24), triggering a temporary communications blackout on some parts of Earth.

The powerful flare peaked at 8:27 p.m. EDT Thursday (0027 April 25 GMT), and ranked as an X1.3-class solar storm, one of the strongest types of flares the sun can experience, according to a report from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center. NASA’s sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the intense solar flare in several difference wavelengths.

The solar flare erupted from an active sunspot region known as Region 2035 located on the far western side (or limb) of the sun as seen from Earth. Because of its position, the flare sparked a high-frequency radio blackout for about an hour on the daytime side of Earth, most likely over the Pacific Ocean and Eastern Pacific Rim, according to the SWPC update.

‘Region 2035 is rotating out of view and won’t pose any danger for much longer, but could in the immediate future,’ SWPC officials wrote in the update.

When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can endanger astronauts in space, as well as interfere with communications and navigation satellites in orbit. The most powerful X-class flares can also affect power grids and other infrastructure on the Earth.

Thursday’s solar flare was the fourth X-class solar flare of 2014. It followed an X1.2 solar flare on Jan. 7, a monster X4.9 solar flare on Feb. 24, as well as an X1 solar flare on March 29.” Read more.

Fortunately, there are no reports of damage or injuries, this time …

RT – “A suspected meteorite explosion has been recorded by citizens of the northern Russian city of Murmansk.

Multiple drivers with dashcams out on the streets of the 300,000-people city at 2.10am on Saturday noticed a bright blue trail speed across the night sky, then explode while still in the air.

Most observers identified the object as a meteorite, though officials have neither confirmed it nor said where the fragments are likely to have landed. Others speculated that the object may have been space debris, re-entering the atmosphere.

Emergency services say there were no injuries as a result of the astral event.” Read more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlT3EVp-K-E

Interestingly, in the vacuum of space, even God’s “big bang” would have been immeasurably silent …

Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”

Jeremiah 10:12, “It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.”

Uni = one. Verse = a spoken sentence. God said “Let there be”, and there was …

WND – “An Israeli physicist says the breakthrough scientific discovery of further evidence of the Big Bang theory, which some are calling ‘cosmology’s missing link,’confirms the universe was created.