Healer, Rythmic Storm

5 of Swords

When technology simply did what it was supposed to, long before it got stupid...

Midst a Shift

GEOMAGNETIC GROUND CURRENTS IN NORTH AMERICA: Space weather isn't all about the sky. It's in the ground, too. On April 16th, a severe geomagnetic storm caused electricity to flow through the rocks and soil of North America. Red zones in this animated map from NOAA show where voltages were greatest:

This 10-minute animation shows North American ground currents at the apex of the April 16th G4 geomagnetic storm

Geoelectric voltages were more than 70 times normal in the Appalachian mountain range, northern Minnesota, and northwestern Canada. Texas and other western US states were relatively unscathed.

Researchers track ground currents because in extreme cases they can cause power outages like the Great Québec Blackout of March 13, 1989. This week's storm wasn't intense or long-lasting enough to bring down power grids, but NOAA's maps show where power stations are most vulnerable.

"Generally, geoelectric amplitudes are high over metamorphic rock, such as in the Appalachians and northern Minnesota," explains Jeffrey Love of the US Geological Survey (USGS). "They are usually low over sedimentary rock such as in Texas and northwest of the Appalachians."

HIGH INTEREST" REENTRY: In 1972, the Soviet Union's Kosmos 482 spacecraft was supposed to land on Venus. Instead, it's about to return to Earth. ETA: May 10th, give or take a few days.

"The reentry of the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft will not be your standard reentry," says satellite analyst Marco Langbroek, who has been tracking the object for years. "The Descent Craft was designed to survive entry through the dense atmosphere of Venus. It will therefore likely survive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere intact and make a crash landing. This will therefore be a high-interest reentry."



A museum replica of Venera 8, launched just days before Kosmos 482. Credit: NASA

This spacecraft was part of the Soviet Union's sucessful Venera program to explore Venus. Between 1961 and 1984, thirteen Venera probes successfully entered Venus's atmosphere, with ten landing on the planet's surface. Kosmos 482, however, never left Earth. The upper stage of its rocket shut down prematurely, leaving it in a 206 x 9802 kilometer orbit that has been decaying ever since.

"With an orbital inclination of 52 degrees, the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft could come down anywhere between 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south latitude," says Langbroek. "This includes much of south and mid-latitude Europe and Asia, as well as the Americas, Africa and Australia. (An ocean landing is most likely.)"



Above: A picture of Venus from Kosmos 482's sister craft Venera 13 [more]

It is unlikely that the parachute system will work after more than 50 years in space, so this will be a crash landing. How bad will it be? Details of the descent craft have been lost to history. Langbroek believes it is about 1 meter in diameter with a mass of ~495 kg. It won't do major damage, but you wouldn't want to be standing where it lands.

No more piles of liturgical gobbledy gook, "sacred" texts, ascensions, pentacosts(positive in-breathings ARE the "holy" spirit), mantra yantras, ompaymemore, word clusterfucks: it's real simple, no clubs to join...

Focus

Low tide, Hollywood Beach, Coho Ferry returning from Victoria B.C.