full_frontal_occlusion

Everyone loves a great mystery and as mysteries go, they don't get much better than UFO's. Let's look at some incontrovertible facts: 1) We assume we know a lot about the physical laws and nature of matter and their limitations for harnessing. Actually, we know very little about what gravity is, whether quarks are truly the most fundamental particles in the universe, er...is our universe the only one? why do particles have the equivalence of mass and energy? What is pure energy? Where did the anti-particles disappear to? Why did the universe burst out of nothing? When the LHC matures as an experiment, we may find that most of the laws of physics as currently understood, are a red herring. 2) Just because little green men (IF they exist) may have found a way of interstellar (or even time) travel, does not mean they have also evolved common sense as we would describe it. e.g. comparing modern technology with say, that of stone age man, would we not be perceived as gods? Why then in our omnipotent wisdom, would we point weapons of mass destruction at each other? engage in wars of religon? have the capability to intervene but choose to stand back and watch the slaughter of children? 3) It is not beyond the realms of possibilty that little green men are genetically engineered aliens specifically created to work and survive in our envionment. i.e. the ultimate astronaut with the ultimate spacesuit? Perhaps they are less concerned about eugenics and PC in that respect than we are? 4) The improbability theory of timing coincidence between humans and aliens is irrelevent if one species has mastered the ability of time travel. All I'm saying is that I agree, the most likely explanations for UFO's are mundane with nothing extra-terrestrial about them. But precisely because we base all our reasoning on the extent of our existing limited (and possibly flawed) scientific knowledge, we must keep open the possibility that an alternative truth is more fantastic than the fiction as has so often been demonstrated in our own history. ffO.

Mr McElwees closing statement on Tuesdays 2235 national forecast: 'We're importing weather from the near continent rather specially though. Big disparity. Warm wet west, cold sunny east. Much colder but probably, it'll be sunnier....... We'll watch that with interest!' Last sentence flourished with raised eyebrow and cheeky grin. East / West battleground? Sometimes I get the distinct impression, our Rob puts those little quips in for the benefit of us here on NW. Go Rob. ffO.

Met Office have now also issued a low risk advisory for a severe weather / snow event for the whole country on Monday / Tuesday. ffO.

And here it is in context: Rob McElwee To be critical though, he did not mention any specific location for the 'white stuff' but looking at the graphics accompanying his forecast, north / western areas are favourable. ffO

I continue to be pleasantly impressed with the LRF issued on 7 November Roger. Nearly half way through the winter and two months in, all seems on track and certainly rips the pants off the METO for consistency. Well done both of you. ffO.

An impressive call and a tick in the box from me for your first storm prediction guys. Well done. Next up Christmas and New Year. Feeling confident? Phone a friend? ffO

Thanks Paul. That seems to have worked. I tried overwritting position 3 with the new stye GFS viewer which miraculously fixed itself after a couple of attempts. :lol: Thanks again, you are a star! ffO.

Hi. Having tried to add both the new hi-res model and 5 minute lightining detector to the favourites feature pane, I get the following messages displayed in place of the correct URL in positions 2 & 3: action^nmm~sess^416921e05cb49ed3464e8d3e193571e0 action^nmm~sess^39a9468455e0d7fff93d1dde6881527e I have previously successfully added the rain radar to position 1 which now shows the correct URL and redirects ok when clicked. I can't find an edit or delete option and I have tried overwriting both locations with a different feature to no avail. I'm using Windows Vista with SP1 and all known subsequent updates. Help please. I probably fell out of the stupid tree this morning! ffO.

Dust from comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner produce slow moving meteors (20km/s) in a shower which appear to emerge from the northern constellation Draco. At maximum on Oct. 8th, this year expected to produce meteors every few minutes. Past returns have produced spectacular showers with rates in excess of 6000/hr with a peak rate of +400/min. Find the Draco radiant by tracing a vertical line above the first star of the Big-Dipper pan handle, and a hrizontal line westwards from Polaris (north star). Draco is just above the intersection (or roughly). Draconid info and location map Best time to view is just after sunset around 8 pm and away from city / street lights as the meteors tend not to be very bright (mag 2 - 4). ffO.

Hi Skidders. You're welcome. It's more than likely that what you saw was the ISS; Apparent Magnitide is measured negatively. i.e. the brighter the object the more -ve the value. So -1.4 is brighter than +3.2. The scale is logarithmic with each 1.0 magnitude difference actually 2.5x on a linear scale. e.g. a relative difference of 3.0 magnitude between any two objects is 2.5x2.5x2.5 = 15.625 difference on a linear scale. Human visual perception has a limit of approx' +6.0 for the naked eye. So the ISS at -1.4 magnitude would appear approx' 89x brighter than the Cosmos satellites at +3.5 magnitude. For reference, the star Vega is used for 0 magnitude, Venus is -4.7 at maximum brightness, the full moon is -12.7 and the sun is -26.73 magnitude. Good hunting. ffO.

The ISS was visible from Bristol between 20:15 and 20:19 hrs on Friday 3 October, at a magnitude of -1.4 It passed on a track commencing due west on the horizon and ending SSE at an elevation of about 30 degrees above the horizon. Maximum elevation was 40 degrees SSW. Log on to www.heavens-above.com and enter your location, then use the daily predictions page for satellites above limiting magnitude 3.5. The 'prev' and 'next' options allow you to search retrospectively or future events. The following satellites were also visible at a maximum magnitude of 3.5: Cosmos 2219 passed directly overhead at 19:50 hrs. Cosms 2233 passed directly overhead at 20:15 hrs. Cosmos 1939 passed overhead at 20:27 hrs. Hope this helps. ffO.

The exploding U.F.O. theory was popularised in the late 1960's by the Swiss author Erich von Daniken in his best selling book Chariots of the Gods. "I prefer to adhere to the opinion of those who suspect that the nuclear explosion (Tunguska) was caused by an unknown spaceship's energy pile bursting. Fantastic? Of course. But does that make it impossible?" - Von Daniken. The book is widely dismissed by scientists as psuedoscientific nonsense. Von Daniken used fabricated and fraudulently produced evidence to support his claims of extraterrestrial intelligence visiting the earth and even did a stretch behind bars for fraud. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2368553/Erich-Vo...ots-of-the-Gods ffO.

Hi Noggin, the LHC can't prove the Big Bang theory, however the experiments are all based on the premise that the Big Bang happened. Using the LHC, scientists will study how the universe developed just after the Big Bang (billionths of a second). The evidence they find will either support the current standard models for particle physics, or refute it. The LHC will prove the existence or otherwise of so the called 'God Particle' - the Higgs Boson - which is key for continued support of the standard model. As you point out, if the Higgs Boson is not found, then particle physics does indeed stand at a new dawn. Either way. the LHC will probably provide the most important discoveries since Rutherford split the atom. ffO.

The first experiments on the 10th will be at much lower energies (450GeV) than existing particle accelerators have already achieved. The interesting stuff (7Tev) is a few months after this. ffO.

Laser light shows? Hot air balloons? UFO's lol. Come on peeps, this happened during the storms and flooding over the last 48 hours - in one of the worst hit regions of the country. Gather the facts, analyse and then eliminate the unreasonable: Would anyone attempt a suicidal balloon flight? Would organisers stage a public event in such hazardous conditions? Everything else is wishful thinking. But hey, that's just my humble opinion. ffO

Try these: Lanacster January 2005 Durham October 2003 Fokstone, Kent October 2003 Bedford March 2001 Canterbury, Kent July 2000 Bodmin, Cornwall April 2000 ffO

With all the bad weather, this sounds like it may have been distress flares possibly on the peaks or motorway. Distress flares are often two part, with a red coloured candle and bright orange smoke for a ground marker. You may have seen the flare through the orange smoken or a white flare filtered by cloud / mist. That would account for the flame, colour, apparent motion, lack of sound and second incidence: i.e. rapid movement slowing to a standstill as it reached its apex and then drift coincident with the flare decaying sometime later. (Some flares have parachutes so they can loiter for some time) My guess would be emergency services using flares to vector a rescue helicopter to their position Distress flares ffO.

Have to wait and see how 'invisibility' is qualified by these scientists. Big difference between invisible across a wide-bandwidth for the visible light spectrum and invisible at a narrow bandwidth but opaque at others. By high level radiation RedRaven, do you mean non-ionising or ionising which would still penetrate the material unless it was also exceptionally dense? Definitely shadows at differing wavelengths would be created caused both by both the inevitable scattering and absorption. 100% transmission efficiency (needed for invisibility) is something very much part of science fiction. The materials are likey to be very esoteric, difficult to manufacture and prohibitively expensive so confined to probably military applications for quite the forseable future. Much the same as transistors when first invented, I could see applications within optical computing which if realised would make future generation computers ridculously small and fast by todays standards. At that point, we may see materials coming to the mass market. ffO

Why baffled? Scientists can only postulate the mechanisms that create sunspots and have a total reliance on statistics for prediction. It's a veritable sweepstake to state when significant solar activity will resume and cycle 24 is definitively declared underway. Whilst interesting (or even exciting) for some, statistically this low period is wholly insignificant. ffO.

Snowing moderately here in Hertfordshire (Aston), about 1cm lying on grass and trees but roads clear.

Land mines are quite cheap and effective. Air horns are cheaper still and preserve your vegetables too. My neighbourhood is replete with cats wearing hearing aids.

Cautious congratulations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7268065.stm ffO

Where's the turtle gone?

Top skills. Were you in the Pacific region under the orbital path at the time or did you extrapolate orbital decay from observing multiple passes at your observation position? ffO

Lapsus calami. Mutatis mutandis: Neither. Independent sources quote 133 nautical, 153 statute miles. Which observational method did you use, laser rangefinder, Doppler RADAR, orbital period and triangulation, telemetry interception from the SM-3 or some other method? ffO