Scientists discover 15 new planets, including one “super-Earth” that could harbor liquid water

Fifteen new planets were confirmed to be orbiting red dwarf stars near our solar system. As per a report that appeared in Science Daily, one of the newly-discovered worlds is a super-Earth that could have liquid water.

The new exoplanets were located by researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech). Under the aegis of Teruyuki Hirano of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, they pored over data from the Kepler space telescope and ground-based counterparts. The Tokyo Tech team published their findings in two separate studies in The Astronomical Journal.

Red dwarfs are small and relatively cool stars. They are often studied for clues on the formation and evolution of planets.

One of those stars is K2-155. Located roughly 200 light years from Earth, it is accompanied by three super-Earths, each one a bit bigger than our planet.

The Tokyo Tech researchers believe that the outermost exoplanet, K2-155d, is inside the habitable zone of its home star. Furthermore, based on three-dimensional simulations of global climate, they determined that the surface of K2-155d might have liquid water.

“In our simulations, the atmosphere and the composition of the planet were assumed to be Earth-like, and there’s no guarantee that this is the case,” Hirano says.

To find out whether or not K2-155d could support life, the Tokyo Tech team needs a precise estimate of the radius and temperature of its local star. Astronomical interferometric techniques could be one way to achieve the necessary resolution to study K2-155’s size and temperature.

Planets around red dwarfs are remarkably similar with other planets

One of the takeaways from the Tokyo Tech studies is that there is not much difference between planets that orbit red dwarf stars and those that circle yellow stars like our own Sun. “It’s important to note that the number of planets around red dwarfs is much smaller than the number around solar-type stars,” says Hirano.

He and his fellow researchers have only scratched at the surface of the mystery surrounding red dwarf stars. Hirano mentions that they have discovered a radius gap of planets in K2-155.

Science Daily defines the radius gap as a lower occurrence of planets with a radius of 1.5 to two times the size of Earth. K2-155d sits within this gap, being 1.6 times the size of Earth.

“This is a unique finding, and many theoretical astronomers are now investigating what causes this gap,” says Hirano. Previously, the gap was only confirmed for planets around yellow stars, so this and other developments make red dwarfs very popular targets for study.

Asked about the absence of large planets located near their host stars, Hirano theorizes photoevaporation reduced the atmosphere of such planets. He also notes the correlation between a planet’s size and the metal content of the host star.

“Large planets are only discovered around metal-rich stars, and what we found was consistent with our predictions. The few planets with a radius about three times that of Earth were found orbiting the most metal-rich red dwarfs,” Hirano says. (Related: Group of Earth-like planets 40 light years away could harbor life outside the solar system.)

The hunt for exoplanets never stops

The studies were conducted as part of the KESPRINT collaboration between Kepler Exoplanet Science Team (KEST) and ESPRINT.

NASA is preparing to launch its Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) in April 2018. Hirano has high expectations for the new space telescope.

“TESS is expected to find many candidate planets around bright stars closer to Earth,” he says. “This will greatly facilitate follow-up observations, including investigation of planetary atmospheres and determining the precise orbit of the planets.”

Visit Space.news for more space-related news stories.

Via Natural News

---

Featured Image : European Southern Observatory/Flickr

The post Scientists discover 15 new planets, including one “super-Earth” that could harbor liquid water appeared first on Intellihub.

Mysterious Planet 13 Times the Size of Jupiter Spotted in the Heart if the Galaxy (VIDEO)

By Dawn Luger, The Daily Sheeple | 

An enormous planet thirteen times the size of Jupiter has been spotted in our very own galaxy. The mysterious planet is it the “heart” of our Milky Way.

The location of this planet is near the “galactic budge”, or center of the spiral galaxy we call home.  The object is thought to be about 13 times the size of Jupiter and at the outside edge of what is classified as a planet. It was spotted using “microlensing,” a process where scientists measure distortions in light when a star passes in front of another star, by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) collaboration.

The planet, known as OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, is 22,000 light years away from Earth and orbits its parent star roughly every three years. Its huge mass puts the object right at the deuterium burning limit – the conventional boundary between planets and brown dwarfs. But researchers are being careful to say that it is possible that this planetary body is a brown dwarf.

Brown dwarfs are objects too big to be a planet but yet are not massive enough to sustain the nuclear fusion which makes stars burn. “We report the discovery of OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, which is likely to be the first Spitzer microlensing planet in the galactic bulge/bar, an assignation that can be confirmed by two epochs of high-resolution imaging of the combined source-lens baseline object,” the researchers wrote.

The discovery of the celestial body could give scientists and researchers more of an opportunity to better understand the universe as we know it.

---

Dawn Luger is a staff writer and reporter for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up – follow Dawn’s work at our Facebook or Twitter.

The post Mysterious Planet 13 Times the Size of Jupiter Spotted in the Heart if the Galaxy (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Stephen Hawking: Earth Will Become A Flaming Ball Of Fire By 2600

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Physicist and professor Stephen Hawking is warning that earth will become a flaming ball of fire by the year 2600.

He also warns that if humans want to avoid permanent extinction, we should be making plans to evacuate the earth.

Hawking claims that mankind will destroy the earth making it a fireball within the next 600 years. The renowned physicist believes soaring population sizes and consequential increasing demands for energy and food will lead to the catastrophe. Hawking also says that humanity should begin looking to the stars to avoid this fate, with our nearest neighbor Alpha Centauri the best candidate for our escape. Hawking also urged financial backers to put funds behind a project that would send probes to the star system.

The Alpha Centauri system is the closest star system to our sun and consists of three stars. Of those three stars, Proxima is the closest to our sun. At a mere 4.367 light years away, on our sky’s dome, we see this multiple star system as a single star – the third-brightest star visible from Earth. And it’s this system that Hawking has his eye on.

Stephen Hawking

Hawking made the comments while speaking via video link at the Tencent Web Summit, held in Beijing. The British cosmologist, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at age 21, is backing the Breakthrough Starshot project. That project will likely see a probe sent to Alpha Centauri in the very near future; 20 years or so.

“The idea behind this innovation is to have the nano craft on the light beam. Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years,” Hawking said praising the Breakthrough Starshot project. Astronomers feel that there is a reasonable chance that an Earth-like planet exists in one of the habitable zones within the star system too.

Right now, the fastest spacecraft would take 30,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. But Hawking also threw another doomsday prediction on the table.  At the 2017 Web Summit, held in Lisbon and attended by around 60,000 people, he warns that AI (artificial intelligence) is on the verge of replacing people.

 According to Hawking, humanity must be prepared to tackle artificial intelligence to stop robots replacing people. Hawking said the technology could transform every aspect of life in some good ways, but cautioned that intelligent machines pose new challenges. He said robots are already threatening millions of jobs but that this new revolution could be used to help society and for the good of the world, including alleviating poverty and disease.

“The rise of AI could be the worst or the best thing that has happened for humanity,” Hawking said via video link at the opening night of the summit on Monday.

 

“We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management and prepare for its consequences well in advance.”

DoD Plans Solar-Storm-Based National Blackout Drill During Antifa Protests In November

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

According to The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will simulate a  “communications interoperability” training exercise across the United States on November 04-06. The announcement released on October 24 has not been widely distributed to the media, because the drill is simulating a total grid collapse and could spark public fear.

Explained by Army MARS Program Manager Paul English,

“This exercise will begin with a national massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,”

In July, we warned about the US government quietly preparing for a massive coronal mass ejection with the passage of an Executive Order - “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events”.

Here is snippet of section 1 of the executive order:   

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly, some with measurable effects on critical infrastructure systems and technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite operations and communication, aviation, and the electrical power grid. Extreme space weather events — those that could significantly degrade critical infrastructure — could disable large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation. Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.

Back in April 2017, we wrote an article titled ‘Yesterday’s Broad Power Outage Likely Caused By Geomagnetic Storm‘. While everyone thought terrorism was to blame, we correctly pointed out that large power failures in major US cities was due to an intense geomagnetic storm registering 8-10 on K-Planetary Index.

Earthsky.org provides an easy understanding of what is a cornoal mass ejection…

A CME can launch a billion tons of plasma from the sun’s surface into space, at speeds of over a million miles per hour. Every so often, the sun burps.  But, unlike myself, when the sun burps, it does so with the power of 20 million nuclear bombs.  These hiccups are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs)—powerful eruptions near the surface of the sun driven by kinks in the solar magnetic field.  The resulting shocks ripple through the solar system and can interrupt satellites and power grids on Earth.

 Back to the exercise on November 04-06,  the US Department of Defense headquarters entity will work with the US Army and US Air-Force MARS organizations and the Amateur Radio community to request status reports for 3,143 US counties. During the exercise, communication frequencies will use HF NVIS, VHF, UHF, and non-internet linked Amateur Radio repeaters.

In addition, Army MARS Program Manager Paul English said,

We want to continue building on the outstanding cooperative working relationship with the ARRL and the Amateur Radio community,” English said. “We want to expand the use of the 60-meter interop channels between the military and amateur community for emergency communications, and we hope the Amateur Radio community will give us some good feedback on the use of both the 5-MHz interop and the new 13-MHz broadcast channels as a means of information dissemination during a very bad day scenario. 

Full Report from The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL):

Bizarrely enough, this was first reported by Rob Dew of InfoWars, the US Department of Defense (DOD) training exercise will occur on ANTIFA’s day of rage across the United States.

On refusefascism.org, a post titled: November 4 It Begins: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! has more than 33,000 shares on Facebook…. The post explains what the group’s intentions are during the day of rage.

The bottom line: The United States government is quietly preparing for a major space-weather event to paralyze communication systems and energy grids across the entire country. As a citizen, you’re not allowed to know this knowledge and frankly you will not be prepared—only the government will be. The writing is on the wall of what is coming through an executive order and DOD drills.

No wonder public trust with government is at historic lows, because you’re not allowed to know the truth.

Simultaneously, the wealthiest families who own mega corporations in the United States are plowing millions into their proxy armies called community organizing groups. Let’s just hope, a coronal mass ejection doesn’t occur when these severely misguided folks are protesting.

*  *  *

Here is the curve ball: Is the United States really preparing for a North Korean EMP attack?

 

 

NASA: "Sun Erupts With Significant Flare"

Around 12:06 p.m EDT on Sept 10, 2017, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the sun unleashing a massive solar flare from a recently active region. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth"s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.  Per NASA,

This flare is classified as an X8.2-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.  

The X9.3 flare was the largest flare so far in the current solar cycle, the approximately 11-year-cycle during which the sun’s activity waxes and wanes. The current solar cycle began in December 2008, and is now decreasing in intensity and heading toward solar minimum. This is a phase when such eruptions on the sun are increasingly rare, but history has shown that they can nonetheless be intense.

This flare is the capstone on a series of flares from Active Region 2673, which was identified on Aug. 29 and is currently rotating off the front of the sun as part of our star’s normal rotation.

The flare was captured in the following NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center video.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of the solar flare:

The flare as seen in the bright flash on the right side on Sept. 10, 2017.

More details:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration signals X8.2 (R3-STRONG) X-RAY EVENT OBSERVED AT 10/1606 UTC. Primary areas impact includes ‘large portions of sunlit side of earth’. Possible effects include wide spread HF radio blackouts and navigation degradation through GPS (loss in signal).

As SWL.com notes, "yesterday"s X8.2 (R3-strong) solar flare from sunspot region 2673 was one of the most spectacular solar flares we have ever seen. Not only was this the second strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle, it also launched an extremely fast and broad coronal mass ejection:

Following the flare, we quickly reached the strong S3 solar radiation storm level which only takes place about 10 times during a 11 year solar cycle. Possible effects of the ongoing S3 solar radiation storm are: degraded HF radio propagation at polar regions and navigation position errors, satellite effects on imaging systems and solar panel currents, significant radiation hazard to astronauts on extra-vehicular activity (EVA) and high-latitude aircraft passengers.

The coronal mass ejection is as far as we can remember one of the fastest coronal mass ejections of the current solar cycle as we measured the ejecta at a whopping 2,700km/s to 2,800km/s! To compare: The X28 coronal mass ejection from 4 November 2003 left the Sun at 2,400km/s! Goes to show this is an extreme coronal mass ejection that would without a doubt cause intense geomagnetic storming if it would have been launched directly at Earth.

SOHO/LASCO imagery shows an impressive asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection which means the outer edges of the solar plasma cloud are directed straight at (or away) from the observing space craft. It is therefor hard to say if this edge is directed towards the front side, the far side or both but taking into account the monstrous coronal wave and the jump in the low-energy EPAM protons, we are fairly confident that we are going to see at least a shock passage or a glancing blow at Earth. You can see the coronal wave in the tweet that we posted yesterday.

The X8.2 solar flare is highly eruptive with a fast and broad coronal wave. Wow! pic.twitter.com/ZYhVrAu9D7

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) September 10, 2017

As SWL adds, while the flanks of a coronal mass ejection are always a bit slower than the bulk, the transit time should still be around one and a half day or about 36 to 40 hours (calculated with SARM) which puts the expected impact time of this coronal mass ejection at 06:00 UTC on 12 September 2017 with a plus/minus of 6 hours. The NOAA SWPC has a much later impact time, late on September 13.

Subsequent coronagraph imagery analysis has been concluded. The full halo coronal mass ejection (CME) was so powerful and widespread, there actually appears to be an Earth directed component, most evident when viewing the LASCO C3 (blue color) video. If so, an impact to the earth"s geomagnetic field may be possible as soon as tomorrow.

According to the latest tracking models, the edge of the large CME may deliver a glancing blow to our geomagnetic field by Sept. 13th. This combined with an anticipated coronal hole stream may help to enhance activity. A Moderate (G2) storm watch will be in effect.

Huge Solar Flare Sparks Widespread Blackouts, May Deter Korean Missile Launch This Weekend

The sun just released a massive solar flare.

In fact, as SHTFplan.com"s Mac Slavo details, this is the largest solar flare emitted in the past decade, and the earth has already been affected by blackouts.

NASA has reported a huge solar flare was emitted by the Sun and it is the most powerful one since 2006.  

This solar flare has already caused some radio blackouts on Earth and it may cause aurora visible as far south as London.  On the morning of September 6, scientists watched as two X-flares were unleashed by the sun.

The stronger flare was the second of the two emitted by the Sun yesterday morning and it was seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). At 5:10 AM EDT, the Sun unleashed an X2.2 flare, with X-class denoting the most intense flares. Then, at 8:02 AM EDT, a much bigger flare measuring X9.3 was unleashed. By comparison, the last time we saw a flare this big was in 2006, which measured at X9.0. The number shows the intensity, with X2 being twice as intense as X1, X3 three times as intense, and so on.

The loops of plasma emitted during these two flares were ten times the size of planet Earth. Scientists got to watch the massive coronal mass ejection from these flares, which can be seen below in the gif provided.

According to NASA, the flares were emitted from an active region of the Sun known as AR 2673. This region also emitted a mid-level flare on September 4, 2017. But scientists say the timing of these big flares is rather odd as the Sun is currently heading towards the quieter period of its 11-year solar cycle known as solar minimum. This cycle began in 2008, with solar minimum expected in the next couple of years.

“This is a phase when such eruptions on the Sun are increasingly rare, but history has shown that they can nonetheless be intense,” said NASA.

And this one had some effects on life on Earth.  It knocked out the high-frequency radio, according to the NOAA, and degraded low-frequency navigation. But the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said it was expecting some radio blackouts yesterday, and the high-frequency radio was expected to drop out for an hour.

The particles from the CME (coronal mass ejection) can also cause aurora activity further south than normal as they interact with Earth’s magnetosphere.

*The map above shows how far south the aurora will be visible thanks to these solar flares.  If interested, watch the skies for the show.

Scientists aren’t sure yet if the CME was directed towards Earth. If it does come our way, it could cause a strong geomagnetic storm that will further hamper communications.

*  *  *

But there is a silver-lining to this massive solar flare.

As Bloomberg points out, North Korea could decide to delay its next ballistic missile launch because the current outbreak of severe geomagnetic storms can pose a risk to electronic equipment.

As we detailed previously, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Thursday the next launch could come on Saturday, the anniversary of North Korea’s founding.

But, while missiles are generally heavily shielded against radiation, Kim Jong Un may decide not to risk firing one during the solar flares in case they lose data or ancillary equipment, said Lance Gatling, an aerospace consultant with Nexial Research in Tokyo.

He added that the U.S. and Japan might be hoping for a launch so they can test detection and tracking equipment in a storm environment.

But while that temporary cessation of North Korea"s nuclear development is positive, StockBoardAsset notes that the solar flare shows that our modern economies and societies are fragile.

There is a reason why our Government and NASA are preparing as highlighted in the recent Exec Order.

This week"s X-9 solar flare - the largest in a decade should serve as a reminder how close we really are to the edge. At the same time, a Hurricane in the Atlantic called Irma strengthens to a CAT-5 with winds near 185mph spiraling towards Florida. Perhaps, the sun and earth are more interconnected than we think as junk science called global warming distracts the true understanding of how nature works.

Watch Live: Today's Once-In-A-Century Solar Eclipse

Experiencing a total solar eclipse is rare. And a solar eclipse that emcompasses the entire Continental US is even more rare. Which is why people from across the US will take a break from work and school and go outside for a glimpse of a total eclipse that"s expected to last just two minutes and 40 seconds.

The eclipse is expected to make landfall near Depoe Bay, Oregon at 10:15 local time and it will eventually pass into the Atlantic Ocean in South Carolina around 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Anyone who misses out on this year"s eclipse will have to wait seven years until the next one in April 2024.

In total, the moon will cast its shadow over the U.S. just a little longer than the duration of a feature movie, 1h and 33 minutes.

Observers outside the direct path of the total eclipse will still see a partial eclipse, where the moon covers just part of the sun. The next total eclipse over parts of North America won"t be witnessed until April 2024, then crossing from the south west, from Mexico, to the north east, towards Canada.

Luckily, for those chained to their desks, NASA has several livefeeds that will be monitoring the eclipse as it crosses the US.

According to Statista, the last eclipse to touch any part of the US occurred in July 1991, with only Hawaii experiencing it. The experience for locals was hampered by poor weather. But today’s event is even more rare, Statista explains, because it will cross the US from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast – the first to do so since 1918.

“The last total eclipse within the contiguous 48 United States occurred on February 26, 1979.

The "cosmic ballet" today is going to be the first one since 1918 where the path of darkness will cross the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as well as the first that will make landfall exclusively in the U.S. since independence in 1776.”

The eclipse’s 70-mile wide path of totality, an area where the moon will completel block out the Sun, plunging the area into darkness for a few minutes, doesn’t pass through any major US cities. However, nearly 200 million Americans live within a day’s drive of the eclipse, so towns and national parks in the 12 states within the path are bracing for a massive influx of visitors.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Not sure when to start watching? Check out the eclipse timeline below:

Eclipse Warning: "1000s Of People Will Damage or Entirely Lose Their Eyesight Tomorrow"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

With a rare solar eclipse approaching and millions of people flocking to locations around the United States that are in or near the path of totality, some may not realize that the celestial event poses an extreme danger.

As noted by Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker, while the August 21st solar eclipse may be a once in a lifetime sight to see, the actual act of seeing it may cause serious damage to your eyesight:

You’ve probably seen various sites talking about safety issues.  The issues are real, and what I’m sharing with you on this post is important.  

Read it, understand it, do not believe for one second that any of this can be trifled with and if you have young people around you make damn sure they understand all of this as well.

There will be thousands of people who will either damage or entirely lose their eyesight tomorrow and there is exactly zero that a doc in the ER or anywhere else will be able to do for you if you wind up screwing yourself by being ignorant, stupid or both.

Please do not be one of the people that have that happen.

Denninger’s full warning can be found here.

Because the eyes do not have pain receptors, if you are looking at the eclipse you will not know that your eyes are literally burning.

There will be no forewarning that you are about to lose your eyesight. And there will be nothing a doctor can do to restore your vision once the damage has been done.

Sun glasses will not help.

Only a commercial grade visual-rated solar filter will safely protect the eyes and as reported earlier this week, even those have been counterfeited and sold at places like Amazon.com.

We urge our readers to speak with friends and family about this very serious threat to your vision, especially if you have young children.

Map:

US Government Prepares For 'Space Weather Event' As NASA Warns "Solar Minimum Is Coming"

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

A new report and video out from NASA about the upcoming ‘solar minimum’ has been published. The report titled ‘Solar Minimum is Coming’ outlines every 11-years, the sun oscillates from a solar minimum to a maximum. Today, the sun is called “solar minimum,” says Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. “And it’s a regular part of the sunspot cycle”. The sun is heading towards a solar minimum where the sunspot count will be relatively low.

The report goes on to say, “while intense activity such as sunspots and solar flares subside during solar minimum, that doesn’t mean the sun becomes dull. Solar activity simply changes form”. During a solar minimum, we can expect more space weather events called coronal holes.

According to the report, coronal holes are vast regions of the sun’s atmosphere where the sun’s magnetic field opens up and allows streams of solar particles to escape the sun as fast solar wind.

Pesnell says “We see these holes throughout the solar cycle, but during solar minimums, they can last for a long time – six months or more”. Solar particles from coronal holes are then ejected towards earth’s magnetic field causing space weather events.

Space weather refers to the environmental conditions in Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere due to the Sun and the solar wind that can influence the functioning and reliability of spaceborne and ground-based systems and services or endanger property or human health.

Meanwhile, The White House in October 2016 quietly passed through an Executive Order— “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events”. 

Here is snippet of section 1 of the executive order:   

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly, some with measurable effects on critical infrastructure systems and technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite operations and communication, aviation, and the electrical power grid. Extreme space weather events — those that could significantly degrade critical infrastructure — could disable large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation. Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.

Back in April 2017, we wrote an article titled ‘Yesterday’s Broad Power Outage Likely Caused By Geomagnetic Storm‘. While everyone thought terrorism was to blame, we correctly pointed out that large power failures in major US cities was due to an intense geomagnetic storm registering 8-10 on K-Planetary Index.

Conclusion: Our fragile nation is not adequately prepared for space weather events as highlighted in the recent Exec Order.

Frankly, this should of been done years ago, but it appears that our nation will soon deal with the consequences such as April 2017 power failures in major US-cities. Couple the solar minimum period with The Fourth Turning in the west, and we’re staring at the perfect cocktail for self-destruction of an empire. Perhaps, the downfall of America is not some external threat that the mainstream media makes you believe, but in actuality, it’s an implosion from with-in. It’s happened to the greatest empires that have attempted to rule our planet, why not now? 

Don’t believe me? Here are various minimums verse the rise and fall of Chinese Dynasties

*  *  *

Addendum: one reader noted the deja vu divergence once again between declining sunspot activity and surging stock prices... did not end well last time...

The Fourth Turning: A Summer Of Rage And The Total Eclipse Of The Deep State

Authored by By Michael Hart and StockBoardAsset,

“If you do a worldwide survey of eclipse lore, the theme that constantly appears, with few exceptions, is it’s always a disruption of the established order,” said E. C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. That’s true of both solar and lunar eclipses. 

“People depend on the sun’s movement,” Krupp said. “[It’s] regular, dependable, you can’t tamper with it. And then, all of a sudden, Shakespearean tragedy arrives and time is out of joint. The sun and moon do something that they shouldn’t be doing.”

On August 21st of this year, the United States will witness its first total solar eclipse seen across the totality of the country in nearly forty years. For millennia, humans have gazed towards the skies in awe, observing that heavenly bodies move regularly and predictably with mathematical certainty, and this has inspired poets, philosophers, and other thinkers to ruminate on man’s relationship to the universe, and the possibility that human activity is ruled by laws and patterns independent of human activity.

Although many of these ideas that were fashionable hundreds of years ago, such as astrology, have been put to rest by contemporary scientific knowledge, perhaps there is value to be gleaned from entertaining the possibility that there are indeed larger forces and patterns governing human affairs. Against the backdrop of this cosmically anomalous event, are we on the cusp of a more temporal form of disruption this summer in the United States?

Since President Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, much of the press have made note of Steve Bannon’s interest in an influential book published in 1997 called, “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous With Destiny.”

In this book, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe make the argument that our ideas about the nature of history, linear time, and progress are illusory, and that if we want a more accurate concept about the way that history unfolds, we would do well to study the ancient Greek concept of cyclical time. This concept views national and global historical phenomenon not as randomly occurring events, or the linear march of historical “progress,” but instead sees them as recurring archetypes placed into a larger tapestry of a greater repeating historical cycle.

According to Strauss and Howe, the relative geographic and historical isolation of the United States provides a unique opportunity to view this cycle unfolding regularly and predictably every 80 years.

This 80-year cycle can be divided into four stages or seasons, each lasting approximately twenty years:

1. High– This initial stage occurs immediately following a period of crisis. The High is characterized by strong institutions, a sense of collective destiny, and a weakness of individuality. The most recent example of this would be the period of prosperity and conformity in the U.S. immediately following the conclusion of World War II.


2. Awakening- The second stage, or turning, is a period of questioning established values and asserting one’s independence from established norms and morals, be they spiritual or political. This stage may be seen as a rebellion of the previous era’s emphasis on material wealth and conformity. The 1960’s, with the psychedelic revolution, anti-war protests, Civil Rights marches, and New Age spiritual movements can be seen as recent characteristics of this second stage, as well as Reaganomics and the mid-1980s Wall Street ethos.


3. Unraveling- The emphasis on autonomy and the questioning of spiritual, political, and individual authority in the Awakening stage eventually destabilizes society, leading to the Third Turning, in which institutions are weak and untrusted while the subjective experience of the individual is emphasized. This stage can be thought of as the inverse of the initial High stage, where collective destiny is replaced by atomization. Recent symptom of this stage would be the culture wars, corporate malfeasance, a lack of faith in government, social justice movements, and political correctness.


4. Crisis- In the Fourth Turning, a destabilizing event, usually involving warfare, leads to the destruction and reconstruction of institutions of power. In the face of destruction, Americans are forced to unite and forge a vision to restructure a disrupted society. This fourth stage can be seen as the inverse of the Awakening stage, and the authors cite World War II as the defining event of the most recent period of Crisis.

Strauss and Howe predicted that the next Crisis period that the U.S. would face would happen sometime around 2005 and end around 2025. Anyone who has been paying attention over the last decade would have a difficult time refuting this. The financial crisis of 2008 threw the planet into discord, and we are now just beginning to see some of the political ramifications of this. We may be reaching the apex of this crisis this summer, or at least we will witness a significant acceleration of it.

The institutions that once defined American stability are rapidly crumbling. Mounting debt, unsustainable consumerism, and illegal immigration are chipping away at once sturdy foundation of America.

And the robust civil discourse needed to solve these problems has been interrupted by advocates of social justice, sometimes violently. Recent small skirmishes between the two sides may be headed toward larger eruptions.

Some analysts are predicting a ‘Summer of Rage’, which will boil over in violent protests all across the United States. The DNC has called for a George Soros-financed ‘Resistance Summer’, in which protestors are encouraged to invade town halls, and organize rallies and neighborhood meetings to undermine President Trump. This will culminate in a national training being billed as a ‘Resistance Summer Camp’ to effectively train operatives inorganizing strategies.

Meanwhile, other leftist groups are calling for a day of ‘Impeachment Marches’ on July 2nd in dozens of major cities across the country. Their goal is to pressure congressional representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

Emboldened by a mainstream media apparatus which functions as a mouthpiece of Deep State interests, these activists are determined to overturn democratically elected officials and overturn law and order on the grounds that they personally disagree with the results.

As we have seen in recent months, Trump supporters, conservatives, and other patriots are not afraid to confront leftist activists in the streets, and this is likely to intensify as these DNC-backed groups become more desperate and confrontational in their tactics.

James Comey’s congressional testimony this week showed that the Trump administration is indeed attempting to break the old political order and its far-too-power Deep State. The cracks are surfacing now, and this will likely shatter and spill into many facets of social life outside of the realm of politics.

This shattering seems to be the apex, or perhaps the precursor to the major Crisis event described by Strauss and Howe in the Fourth Turning, and it is proving to be a global movement, as evidenced by the recent elections this week in the United Kingdom.

As the Soros-backed DNC footsoldiers wreak havoc in American cities this summer, and the old political order is eclipsed by what is shaping up to be a much more democratic order, we can expect these types of events to increase in frequency as well as intensity.