EU Embargo on Iran Oil Takes Effect
July 1, 2012, 3:35 p.m. ET
By JERRY A. DICOLO
...European Union's full embargo on Iranian oil takes hold.
On Sunday, the EU embargo on Iran's oil exports began in earnest, halting the vast majority of imports into Europe...
Monday marks the first day of oil trading under the embargo, and the International Energy Agency estimates as much as one million barrels of Iran's crude may leave the market.
 Oil companies, including French oil major Total SA, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, have already ended their dealings with Tehran to comply with the embargo. Countries outside of Europe are following suit. South Korea last week said it would suspend Iranian imports by July 1. India may also be forced to halt imports as insurance for most of Iran's shipments has been provided by European firms...
Earlier this year, concerns about a confrontation between Iran and the West over the Iranian nuclear program helped send oil prices above $105 a barrel on the New York Mercantile...
The biggest contributor to oil-market calm has been Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a rival of Iran in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Khalid Al-Falih, the chief executive of state-owned oil producer Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Co. said in May that the kingdom's output is more than 10 million barrels a day...
A demand slump in Europe and economic slowdowns in the U.S. and China have also reduced fears about global supplies...
"If demand recovers, you will see the shortage quite quickly," she said.
Until the ban's full effects are known, many are bracing for the possibility of renewed tensions with Iran or hiccups in the supply chain...With the new sanctions, the dispute will test past Iranian threats, which included a vow to cut off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for global oil supplies...
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Source: Mehr News Agency, Tehran
A three-day missile exercise of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, entitled the Great Prophet 7, will begin on Monday, according to the commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC.
"During the war games, long-range, medium-range, and short-range missiles will be used and will be fired from different points across the country at 100 designated targets," Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told reporters during a press conference in Tehran on Sunday.
He also said that domestically manufactured missiles will be fired at bases modeled on airbases of the extra-regional powers, which have been constructed in the heart of the Semnan desert in north central Iran in order to allow experts to assess the precision and efficiency of warheads and missile systems.
On the country's latest missile achievements, Hajizadeh said that the domestically designed surface-to-surface Qiam (Uprising) missile has been mass-produced and will be used during the war games.
The Persian Gulf anti-ship missile, which has been produced by the Defense Ministry, will also be test-fired during the exercises, he said.
During the maneuvers, unmanned aircraft will carry out operations, he added.
 Shahab 3 test firing in September 2009
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that the IRGC has designed a new anti-radar ballistic missile, which has a range of 300 kilometers, travels several times faster than the speed of sound, and is able to destroy air defense systems and any base that transmits radar signals.
The early warning radar in Turkey, which is part of NATO's missile defense system, the proposed missile defense shield in the Persian Gulf, and Israel's Iron Dome air defense system are vulnerable to the IRGC's new ballistic missile, the commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC added.
On the sidelines of the press conference, Hajizadeh said that if Israel attacks Iran, it will be obliterated by Iranian missiles.
Iran Works to Counter EU Oil Embargo EffectsBy Samuel Rubenfeld
Iran is working to offset the effect of a European Union embargo on imports of its crude by bartering with China and selling refined products like gasoline to its neighbors, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The EU embargo, which went into effect Sunday, cuts off oil access for Tehran to the 27 member states, and bars insurance for any tanker carrying Iranian crude anywhere in the world. EU officials re-affirmed last week it would impose the embargo following a review of its effects.
If Iran doesn’t succeed in offsetting the sanctions, the Journal report said, Tehran may have to shut down its oil wells, which could damage reservoirs over time and drive up oil prices.
The West is ratcheting up sanctions as talks over Iran’s nuclear program, which the EU, Israel and the U.S. say is for military purposes but Tehran says is for civilian use, have failed to resolve the issue. Low-level talks by experts are scheduled for Istanbul this week, though they come after failures recently among high-level officials.
“With this decision, our partners in the EU have underscored the seriousness with which the international community views the challenge of Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” the White House said Sunday in a statement. “Iran has an opportunity to pursue substantive negotiations, beginning with expert level talks this week in Istanbul.”
Ahead of the embargo, Europe said it was prepared for a dropoff of global supply. The EU measures went into effect just days after U.S. sanctions that punish anyone doing oil business with Iran’s central bank came into force.
Iran said it’s ready to deal with the sanctions, according to the Journal report.
“All possible options have been planned in government to counter” the sanctions, Iran’s Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi was quoted by the Journal as saying Sunday in comments on the ministry’s website.
However, the Journal report also cites the head of National Iranian Oil Co. as saying the EU embargo will cause a 20%-30% reduction in crude exports for the second half of the year.
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Monday, July 2, 2012
Oil Embargo On Iran. Iranian Missile War Games Begin. Coincidence?
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Fast & Furious. A Planned Diversion for Gun Control Plot. President Obama and Hillary Clinton Using Eric Holder as a Puppet.
The following is Eric Holder talking about brainwashing the American people into thinking differently about guns so that they can put their gun control plot into place...then, Fast & Furious happens to come out and no one can get their stories straight. This plot of Fast & Furious had to come to Brian Terry's death because it only validates the need for gun control and this only calls out to the American people the need, further brainwashing them into the control of the puppeteers. The citing of Holder in contempt was only a minor setback.
"As expected, the Justice has informed Congress that the U.S. attorney will not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt, despite Thursday's House vote.
"The longstanding position of the Department of Justice has been and remains that we will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," says Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter to the House speaker, John Boehner.
The letter notes that during the Reagan administration, DOJ took the position that the contempt statute could not constitutionally be applied to an official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege. That policy was first articulated in a memo written by Ted Olson when he was at DOJ in 1984.
Cole writes that the position has been asserted several times since then, most recently during the Bush administration in 2008. He concludes by saying that the Justice Department has determined that Holder's response to the House committee subpoena "does not constitute a crime" and the Department will not refer the matter to a grand jury "or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general." ~ MSNBC
This is not a surprise, due to the fact that Obama used to teach classes on Constitutional Law, however, not as a tenured Professor, as he tried to make it seem on the campaign trail...
"Singer (March 27): Sen. Obama has often referred to himself as “a constitutional law professor” out on the campaign trail. He never held any such title. And I think anyone, if you ask anyone in academia the distinction between a professor who has tenure and an instructor that does not, you’ll find that there is … you’ll get quite an emotional response.
UC Law School statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demandcareers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined." ~ FactCheck
The following is a 1995 video of Holder talking about the brainwashing of Americans about their attitude toward guns.
"HOLDER, Your Fired !! WTF, let's not forget DOJ whistle blower J. Christian Adams who quit his job over the Black Panther voter intimidation case, when he testified that under Holder the DOJ is operating an anti-White agenda in the civil rights division. He also released a book called "INJUSTICE" where he describes in detail how the DOJ under Obama & Holder have become radicalized with an anti-white agenda. Not to mention his war on Arizona & other states for enforcing existing federal Law,WTF!!" ~ posted under the following video.
Does anyone really believe that Barack Obama "heard it from the news"? We already know that Holder lied ... he's already admitted that although he had previously said he first learned about Fast and Furious at the beginning of the year - he should have said in May that his knowledge of the sting dated back a couple of months rather than weeks.
"*UPDATE* http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-silencing-fast-and-furious-repor...
CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious
http://www.infowars.com/fast-and-furious-22-shocking-facts-about-the-scandal-...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-reporter-says-white-house-scream...
The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun trafficking operation. Recently released documents say Holder was briefed about the operation long before he told the Judiciary Committee he was first aware of what was going on. (Holder now claims he misunderstood the question was being asked.)
What's more, CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson -- who's been covering the scandal from the beginning -- says in an interview on the Laura Ingraham Show today that the White House and Justice Department have taken to screaming at her for reporting on the story. You can listen to the full interview below, but here are the key excerpts from Attkisson:
In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman--who would not put anything in writing, I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said, she wouldn't put anything in writing--so we talked on the phone and she said things such as the question Holder answered was different than the one he asked. But he phrased it, he said very explicitly, 'I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.'
And:
Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me.
[Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?]
Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."
Finally, Attkisson notes that the White House is claiming that a thorough investigation of the scandal is unwarranted:
[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-reporter-says-white-house-scream...
http://www.infowars.com
http://www.prisonplanet.com
http://www.ae911truth.org
http://www.infowars.com/fast-and-furious-22-shocking-facts-about-the-scandal-..." ~ from the following poster
"As expected, the Justice has informed Congress that the U.S. attorney will not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt, despite Thursday's House vote.
"The longstanding position of the Department of Justice has been and remains that we will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," says Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter to the House speaker, John Boehner.
The letter notes that during the Reagan administration, DOJ took the position that the contempt statute could not constitutionally be applied to an official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege. That policy was first articulated in a memo written by Ted Olson when he was at DOJ in 1984.
Cole writes that the position has been asserted several times since then, most recently during the Bush administration in 2008. He concludes by saying that the Justice Department has determined that Holder's response to the House committee subpoena "does not constitute a crime" and the Department will not refer the matter to a grand jury "or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general." ~ MSNBC
This is not a surprise, due to the fact that Obama used to teach classes on Constitutional Law, however, not as a tenured Professor, as he tried to make it seem on the campaign trail...
"Singer (March 27): Sen. Obama has often referred to himself as “a constitutional law professor” out on the campaign trail. He never held any such title. And I think anyone, if you ask anyone in academia the distinction between a professor who has tenure and an instructor that does not, you’ll find that there is … you’ll get quite an emotional response.
UC Law School statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand
The following is a 1995 video of Holder talking about the brainwashing of Americans about their attitude toward guns.
"HOLDER, Your Fired !! WTF, let's not forget DOJ whistle blower J. Christian Adams who quit his job over the Black Panther voter intimidation case, when he testified that under Holder the DOJ is operating an anti-White agenda in the civil rights division. He also released a book called "INJUSTICE" where he describes in detail how the DOJ under Obama & Holder have become radicalized with an anti-white agenda. Not to mention his war on Arizona & other states for enforcing existing federal Law,WTF!!" ~ posted under the following video.
June 21, 2012
Video: How did Barack Obama Know About 'Fast and Furious' Before Eric Holder?
This video shows conflicts between Eric Holder and Barack Obama on when each claimed to know about 'Fast and Furious.' Going by the video, even the CNN news anchor wonders how did Obama know about 'Fast and Furious' before Attorney General Eric Holder claims he learned about it.
Does anyone really believe that Barack Obama "heard it from the news"? We already know that Holder lied ... he's already admitted that although he had previously said he first learned about Fast and Furious at the beginning of the year - he should have said in May that his knowledge of the sting dated back a couple of months rather than weeks.
""Thinktown USA" puts together facts and a timeline of our awesome government's illegal, deadly, and - uh, secret - gun running operation that's killing Mexicans and Americans. For something that no one knows about, they sure are avoiding answering any questions about it!" ~ from the following poster
"*UPDATE* http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-silencing-fast-and-furious-repor...
CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious
http://www.infowars.com/fast-and-furious-22-shocking-facts-about-the-scandal-...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-reporter-says-white-house-scream...
The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun trafficking operation. Recently released documents say Holder was briefed about the operation long before he told the Judiciary Committee he was first aware of what was going on. (Holder now claims he misunderstood the question was being asked.)
What's more, CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson -- who's been covering the scandal from the beginning -- says in an interview on the Laura Ingraham Show today that the White House and Justice Department have taken to screaming at her for reporting on the story. You can listen to the full interview below, but here are the key excerpts from Attkisson:
In between the yelling that I received from Justice Department yesterday, the spokeswoman--who would not put anything in writing, I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said, she wouldn't put anything in writing--so we talked on the phone and she said things such as the question Holder answered was different than the one he asked. But he phrased it, he said very explicitly, 'I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.'
And:
Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?
Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me.
[Laura: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?]
Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House."
Finally, Attkisson notes that the White House is claiming that a thorough investigation of the scandal is unwarranted:
[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-reporter-says-white-house-scream...
http://www.infowars.com
http://www.prisonplanet.com
http://www.ae911truth.org
http://www.infowars.com/fast-and-furious-22-shocking-facts-about-the-scandal-..." ~ from the following poster
SPACE QUAKES, EARTHQUAKES, SPACEWEATHER. A LOT GOING ON!
SPACE WEATHER, SPACEQUAKES, SKYQUAKES, ETC.
THERE IS A LOT GOING ON...
Image credit: CC 3.0 R N Marshman
Posted on Friday, 11 March, 2011 |
1 comment
Columnist: William B Stoecker
We live for the most part on the surface of the land, although we travel through the sky and on the surface of the sea. Rarely do most of us venture underground, and never to any great depth. Only two men have been to the deepest trench in the sea, and only a handful have ventured far beyond our atmosphere. And strange and sometimes frightening mysteries emerge from under the sea, under the Earth, and, especially, from the sky. It is in the sky (and sometimes emerging from or entering the sea) that we see UFOs. Blocks of ice, fish, frogs, and other things fall from the sky, with no explanation. And then there are the “skyquakes”…loud, booming sounds, rather like cannon fire, with no known origin.
The small town of Moodus, Connecticut is plagued by loud booms that seem to come from the area of Cave Hill and Mt. Tom. Skeptics attribute these noises to shallow earthquakes, and there was a real earthquake there on 5/6/1791, but no tremors have been recorded when the noises are heard. The local Algonquin and other Indians believed that the noises were caused by the demon Hobomock, and called the area “Matchimoodus” or”Matchemadoset,” meaning “place of bad noises.”
Barisal, on the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh at the mouth of the Ganges River, has the “Barisal Guns.” Beginning at least as far back as the eighteen seventies, there were reports of “cannon fire” in groups of two or three, coming from the south or southwest (the Bay), usually from February through October, and seldom from November through January, with no earthquakes detected or thunderstorms reported. The monsoon usually arrives in June and lasts through September, covering only part of the time when the “guns” are commonly heard.
Similar mysterious booming sounds are called “mistpoeffers” in Belgium and the Netherlands, or “marinas” or “brontodi” in Italy, “retembos” in the Philippines, and “fog guns” in several other places. Loud booms have been reported from Western Australia and the State of Victoria, from New Brunswick, Canada near Passamquoddy Bay, Cedar Keys in Florida, Lough Neagh in Ireland, the Adriatic, northern Georgia (the one in the United States), and Franklinville, New York. In New York State they are called the “Seneca Guns.” Lewis and Clark reported a mysterious booming sound on 7/4/1805.
Solar wind
speed: 637.1 km/sec
density: 3.5 protons/cm3explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at 2025 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M1 1832 UT Jun30
24-hr: M1 1832 UT Jun30
explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at: 2000 UT
Uploaded by highercalling88 on Jul 29, 2010
http://highercalling88.com/ Researchers using NASA's fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it "the spacequake." A spacequake is a temblor in Earth's magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.
"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.
It's an apt analogy because "the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
In 2007, THEMIS discovered the precursors of spacequakes. The action begins in Earth's magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth. On more than one occasion, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these "plasma jets" swept by. Clearly, the jets were going to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The fleet moved closer to the planet to find out.
"Now we know," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Plasma jets trigger spacequakes."
According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth's equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it "repetitive flow rebuffing." It's akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.
"We've long suspected that something like this was happening," says Sibeck. "By observing the process in situ, however, THEMIS has discovered something new and surprising."
The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.
"When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet," explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. "We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment."
Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth's atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.
After THEMIS discovered the jets and quakes, Joachim Birn of the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico conducted a computer simulation of the rebounding process. Lo and behold, vortices appeared in good accord with THEMIS measurements. Moreover, the simulations suggest that the rebounding process can be seen from Earth's surface in the form of ripples and whirls in auroral displays. Ground stations report just such a phenomenon.
"It's a complicated process, but it all fits together," says Sibeck.
The work isn't finished. "We still have a lot to learn," he adds. "How big can spacequakes become? How many vortices can swirl around Earth at once--and how do they interact with one another?"
CREDIT: NASA SCIENCE http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/27jul_spacequakes/
"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.
It's an apt analogy because "the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
In 2007, THEMIS discovered the precursors of spacequakes. The action begins in Earth's magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth. On more than one occasion, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these "plasma jets" swept by. Clearly, the jets were going to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The fleet moved closer to the planet to find out.
"Now we know," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Plasma jets trigger spacequakes."
According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth's equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it "repetitive flow rebuffing." It's akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.
"We've long suspected that something like this was happening," says Sibeck. "By observing the process in situ, however, THEMIS has discovered something new and surprising."
The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.
"When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet," explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. "We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment."
Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth's atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.
After THEMIS discovered the jets and quakes, Joachim Birn of the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico conducted a computer simulation of the rebounding process. Lo and behold, vortices appeared in good accord with THEMIS measurements. Moreover, the simulations suggest that the rebounding process can be seen from Earth's surface in the form of ripples and whirls in auroral displays. Ground stations report just such a phenomenon.
"It's a complicated process, but it all fits together," says Sibeck.
The work isn't finished. "We still have a lot to learn," he adds. "How big can spacequakes become? How many vortices can swirl around Earth at once--and how do they interact with one another?"
CREDIT: NASA SCIENCE http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/27jul_spacequakes/
-------------------
Image credit: CC 3.0 R N Marshman
Skyquakes
Posted on Friday, 11 March, 2011 |
1 commentColumnist: William B Stoecker
We live for the most part on the surface of the land, although we travel through the sky and on the surface of the sea. Rarely do most of us venture underground, and never to any great depth. Only two men have been to the deepest trench in the sea, and only a handful have ventured far beyond our atmosphere. And strange and sometimes frightening mysteries emerge from under the sea, under the Earth, and, especially, from the sky. It is in the sky (and sometimes emerging from or entering the sea) that we see UFOs. Blocks of ice, fish, frogs, and other things fall from the sky, with no explanation. And then there are the “skyquakes”…loud, booming sounds, rather like cannon fire, with no known origin.
The small town of Moodus, Connecticut is plagued by loud booms that seem to come from the area of Cave Hill and Mt. Tom. Skeptics attribute these noises to shallow earthquakes, and there was a real earthquake there on 5/6/1791, but no tremors have been recorded when the noises are heard. The local Algonquin and other Indians believed that the noises were caused by the demon Hobomock, and called the area “Matchimoodus” or”Matchemadoset,” meaning “place of bad noises.”
Barisal, on the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh at the mouth of the Ganges River, has the “Barisal Guns.” Beginning at least as far back as the eighteen seventies, there were reports of “cannon fire” in groups of two or three, coming from the south or southwest (the Bay), usually from February through October, and seldom from November through January, with no earthquakes detected or thunderstorms reported. The monsoon usually arrives in June and lasts through September, covering only part of the time when the “guns” are commonly heard.
Similar mysterious booming sounds are called “mistpoeffers” in Belgium and the Netherlands, or “marinas” or “brontodi” in Italy, “retembos” in the Philippines, and “fog guns” in several other places. Loud booms have been reported from Western Australia and the State of Victoria, from New Brunswick, Canada near Passamquoddy Bay, Cedar Keys in Florida, Lough Neagh in Ireland, the Adriatic, northern Georgia (the one in the United States), and Franklinville, New York. In New York State they are called the “Seneca Guns.” Lewis and Clark reported a mysterious booming sound on 7/4/1805.
-------------------------------
MASSIVE PROMINENCE: Amateur astronomers around the world are monitoring a massive, active prominence dancing along the sun's southeastern limb. If you have a solar telescope, take a look. The latest images suggest an eruption might be in the offing. Stay tuned for action.
DARK HOLE IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: Ultraviolet telescopes onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory are monitoring a vast dark hole--a "coronal hole"--in the sun's upper atmosphere. It has just turned directly toward Earth:
Coronal holes are places where the sun's magnetic field opens up and allows the solar wind to escape. A stream of solar wind flowing from this particular gap is en route to Earth, due to arrive on July 2nd or 3rd. The impact could spark geomagnetic storms and auroras.
ACTIVE SUNSPOT: Sunspot AR1513 is crackling with impulsive M-class solar flares. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash from one of them at 0920 UT on June 29th:
This M2-class flare illuminated Earth's upper atmosphere with a pulse of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation . Waves of ionization rippled over Europe, altering the propagation of low-frequency radio signals around the continent. Using a receiver tuned to 60 kHz, Rob Stammes detected the sudden ionospheric disturbance over Norway. His antennas also picked up radio waves from the flare itself at 26 MHz and 56 MHz.
More ionization waves and solar radio bursts are in the offing. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of continued M-flares during the next 24 hours.
 |
speed: 637.1 km/sec
density: 3.5 protons/cm3explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at 2025 UT
|
6-hr max: M1 1832 UT Jun30
24-hr: M1 1832 UT Jun30
explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at: 2000 UT
SOURCE: http://spaceweather.com/
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