15:04 2002-10-05
Sensation: Cities Found on the Moon!
Reasonable activity of an alien civilization showed up unexpectedly close to us. However, we were not psychologically ready for it
We still come across publications trying to find an answer to the following question: Are we alone in the universe? At the same time, the presence of reasoning beings has been detected close to our home, on the Moon. However, this discovery was immediately classified as secret, as it is so incredible that it even might shake the already existing social principles, reports Russia's newspaper Vecherny Volgograd.
Here is an extract from the official press-release: �NASA scientists and engineers participating in exploration of Mars and the Moon reported the results of their discoveries at a briefing at the Washington National Press Club on March 21, 1996. It was announced for the first time that man-made structures and objects have been discovered on the Moon.� The scientists spoke rather cautiously and evasively about these objects, with the exception of an UFO. They always mentioned that the man-made objects are possible, and stated the information was still under study and official results will be published later.
It was mentioned at the briefing as well that the Soviet Union used to own some photo materials proving the presence of such activity on the Moon. And, although it wasn�t identified what kind of activity it was, thousands of photo- and video materials from the Apollos and the Clementine space station showed many parts on the lunar surface where this activity and its traces were perfectly evident. The video films and photos made by US astronauts during the Apollo program were demonstrated at the briefing. People were extremely surprised why the materials hadn�t been presented to the public earlier. NASA specialists answered: �It was difficult to forecast the reaction of people to information that some creatures had been or still are on the Moon. In addition, there were some other reasons to it, which were beyond the control of NASA.�
Specialist for lunar studies Richard Hoagland says that NASA is still trying to alter photo materials before they are published in public catalogues and files. They do some retouching or are partially refocussing them while copying. Some investigators, Hoagland is among them, suppose that an extraterrestrial race had used the Moon as a terminal station during their activity on the Earth. These suggestions are confirmed by the legends and myths of different nations of our planet.
The ruins of lunar cities stretch for many kilometers. Huge domes on massive basements, numerous tunnels, and other constructions cause scientists to reconsider their opinions concerning the Moon. How the Moon appeared and principles of its revolving around the Earth still pose a great problem for scientists.
Some partially destroyed objects on the lunar surface can�t be placed among natural geological formations, as they are of complex organization and geometrical structure. In the upper part of Rima hadley, not far from the place where the Apollo-15 had landed, a construction surrounded by a tall D-shaped wall was discovered. As of now, different artifacts have been discovered in 44 regions. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Houston Planetary Institute are investigating the regions. Mysterious terrace-shaped excavations of rock have been discovered near the Tiho crater. The concentric hexahedral excavations and the tunnel entry on the terrace side can�t be the results of natural geological processes; instead, they look very much like open cast mines. A transparent dome raised above the crater edge was discovered near the crater Copernicus. The dome is unusual, as it is glows white and blue from the inside. A rather unusual object, which is unusual indeed even for the Moon, was discovered in the upper part of the Factory area. A disk of about 50 meters in diameter stands on a square basement surrounded with walls. In the picture, close to the rhomb, we can also see a dark, round embrasure in the ground, which resembles an entry to an underground caponier. There is a rectangular area between factory and the crater Copernicus, which is 300 meters wide 400 meters long.
Apollo-10 astronauts took a photo (AS10-32-4822) of a one-mile long object called "Castle," which is at the height of 14 kilometers and casts a distinct shadow on the lunar surface. The object seems to consist of several cylindrical units and a large conjunctive unit. The internal porous structure of the Castle is clearly seen in one of the pictures, which gives the impression that some parts of the object are transparent.
As it turned out at the briefing where many NASA scientists were present, when Richard Hoagland had requested originals of the Castle pictures for the second time, no pictures were found at all. They disappeared even from the list of pictures made by the Apollo-10 crew. Only intermediate pictures of the object were found in the archives, which unfortunately don�t depict the internal structure of the object.
When the Apollo-12 crew landed on the lunar surface, they saw that the landing was observed by a half-transparent, pyramidal object. It was hovering just several meters above the lunar surface and shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow against the black sky.
In 1969, when the film about astronauts travelling to the Sea of Storms was demonstrated (the astronauts saw the strange objects once again, which were later called �striped glasses�), NASA finally understood what consequences such kind of control could bring. Astronaut Mitchell answered the question about his feelings after his successful return: �My neck still aches as I had to constantly turn my head around, because we felt we were not alone there. We had no choice but to pray.� Johnston, who worked at the Houston Space Center and studied photos and video materials made during the Apollo program, discussed the artifacts with Richard Hoagland and said that the NASA leadership was awfully annoyed with the great number of anomalous, to put it mildly, objects on the Moon. It was even said that piloted flights to the Moon might be banned.
Investigators are especially interested in ancient structures resembling partially destroyed cities. Photos reveal an astonishingly regular geometry of square and rectangular constructions. They resemble our cities seen from the height of 5-8 kilometers. A mission control specialist commented on the pictures: �Our guys observed ruins of the Lunar cities, transparent pyramids, domes, and God knows what else, which are currently hidden deep inside the NASA safes, and felt like Robinson Crusoe when he suddenly came across prints of bare feet on the sand of the desert island.� What do geologists and scientists say after studying the pictures of lunar cities and other anomalous objects? They say that such objects can�t be natural formations. �We should admit they are artificial, especially the domes and pyramids.� Reasonable activity of an alien civilization showed up unexpectedly close to us. We were not ready for it psychologically, and some people hardly believe they are true even now.
John Roach for National Geographic News October 7, 2002
Astronomers announced today the discovery of the largest object in the solar system since Pluto was named the ninth planet in 1930. The object is half the size of Pluto, composed primarily of rock and ice, and circles the sun once every 288 years. Named Quaoar (pronounced KWAH-o-ar), the object resides in the Kuiper belt, a region of the sky beyond the orbit of Pluto and about 4 billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. The Kuiper belt is chock full of remnants from the planet-formation era of the solar system.
Scientists study the Kuiper belt to understand what the solar system was like when it formed. They have theorized for several years that objects the size of Quaoar and bigger exist in the region, but until now had not detected anything quite so large. "My first reaction was 'wow, that is a bright object and looks like it could be really big,'" said Chad Trujillo, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "My second reaction was I wonder why no one has seen this before. It is almost bright enough that a dedicated amateur could find it at a dark site with a 16-inch [41-centimeter] telescope." Trujillo is working with colleague Mike Brown to survey the Kuiper belt with the 48-inch (122-centimeter) Oschin Telescope at the institute's Palomar Observatory. The telescope is equipped with a charge-coupled device (CCD-the same technology used in digital cameras), which is sensitive to faint objects. The discovery of Quaoar was announced today at the meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Birmingham, Alabama. "Quaoar is an awesome object that fits well with the existing picture of the Kuiper belt," said Dave Jewitt, a professor at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu and an expert in the study of Kuiper belt objects.
Sizing Up Quaoar
Since Quaoar was discovered on June 4, the researchers have measured it with a heat-sensitive telescope at the International Institute for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (IRAM) in France and the Hubble Space Telescope. The 98-foot (30-meter) IRAM telescope measures the amount of heat emitted by an object. Larger objects emit more heat. This measurement is combined with an optical measurement to determine size. "We found the object was about 1,200 kilometers [745 miles] in diameter," said Trujillo. "Just to be sure, and to see if it has any satellites around it, we imaged it with the Hubble Space Telescope and found it to be 1,250 kilometers [777 miles] in diameter." No satellites were found. Further studies of Quaoar with the Keck Telescope in Hawaii indicate the body has a strong water-ice feature. Trujillo suspects that it is also full of rock. "As for an atmosphere, it's unlikely to have much of one," he said. "Even Pluto, which is eight times more massive-twice as large in diameter-only has a tenuous atmosphere, about a million times less pressure than the Earth's." Trujillo and Brown also looked through archived images taken by a variety of instruments and found that Quaoar was previously imaged, but not detected, in the years 1982, 1996, 2000, and 2001. These images allowed the researchers to determine that Quaoar's orbit is quite circular in contrast to Pluto's elliptical orbit, and that the plane of Quaoar's orbit is tilted by 7.9 degrees from the relatively flat orbital plane in which all the planets except Pluto are found.
Planet Material
Quaoar and other Kuiper belt objects are believed to be leftover remnants from when icy fragments of matter coalesced to form the outer planets billions of years ago. "For some reason we don't know, the process was arrested mid-stride," said Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "We find these things have been stranded in this stage for four billion years." Astronomers have been racing to study Kuiper belt objects since the first was discovered in 1992 in order to gain insight to the process of planet formation. An estimated 50,000 objects greater than 62 miles (100 kilometers) in diameter are thought to exist in the belt. The existence of the Kuiper belt had been theorized for decades before its first objects were identified ten years ago. "I am not at all surprised that 1,000- to 1,500-kilometer (621- to 932-mile) objects are now being found in the Kuiper Belt and have long thought that images could be found on existing sky survey photographs," said Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Varuna, a Kuiper belt object discovered in 2000, is 1,000 kilometers in diameter and Ixion, which was discovered in 2001, is thought to be of similar size to Quaoar and Varuna, but its diameter has yet to be accurately measured. The discovery of Quaoar also adds support to the argument Pluto itself is a Kuiper belt object rather than a planet, according to the researchers. Pluto is believed to be composed of rock and ice like other Kuiper belt objects, which is quite different to Pluto's neighboring giant gas planets Neptune and Uranus. Pluto also orbits the sun outside the orbital plane of all the other planets, like Kuiper belt objects. These similarities between Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects have led Jewitt, Marsden and others to argue that Pluto is a Kuiper belt object, casting Pluto's designation as a planet into doubt. "Pluto is the largest known Kuiper belt object," said Jewitt. "Some people think of it as a planet as well. That's fine, of course, but the reasons for doing so are historical, or sociological at best." Scientifically, argues Marsden, it does not make sense to maintain that there are nine planets, with Pluto one of them and some other objects not. "It does not bother me that objects can have dual status as a belt member and a small planet, but if dual status is not allowed, belt membership is the more important characteristic," he said. Stern, who is also the principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons Mission, which will send a spacecraft to study Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects, suggests that the solar system is full of "planets," including Pluto and hundreds of other Kuiper belt objects. "A reasonable estimate is that there are about 900 planets. All but eight of them are out there [in the Kuiper belt]," he said. The New Horizons Mission launches in January of 2006 to conduct the first detailed studies on the complex geology of Pluto, the ninth and only named planet not visited by a spacecraft. It will then proceed to study a range of other Kuiper belt objects.
