Of Comet ISON

THE GHOST OF COMET ISON: On Friday, Dec. 6th, leading researchers from NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign (CIOC) held an informal workshop at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. One of the key questions they discussed was, Did Comet ISON survive? It might seem surprising that anyone is still asking. After all, the “comet” that emerged from the sun’s atmosphere on Thanksgiving day appeared to be little more than a disintegrating cloud of dust. This movie from the STEREO-A spacecraft (processed by Alan Watson) shows the V-shaped cloud fading into invisibility on Dec. 1st:

The answer hinges on the contents of that cloud. Is it nothing more than a cloud of dust–or could there be some some fragments of the disintegrated nucleus still intact and potentially active?

A key result announced at the workshop comes from SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. According to the spacecraft’s SWAN instrument, the comet stopped producing so-called Lyman alpha photons soon after its closest approach to the sun. Karl Battams of the CIOC explains what this means: “Without getting technical, Lyman-Alpha is a consequence of sunlight interacting with hydrogen, and if we are not seeing that interaction then it means that the levels of hydrogen (and hence ice) are extremely low. This is indicative of a completely burned out nucleus, or no nucleus at all.”

“The evidence appears strong that at some point approaching perihelion – whether days or hours – Comet ISON likely began to completely fall apart,” he continues. “What remains of ISON now is going to be either just a cloud of dust, or perhaps a few very depleted chunks of nucleus. Either way, it’s not going to flare up at this point and we should assume the comet’s show is over.”

“However, we do need to verify this,” says Battams. “Hopefully the Hubble team can come to the rescue! In mid-December, Hubble will be pointed in the direction of where ISON should be and they’ll try and image something. If no fragments are surviving, or they are tiny, then Hubble will not be able to find anything, but that negative detection will tell us something: namely that ISON is indeed gone for good.”

fr/spaceweather.com

ISON & Encke Movie

UPDATE: New ISON and Encke Movie

Submitted by Karl Battams on Fri, 11/22/2013 – 15:52
Comets C/2012 S1 (ISON) and 2P/Encke continue to race through the solar system in this updated sequence! CLICK TO ANIMATE! [Image Credit: Karl Battams/NRL/NASA-CIOC]

Here’s the latest awesome movie I have of Comet’s ISON and Encke in the NASA STEREO-A HI-1 field of view! Click the image opposite and enjoy (it’s about 4.7MB so might take a moment to load)

I’ll spare you a repeat of the details I gave yesterday, and instead will just encourage you to read that blog post, in which I describe some of the background info here, including why this movie is so amazing and why it’ll just keep getting better!

There are a couple of new things I want to say here though. First I received a good question via Twitter that was along the lines of “where exactly is the Sun relative to all this?“. I briefly mentioned it yesterday but it’s worth elaborating on a tad. The Sun sits outside of the field of view of this camera, off to the right as you look at this movie. What I’m not showing you here (purely in the interest of small file sizes) is the full field of view of this camera. Here is a full field image, complete with a CME that appears to be blasting towards the comets… Will it hit them? We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we!

Second, I want to make a note of some interesting dynamics in ISON’s tail. You’ll see that Encke has kind of long waves in the tail, whereas ISON’s seems almost like high-frequency “puffs”. Off the top of my head I can think of two possible reasons, though one is really speculative.

The less speculative (and most likely) is that ISON is simply in a faster stream of the solar wind. Imagine holding a flag on a slightly breezy day. The flag will waft gently in the breeze. Now imagine holding it in really strong winds. The flag will be rippling violently, but those ripples will be smaller in amplitude. We need to look at solar wind velocities in that area to be sure, but that’s the guess I’m planting my flag [unintended] into.

The more speculative one would be that maybe it has something to do with ISON’s rotation. But I really don’t think ISON is rotating that fast or we’d have detected it from the ground. I also don’t know that a fast rotation would show up like that anyway. I’m really just thinking out loud on this one. If anyone asks you, I’d definitely stick with the solar wind speed argument for now – it’s much safer.

I don’t know when I’ll next get more data to update this movie. The STEREO spacecraft are far from Earth and they don’t send down this high-res data in realtime, or anything close to it. Hopefully some point tomorrow I’ll get some more but – just to forewarn you – it can take up to two or three days sometimes. If that happens, it’s because of DSN schedule conflicts and not because of some “omg it’s aliens” reason. Let’s please save the tin-foil for making turkey this week, not hats! [That’s a Thanksgiving Holiday reference, for you non-US folks.] Spacecraft data connections are spotty but we will absolutely do our best to get what we can, when we can. Keep checking back, and follow my Twitter feed (link below) for the latest updates.

frfom:    http://www.isoncampaign.org/karl/updated-ison-encke-movie

The Tail of Comet ISON

COMET ISON’S SUPER TAIL: Comet’s ISON’s recent outburst of activity has done more than simply brighten the comet. Whatever exploded from the comet’s core also created a spectacularly-long tail, more than 16 million kilometers from end to end. Scroll down to see the full extent of Comet ISON as photographed on Nov. 17th by Michael Jäger of Ebenwaldhöhe, Austria:

“The tail of the comet stretches more than 7o across the sky,” says Jäger. It’s almost as wide as the bowl of the Big Dipper.

Physically, ISON’s tail is about 12 times wider than the sun. So, when the head of ISON plunges into the sun’s atmosphere on Nov. 28th, more than 15 million kilometers of the comet’s tail will still be jutting into space behind it.

Because so much gas and dust is spewing from the comet’s core, it is impossible to see clearly what caused Comet ISON’s outburst on Nov. 13-14. One possibility is that fresh veins of ice are opening up in the comet’s nucleus, vaporizing furiously as ISON approaches the sun. Another possibility is that the nucleus has completely fragmented.

“If so, it will still be several days before we know for sure,” says Karl Battams, an astronomer with NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign. “When comet nuclei fall apart, it’s not like a shrapnel-laden explosion. Instead, the chunks slowly drift apart at slightly different speeds. Given that ISON’s nucleus is shrouded in such a tremendous volume of light-scattering dust and gas right now, it will be almost impossible to determine this for at least a few days and perhaps not until the comet reaches the field of view of NASA’s STEREO HI-1A instrument on November 21, 2013. We will have to wait for the chunks to drift apart a sufficient distance, assuming they don’t crumble first.”

Monitoring is encouraged. Comet ISON rises in the east just before the sun. Amateur astronomers, if you have a GOTO telescope, enter these coordinates. Dates of special interest include Nov. 17th and 18th when the comet will pass the bright star Spica, making ISON extra-easy to find.

fr/spaceweather.com

Mercury gets a 2 Comet Fly-by

Two Comets to Fly By Mercury

Nov. 15, 2013:  What are the odds? On Nov. 18th and 19th not one but two comets will fly by the planet Mercury.

“This is a unique coincidence,” says Ron Vervack an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a member of the science team for NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, “and a golden opportunity to study two comets passing close to the sun.”

On Nov. 18th Comet Encke will pass within 0.025 AU of Mercury, followed a day later by Comet ISON at 0.24 AU (1 AU is the distance between the sun and Earth, 150 million km).   The MESSENGER spacecraft, which is orbiting Mercury, will turn its sensors toward the passing comets for a point-blank investigation of both.

splash

A new Sciencecast video previews a rare double encounter between Mercury and two comets. Play it

The double flyby is exciting, says Vervack, but “it makes things a little crazy. We have to rush to complete our observations of Comet Encke, then do it all over again for Comet ISON. Everything is happening at more or less the same time.”

MESSENGER was designed to study Mercury, not comets, “but it is a capable spacecraft with a versatile instrument package,” he adds. “We hope to get some great data.” Onboard spectrometers will analyze the chemical makeup of the two comets while MESSENGER’s cameras snap pictures of atmospheres, jets and tails.

Auroras Underfoot (signup)

Comet ISON is already a media favorite. Astronomers have been tracking it since Sept. 2012 when it was discovered on a trajectory that would take it perilously close to the sun.  On Nov. 28th of 2013, Thanksgiving Day in the USA, Comet ISON will pass through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million kilometers above the sun’s fiery surface.  If the icy comet survives, it could emerge as a beautiful naked-eye object for observers in the northern hemisphere.  MESSENGER’s glimpse of Comet ISON as it plunges inward could give astronomers the data they need to predict the comet’s fate.

Comet Encke is less well known, but no less interesting.  For one thing, it is the source of the Taurid meteor shower, a slow display of midnight fireballs that occurs every year in early- to mid-November. Comet Encke dips inside the orbit of Mercury every 3.3 years, so it is regularly exposed to solar activity.  In 2007, NASA’s STEREO spacecraft watched as a solar storm ripped off Encke’s tail–which promptly grew back: movie.

“We’ll be catching Comet Encke just days before its closest approach to the sun (0.3 AU),” Vervack  says, “so we get to see it at its most active.”

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MESSENGER’s first images of the approaching comets. Larger image, details

Ironically, the fact that MESSENGER is designed to study a rocky planet could prove advantageous for the icy comets.  MESSENGER’s x-ray spectrometer, in particular, could detect signs of ‘comet dirt’.

“We hope to obtain the first definitive detections of x-ray emissions from silicon, magnesium and aluminum,” he explains. “If you think of a comet as a dirty snowball, these are elements that make up the dirt.  Close to the sun is where we expect the dirt to be vaporized.”

In total, Vervack expects MESSENGER to gather 15 hours’ worth of data on Comet Encke and another 25 hours on Comet ISON.  With that kind of observing time, discoveries are a distinct possibility.

Vervack says the first images will be beamed back and released to the public within days of the flybys.  “There are no guarantees,” he cautions, “but I can’t wait to see the pictures.”

from:    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/15nov_twocomets/

Unpredictable Comet ISON

COMET ISON OUTBURST CONTINUES: The abrupt brightening of Comet ISON on Nov. 14th has pushed the comet into the range of naked eye visibility. Dark-sky observers around the world report seeing it with their unaided eyes on the morning of Nov. 15th. To the human eye, ISON is just a faint smudge of magnitude +5.5. Backyard telescopes are revealing much more. The effects of the outburst have propagated into the comet’s suddenly riotous tail, as shown in this image taken on the morning of Nov. 15th by Damian Peach:

“It’s hard to believe this is the same comet I photographed on Nov. 10th,” says Peach. “Now that ISON has experienced an outburst, the show has really begun.”

The increase in brightness and emergence of multiple gaseous streamers could be caused by fresh veins of ice opening up in the comet’s nucleus. Rapid vaporization of ice by solar heat is a sure-fire way to boost a comet’s visibility. But, as NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign states, “we have no idea.” The comet’s nucleus is hidden from view by a hazy green atmosphere, so events in the interior remain a mystery.

“I have a strong suspicion that this is Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4) all over again,” says Mark Kidger of the ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid. In the year 2000, Kidger other astronomers monitored Comet LINEAR as it disintegrated en route to the sun. “The sudden appearance of ISON’s gas tail, the increasing fuzziness of its coma, and now this sudden outburst all remind me of C/1999 S4 just before it broke apart.”

To reiterate: No one knows what is happening to Comet ISON. This could be the comet’s death throes–or just the first of many brightening events the comet experiences as it plunges toward the sun for a close encounter on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28th).

Monitoring is encouraged. Comet ISON rises in the east just before the sun. Amateur astronomers, if you have a GOTO telescope, enter these coordinates. Dates of special interest include Nov. 17th and 18th when the comet will pass the bright star Spica, making ISON extra-easy to find.

from:    spaceweather.com

Comet ISON

RACING TOWARD THE SUN: Comet ISON is now inside the orbit of Earth and racing toward the sun. Last night, astronomer Alberto Quijano Vodniza of Pasto, Colombia, recorded the comet moving through space at 103,000 mph (46 km/s). Click to set the scene in motion:

“The movie shows the comet’s motion over 27 minutes,” says Vodniza. Watch it again. “We also caught a satellite.”

On Nov. 28th, Comet ISON will fly through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million kilometers above the sun’s fiery surface. This raises a question: Is Comet ISON racing toward its doom? Astronomer Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory thinks the comet might withstand the heat:

“At its closest point to the Sun, the equilibrium temperature approaches 5000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause much of the dust and rock on ISON’s surface to vaporize,” says Knight. “While it may seem incredible that anything can survive this inferno, the rate at which ISON will likely lose mass is relatively small compared to how big it likely is. Assuming that the comet’s nucleus is bigger than about 200 meters in radius (current estimates suggest it is 500-2000 m in radius), it will likely survive. It helps that the comet is moving very fast, about 400 km/s at perihelion, so it will not remain long at such extreme temperatures.”

If Comet ISON does survive its encounter with the sun, it could put on a good show for backyard astronomers in the northern hemisphere in December. The next few weeks will tell the tale. Stay tuned!

fr/spaceweather.com

Observing Comet ISON

Out There

A Novice Observer’s Guide to Comet ISON

By Corey S. Powell | October 25, 2013 2:35 pm

If you enjoy a dramatic spectacle in the sky, you have probably heard about Comet ISON, currently streaking toward the sun. (If you haven’t heard about it, bear with me—I’ll try to make it worth your while.) But the media coverage has been downright confusing. The first reports described it as a “comet of the century,” possibly as bright as the full moon. Then came some whipsaw downbeat news stories suggesting that the comet was fizzling and might have already begun to disintegrate.

Comet ISON as seen by the Hubble telescope on October 9, when it was 177 million miles from Earth. (Credit: NASA/ ESA/Hubble Heritage Team)

Comet ISON as seen by the Hubble telescope on October 9, when it was 177 million miles from Earth. (Credit: NASA/ ESA/Hubble Heritage Team)

No wonder DISCOVER readers have been sending in a steady stream of inquiries: What will Comet ISON really look like? When will it be visible? Where can I see it? Good questions. Time for some answers—and I’ll have a lot more to say about the science of the comet itself in an upcoming blog post.

What it will look like Almost all of the forecasts about Comet ISON contain huge uncertainties. As comet hunter David H. Levy is fond of saying, “Comets are like cats; they have tails and they do precisely what they want.” The Comet ISON Observing Campaign has put together a set of scenarios that explore the staggering range of possibilities.

It now seems almost certain that Comet ISON will fall short of the early, optimistic assessments (truth be told, it was never going to light up the night like the full moon, since peak brightness will happen while it is less than one degree from the sun…in the middle of the day). The dire predictions that the comet has fizzled are simply wrong, however. Recent Hubble images show it beautifully intact.

A recent study by Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute gives additional reason for hope. Comet ISON is oriented such that one side has remained shadowed so far. When the comet whips around the sun on November 28, the comet’s night side will suddenly emerge into daylight and be hit with an intense blast of solar heat. That could potentially lead to a spectacular eruption of gas and dust.

The upshot is that Comet ISON is sure to be a pretty sight through binoculars or a wide-field telescope, and it still has plenty of potential to be an exciting addition to the visible sky after Thanksgiving.

When and where to look I created a quick reference guide about when and where to look for Comet ISON. It appears in my Urban Skygazer column in the November issue of DISCOVER, and you can read it here. A viewing skychart is available from my colleagues at Astronomy magazine.

There are two crucial things to know about looking for Comet ISON.

Projected brightness of Comet ISON (with actual measurements in orange) shows how it will peak very rapidly at closest approach to the sun on November 3. (Credit: Credit: NASA CIOC/Matthew Knight)

Projected brightness of Comet ISON, with actual measurements in orange, shows how rapidly it will peak at closest approach to the sun on November 3. (Credit: NASA CIOC/Matthew Knight)

First, it is a peaky comet (full details here if you want to take a deep dive). It will brighten rapidly in the days just before Thanksgiving, so don’t even try looking for it with your naked eyes right now—it’s far too faint. Probably it will become visible from dark skies by mid-November, but may be tricky to see on its way in. The best viewing should come in the couple weeks after November 28, when the comet is heading away from the sun but toward the Earth. Because of the shifting geometry, Comet ISON will probably fade quite a bit more slowly than it brightened. Even so it may be lost to the naked eye well before it makes its closest approach to Earth on Christmas day.

Second, you will need dark skies and an unobstructed horizon to get the best view. At its brightest, Comet ISON will be close to the sun and hence close to the horizon just before sunrise. In the first half of December the comet will get higher in the sky and (depending on how it behaves) may have a ghostly tail stretching up to a quarter the way across the sky. To appreciate its full extent, though, you will need to get far away from urban light pollution. And as you may have already picked up, you need to wake up early in the morning, just as dawn is breaking.

OK, so will it be worth the effort? Nature doesn’t always make things easy or convenient. The payoff is that you will get to see something rare and wonderful: A primeval ball of ices and dust grains, frozen since the time of Earth’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, vaporizing and spreading out into space. It’s also amazing to recall how small the actual  comet is. Its tail may stretch millions or even tens of millions of miles across, but the solid body creating that whole spectacle is just a couple miles across!

If you get an exceptionally good look at Comet ISON’s tail you may be able to see that comets actually sprout two kinds of tail–an ion tail (composed of individual, electrically charged gas atoms) and a dust tail (composed of larger particles). Both tails are affected by both the solar wind and by light pressure from the sun, but they react in different ways. The ion tail always points straight away from the sun. The dust tail lags behind a bit as the comet orbits around the sun. The result is that the two tails typically show up separately, often with distinctive structures,  shapes, and colors.

So when you view a comet you get to see the invisible interplanetary dynamics of the solar system, as well as a relic from a time when Earth was just a lifeless ball of molten rock. Worth getting up early for, I think.

from:    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2013/10/25/novice-observers-guide-comet-ison/#.Um1YvSThGlk

The Group through Steve Rother 10/15

Greetings from Home.

You Are Beautiful Imperfections

Greetings, I am Elrah of Rhythmic Service.

I am here to settle everybody down for a moment and to give you a big old smile—one of my smiles…there you go. You think it is amusing that I am sitting up here talking in this funny voice, smiling and acting silly, but do you know what I am doing? I am settling the energy because if you just close your eyes for a minute and reach out in front of you energetically, you can almost feel the level of the energy in the room. A lot of you felt it when you first came in today and some of you went back out and came back in again a couple of times to acclimate to the energy. You know, it is becoming real. That is the nice part about it because for a long time this could not be part of your reality. You see, it exists in the smaller worlds when you are children. But when you start to become adults you do not re-member that you can feel the energy of the room; you do not even think that you can even feel the hearts of others people, but you can. When the Keeper was really small, his parents were religious and they kept taking him to church all the time and he wanted to be a preacher at some point so he kept asking, “How do I get there? How can I be the best that I can be?” They just kept saying, “Be good. Be good. Just be good no matter what.” Well, what is actually good? He was very confused about that until he was caught being bad then he understood a bit more. Sometimes you need the polarity to see where your boundaries are and there is nothing wrong with that, dear ones. You are on the Earth for a reason. Number one: You are not expected to be perfect, did you know that? In other words, you cannot be perfect even if you tried to be. That is part of the rules on planet Earth. There is only imperfection here. Perfection is at Home. When you come to Earth you divide all your perfection into different dimensional levels just so you can play and pretend to be perfect. Now we are going to ask you to shine your light on all your beautiful imperfections because that is truly the light from Home that you brought. That is the essence of the flavor of light that you give it.

We Are the Ice Cream – You Are the Flavors

The Collective Heart of Humanity

We gave a channel that was very interesting to me because it was straight from my heart and it was all about ice cream. Oh yes, ice cream on your planet is very popular and for a lot of different reasons. Not only does it taste good, it is sweet and always puts a smile on your face but it always offers a bunch of choices, does it not? You can choose this flavor or that flavor,  and eat ice cream so many different ways … in a cone, in a milkshake, or a banana split. Well, that is the way we put it because it kind of expresses who we are. You see, at Home we do not have to deal with the egos or the physical bubbles of biology that you do. We are the light; we are the ice cream and you are the many flavors. You are all expected to bring it through to the best of your individual flavor. The light is the same light coming through all these beautiful rays; each one of you flavors this light in the most exquisite way. Well, that is the light out there that you are now starting to sense when you feel the energy in the room. Although you are experiencing that, there is much more than that now. There are people all over the planet who have been thinking that they have been in charge, but are realizing this is no longer the case. Many of them are people you have elected to run your governments and put in important positions to run things for you. They think they are in charge so they do the best they can because most of them are working from their heart, too. You have to understand that even if you disagree with someone, it does not mean that they are not working from their heart. It just means they are not communicating with both their heart and head, so they are up against the energy in the room. You see, it was not as important before because not everyone could feel it. Now you all are feeling everyone else’s energy. Your technologies certainly have something to do with it, because youcan all pull out a cell phone now and pull up all kinds of things very quickly on the internet. You could not do before, and you are no longer limited in the way you used to be. That energy in the room is not the energy in the room anymore, for it is the energy on planet Earth. Everybody is feeling it and trying to figure out where the resistance is, and where the path of least resistance is.  It is the collective heart on planet Earth; it is the one heart of planet Earth, of humanity.

Harmony: The Third Wave of Empowerment.

Re-member, dear ones, a few months ago we gave you a message about the third wave of empowerment. We have been talking about the first and second waves of empowerment for many years. The first wave of empowerment was learning how to follow the leader, to actually follow someone that could lead you into something better. It took a long time for humans to learn how to do that. Then the second wave of empowerment was learning how to follow yourself, which is infinitely more difficult than following somebody else because it means you have to build up your trust levels and learn to enforce your healthy boundaries. It was very important to learn and you have done well over the last 60 years on Earth. Now you are in the third wave of empowerment and it is causing all kinds of problems on Earth. The third wave is harmony. Look around  and you can see what is going on in your governments and what is taking place economically; you are having a hard time with polarity there. The more you try to come together, the more you want to go completely apart from each other. This is a natural reaction to the removal of the energy in the room, because now there is no reason not to harmonize. So many people have built up all their belief systems: “I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do this. I have to oppose this, I have to be opposite of that. I have to be polarized.” Now there is a third pole, which means it is not simply black and white any more. You have a third position here where you can tap into your own higher self, which is why we call it triality. This third position allows you to have a new pole. It does not have to be black and white any more. Now you can experience all the beautiful colors of the rainbow, and choose any one of those expressions because you do not have to be only this way or that way. It can now be this way and this way, yet so many of you are having difficulties.

Harmonic Hearts: The Energy in the Room

When you turn on the news and watch all the challenges that the planet is going through, if you look closely you will see that they are all changing because of the energy in the room. Is that not interesting? You almost went to war a couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago you were just that close, but what changed it? Again, the energy in the room. So many of you held it in your heart that new ways were found, new possibilities broke through that were not even there in the beginning. Now you have everybody coming forward trying to save the day. It is really so beautiful, but we know you do not trust them all and you think most of them are playing games. The truth of the matter is that everybody on this planet is trying to do the best they can. All you need to do is to pay attention to the energy in the room because that is the marker—that is your space where you can know where things are right or wrong for you. You are the only one that matters, you know. Ahh, you did not think that. You have been thinking about everyone else all around you. “How can I make life comfortable for them?” Now it is going to be about you because this is the grounding of the new energy and the new light. This is the beauty of the energy in the room. The energy on planet Earth has changed; there are no more secrets. Many of your world’s leaders are having all kinds of problems with that one, but that is all right because there is no black and white, there is no polarity. There is not even right or wrong in the way you have always thought about it.

Back in the days when the Keeper was really young, he was taken to church and told to be good. Why was he told to be good? God watches everything and keeps score, and the Keeper was told that very clearly. At the end of the year if you do not have enough brownie points, you are not going to get any Christmas presents or some other thing they told you about for not being good. Now you go by the energy in the room instead, because you have collective hearts that are matching all over the place. We tell you that it used to be quite possible for people to put something over on the general public, but it does not work that way anymore. Now all of you are learning new forms of communication that will be coming through the heart completely. Everything must be completely open, because in the times of no more secrets it is not possible to hold anything back. You are all becoming what you call psychic. Now we do not really like that word, because it is actually your spirit coming through your physical body in a beautiful way. It is the same way we communicate at Home all the time, which is why you know so deep in your heart it is beautiful and it is truth. All of you now can start working with this energy. Even though there are 7 billion people on this planet, do not ever forget that you are one of them. You are not simply one seven-billionth of the planet, but you are much more than that because you hold the energy in the room. When world leaders are going in one direction and they say, “We do not care what happens. We do not care who finds out. We do not care what takes place, we are just going to do it anyway.” It will not be possible anymore, which is just what happened. You averted war on your planet and it was not anybody’s plan to do that; you did that within your hearts. You should be very proud of yourselves because all of the machinery was gearing up to go to war. It was going to happen on your planet again and they did not need any more excused, but the energy in the room changed it. They were not able to make it work. How beautiful is that? You are starting to take charge of your own reality. Planet Earth is turning into a place for conscious creators and we are so proud of you.

I am going to step aside and bring in Em while we still have a little time left. Because I get so excited, sometimes it is hard for me to step aside sometimes. But you see, we do not deal with the egos the same way you do, so Em is just happy as a pear back here…I do not know how happy a pear gets, but he is happy. He does not care whether I am speaking with my tones or whether he is speaking, because we are of the same heart. Even though all of you have to carry around these heavy egos, which are very difficult to carry, know that they are necessary on Earth. However, the ego keeps you from seeing another’s heart. So if you just pay attention to the energy in the room, your lives will become easier—you will see the way to go and find that path of least resistance in the most beautiful way. Now I will step aside for just a moment and bring in Em.

Balancing the Male/Female Energy

Well, greetings. I am eM. We had a laugh stuck way down inside and we needed to let it out. He did not want to let it out, so I just went ahead and let it out anyway. Welcome everybody. I am so joyed to be with you because you are balancing your energies. We tell you it is so exciting for us to watch from this perspective, because what has happened is that you have been polarized in so many ways on Earth. It is how you have been allowed to play the game and, therefore, you have been able to find confidence by having an energy already set. Now you have taken these in polarity and called this one male and this one female and you get so stuck in those energies that it is very difficult for you to balance sexual energy on your planet but you are doing such a marvelous job of it. You see, I am balancing what we call male/female energy. Now I do not have to live on Earth so it is easy for me, much different from many of you because it is a constant balance to be able to do that. It has been a very long time on Earth where you have been trying to balance this energy. Now you have been in the swing of the male energy for quite some time and what most of you do not re-member is that there were times when the feminine was also in charge. However, we had just as many problems so it is about a balance. It is no longer about polarity, and because you are losing the polarity you can start balancing the sexual energy between all of you. That is opening up all kinds of possibilities.

It was only recently that we asked an expert to come into the LightMaster group and educate some of the LightMasters about what transgender was all about, because you are not familiar with your full sexual expressions on planet Earth. You are only familiar with the polarized versions which you needed to build your history. Now it is changing and there are so many beautiful ways to experience love on planet Earth. Love is love is love, and there are no more rules. It is that simple. Now what is taking place is that you are saying, “Okay, I do not always have to be in this relationship or that relationship.” And we are telling you not to measure your sexuality by your relationships but by your energy, by who you are. Can you find your own restrictions with your sexual energy beliefs? Well, sure, you all have them in some way. You all have learned your set of rules on planet Earth with which you must live by in order to balance all of these beautiful negative and positive polarized energies. Now all of you have access to a much deeper love and connection to your own spirit, for your spirit does not know polarity. When you come here and pretend to be a man or a woman, it simply means that you are taking the spiritual energy from Home and running it through a filter which only shows a small part of it. It is not until you become balanced in all areas that you will be able to hold more of your own spirit in its completeness and uniqueness. It is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, because  in a field of polarity success has always been determined by repetition. “Oh, you did something wonderfully. That is great.” Is this success? No. Not until you repeat it several times. Once you learn to do something this way, you have learned to do it over and over and over again. Then it turns into a belief system, which is what we call “BS.” This gets more of you in difficulties than you could possibly imagine. You have always used them because they are very successful, but you are also eliminating all of the other possibilities. Now that is changing and we tell you there will be reactions to the balance of male/female energies.

Depolarization

A depolarization is also happening that will allow all of you to harmonize in new ways. Again, it is not easy. The moment you try to depolarize, all those polarized beings stand up and say, “Wait a minute. This is my truth, this is the way it has always been, and this is the way I am going to keep it.” That is human nature so be patient not only with yourselves, but with all of the creatures on Earth. You are changing and you are changing the light as it comes from Home and you express it with your beautiful flavors of ice cream, as Elrah calls it. You are flavoring the light; that is also what you do at Home and we recognize your light. We see you; we know you have been placed here specifically because of your gifts. Now what we are asking you to do is to take off all of the protection that you have placed there so you can have a comfortable life and start being who you really are. There is no explanation needed for the truth. You do not ever need to describe or defend your emotions to anyone. They are your truth. You may not always like them, or you may wish you could shift them from time to time, but we ask you to just be who you are. Experience all the good, the bad, the ugly and every other part of it because it is the whole concept of your human experience. You are on a search for beauty on planet Earth. All of you are looking around trying to find the beauty you know from Home and occasionally you find a piece of it. When you do, we light up from Home and we say, “Look! He found beauty. Is that not marvelous?” And everyone smiles and lights your path for you. Reach out and find that beauty; it is all around you and part of who you are now.

Re-seeding Planet Earth with New Light Forms

We wish to add one more thing now, for we have spoken of a very important event that is taking place on planet Earth. It actually began around January this year. You see, you have gone through a massive portal, dear ones, through the 12-12-12 all the way through December 21st and you have emerged into a new world, one that you are acclimating a little bit at a time and finding your new comfort zones in this new world. It is quite different from what you have seen before. Part of the reason is that many of the things that have been placed in your path to mark your way and give you confidence have recently been removed. Many of you have been able to see your reflection. You have called yourself a psychologist, or a healer, or maybe even a reader. Those words do not work anymore. You are much larger than all of those reflections that you have been looking for in the universe around you. So, many of you have panicked because your reflection is not there anymore. One of the things that took place at this time is that there was a protective shield around Earth which has been there for millions of years—not thousands. It was actually emanating from planet Earth through the pyramids on Earth. There was a pyramidal grid which created a very light magnetic shield around the Earth, which kept many of the meteors and comets from destroying your planet and from interrupting your flow and evolution of life on planet Earth. It has been very successful, for there are many asteroids and rocks out there that have been aimed very directly at your planet that have not hit it. Earlier this year that protective shield has been removed because you are no longer in need of it the same way that you were. What we are telling you is that a miracle is happening every day now. You are now receiving many of these comets, asteroids, and specks of dust from outer space that you did not receive before. Although you have always received some to a small degree,  this year it has grown dramatically and you will see even more the rest of this year more. Why? Because of the simple reason that you are being re-seeded. Planet Earth is starting a whole new cycle of life and these are the seeds of life that are being replanted.

When the Keeper turned on the news this morning, he saw that global warming has now been proven. There is no doubt in scientific minds anywhere that global warming has been caused by humans. We tell you, dear ones, it is absolutely true. We also tell you that you can change it and you have already turned the corner. Now like a massive freight train moving in one direction, if you decide to take a right turn it will take some time and that is what is taking place now. All of humanity is adjusting and starting to shift to the new energies. Every time you see a meteor come in or you hear a story that yesterday a meteor exploded over this country or that one celebrate, because it means that the new seeds of light are being planted and changing all of Earth.

Now, your scientists and biologists absolutely disagree with what I am saying.. Planet Earth, according to them, is still on a dying cycle. You are losing species at a rapid rate right now, but this is why we are re-planting it for you. Now it will take time for these seeds of light to develop, but you are the ones that chose to be here during this change of the cycle. You did not wish to wipe out Earth and start over again as you have done before. You wanted to stay here in these bodies and walk through this consciously. We could not be prouder of you, for you have made it much easier already than you have ever dreamt. We tell you this because a couple of things have happened in recent days and more are to come. One of them is that you had a massive earthquake in a part of your world that you call Afghanistan or Pakistan, but it basically formed a new island. This island is not expected to be here very long because it will be receding into the ocean soon, but it will be here long enough. The tectonic plates have simply moved around one other, and during that time where these energies been building up there has been a stress on Earth that all of you have tied into. All of you have found life a little more difficult because of the stress the Earth has been going through. We look at the horrible things that have happened and you try to send your energy. But also celebrate Earth, because she has just released a tremendous amount of tension and she is re-setting a lot of energy. Now, why did the new island come up? Well, the island is a very small island. It is only about 30 inches high and about 60 meters across which will be settling back down, but it has made it to the surface to collect stardust.

The ISON Comet Seeds the Earth with Stardust

You have a particular comet that is coming, which you know about  we have even spoken of it previously. It is now expected to reach you on November 28th 2013, which in the United States is the day you call Thanksgiving day. This comet is going to pass near Earth as it has done before but it will sprinkle so much stardust on Earth that the re-seeding process may actually be visible  and some may see the stardust coming down out of the atmosphere. That dust carries life. These are the star seedings of the planet Earth in the new cycle, in the new Earth, the one that was to die but you changed your minds. You awoke from the dream and took your charge as conscious creators and here you are, walking around on the new Earth saying, “Why is not everything the same? Why do I feel depressed? Why can I not see my light?” You have no idea how much you have already done. You have already won the game, dear ones. We know it does not feel like that.  We know it is difficult for many of you just to survive, but you have no idea what was previously to happen. More than 90% of planet Earth would have been completely wiped out and it would have been very similar to what you know as Mars today. Yet, here you are ready to walk into this next phase of life. Walk into it with your eyes open. Celebrate it at every opportunity, for you are the greatest angels that have ever lived. It is our honor to be here speaking to you and help you to re-member who you are and what you came to Earth to bring, because now is the time. Re-member the energy in the room and when you turn on the news and see some world events, think about the energy in the room. Will the energy of humanity allow that to happen? Know that your voice and your heart make a huge difference on planet Earth. It is not a numbers game, it is an energetic game. As you learn to connect your hearts even quicker through the aid of technologies—you do not need the technologies, they are simply teaching you how to use it…how to use your own hearts to create a world of consciousness on planet Earth. You are magnificent…every one of you and we hope you feel that magnificence and that specialness and uniqueness that all of you carry. You are spirits from Home pretending to be humans but we know who you are and we are here just to remind you.

It is with the greatest of honor that we ask you to treat each other with respect. Nurture one another at every opportunity. Enjoy this comet that is coming and play well together.

Espavo.

The group

from:    http://lightworker.com/beacons/2013/2013_10-EnergyintheRoom.php

 

Comet ISON Update

Potentially Dazzling Comet ISON Should Survive Sun Encounter, Study Suggests

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer   |   October 09, 2013
Comet ISON Enhanced Hubble Image space wallpaper
This stunning space wallpaper is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter’s orbit at a distance of 386 million miles (621 million km) from the sun.
Credit: NASA/ESA,/J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team

The odds are pretty good that Comet ISON will survive its much-anticipated close solar approach next month, a new study suggests.

As long as ISON is a fairly typical comet — one with “normal” size, density and rotational characteristics — it probably won’t disintegrate during its upcoming flyby, which will bring the icy wanderer within just 730,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) of the sun’s surface on Nov. 28, researchers report.

That’s good news for skywatchers, for Comet ISON could potentially put on a dazzling show if it manages to weather its solar encounter. And it’s also good news for scientists, who have been planning their most intense observations of the comet for after the flyby (since ISON will be easier to see from Earth after the approach than before). [Comet ISON: 8 Things to Know]

Comet ISON Sky Map
 From now through October, comet ISON tracks through the constellations Gemini, Cancer and Leo as it falls toward the sun. Image released March 29, 2013.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Axel Mellinger

In the new study, Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Kevin Walsh of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio conducted simulations of Comet ISON’s upcoming solar approach, then put the results in context by looking at how other “sungrazing” comets have performed during their encounters with our star.

The possible outcomes for Comet ISON are total disintegration; initial survival with a breakup coming later, perhaps days or weeks after the Nov. 28 flyby; and full survival for another orbit around the sun. Which one of these will actually occur depends on ISON’s size and density, as well as the nature of its rotation (how fast it’s spinning, and in which direction), researchers said.

Comets less than about 0.12 miles wide (0.2 kilometers) face destruction by the sun’s heat, which can evaporate off all of their ices. But scientists think ISON is big enough to deal with this issue; most estimates place the comet’s core between 0.12 miles and 1.2 miles across (0.2 to 2 km).

Another threat comes from the immense gravitational pull of the sun, which can tear apart comets that are unusually light and fluffy. But as long as ISON is of roughly average density, it should be able to hold together, researchers said

None of this is set in stone, of course, since most of the key characteristics — including Comet ISON’s exact size, density and spin — remain unknown. And it’s notoriously difficult to predict the behavior of comets, especially “dynamically new” ones like ISON making their first trip to the inner solar system from the distant, frigid Oort Cloud.

“Whether or not disruption occurs, the largest remnant must be big enough to survive subsequent mass loss due to evaporation for Comet ISON to remain a viable comet well after perihelion,” Knight said in a statement.

Meanwhile, another new study suggests that Comet ISON might exhibit a burst of activity a week before its close solar encounter.

Researchers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to measure the rotational pole of ISON’s core and determined that only one side of the comet is being heated thus far as it streaks toward the sun.

But that should change on or around Nov. 21, when Comet ISON ducks inside the orbit of Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet, team members said.

“Since the surface on the dark side of the comet should still retain a large fraction of very volatile materials, the sudden exposure to the strong sunlight when it gets closer to the sun than Mercury could trigger huge outbursts of material,” study leader Jian-Yang Li, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., said in a statement.

Both studies were presented today (Oct. 9) at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences 45th annual meeting in Denver.

from:    http://www.space.com/23124-comet-ison-sun-encounter-survival.html

More on Comet ISON

COMET ISON ON TRACK TO BECOME ‘IMPRESSIVE’: Amateur astronomers around the world are photographing Comet ISON as it approaches Mars in the predawn sky. The comet is not as bright as some forecasters expected. What does that mean for ISON’s future prospects? The answer may be found below this color photo of the comet obtained by UK astronomer Damian Peach on Sept. 24th:


Photo details: 17″ CDK with FLI-PL6303e camera. LRGB. L: 5x3mins. RGB: 1x2mins. Sun -18 to -14deg.

At the moment, Comet ISON is about as bright as a 14th magnitude star, which puts it one or two magnitudes dimmer than forecasts. Nevertheless, according to several experts speaking in a NASA video, Comet ISON is still on track to become an impressive sungrazer. John Bortle predicts ISON will rival Venus during the hours leading up to its closest approach to the Sun in November, while Matthew Knight notes that Comet ISON is brighter than Comet Lovejoy was at the same distance from the sun in 2011. As many readers remember, Comet Lovejoy went on to become a spectacular naked-eye object. Comet ISON might do the same.

fr/spaceweather.com