Before we get to the enigmatic theme of this post, perhaps you’ve heard, we (as in Earth “we”) just dodged a bullet. This past Sunday, Earth had a near miss with an asteroid-like object, 2014 RC. This potentially hazardous object (PHO) passed less than 0.1 Lunar Distance from us. That’s underneath the altitude of our weather satellites. This baby was approximately 21 meters in diameter. For perspective, the meteor that created the Barringer Crater in northern Arizona was estimated to have been 50 meters in diameter and it left a crater nearly a mile wide.
News reports circulated that a fragment broke from this object and created a 30-foot crater in Nicaragua. However, www.spaceweather.com reports that this crater may be the product of a backhoe. Stay tuned.
Wait! There’s more! On August 31st, an 8-meter wide asteroid, 2014 RA, hurled by us at approximately the same distance.
The nomenclature of these objects indicates that they were discovered in 2014 during the “R” week interval. The first letter of the designation refers to 2-week intervals of time. A is the first two weeks of the year. B happens during the 3rd and 4th weeks of the year. It’s a good thing there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet used for designation, otherwise it would be a fine mess working to fit letters into fifty-two weeks.
Anyway, the “R” interval is the 18th two-week interval of the year, if my finger counting is correct. This means these asteroids were recently discovered., August 31st, in fact. Both were discovered by the Catalina Sky Search, an observatory that I can see from my office window with a little neck craning.
So, did we dodge a bullet? Yep, two of them. Will we dodge more? Yes, as it may be that we do not have a whole lot of preparation. They say it could take two years to mount an effective mission to deflect an asteroid. Yeah, well Bruce Willis and Billie Bob can get in done in two hours... in the movies. If you become aware of a funding proposition that funds Near Earth Object sky searches, please declare your support to those voting on such matters.
Meanwhile, over in Hawaii there was talk of deflecting flowing lava away from homes in the path of the flow... something that traditionally is not done. How interesting that the intensified flow of lava on the Big Island coincided with the announcement that astronomers picked a new name for our neighborhood in space: Laniakea.
Laniakea means “immense heaven.” This declaration truly does not change our perception of the stuff that’s out there; it redefines the interaction of that stuff: superclusters in space. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, lies on the cusp the bounds of the Laniakea Supercluster. This supercluster is 500 million light years wide, contains the mass of, give or take, one hundred million billion Suns. Laniakea ranges across 100,000 galaxies.
Should you wish to see some amazing 3-d representations, Google it. I did not have time (nor the patience to wait for a reply) to attempt to secure rights usage of images from the sources in which they appeared. The September 4 issue of the journal Nature reported this story in great detail (and fee just to read the dang article). However, if you visit online archives of the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers with well-developed science pages, you can explore for free.
Now, Laniakea does provide added explanation for the enigmatic galactic point, the Great Attractor (14 Sagittarius 02, epoch 2000.0, so roughly 14 Sg 13 at present). According to the article, inside the supercluster galactic motion is toward the center - or in the direction of the Great Attractor. The Great Attractor acts like a valley absorbing the runoff from galactic mountain streams. Previously, it has been noted that the Great Attractor drew bands of everything in Creation toward it from either side in the amount of 60 Megaparsecs. Now the Great Attractor has a new 3-d depiction and it looks like one of those shapes that could form in a lava lamp.
The gravitational magnitude of the Great Attractor is so immense that it bends light completely around its mass. In fact, you can see objects behind the Great Attractor because of the gravitational lensing (bending of light by gravitational force). Since gravity also dilates time, well... time travelers beware of this travel advisory and book accordingly.
According to the astronomers, the Milky way resides in the “backwater” amongst other flowing galaxies in this cosmic watershed. The entire Virgo Supercluster, our Super-Galactic Center (2 Libra 04, epoch 2000.0), contributes only a dinky fraction to the mind-boggling mass of Laniakea.
Wow! Wait until the word spreads that we are all galactic backwater outsiders! Social media will go even more nuts with “include me” requests.
Seriously, since astronomers realize they cannot study the dynamical constitution of Laniakea from an outside point of view, they expect more can be understood about Cold Dark Matter, gravitational lensing and other cosmic realities not yet in our awareness.
It will be worth it to do a little Googling. Check out the pictures. If you can stumble upon a moving, 3-d image of Laniakea, stare at it and let it capture your consciousness. Who knows insight and inspiration might linger within!?
Meanwhile, soon (two days following the upcoming Equinox) the Sun, a consciousness bringer, aligns with the Super-Galactic Center. Let us see if collective shifts occur within these new cosmic reframes. Let us see if with a change in perception of our place in space offers up shifts in the carrier waves of our consciousness.
Soon Mars (Oct 3) reaches the degree of the Great Attractor. What irresistible forces will summon the attention of our individual energy and strike claims for new directions based upon greater awareness and new, consciousness capturing points of view? We shall see.
In the Northern Hemisphere last night marked the apex of the Harvest Moon - the last of this season of super-moons where the full moon alignment happens with the Moon nearly as close to Earth as she can come. Regardless of ones hemispheric residence, perhaps the symbolism can apply to the waning months of this calendric year. Get on with it. Reap what you need to glean from 2014!
More soon.