It’s been a momentous May for skywatchers around the world. First the big auroral event of May 10-11, next a flaming space rock entering over Spain and Portugal. The inbound object was captured by ground-based cameras and the MeteoSat Third Generation Imager in geostationary orbit. The incoming meteor dazzled viewers across both countries as it sped across the skies at 160,000 km/hour. Of course, social media came alive with speculation about what was burning up in the atmosphere. Most people thought it was a piece of space rock from an asteroid. European Space Agency members of the Planetary Defence Office immediately began analyzing images and data to figure out the composition of the impactor. Now it seems more likely the chunk of space debris came from a comet. They used other data about the energy released as the fragment flew through the atmosphere to determine the size of the object. It was likely about 1 meter across with a mass of between 500 to 1,000 kg. On 18 May, the meteor burned up in the night sky over Spain and Portugal – as seen by the fireball camera in Cáceres, Spain, operated by ESA’s Planetary Defence Office This is pretty small, which makes it hard to spot on the way in. Also, the object approached from the direction of the sky crowded with stars, making it doubly difficult to see as it spun into our planet’s atmosphere. It explains why planetary defense telescopes or observers didn’t detect the meteor. The Meteor’s Appearance To most observers, the meteor over Portugal and Spain looked blue-green and very bright. Those colors are created as various elements in the meteor get heated up by friction with our atmosphere. That vaporizes them and we see the “fiery” aspect light up the sky. If it was a piece of a comet, then the colors also indicate the materials it contained. Most comets contain water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and methane ice. Other comet “stuff” consists of silica dust, carbon, various metals, and organic molecules. The metals, in particular, could show spectacular colors as they heat up and vaporize. It’s not known which comet supplied the chunk that broke up and vaporized that night. Earth’s orbit crosses the orbit of several different comets. As they travel through space, particularly as they get close to the Sun, comets shed pieces of themselves. That cometary debris stays in the original orbit around the Sun. Occasionally, Earth’s orbit intersects that cometary path. Its particles particles eventually end up in our atmosphere. The best-known path creates the Orionid Meteor Shower and we can thank Comet Halley for that show from late September to mid-November. Surveys to Detect an Incoming Space Rock As planetary scientists learn more about the near-Earth environment and its population of asteroids and other space debris, they’ve formed observation groups within NASA and ESA. There’s a network of ground-based observers and facilities that watch the sky each night, looking for incoming impactors. Most of the time, their search is limited to objects larger than the Portugal/Spain object. In addition, satellites such as MeteoSat can pick up these intruders. MeteoSat was launched by ESA to monitor weather conditions and detect lightning strikes. The instrument has four cameras covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of South America. Each can capture up to a thousand images per second, allowing the satellite to monitor lightning continuously from space. ESA’s Planetary Defence Office is in charge of monitoring the positions and approaches of near-Earth objects that could pose a threat to any portion of our planet. It does regular observing campaigns to search for bits of asteroids and comets. NASA operates the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) to do similar searches for possibly dangerous rocks. The Near-Earth objects it’s most concerned about are asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 195 million kilometers of the Sun. Their orbits can move through our planet’s neighborhood. Most of these small bodies are asteroids as small as a few meters wide to nearly 40 kilometers across. Artist’s concept of the path that a space rock can take that might bring it near Earth. Planetary defense facilities around the planet try to track these objects and warn of their close approach whenever possible. Courtesy: ESA – P.Carril. The office uses data from observatories around the world—both professional and amateur. Much of this data comes from larger facilities, including Pan-STARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey, and NASA’s NEOWISE mission. In addition, there’s a significant program of planetary radar measurements that contribute data to the NEO observations effort. All of these skywatching campaigns contribute to increased awareness and predictions of near-Earth objects that could pose a threat to our planet. For More Information Fireball Witnessed by Weather Satellite Asteroid Watch ESA Planetary Defence Office The post A Weather Satellite Watched a Space Rock Burn Up Above Spain and Portugal appeared first on Universe Today.

A universal terror.

One of Russia’s most important early warning radar installations that was designed to track incoming nuclear missiles was destroyed on May 23rd, but the big corporate news outlets in the western world are hardly saying anything about it.  Without that installation, there is a giant hole in Russia’s ability to track incoming missiles from the direction of the Middle East.  So this is a really big deal.  During an all-out nuclear war, early warning radar installations would be among the very first targets, and the Russians are telling us that according to their nuclear protocols the destruction of the Armavir Radar Station could have allowed them to conduct a nuclear strike in return.  Thankfully, that did not happen.  But this should have been front page news all over the world. It is being reported that the Armavir Radar Station in southwestern Russia was “substantially damaged” by Ukrainian drones on Thursday… Satellite imagery confirms a Russian strategic early warning radar site in the southwestern end of the country was substantially damaged in a reported Ukrainian drone attack earlier this week. This looks to be a first-of-its-kind attack on a site linked to Russia’s general strategic defense. As such, it points to a new and worrisome dimension to the conflict, especially when it comes to the potential use of nuclear weapons. A satellite image taken on May 23 that The War Zone obtained from Planet Labs of the Armavir Radar Station in Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar Krai shows significant debris around one of the site’s two Voronezh-DM radar buildings. These are ultra-high-frequency (UHF) over-the-horizon (OTH) radars that are part of Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile early warning system. There were two Voronezh-DM units at that particular location, and it appears that both of them are now inoperable, and it is likely to stay that way for quite some time… What can be seen in the satellite image aligns with pictures taken from ground level that emerged on social media earlier today, which show severe damage to both structures housing the Voronezh-DMs at Armavir. There is also clear evidence of multiple hits on the radar buildings. It is worth noting that radar arrays are generally very sensitive and fragile systems, and even relatively limited damage can result in a “mission kill,” rendering them inoperable for an extended period of time. The Armavir Radar Station is highly advanced, and in 2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged that it could detect “even the most inconspicuous target in fractions of a second, detecting launches of various types of missiles, hundreds and even thousands of kilometers from our borders”. If someone hit an early warning radar installation in the U.S., all of our military officials would be really freaking out right now. But because this happened in Russia, everyone is acting as if nothing of significance just happened. Of course the truth is that the Ukrainians were very foolish to attack this facility, because we are being told that this attack was enough to “meet the conditions the Russian government laid out publicly in 2020 for actions that could trigger a nuclear retaliatory strike”… The two Voronezh-DMs at the facility are a key part of Russia’s larger strategic early warning network and their loss, even temporarily, could only degrade the country’s ability to detect incoming nuclear threats. There are also concerns about how this could impact the ability of Russia’s overall strategic warning network to evaluate potential threats and eliminate false positives due to possible loss of overlapping coverage in certain areas. Beyond that, it has been pointed out that the attack on Armavir could meet the conditions the Russian government laid out publicly in 2020 for actions that could trigger a nuclear retaliatory strike. Russia’s early warning network is part of the country’s broader nuclear deterrent posture. In fact, Dmitry Rogozin is publicly acknowledging that it is quite true that the Russians could have used nuclear weapons to respond to this attack… The former head of the state company Roscosmos and now a senator of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Rogozin, reported that the Ukrainian Forces attacked an installation of the Russian Missile Attack Warning System (MSWS) in the Krasnodar Territory. This is a key element of the Battle Command System of the country’s strategic nuclear forces. The senator reports that as a result of the strike, the Kuban early warning system facility was damaged. “In effect, this means that Russia has the right to consider this attack as a global threat to its state and national security, which, according to our doctrine, allows(!) the use of nuclear weapons(!) in response . At the same time, it is not entirely clear who made this essentially irrational decision,” writes Rogozin. I wish that I could get everyone to understand how serious this is. Here in the United States, the possibility of nuclear war isn’t even an issue and to most Americans it is so unlikely that it isn’t even worth thinking about. But over in Russia, national leaders are talking about nuclear war all the time and it is a constant topic on news shows. If the Russians consider their national existence to be seriously threatened, they will use nuclear weapons. And it certainly does not help that western politicians keep talking about how they will carve up Russia after they help the Ukrainians win the war.  Here is one of the latest examples… Last week, Russian media took note of the latest provocative statements by Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. She has led Russia’s tiny Baltic neighbor into a firm hawkish anti-Moscow position. The country was part of the wave of eastern European nations to join NATO in the mid-2000s during the Bush era. She’s calling for the breakup of the Russian Federation. Kallas proposed during a debate in the country’s capital of Tallinn last week that Russia could become much “smaller” as a desired outcome of the Ukraine war. “Russia’s defeat is not a bad thing because then you know there could really be a change in society,” the prime minister told the 17th Lennart Meri Conference, as translated in Russia’s RT. She said that currently the Russian Federation can actually be seen as making up “many different nations” and that they could be naturally broken into separate states. This is what the globalists intend to do, and the Russians realize this. And the Russians will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, it appears that a major conflict between the United States and China is getting closer. According to the Daily Mail, the U.S. military is actively “preparing to go to war with China” right now… The United States military is actively preparing to go to war with China over growing fears of an invasion of Taiwan. Marines from the US and the Philippines have been carrying out ominous war games on small islands a short distance from Taiwan, reports the Wall Street Journal. The exercises include deploying teams of marines from Chinook helicopters, readying unarmed assault rifles, and scoping out terrain that would hypothetically be used if conflict erupted. Sadly, most of us in the western world have no idea what is really going on out there. Most of us are just having a good old time as our leaders drag us toward the brink of disaster. When the time finally arrives, destruction will come upon millions of people very suddenly. If we want to avoid war, the time to do so is now. Because once the missiles start flying, it will be way too late. Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com. About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today. The post The Western Media Being Strangely Quiet About An Incident In Russia That Could Have Sparked A Nuclear Exchange appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

by Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit: The Secretary-General of NATO has said that the U.S. should reverse its ban on Ukraine firing its missiles against the Russian mainland. In an interview with The Economist, Stoltenberg said that lifting the restrictions would allow Ukraine to push Russian forces back, despite the obvious risk of escalation and […]

from RoadtoRoota: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/