Requiem for Relativity

planetarydefense.blogspot.com/2011/01/co...elenin-c2010-x1.html

MARX

If this hits Venus we could have a big problem !!!

MARX

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by evolivid</i>
<br />...do you think this comet and the "missile" test have a connection ?...
MARX
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

My guess would be no, but I'm not ruling very much out at this point. I gather from the Wikipedia article, that the period was almost infinity when it entered the inner solar system, but the period is predicted to be perturbed to ~12,000yr for its next return.

The Hawaii Bubble and Quantum Mechanics

I rechecked the coordinates of the points where, on June 22, 2011, Luna rose due east: i.e., the azimuth of Luna's center was 90 when the elevation was 0. The online JPL Horizons ephemeris gives this for an airless Earth model. That is, the angles are what would appear for an observer if Earth were airless. The effects of lightspeed (i.e., time delay, or, equivalently, aberration), precession and nutation of Earth's axis, and Earth's spheroidal shape, are included in the JPL model.

I made a small mistake in the longitude of the point east of Mauna Kea; really its E longitude is about 5' less than I said in my July 24 post. Luna rises at 90deg azimuth, along a curve that lies roughly SE to NW. I use Wikipedia's value for the "Mauna Kea observatory": long = 204:31:40.1E, lat = 19:49:34.0N. For convenience, my point A on the curve it that with the same longitude as the Mauna Kea observatory, my point B is that with the same latitude, my point C is that with latitude = 2*lat(A) - lat(, and my point D is on the equator. By trial and error, the unspecified coordinate was found to the nearest 1", then Luna's risetime was interpolated to the nearest 1sec from the JPL times given in minutes. All points are at altitude zero above the JPL's idealized "sea level".

Point A long 204:31:40.1E lat 22:30:35.0N risetime 09:34:19UT
Point B long 207:27:03.1E lat 19:49:34.0N risetime 09:22:21UT
Point C long 210:25:16.1E lat 17:08:33.0N risetime 09:10:11UT
Point D long 230:04:09.0E lat 0 risetime 07:49:31UT

This curve is more concave upward than a rhumb line (the longitude increment from A to B is only 99.20% that of linear interpolation between A & C) but it is close enough to a rhumb line, that quadratic interpolation, between A & C, sacrifices hardly any precision, and linear interpolation will suffice.

Now let's consider another curve on the globe. This is the curve where the elevation of Luna is arcsin(2/sqrt(6)) = 54.7356deg and the elevation of the Sun is -arcsin(1/sqrt(6)) = -24.0948deg. These, and their negatives, together with 0, are the angles, according to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, of possible angular momentum cones when j=2, m= +/-2, +/-1, or 0 (see, inter alia, Saxon, "Elementary Quantum Mechanics", 1968, pp. 310-311). Because the celestial coordinates of the Sun and Luna change, this curve differs slightly from a line of latitude.

For linear interpolation, let's consider the corners of the rectangle whose sides are the lines of latitude and longitude through Points A & B. Let the corner below A, be called A', and the corner above B, be called B'. Let's call it Condition "L" when Luna has the desired elevation, and Condition "S" when the Sun has the desired (negative) elevation (see previous par.). From the JPL ephemeris (minute times interpolated to seconds),

Point A Condition L 13:45:04UT Condition S 13:38:16UT
A' L 13:37:55 S 13:47:52
B' L 13:33:10 S 13:26:34
B L 13:26:00 S 13:36:11

By linear interpolation, I find the point on the longitude line between A & A', and the point on the longitude line between B' & B, such that Conditions L & S apply simultaneously. Again linearly, I find the intersection, of the line between these two points of simultaneity, and the line AB. The time of simultaneity on the line AB, I then find by interpolating either the L or S times at A & B. The result is 13:37:25UT.

Marsrise at this "simultaneity point" (interpolated coordinates, long 205.6996E lat 21.4339N; azimuth 34 viewed from Mauna Kea) is 13:38:12. In my July 24 post, I found by extrapolation of the bubble's linearly changing horizontal diameter, that the bubble started at 13:38:45 +/- 6sec. Using my corrected Point B, and some plane trigonometric approximations, I find that the observed "bubble start point" on the line AB, az. 51 from Mauna Kea (for determination of azimuth, see July 24 post) has long 206.132E, lat 21.043N and Marsrise 13:37:09.

In conclusion: to the accuracy of the measurements and calculations I have made, the bubble could have started at a point, on the line AB of due east moonrise, where Mars had risen about 96sec earlier. The time of this Marsrise, was about the same as the time when Conditions L & S (the special quantum mechanical angles of elevation of Luna and the Sun) prevailed at a nearby point of line AB, to which the bubble traveled during the next ~8 minutes before disappearing.

Another astronomical correlation of the Hawaii bubble

At 13:39:13 UT, June 22, 2011, according to the JPL ephemeris, Luna achieved apparent Declination (airless model, equinox of date) equal to Luna's apparent semidiameter, as observed from the North Pole. This compares to my July 24 estimate of the start time of the bubble, 13:38:45 +/- 5.5 sec. That is, the bubble started only about 28 sec before, the line from Earth's north pole to Luna's southern limb, came to lie parallel to Earth's equator. (Light travel time only affects this result by a little more than 1 sec.)

By contrast, Luna's center appeared to cross Declination Zero (apparent, of date) at 12:24:06 UT. The 28 sec discrepancy corresponds to only 28/(75*60) = 0.62% of Luna's semidiameter, i.e. 11km.

A more accurate start time for the Hawaii bubble?

I had measured the width of the bubble, in the Canada France Hawaii Telescope observation video, at seven times, ABCDEFG. On July 24 I averaged five of the nearest linear extrapolations to zero width, namely, through AB, AC, AD, BC, and BD; the result was 13:38:45 UT +/- SEM 5.5sec.

Today I considered all 35 choices of three times, with quadratic extrapolations through each trio of points. Six of these trios gave parabolas so wild that there was no time with zero bubble width. The remaining 29 trios all gave zero times within the range [13:36:37, 13:39:28], unweighted mean 13:38:28 UT +/- SEM 7.0 sec. This is consistent with my earlier linear result: the difference is 17sec, the standard error of the difference is sqr(5.5^2+7.0^2) = 8.9sec, so the difference is 1.9 sigma from zero.