Showing posts with label Weird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weird. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
4 Huge Unexplainable Explosions - Bizzare
1. Tunguska - Thousands of square kilometers of trees were burned
In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened.
Scientists have always suspected that an incoming comet or asteroid lay behind the event - but no impact crater was ever discovered and no expedition to the area has ever found any large fragments of an extraterrestrial object.
The explosion, equivalent to 10-15 million tonnes of TNT, occurred over the Siberian forest, near a place known as Tunguska.
A flash fire burned thousands of trees near the impact site. An atmospheric shock wave circled the Earth twice. And, for two days afterwards, there was so much fine dust in the atmosphere that newspapers could be read at night by scattered light in the streets of London, 10,000 km (6,213 miles) away.
Nearly a century later, scientists are still debating what happened at that remote spot. Was it a comet or an asteroid? Some have even speculated that it was a mini-black hole, though there is no evidence of it emerging from the other side of the Earth, as it would have done.
What is more, none of the samples of soil, wood or water recovered from the impact zone have been able to cast any light on what the Tunguska object actually was.
Researchers from several Italian universities have visited Tunguska many times in the past few years. Now, in a pulling together of their data and information from several hitherto unused sources, the scientists offer an explanation about what happened in 1908.
Possible orbits
They analysed seismic records from several Siberian monitoring stations, which combined with data on the directions of flattened trees gives information about the object's trajectory. So far, over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave.
Trees, Luigi Foschini
Over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave.
"We performed a detailed analysis of all the available scientific literature, including unpublished eye-witness accounts that have never been translated from the Russian," said Dr Foschini. "This allowed us to calculate the orbit of the cosmic body that crashed."
The object appears to have approached Tunguska from the southeast at about 11 km per second (7 miles a second). Using this data, the researchers were able to plot a series of possible orbits for the object.
Of the 886 valid orbits that they calculated, over 80% of them were asteroid orbits with only a minority being orbits that are associated with comets. But if it was an asteroid why did it break up completely?
"Possibly because the object was like asteroid Mathilde, which was photographed by the passing Near-Shoemaker spaceprobe in 1997. Mathilde is a rubble pile with a density very close to that of water. This would mean it could explode and fragment in the atmosphere with only the shock wave reaching the ground."
The research will be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
2. The Cando Event - A fireball in the sky
The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska event.
Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute. Up to 200 m3 of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 m down the hill.
Opinions are divided about the causes of the explosion.Local residents, claim it was a meteor, as an object "the size of a full moon" was seen in the skies of the Spanish region of Galicia. The mystery became fertile ground for conspiracy theories that point to military or "alien activities".
3.The Vela Incident - An unidentified double flash of light
On 22 September 1979, sometime around 3:00am local time, a US Atomic Energy Detection System satellite recorded an unidentified double flash of light in a remote portion of the Indian Ocean.
Moments later an unusual, fast-moving ionospheric disturbance was detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and at about the same time a distant, muffled thud was overheard by the US Navy`s undersea Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Evidently something violent and explosive had transpired in the ocean off the southern tip of Africa.
Half a year later, researchers in western Australia detected increased amounts of radiation in the area. The signal appeared to come from a 3,000 mile area that included the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, tip of Africa, and part of Antarctica. A presidential panel concluded in May 1980 that the signal was more likely an artifact of a meteoroid hitting the satellite and sunlight reflecting off particles ejected as a result of the collision.
Much of the information about the event is still classified.
4. Eastern Mediterranean Event - Calculated yield of about 2 Hiroshima bombs
The Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, -between Libya and Crete, Greece- on June 6th, 2002.
This explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb, has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was recovered. Since it did not reach the surface and it exploded over the sea, no crater was formed.
It was detected by satellites and seismographic stations, with a calculated yield of about 26 kilotons of TNT, approximately double the yield of the Hiroshima bomb, comparable to a small modern nuclear bomb.
In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened.
Scientists have always suspected that an incoming comet or asteroid lay behind the event - but no impact crater was ever discovered and no expedition to the area has ever found any large fragments of an extraterrestrial object.
The explosion, equivalent to 10-15 million tonnes of TNT, occurred over the Siberian forest, near a place known as Tunguska.
A flash fire burned thousands of trees near the impact site. An atmospheric shock wave circled the Earth twice. And, for two days afterwards, there was so much fine dust in the atmosphere that newspapers could be read at night by scattered light in the streets of London, 10,000 km (6,213 miles) away.
Nearly a century later, scientists are still debating what happened at that remote spot. Was it a comet or an asteroid? Some have even speculated that it was a mini-black hole, though there is no evidence of it emerging from the other side of the Earth, as it would have done.What is more, none of the samples of soil, wood or water recovered from the impact zone have been able to cast any light on what the Tunguska object actually was.
Researchers from several Italian universities have visited Tunguska many times in the past few years. Now, in a pulling together of their data and information from several hitherto unused sources, the scientists offer an explanation about what happened in 1908.
Possible orbits
They analysed seismic records from several Siberian monitoring stations, which combined with data on the directions of flattened trees gives information about the object's trajectory. So far, over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave.
Trees, Luigi Foschini
Over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave.
"We performed a detailed analysis of all the available scientific literature, including unpublished eye-witness accounts that have never been translated from the Russian," said Dr Foschini. "This allowed us to calculate the orbit of the cosmic body that crashed."
The object appears to have approached Tunguska from the southeast at about 11 km per second (7 miles a second). Using this data, the researchers were able to plot a series of possible orbits for the object.
Of the 886 valid orbits that they calculated, over 80% of them were asteroid orbits with only a minority being orbits that are associated with comets. But if it was an asteroid why did it break up completely?
"Possibly because the object was like asteroid Mathilde, which was photographed by the passing Near-Shoemaker spaceprobe in 1997. Mathilde is a rubble pile with a density very close to that of water. This would mean it could explode and fragment in the atmosphere with only the shock wave reaching the ground."
The research will be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
2. The Cando Event - A fireball in the sky
The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska event.
Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute. Up to 200 m3 of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 m down the hill.
Opinions are divided about the causes of the explosion.Local residents, claim it was a meteor, as an object "the size of a full moon" was seen in the skies of the Spanish region of Galicia. The mystery became fertile ground for conspiracy theories that point to military or "alien activities".
3.The Vela Incident - An unidentified double flash of lightOn 22 September 1979, sometime around 3:00am local time, a US Atomic Energy Detection System satellite recorded an unidentified double flash of light in a remote portion of the Indian Ocean.
Moments later an unusual, fast-moving ionospheric disturbance was detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and at about the same time a distant, muffled thud was overheard by the US Navy`s undersea Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Evidently something violent and explosive had transpired in the ocean off the southern tip of Africa.Half a year later, researchers in western Australia detected increased amounts of radiation in the area. The signal appeared to come from a 3,000 mile area that included the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, tip of Africa, and part of Antarctica. A presidential panel concluded in May 1980 that the signal was more likely an artifact of a meteoroid hitting the satellite and sunlight reflecting off particles ejected as a result of the collision.
Much of the information about the event is still classified.
4. Eastern Mediterranean Event - Calculated yield of about 2 Hiroshima bombs
The Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, -between Libya and Crete, Greece- on June 6th, 2002.
This explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb, has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was recovered. Since it did not reach the surface and it exploded over the sea, no crater was formed.It was detected by satellites and seismographic stations, with a calculated yield of about 26 kilotons of TNT, approximately double the yield of the Hiroshima bomb, comparable to a small modern nuclear bomb.
Friday, July 10, 2009
The Town Devoured By Rock
Struck by a meteor? A Setenil Street Image via Oddity Central
The 3,000-odd inhabitants of Setenil de las Bodegas, a city in Spain beautiful Andalucia region, seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. When they enter their houses, they see rock face; when they stroll through their city, they walk on rocks. Has the city been hit by a meteor and if not what caused its unusual construction?
Setenil de las Bodegas, about 18 km away from Ronda in the province of Cadiz, has wedged itself between the cliffs eroded by the Rio Trejo river. The old houses especially are built under the cliff overhang and the newer ones against the hillside.
The name Setenil developed from the the Latin septem nihil -"seven times no"- which refers back to the period of the Christian reconquest, when Catholic kings tried to win back territory from the Moors, who had come from Africa and ruled the Iberian peninsula since 711. In Setenil`s case, only the seventh reconquest attempt was successful, in 1485, making the city one of the last bastions of the Moors until they were driven out of western Europe in 1492.
Regarding the second part of the name,"de las Bodegas", at least two different stories circulate. According to one, Sentenil proudly added "de las Bodegas" to its name in the 15th century, because of the many vineyards that had sprung up. Sadly, vine pests ended this tradition in the 1860s.
According to another story, since the early 16th century, "bodegas" referred to Sentenil`s big storerooms under the rock that kept all kinds of produce cool even in the hottest of summers. Regardless of which version is true, fact is that even today, Setenil is famous for delicacies like chorizo, cerdo, olive oil, honey, jam and excellent Andalucian wine.
Other than being built into the rock, Setenil is also one of the typical White Villages of Andalucia; villages that try to stay as cool as possible in this hottest region of Spain by whitewashing their houses every year, as white reflects sunlight best.
The reason people choose to live here is pragmatism, more or less. The natural caves at Setenil proved perfect living quarters, it is believed since pre-historic times. Instead of having to build a whole house and insulating it against heat in the summer and cold in the winter, many rock caves just needed a facade and voila, there was a house in tune with nature!
Also, one shouldn`t forget that Setenil de las Bodegas is a city that is many centuries old and thus has seen its fair share of fighting. And which enemy would go for the city with rock solid defenses, literally, when the next town over has no such protection? After all, that’s why it took the Catholic kings seven attempts before they won Setenil back from the Moors...
Overall, a very minimally invasive building style. Rock on, Setenil!
The 3,000-odd inhabitants of Setenil de las Bodegas, a city in Spain beautiful Andalucia region, seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. When they enter their houses, they see rock face; when they stroll through their city, they walk on rocks. Has the city been hit by a meteor and if not what caused its unusual construction?
Setenil de las Bodegas, about 18 km away from Ronda in the province of Cadiz, has wedged itself between the cliffs eroded by the Rio Trejo river. The old houses especially are built under the cliff overhang and the newer ones against the hillside.The name Setenil developed from the the Latin septem nihil -"seven times no"- which refers back to the period of the Christian reconquest, when Catholic kings tried to win back territory from the Moors, who had come from Africa and ruled the Iberian peninsula since 711. In Setenil`s case, only the seventh reconquest attempt was successful, in 1485, making the city one of the last bastions of the Moors until they were driven out of western Europe in 1492.
Regarding the second part of the name,"de las Bodegas", at least two different stories circulate. According to one, Sentenil proudly added "de las Bodegas" to its name in the 15th century, because of the many vineyards that had sprung up. Sadly, vine pests ended this tradition in the 1860s.
According to another story, since the early 16th century, "bodegas" referred to Sentenil`s big storerooms under the rock that kept all kinds of produce cool even in the hottest of summers. Regardless of which version is true, fact is that even today, Setenil is famous for delicacies like chorizo, cerdo, olive oil, honey, jam and excellent Andalucian wine.
Other than being built into the rock, Setenil is also one of the typical White Villages of Andalucia; villages that try to stay as cool as possible in this hottest region of Spain by whitewashing their houses every year, as white reflects sunlight best.
The reason people choose to live here is pragmatism, more or less. The natural caves at Setenil proved perfect living quarters, it is believed since pre-historic times. Instead of having to build a whole house and insulating it against heat in the summer and cold in the winter, many rock caves just needed a facade and voila, there was a house in tune with nature!
Also, one shouldn`t forget that Setenil de las Bodegas is a city that is many centuries old and thus has seen its fair share of fighting. And which enemy would go for the city with rock solid defenses, literally, when the next town over has no such protection? After all, that’s why it took the Catholic kings seven attempts before they won Setenil back from the Moors...
Overall, a very minimally invasive building style. Rock on, Setenil!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Worst Photoshop Mistakes Ever - Amazing
Need an extra hand?
Nice stomach on the "Before" picture
World's smallest waist - Maxim Mexico
The model apparently had a stroke during her shoot (right eye)
The only cereal that makes you white
Yeah, nice legs
No head ?
Designer who needs Photoshop training wakes up and utters "OMG! I forgot to put her finger back in"
Is she's about to devour her friend?
Madonna's Microcephalic issue
So what's wrong with this girl's arm?
How many hands do you actually have Lady Guineviere?
You're freaking the kids out!
Hey good job removing that woman, though I think you missed a bit.
Number Six in the Suzuki comes from in front to overtake the Yamaha and is clearly now behind and can only needs to stay in front to lose the race. Fantastic.
Nice stomach on the "Before" picture
World's smallest waist - Maxim Mexico
The model apparently had a stroke during her shoot (right eye)
The only cereal that makes you white
Yeah, nice legs
No head ?
Designer who needs Photoshop training wakes up and utters "OMG! I forgot to put her finger back in"
Is she's about to devour her friend?
Madonna's Microcephalic issue
So what's wrong with this girl's arm?
How many hands do you actually have Lady Guineviere?
You're freaking the kids out!
Hey good job removing that woman, though I think you missed a bit.
Number Six in the Suzuki comes from in front to overtake the Yamaha and is clearly now behind and can only needs to stay in front to lose the race. Fantastic.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Can Wood Be Mirror or Not?Somebody figure it can......Amazing
This wonderful mechanical wooden mirror looks deceptively simple. In reality, it is technologically complex – the hundreds of blocks in the matrix respond to input from carefully concealed cameras that tell them when to shift and rotate. Subtle shades emerge out of the combination of reflected light, cast shadows and the soft wood grain.
Changing with its environment in real time, this mirror is an animated and ghostly reflection of whatever is put in front of it. We see small bits and pieces of ourselves reflected in all kinds of accidental mirrors all the time – opaque images shop windows, distorted forms in a curved metal hand rail – but this takes a particularly unusual material, not known for its reflectivity, and makes it into a larger-than-live reflector.In the video, you can see just how fast the mirror responds to what the camera sees.
Monday, July 6, 2009
15 Stupidest Warning Labels - Hilarious
"DO NOT put any person in this washer"
"6PCS Precision screwdriver set not to be inserted into P-E-N-I-S"
"Do not eat Ipod shuffle" (found on apple's website)
We are sorry that our president is an idiot, we did not voted for him" (on an american clothing label, in french)
"Be careful of bad language on this mobile phone, because a partner's feeling is going to be bad" (on a cellpone)
"This product moves when used" (on a Razor scooter)
"If you cannot read (...) warnings, do not use this product"
"Use care when operating a car (...)" (on a bottle of dog's pills)
"Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level" (found on a jetsky user manual)
"Do not hold the wrong end of a chainsaw"
"All ranges can tip if you or child stand sit or lean on open door" (on an oven)
Caution: Please do not use this directory while operating a moving vehicle" (On a Bellsouth Yellow Pages for Augusta)
"Do not iron" (on a lottery ticket)
"Machine can fall over and cause serious injury or death" (on a vending machine)
Do not use for personal hygiene" (on Scrubbing Bubbles Fresh Brush)
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