mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 11 May 3, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS: EDITORIAL SECTION...........................Michael Armstrong THE MYTH OF THE CENTRAL SUN (1)...................David Talbott HALE-BOPP: Article and Comments...............Wallace Thornhill PRESS RELEASE................................sci.astro (Usenet) EARTH AT RISK OF COLLISION WITH UNSEEN COMETS.................................Nick Nuttall ----------------------------------------------- Quote of the day: "The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might suspect, by the ignorant mass --which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught--but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a two-fold threat to academic mediocrities; it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole laboriously constructed intellectual edifice may collapse." Arthur Koestler in _The Sleepwalkers_ ----------------------------------------------- EDITORIAL SECTION By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) Earlier today, while reading a book on the philosophy of science, I paused at the obligatory section on science and religion, where I found an interesting view expressed. Though the typical definitions will have science dealing with the physical world and religion with the spiritual, others have said that science is concerned with knowledge and HOW, and religion is concerned with belief and WHY. But this particular author reasoned that, while "religion" relates to the deepest personal--or subjective--experience, science is the attempt to build a common way of describing the predictable world, based on a certain faith in human rationality and logic, reproducibility of results, and universally recognized conventions. No doubt all of the definitions add something to our perception of science and religion. But notice that the definitions of words tend to shift over time. I looked up the word "religion" in a dictionary giving the Greek, Latin, or romantic European language roots. It seems that "religion" is a compound word combining "re," meaning to do again, and "ligion," which comes from a word meaning to bind back and which has its roots in the Greek word "lego," which means to communicate with logic. Putting this all together, it is clear that when the word was first used it meant "to bind people together again with logic." How has this word, speaking for such a simple and beautiful idea, come to mean so many different things to different people? In the minds of many, "religion" signifies a world of make believe and man-made doctrine--mere superstition dignified as god-given truth. It has also come to mean a root conflict between cultures and nations. But it is surely more than any of these more narrow perceptions. Though science arose with the hope of transcending myth and subjective imagination, its institutionalized forms often take on the attributes of a NEW religion. Defenses of "scientific" theory can look very much like an inquisition, though the heretics are not burned at the stake, only left disgraced and without a job. Rather than attempt to paint either religion or science in black and white terms, perhaps a wiser approach will seek to cultivate the quest for truth in both realms, while acknowledging the mixtures of human strengths and weaknesses in actual practice. ----------------------------------------------- THE MYTH OF THE CENTRAL SUN (1) By David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR'S NOTE: The following continues David Talbott's introductory comments on the "Saturn theory." New readers are referred to earlier installments in issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website (address listed at the end of this newsletter). Go to the Thoth page and click on the image of "Thoth: the Egyptian God of Knowledge" to access the back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our next step is particularly vital because it will bring us to the threshold of a reconstruction, a concrete way to begin re-envisioning the past. In any investigation of the ancient sun god you will inevitably run into a theme of profound influence on ancient thought: You will confront the myth of the central sun--the motionless sun, the sun that did not rise or set, but stood firmly in one place. There is, in fact, a decisive difference between the great luminary celebrated as the king of the world, and the body we call the Sun today: unlike our rising and setting Sun, the archaic sun-god did not move. Perhaps the idea of a giant but visually stationary body in the sky will seem not just bizarre but impossible to visualize in any practical sense, given a rotating earth. There is an answer to that issue, arising from the ancient traditions themselves, but that answer will only raise other questions, so we've reached a point at which we have to be most attentive to the witnesses themselves. >From the first stirrings of civilization in the Nile Valley, all of the tribes of Egypt celebrated the memory of Atum or Ra, father of kings, founder of the Tep Zepi or Golden Age. Without exception Egyptologists have identified Atum-Ra as the rising and setting sun. And that's the first challenge we must meet, because there's a world of difference between the literal meanings of the texts and the familiar translations. In the Egyptian religious system, the ruler of the sky occupies a designated place, presiding over what the priests remembered as "the age of the primeval gods." The Egyptian sun god gives motion to the heavens, but he does not himself move. It is said of Atum, for example, that he "gives motion to all things." But his domain is, emphatically, the cosmic center, a place of motionlessness or "rest." The texts say of Atum-- The Great God lives Fixed in the middle of the sky Atum occupies, and is the cosmic center, the "place par excellence," to use the expression of one of the most perceptive Egyptologists, the late T. Rundle Clark. Thus one text proclaims Atum to be the "Firm Heart of the Sky." Other sources describe this cosmic center as the celestial "resting place" achieved by Atum. In the Egyptian chronicles this place of rest, the motionless center and summit of the sky, becomes the focus of the great celestial events of the First Time. Nothing misrepresents original meanings more profoundly than the common translations of Egyptian texts relative to the daily cycle of the sun god. In the language of the Egyptians themselves, the god does not rise and set, but grows bright and dims. He shines brightly, then his light recedes. The most frequently-used Egyptian words for the this occasion are _uben_. and _pert_. The first word, _uben_, means "to grow bright." The second, _pert_, means "to come forth." Now the truth of the matter is that neither these, nor any other Egyptian words translated as the sun rising on the eastern horizon actually carry such a meaning. When Egyptian sources speak of the sun god coming out, or coming forth, the meaning is precisely what you would intend in saying that "the Moon comes out at night", or "the stars come out." You would not mean that the moon or stars rise. You would mean that they "grow bright." And that is the literal meaning of the Egyptian words usually translated as "to rise": Related hieroglyphs mean to grow strong, to awaken, to come to life, and so on. It is the resting, stationary god who comes forth at the beginning of the day. But remember what we've already learned. The ancient day began at sunset, as the sky darkened. So we need to be very clear on this. The planetary components were vastly more dramatic and unlike anything appearing in the sky today. It was the planetary bodies that occupied the center stage in the mythmaking era. As the sky darkened, the large planetary bodies--extremely close to the earth--began to put on a spectacular display. Then, at sunrise, as the sky lightened, the radiance of these planetary bodies began to recede. That's the fundamental character of the ancient daily cycle, and the mythmakers endlessly recorded images of the contrasting phases, as we will see. One of the most common Egyptian expressions combined with words for "growing bright" or "coming forth" is the phrase _em hetep_. The sun god "comes forth _em hetep_." As usually translated the words mean "in peace." Now in what sense might we say that "Ra comes forth in peace."? Well, the root meaning is far more concrete. The words mean "to be at rest," or what is the same thing, "to stand in one spot." In other words, the phrase _em hetep_ directly complements the idea of the creator-king occupying his "resting place" in the sky. Literally, the Egyptian sun god "comes forth" or "grows bright" at the stationary _resting place_--again, the center and summit of the sky. [A note of caution, however, is needed here,. There is also a great deal of evidence suggesting that the great sphere revolves through phases and that these phases are inseparably tied to the cycle of day and night. A sphere turning in the sky is much different than a rising and setting sphere. ] The principles of the central sun appear to hold far beyond Egypt--even in cases where scholars have never doubted the god's solar identity. No cuneiform specialist has questioned the identity of the Babylonian "sun" god Shamash. Yet the texts describe Shamash "suspended from the midst of heaven." "Like the midst of heaven may he shine!" they say. "O Sun-god, in the midst of heaven..." His place in the sky is "the summit house," called also "the fixed house" and the "house of rest." In the cuneiform language these are not abstract phrases, but designations of very specific attributes and a very specific place in the sky. Center and summit (or "zenith" in many translations) are one and the same place: "In the center he made the zenith," states one text. The language makes clear that Shamash was a precise Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart of the Egyptian sun god Ra. The equation of center and summit--the cosmic place from which the sun god ruled in both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems--points to an archetypal idea. We will find that the idea pervades the myths of India, of China, the great native cultures of the Americas, and numerous other cultures as well. The conclusion is revolutionary: the first stargazers did not care about the body we call Sun today, while there was nothing in the world they cared about more than the exemplary life of the primeval, central sun. How could people on a rotating earth see a huge planetary body as stationary in the sky? For an earthbound observer, there is only one stationary spot in the revolving sky. It is the celestial pole--for those of us in the northern hemisphere, the north celestial pole, roughly identified in our night sky today with the star Polaris. Close by you see the constellation of Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, most familiar to us as the Big Dipper. When you look at the northern sky at night, the stars you see are actually cutting a circle around a motionless point. This wheeling of circumpolar stars around the visual center is, of course, due to the rotation of the Earth. As the earth rotates, the Great Bear will revolve visually around the motionless Polaris. [Since the Earth wobbles very slowly over thousands of years, the celestial pole has not always been Polaris, of course.] You can see this motion through a time lapse photograph of the circumpolar region. That stationary point, in the ancient religious and astronomical systems, is the sacred center and summit. Resting place, motionless site, axis, pivot, still place, silent region, the fixed or stable center of the turning heavens, the zenith, summit, top of the world--a rigorous, comparative approach will leave no doubt that this very spot is the remembered station of the primeval sun. Of course from the vantage point of modern astronomy the entire idea is outrageous. So our next step must be to look carefully at the language of the cosmic center in the different cultures. ----------------------------------------------- HALE-BOPP: ARTICLE AND COMMENTS By Wallace Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) The latest (27 March) press release from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) team: HALE-BOPP OBSERVATIONS WITH HUBBLE AND IUE SURPRISE ASTRONOMERS Completing an unprecedented year-long study of Comet Hale-Bopp using two NASA observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Ultraviolet Explorer, astronomers report that they are surprised to find that the different ices in the nucleus seem to be isolated from each other. They also report seeing unexpectedly brief and intense bursts of activity from the nucleus during the monitoring period. The Hubble observations suggest that the nucleus is huge, 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) across. The findings, by a team of scientists, led by Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Harold Weaver, are being published in the March 28 issue of the journal Science. "Hale-Bopp will probably provide the most revealing portrait of the workings of a cometary nucleus since the spacecraft missions to comet Halley in 1986," said Weaver. "This is a unique opportunity; we have never had the chance to examine a comet in this much detail, over this large a range of distance from the Sun." The key results: Violent Eruptions on the Comet's Surface During the course of long-term observations, which began in August 1995, astronomers unexpectedly caught the comet going through a sudden brief outburst, where, in little more than an hour, the amount of dust being spewed from the nucleus increased at least eight-fold. "The surface of Hale-Bopp's nucleus must be an incredibly dynamic place, with `vents' being turned on and off as new patches of icy material are rotated into sunlight for the first time," Weaver said. [W.T. Comments] These sudden, brief outbursts are characteristic of electric discharges which spark-machine surface material into space in well collimated jets. The discharges should switch on on the sunward side where the electric stress is greatest, and switch off as the jet rotates away from the Sun. They have nothing to do with "vents" somehow being turned on and off, and patches of icy material. How many more ad-hoc notions are needed by astronomers before they cut themselves badly on Occam's razor? [End of W.T. Comment] A Complex, Mottled Nucleus To their surprise, astronomers found that water ice sublimates (turns directly from a frozen solid into a gas) at a different rate than the trace ices, implying that those components are not contained within the water on the comet. This conclusion is further supported by Hubble data showing that the rate at which dust left the nucleus was much different than the sublimation rate of water. This result is contrary to previous models for a comet's nucleus which suggest that the trace components, such as carbon disulfide ice, are contained inside of the most abundant ice on the comet, frozen water. As water sublimates the trace components and dust should be released at similar rates, but this is not what Hubble observed. [W.T. Comments] I would not expect there to be any correlation between the sublimation rate of water ice, other ices and dust emission under the electric discharge model. Spark machining will remove material from the surface indiscriminately. THIS IS A NEW CONFIRMATION OF THE ELECTRICAL MODEL. (The other recent one was x-rays from a comet). [End of W.T. Comment] A Monstrous Nucleus By studying Hubble Space Telescope images, the astronomers have estimated that its nucleus may be about 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) in diameter. The average comet is thought to have a nucleus of about 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter, or even smaller. The comet or asteroid that struck the Earth 65 million years ago, possibly causing the extinction of the dinosaurs, was probably about 6 to 9 miles (10 to 15 kilometers) across. [W.T. Comments] The electrical parturition model of formation of highly condensed planets, moons, asteroids, comets and meteorites suggests that there are no real constitutional differences between them. Comets appear as they do because of their charge difference with the inner solar system and the fact that they have been better able to preserve their volatiles in the depths of space. (Tom Van Flandern's exploding planet model would also have no intrinsic difference between comets and asteroids). [End of W.T. Comment] Because Hale-Bopp was unusually bright when it was still a great distance away, well outside the orbit of Jupiter, it has given scientists their best view ever of the changes in a comet's nucleus as it gets closer to, and is progressively heated by, the sun. [W.T. Comments] That Hale-Bopp was so bright at such a great distance is not well explained by solar heating. It is to be expected if its charge was considerably different from its surroundings, even at that distance. [End of W.T. Comment] Those changes, in turn, provide information about the composition and structure of comets, which are believed to be remnants from the formation of the solar system, about 4.6 billion years ago. Learning more about comets can provide important information about the materials and processes that formed the solar system. [W.T. Comments] Once more the fairytale. Once more the benediction. Once more the surprises. [End of W.T. Comment] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GIF and JPEG images, captions and press release text are available via the World Wide Web at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/08.html and via links in http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Latest.html or http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Pictures.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Press Release posted to the sci.astro (Usenet newsgroup): "Meteorite study shows glimpse of Red Planet's ancestry" March 18, 1997 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- While the controversy continues over whether a Martian meteorite bears evidence of ancient life on Mars, a Purdue University scientist says the rocky fragments can tell us something about the early life of the planet itself. Michael Lipschutz, professor of chemistry who has analyzed trace elements in 11 of the 12 known Martian meteorites, says the samples contain a different mix of volatile elements than do rock samples from Earth, indicating that the Red Planet was created from a different nebular womb. "It looks like the cloud of gas and dust from which Mars was born contained more volatile elements such as thallium, bismuth and cadmium than did the cloud from which Earth was formed," Lipschutz says. Prior studies of the oxygen isotopes in the Martian meteorites indicated that they all came from the same planet. But other studies, using nonvolatile chemical markers, had revealed differences in their composition, indicating that the samples had encountered different experiences as the planet formed and evolved. "Our study is the first to show that the characteristics revealed by the nonvolatile elements are also present in the volatile elements," Lipschutz says. "That is to say that these meteorites share some common characteristics, but due to differences in their composition, they belong to the three separate categories that are commonly used to distinguish these meteorites." He presented his findings today (3/18) at the 28th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. Lipschutz, who has studied the solar system and meteorites for more than 30 years, based his findings on studies of 15 trace elements in 11 of the 12 meteorites identified as originating from the planet Mars. He will complete studies of the 12th meteorite this spring. His studies of the Martian meteorites focused on the volatile trace elements, the chemical elements that were most likely to condense last as the planet solidified from a cloud of dust and gas. Trace elements and ultratrace elements--especially volatile ones found in parts per million or parts per billion--can yield important information about a meteorite because the composition levels are so low that even the smallest change induced by a physical or chemical transformation is magnified into a relatively large change. In addition, the samples from Mars show that the planet has experienced at least two fractionation events--events that separate the volatile trace elements from the non-volatile elements, Lipschutz says. "The amazing thing is that whatever chemical fractionation events Mars experienced, all of the elements--volatile or not--were able to remain and record the events," he says. "This is unlike the situation in other extraterrestrial bodies where late heating, caused for example by the shock of an impact, can vaporize the volatile elements and destroy evidence of past events. In the case of some of the meteorites from the moon, chemical elements were introduced by events such as volcanism, which also clouded the historical record." Purdue News CONTACT: Lipschutz, (765) 494-5326, e-mail rnapuml at vm.cc.purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews at uns.purdue.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article about the latest research findings by Prof Mark Bailey and his Russian colleague Vacheslav Emel-Yanenko appeared in today's THE TIMES (London, 4 February 1997) on page 6. Prof Bailey is the Director of the Armagh Observatory and a member of the Organising Committee of the 2nd SIS Cambridge Conference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- EARTH AT RISK OF COLLISION WITH UNSEEN COMETS By Nick Nuttall Thousands of invisible comets may be hurtling into the solar system on a potential collision course with Earth, scientists said yesterday. But spotting the comets - called "dead" comets because they are inactive and pitch black - is "like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar", according to one expert. The findings will increase concern among some scientists that mankind is at risk from a devastating impact of the kind that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Asteroids had previously been thought to pose the greatest danger of extraterrestrial devastation: craters on the Earth's surface bear testimony to bombardements from space from objects about a kilometre across. The new research indicates that the danger from dead comets which, like Halley's comet, are formed in a place called the Oort Cloud on the edge of the solar system, may be as big, if not bigger, than that posed by asteroids. Only about 20 comets, such as Halley's, have previously been detected but new research indicates that between 1,000 and 4,800, up to six miles across, may be heading this way unseen. Many are likely to have orbits that bring them through the solar system every 200 years, which means that 50 a year could be passing by on paths that may take them near to Earth. The research, to be released later this month at the Fermor Memorial Meeting of the Geological Society in London and at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in March, has been undertaken by Mark Bailey of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland and Vacheslav Emel-Yanenko, an astronomer from Chelyabinsk in the Russian Federation. Professor Bailey said yesterday: "We are aware of around 20 comets like Halley's. For every one we see, there may be at least 100 times as many in similar orbit that we do not see. "This may be a conservative figure. Our calculations indicate that there may be between 1,000 and 5,000 that we have yet to see." The findings are based on studies into the rate at which comets are entering the solar system from the Oort Cloud. Professor Bailey said that about one new comet arrived every year. Most of these are ejected into interstellar space but the scientists estimate that about 1 per cent are trapped into short-period orbits that take them around the Sun every 200 years. The researchers believe that they survive for half a million years, leaving up to 5,000 in orbit. Professor Bailey said that comets such as Halley's were visible because they had volatile gases and streams of jets firing into a tail. Dead comets were inert. It is also possible that dead comets, technically known as cometary asteroids, may disintegrate far faster than the team supposes. This would mean that many may now be little more than pencil-thin streams of meteoroids which would be hard to detect but which could cause no harm to the Earth. Several astronomers have called on governments to set up networks of telescopes to give an early warning of approaching asteroids, large chunks of celestial debris formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The belt is considered to be a graveyard of rubble from a planet that failed to form, with asteroids ejected from time to time. Several hundred have been detected. Professor Bailey said that it may now be necessary to supplement such a system with infra-red telescopes covering the whole sky to seek out the dead comets. **end** ----------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE-- http://www.kronia.com/~kronia/ Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovskian/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html http://nt.e-z.net/mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the new field of astral catastrophics. Our initial focus will be on a reconstruction of ancient planetary myths in relation to a new theory of human and planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation that may be included in the articles. Again, we welcome your comments and responses, and any supporting information or relevant submissions. Michael Armstrong Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net