Top 3 The Natural Phenomenon in the World

1. Pink and White Terraces

Nature Phenomena White Terrace

Nature Phenomena Pink Terrace

New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces, or Otukapuarangi ("fountain of the clouded sky") and Te Tarata ("the tattooed rock") in Māori, were considered a natural wonder until they were destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption in 1886. The natural phenomenon of warm water that formed by geysers that blast down the hillside across the thickness of ice left, the largest pool of warm water was recorded around 3 acres. Before the destruction of this phenomenon, It belongs to ” The Eighth Wonder of the World “.

2. Cave of the Crystals

Giant Crystal Cave

Cave of the Crystals or Giant Crystal Cave located at the mining sites in Chihuahua, Mexico. The main chamber contains giant selenite crystals, some of the largest natural crystals ever found.


3. Red Tides

Amazing natural Phenomenon Red Tides

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon more correctly known as an algal bloom (large concentrations of microorganisms), an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. A natural phenomena occurs because gathering of microorganisms in the coastal area from the mouth water, sea or river water and make the water purple and red.

The creature in the Garo Hills of Northern India

A team is soon to embark on an expedition to seek India's answer to Bigfoot, the Mande-burung. The group is comprised of members from the Center for Fortean Zoology and will be lead by Adam Davies, they will leave on October 31st in the hope of finding evidence of the creature in the Garo Hills of Northern India.

Here is the story :

On October 31 – appropriately Halloween, of course - a team from the British-based Center for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) will be embarking upon a truly ambitious expedition to the Garo Hills of Northern India in search of legendary, hairy, man-like beasts know as the Mande-burung – or, in simpler terminology, the Indian equivalents of the United States’ Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman of Tibet. The 5-man team will be led by Adam Davies – the author of the monster-hunting-themed book, Extreme Expeditions – and will also consist of Dr Chris Clark, Dave Archer, field naturalist John McGowan, and cryptozoologist Richard Freeman; the latter a former keeper at England’s Twycross Zoo and the author of the book, Dragons: More Than A Myth.

Jonathan Downes, the founder and director of the CFZ, says of these strange and elusive animals: “The creatures are described as being up to ten feet tall, with predominantly black hair. Most importantly, they are said to walk upright, like a man. Walking apes have been reported in the area for many years. These descriptions sound almost identical to those reported in neighboring Bhutan and Tibet. Witnesses report that the Mande-Burung - which translates as forest man - is most often seen in the area in November.”

Downes continues: “The Garo Hills are a heavily forested and poorly explored area in Meghalaya state in the cool northern highlands of India. The area is internationally renowned for its wildlife, which includes tigers, bears, elephants and Indian rhino and clouded leopards.”

He adds: “The Indian team will be led by Dipu Marek, a local expert who has been on the trail of the Indian Yeti for a number of years and has, on previous occasions, found both its nests and 19-inch long ‘footprints.’ The expedition team has also arranged to interview eyewitnesses who have seen the Mande-Burung. Camera traps will be set up in sighting areas in the hope of catching one of the creatures on film.”

As for what these creatures may actually represent, Downes has a few thought provoking ideas: “The Mande-Burung may be a surviving form of a giant ape known from its fossilized teeth and jaw bones, called Gigantopithecus-Blacki, which lived in the Pleistocene epoch around three hundred thousand years ago. This creature is, of course, extinct. However, much contemporary fauna such as the giant panda, the Asian tapir and the Asian elephant that lived alongside the monster ape, still survive today. It is thought by many that Gigantopithecus also survives in the impenetrable jungles and mountains of Asia. Its closest known relatives are the Orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo.”

And as Downes carefully notes, the CFZ’s intrepid explorers are no strangers to heading off into the vast unknown in search of mysterious and elusive creatures: “Last year the team, who investigate mystery animals all over the world, travelled to Sumatra in search of a small, bipedal ape known as the Orang-Pendek. Dave Archer and local guide Sahar Didmus saw the creature, and the group brought back hair that was later analyzed by Dr Lars Thomas at the University of Copenhagen. The DNA proved to be similar to an orangutan's, an animal not found in that part of Sumatra.”

Needless to say, I will be providing right here at Lair of the Beasts both careful and up to date information, as and when the team reports in to the Devonshire, England headquarters of the CFZ. Will the fearless five really turn up hard evidence in support of the theory that giant apes – possibly even surviving, relic populations of the presumed-extinct Gigantopithecus – actually do inhabit the wilder parts of India? Only time will tell…

source : here

Mystery the "curse of the Crying Boy Painting" in Yorkshire

Steve Punt believes he's found the answer to one of the most chilling mysteries of recent times.

It all started in 1985 when a house fire in Yorkshire gutted the home of Ron and May Hall leaving only a mysterious painting of a crying child left unscathed. When similar paintings were reported to have survived other house fires the "curse of the crying boy" phenomenon was born.

here is the story :

In a chilling story that gripped the nation in 1985, the Yorkshire home of Ron and May Hall was gutted by fire - but their painting of a crying boy remained unscathed.
Hundreds more people went on to report experiences of house fires where a Crying Boy painting had survived. Now comedian STEVE PUNT has re-examined the "curse" for his Radio 4 programme Punt PI, in which he investigates quirky unsolved mysteries.

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, George Michael was a bouffant-haired pop god, David Cameron had just started at university - and Britain was in the grip of the Curse Of The Crying Boy. From all over the country came reports of house fires in which a picture of a tearful child was unscathed.

I remembered reading the story at the time and wanted to investigate whether anyone had ever solved the mystery. I tracked one of the pictures down. Recession has clearly struck the art world because it was only a tenner. I then talked to Kelvin MacKenzie - Editor of The Sun in 1985 who urged readers to send in their paintings before organising a bonfire - about what made the story so interesting.

The crucial factor, it seemed, was that it was a Yorkshire fireman, not a regular member of the public, who had noticed the unburnt painting and claimed that this was not the first time they had seen it survive a fire.

By this time I had realised that it wasn't just that the Crying Boy was involved in the fires - there were also rumours that it had STARTED them. How could that happen?

I talked to art expert Tim Marlow. He's not a big fan of the Crying Boy but did recognise the name of the artist, Bragolin, who died in 1981 and created a series of Crying Boy paintings for tourists in post-war Venice.

It didn't fit with the extraordinary tale that has appeared on the internet since the original story 25 years ago.

This version claims that the boy in the painting was an orphan whose parents had died in a fire. He was taken in by the painter despite warnings that he was a firestarter - a child who can burn things without touching them.

The artist's studio caught fire and he was ruined. The boy ran away - and ten years later a car crashed in flames on the outskirts of Barcelona.

The driver died in the crash, the online story goes, but a driving licence found inside showed it was the orphan boy.

This story is, of course, too good to be true. And even if the child himself could start fires, that's not the same as a painting of him starting fires, let alone 50,000 copies.

It didn't, to be honest, seem very likely. But was it true that the picture didn't burn? I went to the Building Research Establishment - a laboratory near Watford where they set things on fire for research purposes.

The result was a little surprising. A flame put immediately in front of the painting did set fire to a corner of the frame but only burnt around the outer edge of the child's profile before petering out.

But it turns out there is a reason why paintings often survive fires relatively undamaged: It is to do with the string on the back burning through first.

The painting falls face-down, giving it protection from smoke and heat.

It's easy to see how the Crying Boy became such a phenomenon. It has all the ingredients of a great spooky story.

An eerie child, a rash of fires, a mysterious artist, a "supernatural" ability to survive flames... and a newspaper with an eye for a good story.

Many people were spooked and wanted to be rid of them but Kelvin MacKenzie thinks there is another reason why the paintings flooded in.

Full article By : STEVE PUNT

2012" End Of The Earth " Does Mayan Calendar True?

A new book argues that the conversions of Mayan dates may be off by as much as 100 years.

If so then the concept of the end of the world being in 2012 is also inaccurate, even if we were to accept that something will happen the exact date could be out by almost a century and might have already passed.


Here is the news about this (source from yahoo) :
End of the Earth Postponed

It's a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan "Long Count" calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn't end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will - or if it has already.

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)

The Mayan calendar was converted to today's Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter's author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.

"He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant," Aldana said in a statement. "Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct."

But according to Aldana, Lounsbury's evidence is far from irrefutable.

"If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data," he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall "like a stack of cards."

Aldana doesn't have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.

Scientists in China To Seek out the Mythical Yeren

A group of scientists in China are mounting an expedition to look for China's Bigfoot. For many years there have been sightings and reports of a strange bipedal ape-like beast in the remote mountainous area of the central province of Hubei. Now the Hubei Wild Man Research Association is looking for volunteers to help seek out conclusive evidence of the creature.
A group of Chinese scientists and explorers is looking for international help to mount a new search for the country's answer to Bigfoot, known locally as the "Yeren", or "wild man".

Over the years, more than 400 people have claimed sightings of the half-man, half-ape Yeren in a remote, mountainous area of the central province of Hubei, state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday.

Expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s yielded hair, a footprint, excrement and a sleeping nest suspected of belonging to the Yeren, but there has been no conclusive proof, the report added.

Witnesses describe a creature that walks upright, is more than 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) tall and with grey, red or black hair all over its body, Xinhua said.

Now the Hubei Wild Man Research Association is looking for volunteers from around the world to join them on another expedition to look for the Yeren.

"We want the team members to be devoted, as there will be a lot a hard work in the process," Luo Baosheng, vice president of the group, told Xinhua.

BBut the team will have to come up with about 10 million yuan ($1.50 million) first, and is talking to companies and other bodies to secure the funding, so there is no timetable yet for when they may start, the report added.

China is no stranger to cryptozoology. Tales abound of mysterious, Loch Ness monster-like creatures living in lakes in remote parts of the country.

Tibetans have also long talked about the existence of the Yeti, or "Abominable Snowman", in the high mountains of their snowy homeland. ($1=6.671 Yuan) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ron Popeski).

Source : here

10 Unexplained Mysteries Phenomena Part 2

6.The Out of Body Experience
An out of body experience happens when your awareness is transferred beyond your physical body. When it happens during severe bodily trauma, it's often called a near death experience (NDE). And when it's induced at will and used to travel to other planes or dimensions, it's called astral projection (AP).
explains the three conditions surrounding this phenomena:
1. It's a normal dream. You can tell if you are only dreaming that you are in an astral state because you won't experience the separation process.

2. It's a lucid dream. You can consciously induce an out of body experience from within a lucid dream, but it's still only a dream inside your mind.

3. It's a real OBE. You know that you are awake in your real bedroom when the separation process begins. There are no dream characters or constructs. There's a strange, unearthly quiet about it and you feel a bit like a ghost.

Dr Robert Monroe famously documented his out of body experiences in his groundbreaking book, Journeys Out of the Body. He was at first incredulous when he began having OBEs against his will but soon traveled to places far removed from the material and spiritual realities of life on earth.

The concept compels us to rethink our ideas about life and death - and maybe even induce an out of body experience for ourselves.

7. The Mayan Prophecy


According to an increasingly large number of people, the Mayan Prophecy states that the world as we know it will change on December 12, 2012. This is not a new phenomena; as landmark dates draw near, end of the world theories creep out of the woodwork with astonishing popularity.

However, this particular theory has been around for more than 5000 years. It began when the ancient Mayans plotted our position in the Milky Way and launched the Mayan calendar.

The Mayans believed that in the year AD 1999, mankind would have 13 years to recognize our own patterns of self destruction. Then, starting December 12, 2012, our entire lives would be tested and only those most in touch with their spiritual sides would survive (as some interpretations have it). Many people take this as a sign that a natural or manmade disaster will occur, tearing apart the civilized world and taking us back to hunter-gatherer days.
There are other interpretations too: from sun storms to the eruption of a super volcano; from a magnetic field reversal to a meteor impact. Some people even point to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland as the bringer of doom.

While the world may come to an abrupt end any time, any day, without warning - one thing is for sure: our modern society, like all civilizations before us, is geared to postulate over end-of-the-world mysteries with gusto.

8. Stonehenge
Stonehenge is one of the greatest unexplained mysteries of the world. It's certainly no hoax (estimated to be more than 5,000 years old) and is probably the most important prehistoric monument in the whole of Britain. When you visit Stonehenge, you'll find yourself driving for miles through rolling hills and countryside until, suddenly, you catch sight of this bizarre structure. There's an eerie feel to the area around Stonehenge, and for thousands of years it has soon silently, giving away few clues as to the meaning of its existence.

Excavations have revealed that Stonehenge was built in three parts. First, a series of holes were dug around 3100 BC as part of a religious ceremony. Then, more than 1,000 years later, the most dramatic stage of building took place. Huge bluestones from mountains in Wales were lugged more than 240 miles to the Stonehenge site. Why would anyone do this in the age before the wheel? It wouldn't have been hard to find rocks closer nearby. The stones were set up to form an incomplete double circle, aligned perfectly with the midsummer sunrise.

The third stage in 2000 BC saw the arrival of the more stones, transported by land from the Marlborough Downs some 25 miles away. Then, after a further 500 years had passed, someone felt the need to rearrange the massive Welsh bluestones into the familiar horseshoe and circle we see today.

One of the great unexplained phenomena, the meaning of Stonehenge is still not clear today. Was it a temple, a burial ground, an observatory, or an ancient calendar? Without a time machine to go back and ask, we may never know.

9. Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is a prehistoric creature thought to inhabit the Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. As lake monsters go, Scotland has tales of a fair few, with Nessie gaining the most popularity of all on the back of anecdotal evidence.

Nessie hit the headlines in 1933 when a story was published in the Inverness Courier. The report quoted a Londoner who had visited a few weeks earlier as seeing: "a most extraordinary form of animal... the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life."
After that, more sightings were reported and this unexplained phenomena hit international headlines. That same year, one motorcyclist claimed to nearly hit Nessie late one night as it lumbered across the road and slid back into the loch. Soon, apparent photos of the Loch Ness Monster were being published...

In 1960, an aeronautical engineer filmed a hump crossing the water in Loch Ness in a powerful wake unlike that of a boat. Years later, digital enhancement of the footage revealed what seemed to be the rear body, flippers, and two more humps of a plesiosaur-like body. The technician said: "Before I saw the film, I thought the Loch Ness Monster was a load of rubbish. Having done the enhancement, I'm not so sure."

There's no doubt that the story of Nessie has drawn huge tourist interest to the famed Loch Ness. And while some suggest it's a living plesiosaur, New Scientist points out that such a creature could never lift its head up out of the water like the photos and anecdotes suggest. What's more, the loch is only 10,000 years old and was frozen solid for about 20,000 years before that.

10. The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle is one of the great unexplained phenomena of the 20th century. It is held responsible for the disappearance of countless airplanes and boats in the ocean between Florida, San Juan, and Bermuda. This area is one of the most heavily sailed shipping lanes in the world, with vessels crossing through daily for ports in the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean Islands.
So why do people think there's weird stuff going on in the Bermuda Triangle? Because there are a huge number of disappearances that happened in very mysterious circumstances, falling beyond the possibilities of human error, equipment failure or natural disasters. Many theories attribute a paranormal explanation, like a suspension of the laws of physics.

The first unexplained phenomena occurred in the 1950s when the story of Flight 19 came to light, detailing a group of five US Navy bombers on a training mission. The flight leader was reported to have said: "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that Navy officials said the planes "flew off to Mars", linking the Devil's Triangle with the supernatural.

Skeptics say that such incidents have been embellished, and the Bermuda Triangle is responsible for no more disappearances than any other area of ocean. However, fans of paranormal phenomena say many incidents remain unexplained to this day, despite considerable investigation.

source : world of lucid dream

10 Unexplained Mysteries Phenomena Part 1

Here is 10 Unexplained mysteries phenomena of the world, and that's still a mysteri.

1. Crop Circles


The original crop circles were exactly that - circular patterns of flattened crops, often created in mysterious circumstances overnight. During the last 20 years, though, crop circles have evolved into complex geometric shapes, like the DNA double helix or the nautilus shell. In 1966, an Australian sugar cane farmer said he saw a saucer-shaped spaceship rise up from a swamp before flying away. When he looked at the landing site, he found the reeds intricately woven in a clockwise direction on top of the water. There are many other anecdotal accounts of crop circles appearing in alien UFO literature, where sometimes the crops were burnt, otherwise flattened.

But in 1991, two men from Southampton, England, admitted they conceived the whole idea as a prank some 15 years earlier. They made their masterpiece using planks, rope, hats and wire - and could create a 40-foot circle in 15 minutes. The only reason they came clean was because one of the men, Bower, was running up considerable mileage on his car and had to convince his wife he wasn't having an affair. He continues to demonstrate the art of crop circles today.

Many people still claim that while some crop circles are almost certainly fakes, others are genuinely created by alien intelligence. They point out that the arrangements are too complex to be created by hand in such a short time...

2. The Pyramids of Egypt
When it comes to unexplained mysteries of the world, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt really take the biscuit. The largest pyramid of all, also known as the Great Pyramid of Cheops (or Khufu), was built around 5,000 years ago - but how?
The Pyramid of Cheops is the size of a 40-storey building and covers an area big enough to fit 10 football fields in it. More than 2 million stone blocks were used to make the pyramid, each weighing 2-5 tons and cut from a distant limestone quarry on the other side of the Nile. Experts reckon it took a whopping 400,000 men some 20 years.

Engineering feats aside, there is also some weird paranormal phenomena going on at the Pyramid of Cheops. In the 1940s, a French hardware dealer spotted some mummified animals exactly one-third up the height of the pyramid. The remarkable thing was they showed no signs of decomposition. He deducted that the pyramid shape was responsible for preserving these creatures. Attempts to mummify dead organic matter under small cardboard pyramids have produced the same result - as if there is some kind of energy within the pyramid shape.

Later, a Czech radio engineer conducted a series of experiments in which he placed a brand new razor blade inside a 1:1,000 scale model of Cheops. He aligned his pyramid on a north-south axis exactly like the real thing. After getting 50 shaves from the razor, he was forced to conclude that it was only getting sharper, just from being inside the pyramid. It took him 10 years to obtain a patent for this remarkable device, which still has no scientific explanation today.

3. Bigfoot (better known as Sasquatch)

He's big, he's hairy, and he's starred in his own TV show! Bigfoot is world-famous for spooking the bejesus out of hikers and hunters in North America. Scientists consider Sasquatch to be the result of folklore, misidentification and a whole lot of hoaxes. However, some people believe many of these humanoid creatures exist around the world, just like the Yeti of the Himalayas.
Bigfoot has been described as an ape-like creature, some 6-10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or reddish hair. Witnesses give him large eyes, a heavy brow ridge and a crested head, much like a male gorilla. Footprints allegedly belonging to Bigfoot are 24 inches long.

Is Sasquatch really one of the great unexplained mysteries of the world? Somewhat disappointingly, the most famous footage of Bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California, was shot down by a man called Bob Heironimus. Years after the event, he claimed he wore an ape costume for the filming.

Scientists also point out there is slim chance that a prehistoric, bipedal, apelike creature could exist, simply because the breeding population of such an animal would have to be so large that many more sightings would be reported.

Nevertheless, Bigfoot's cousin - the Yeti (aka the Abominable Snowman) - has a strong alleged presence in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Teams of scientists continue to seek out photo evidence, and many locals accept the reality of a breeding Yeti population as read.

4. UFO's/ Area 51

Unidentified Flying Objects can usually be explained away as airplanes, helicopters, weather balloons, comets, meteors and even the five planets which can be seen with the naked eye. In photographs they are usually deemed as dust on the camera lens or simply all-out hoaxes. But sometimes they fall into the category of true unexplained phenomena, as is the case with alien UFOs.
The first reported UFO sighting happened in Texas in 1878, when a local farmer reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object flying "at wonderful speed". Another famous early sighting occurred in the UK in 1916, when a pilot reported seeing a row of lights that rose and disappeared into the sky.
After UFOs were popularized by science fiction in the 1950s, the number of sightings went through the roof. Theories to explain the paranormal phenomena range from the good old Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, where aliens are visiting us from another planet; to the Interdimensional Hypothesis, where alien UFOs are crossing the fabric of space-time from a parallel universe.

Meanwhile, UFO conspiracy theories center around Area 51 in Nevada, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The site houses a large air base that was selected in the 1950s for testing of a U-2 spy plane. It has since become America's testing ground for secret "black budget" aircraft before they go public.

The UFO stories began when, in 1989, Bob Lazar claimed on Las Vegas TV that he had worked on alien spacecraft just south of Area 51. The combination of government secrecy and unexplained phenomena happening in the sky above the desert has sparked UFO conspiracy theories ever since.

5. The Belmez Faces

The famous Belmez faces have been described by parapsychologists as "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomena in the 20th century."
In 1971, in the small Spanish village of Belmez, Maria Pereira claimed a human face spontaneously appeared on her cement kitchen floor. It wasn't long before she destroyed the floor and replaced it - and a new face promptly appeared.

More and more faces continued to appear on the floor of Maria Pereira's kitchen, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Some were male, some female, some large, and some small. In time, she discovered that the house, built around 1830, stood above a graveyard used by the Romans, Spanish Muslims and then Medieval Christians.

Did Maria Pereira paint the faces herself? If so, she never benefited financially from all the attention. She lived a simple life in that same house and eventually died in 2004, after which the house was put on the market. Besides ghostly apparitions, paranormal experts suggest a second theory - that the faces were manifested on the floor by telekinesis. Apparently, the expressions on their faces used to change with the mood of Maria Pereira...

However, skeptics point out that it is possible to analyze the molecular changes in the whitewash and prove that some level of fakery was involved. Many believe that the 'paintings' were actually created by Maria's son, Diego Pereira. source : here

to be continue...

Mysterious Nature Phenomena Ribbon at Edge of Solar System is Changing

A year ago, researchers from the IBEX mission – NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer – announced the discovery of an unexpected bright band or ribbon of surprisingly high energy emissions at the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. Now, after a year of observations, scientists have seen vast changes, including an unusual knot in the ribbon which appears to have ‘untied.’ Changes in the ribbon — a ‘disturbance in the force,’ so to speak, along with a shrunken heliosphere, may be allowing galactic cosmic rays to leak into our solar system.

“We didn’t understand where the ribbon came from in the first place,” said David McComas, IBEX principal investigator, during a press briefing. “It’s even more confounding now, to know the structure can change on incredibly short timescales.”

Researchers believe the ribbon forms from the interactions between interstellar space and the heliosphere, the protective bubble in which the Earth and other planets reside. The heliosphere is inflated by the solar wind, and acts as a protective shield from galactic cosmic rays that would otherwise bombard planets and perhaps prohibit life.

The interaction of the solar wind and interstellar medium creates energetic neutral atoms of hydrogen, called ENAs, that zip away from the heliosheath in all directions. Some of these atoms pass near Earth, where IBEX records their arrival direction and energy. As the spacecraft slowly spins, the detectors gradually build up pictures of the ENAs as they arrive from all over the sky.

IBEX produces global maps of the outer region of our solar system every six months. From the first map of the ribbon, released a year ago, scientists saw the unexpected ribbon, with a knot feature seen in the northern portion of the ribbon, as the brightest feature at higher energies.

The new, just-released map shows the large-scale structure of the ribbon, and another surprise: the distribution changed significantly. Overall, the intensity of ENAs has dropped 10% to 15%, and the hotspot has diminished and spread out along the ribbon.

McComas says the dropoff in intensity between the two all-sky maps perhaps makes sense, because the Sun is only now emerging from an unusually long period of very low activity and a correspondingly weak solar wind. The fewer the solar-wind particles that reached the heliosphere in recent years, meant the bubble may have shrunk. A smaller bubble allows more galactic cosmic rays can make their way into the inner solar system

“If we’ve learned anything from IBEX so far, it’s that the models we were using for interaction of the solar wind with the galaxy were just dead wrong,” said McComas.

With previous missions in our solar system, scientists have been able to get a handle on the medium inside termination shock, learning about the solar wind and how it is tied to structures on the sun.

“IBEX is first mission to give us definitive information about the medium that lies just beyond the heliosphere,” said Nathan Schwadron IBEX science operations lead. “The ribbon is tied in some ways to direct the orientation of the local field, giving us constraints how galactic medium affects the whole system. This is critical information that we have been missing.”

The scientists are hopeful IBEX will continue to operate through an entire solar cycle so that they can track the changes in the ribbon as solar activity is expected to increase in the next few years.

The paper, “The evolving heliosphere: Large-scale stability and time variations observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer,” was published online Sept. 29 in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research.

The lead video shows how the heliosphere is a bubble that surrounds our entire solar system and is inflated by the outward solar wind, which pushes out and deflects the material from the part of the galactic medium through which our Sun and solar system continually moves. This animation starts at our sun and quickly zooms out from the solar system to reveal the heliosphere and its collision with interstellar gas. The two Voyager spacecraft are currently exploring this interaction region. Credit: Goddard Conceptual Image Lab/Walt Feimer

The second video compares the first and second maps to reveal whether there are time variations in the Ribbon or the more distributed emissions around the ribbon. This animation fades between the first and second IBEX maps. We see that the first and second maps are relatively similar. However, there are significant time variations as well. These time variations are forcing scientists to try to understand how the heliosphere can be changing so rapidly. Credit: IBEX Science Team/Goddard Space Flight Center.

source : NASA, Southwest Research Institute, universe today