A massive asteroid shower hit Earth and the moon 800 million years ago that bombarded the planet with 40 to 50 trillion metric tons of meteoroids. In fact, it was so massive that it was believed to have triggered an ice age.

According to a new study from Japan, researchers studied 59 craters on the moon (each of them measuring at least 12 miles wide) by analyzing data from the Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft Kaguya. They studied the rings of rock that were thrown by meteors hitting the moon in order to determine when the impacts happened.

They also studied the Copernicus crater (which is 57 miles wide) where rock samples were collected by Apollo astronauts. The researchers conducted radioisotope dating tests on the rocks that were ejected from the crater during the impact as well as from other craters on the moon and they determined that they were formed approximately 800 million years ago during a massive asteroid shower.

While it is believed that the asteroid shower would have also rained down on Earth, it’s hard to know with guaranteed certainty as many of the impact craters that occurred prior to 600 million years ago have been erased over the years because of geological activity such as volcanism and erosion. Assuming that the asteroid shower would have affected Earth as well, scientists have estimated that between 40 and 50 trillion metric tons of meteoroids would have rained down on our planet. For comparison, that would have been 30 to 60 times the mass of the Chicxulub dinosaur-killing asteroid that hit the planet 66 million years ago. It also would have sent 100 billion metric tons of phosphorus across the planet which is approximately ten times more than all of the phosphorus found in our oceans today.

The asteroid shower may have triggered an ice age on Earth as the impact would have happened not long before the Cryogenian period where the entire planet was thought to have been covered in ice. Asteroid impacts are known to affect the Earth as the Chicxulub impact sent a large amount of dust into the air which cooled the Earth’s temperature in addition to making the skies turn dark. And another meteoroid shower that happened approximately 470 million years ago would have also sent large amounts of dust into the air which could have possibly triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.

Kentaro Terada, who is a cosmochemist at Osaka University in Japan and the lead author of the study, told Space.com, “From these considerations, I can say that it is not strange that an asteroid shower 800 million years ago might have triggered an ice age, because the total mass 800 million years ago in our study is 10 to 100 times larger than that of the Chicxulub impact and a meteoroid shower 470 million years ago.”

An interesting point made by Terada and his colleagues is that the asteroid shower may have happened around the same time as the Eulalia family of asteroids were formed, which, coincidentally, is believed to be the parent body of Bennu and Ryugu. Once samples from both asteroids are brought back to Earth and analyzed, we’ll know for sure.

“My next research plan is to date the collected samples from asteroids Ryugu and Bennu,” Terada said, adding, “If we get the age of 800 million years from the Ryugu sample, I will be so excited.” Now we just have to wait and see if there is a connection.

For the first time ever, a multi-planet system orbiting a sun-like star has been photographed by astronomers. The photograph, which was captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (or VLT) in Chile, shows two massive planets orbiting a young sun-like star called TYC 8998-760-1. The system is located approximately 300 light-years away from us.

The 17 million-year-old sun-like star was analyzed by astronomers using the VLT’s Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research instrument (or SPHERE) that allowed them to study the orbiting planets. While they already knew that the planet TYC 8998-760-1b existed, TYC 8998-760-1c has only been recently identified.

Artist’s concept of a planetary system.

And these planets are huge as TYC 8998-760-1b is around 14 times larger than Jupiter and orbits at an average distance of 160 astronomical units (AU) from its star, while TYC 8998-760-1c is about 6 times more massive than Jupiter and orbits at a distance of 320 AU. To get a better understanding of the distance, one AU is about the average distance as Earth is to our sun (93 million miles). Interestingly, Jupiter orbits our sun at a distance of 5 AU while Saturn orbits at 10 AU. It’s still unknown whether these two planets were pushed away from their sun or if they were formed where they are currently orbiting.

Alexander Bohn, who is a doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands and an author of the study, said in a statement, “This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution.”

TYC 8998-760-1c and TYC 8998-760-1b are 6 and 14 times more massive than Jupiter.

Prior to this recent photograph, there have been two other images captured of multi-planet systems, however, neither of them contained a sun-like star, so this new photo is definitely a fascinating never-before-seen accomplishment. Matthew Kenworthy, who is an associate professor at Leiden University and another author of the study, added that while thousands of exoplanets have already been discovered, only a small percentage of them have ever been photographed. The picture that the astronomers took of the two planets orbiting TYC 8998-760-1 can be seen here.

The two giant planets in the TYC 8998-760-1 system are visible as two bright dots in the center (TYC 8998-760-1b) and bottom right (TYC 8998-760-1c) of the frame, noted by arrows. Other bright dots, which are background stars, are visible in the image as well. By taking different images at different times, the team was able to distinguish the planets from the background stars. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, sunlike star (top-left of center) using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The bright and dark seen on the star’s image are optical artifacts.  

(Image credit: ESO/Bohn et al.)

There are still questions that remain unanswered such as whether there are more than two planets orbiting TYC 8998-760-1. Bohn addressed this very question by stating, “The possibility that future instruments, such as those available on the ELT, will be able to detect even lower-mass planets around this star marks an important milestone in understanding multi-planet systems, with potential implications for the history of our own solar system.”

Those up on their real Aztec history know that the derogatory phrase “Montezuma’s revenge” refers to the consequences bestowed on the descendants of Europeans for the murder of the greatest Aztec emperor by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. They also know that his real name was Moctezuma II (also Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, which means Moctezuma the Younger) and his imprisonment and mysterious death — possibly in the crossfire of a battle between Spaniards and Aztecs — occurred in his own palace of Axayácatl. While its general location was long thought to be buried somewhere under Mexico City, it has never been found … until now.

“Below the subflooring of the house of Cortés, more than 3 meters deep, the remains of another floor of basalt slabs, but from pre-Hispanic times, were detected. Given its characteristics, the specialists deduced that it was part of an open space in the former Palace of Axayácatl, probably a courtyard.”

Moctezuma II

A press release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History describes the recent discovery and identification of a house built by Hernan Cortes next to what is now known to be the remains of the courtyard of Moctezuma II’s Palace of Axayácatl. (Photos here.) The discovery was made during excavations being done as part of renovations to the historic Nacional Monte de Piedad, which was once a pawnshop dating back to 1775 but most recently housed a charitable nonprofit organization. Urban archeologists Raúl Barrera Rodríguez and José María García Guerrero led the excavations.

Archaeologists found the remains of a basalt slab floor from the Aztec palace.

(Image: © Raúl Barrera R./PAU-INAH)

Sculptures from the Aztec palace were reused to build the house of conquistador Hernan Cortes. 

(Image credit: Raúl Barrera R./PAU-INAH)

“Barrera and García emphasize that the vestiges of the nascent Viceregal era correspond to reused materials from the Old Houses of Axayácatl. These premises, like so many other structures of the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan, were destroyed by the Spanish and their indigenous allies, almost to their foundations.”

The archeologists identified materials in the construction of the living quarters of Cortes that were taken from destroyed Aztec buildings, including from the palace of Moctezuma II’s father, Axayacatl – a desecration and destruction of Aztec culture that continued long after Cortes was gone. A wall in one room contained “two pre-Hispanic dressed stones carved with sculptures” depicting a feathered serpent (Quetzalcóatl – the Plumed Serpent god) and a headdress of feathers. They also found pottery and earthenware was dated to the time of Moctezuma II.

Quetzalcóatl

Sadly, Moctezuma II had welcomed Cortes and his men to stay at the palace and in its adjacent houses, only to see the beginning of their destruction before he was imprisoned and killed. Unfortunately, this discovery of his palace so far has not revealed any more clues as to how died or where his remains were taken. The best accounts of the time say he was either killed immediately by a stone hitting his head or died later of multiple wounds that were not treated. His body was said to have been removed and possibly cremated.

In the press release, Raúl Barrera decries the “paucity” of material evidence of the existence of the palaces of Axayácatl and Moctezuma II because of the utter destruction of the main buildings “both for symbolic and practical purposes.” “Practical” as in the near genocide of an ancient culture and the destruction of its heritage for quick-and-easy building materials.

It’s not the water. Perhaps Moctezuma II is exacting revenge in some other way. Any ideas?

The blockbuster UFO revelation hinted to in leaks to the mainstream media and the UFO research community was made public last night and it was, to say the least, somewhat underwhelming – despite quotes about “off-road vehicles not made on this earth.” Reporters Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean reveal their best card right up front – that the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is actually the renamed Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), whose funding ended in 2012 but allegedly stayed operational for a number of years. The Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force made its official debut on June 17, 2020, in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 report submitted to the Senate by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who earlier this week said in public that he personally hopes UFOs are otherworldly and not secret planes from China.

Now we know this is a funded project once again. What else?

“We couldn’t make it ourselves.”

The article quotes Eric W. Davis, an astrophysicist who worked as a subcontractor and then a consultant AATIP, who said he told government officials in 2019 and 2020 that materials he had examined were indeed impossible for humans to make and possibly from “off-road vehicles not made on this earth.” It also quoted former senator Harry Reid, who helped fund AATIP originally, saying that he had seen evidence of otherworldly craft and “there were actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession.” Throw in a confirmation from Luis Elizondo, the former director of AATIP, that the new task force evolved from AATIP and you pretty much have the whole blockbuster revelation.

Overwhelmed yet?

Harry Reid

The Senate report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was “to standardize collection and reporting” on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public every six months.” So, do we wait until six months from June 2020 for the first “some of its findings”? July? Does the Senate act have to be approved before the clock starts? Who starts the clock? Will the “findings” include the public display of physical materials from alien vehicles or from secret Earth enemy planes? Why wait six months? Why not show them now?

For now, the best answer to those questions is the one President Trump gave to his son Don Jr. when asked if he would declassify any information on the Roswell UFO incident.

“I’ll have to think about that one.”

Until the public sees real physical evidence, all we’ve gotten so far is ‘thinking’ – from the president, from the Pentagon, from government officials … and from this new revelation from The New York Times.