NEW MOON REPORT
Nehemia Gordon from Jerusalem, Israel compiled the following New Moon Report for the month of August 2011 and the beginning of the Fifth Month on the Biblical Calendar.
“On Monday August 1, 2011 the new moon was sighted from Israel. The moon was first sighted from Jerusalem by Yoel Halevi at 7:38 pm and shortly thereafter by Nehemia Gordon and Devorah Gordon; from elsewhere in Jerusalem by David Cachicas, Gabriel Cachicas, and Daniela Cachicas at 7:40 pm; from Ariel by Frank Mecklenburg and Charlotte Mecklenburg at 7:42 pm; from Haifa by Aaron Amihud at 8:06 pm.
It was impossible to sight the new moon from Israel
on the previous evening, July 31, 2011.”
The next new moon is expected to be visible from
Jerusalem, Israel near sunset on August 30, 2011 when the moon will be 3.6% illuminated and 5.980 above the horizon at five
minutes past sunset. This is somewhat of
a borderline situation. The moon will be
well illuminated but close to the horizon where there is much light from the
sun still present. There is a slight
possibility that the moon will not be seen until the following evening. It depends on how hot it is. The hotter it is, the greater the
transpiration rate and the more particulates there are in the air. With the moon that close to the horizon, it
may prove very difficult to spot it. We
will see at the end of this month.
SPARKS FLY FROM SWORD OF PERSEUS
It is that time
of the year again for the Perseids Meteor Shower. The Perseids Meteor Shower is the most
popular meteor shower for the general populous since it occurs in the warm
month of August and usually puts on a good show. The shower generally starts around August 6
and runs through about August 18. The
peak of the shower occurs most of the time on August 12, but this year its peak
occurs on August 13. The light of the
full moon will block out most of the meteors this year. Instead of seeing a typical 100 meteors per
hour this year, you will be fortunate to see 20 per hour.
Meteor showers are named
from the constellation where their radiant lies. The radiant of this particular meteor shower,
which is marked by an X in the diagram below, is between the sword of Perseus and the constellation Cassiopeia.
The constellation Perseus or Peretz (the
breaker) in Hebrew, represents Messiah coming to deliver the
captive bride (Andromeda). This meteor shower puts
to mind sparks flying from Messiah’s sword as He does battle with the beast and
his armies. In the picture shown for the
constellation Peretz, the Breaker
is holding in his left hand Rosh Satan,
the head of Satan after defeating him,
just as David held the head of Goliath after defeating that beast that came up
against Israel.
Chart 566 also
shows the radiant of the Perseid Meteor Shower but it’s a bit different than
the picture on the previous page. The
chart shows the radiant just above the elbow of Perseus. The picture from the
astronomy program the chart comes from is a bit off. The picture on the previous page is more
accurate. But the chart shows more of
the constellations surrounding it. Perseus, (the Breaker)
is shown delivering Andromeda,
the captive bride, who later becomes Casseopeia, the
bride making herself ready. This gives
the complete picture of the portrayal.
Chart 566 – The radiant of the Perseids
Meteor Shower on August 13, 2011 shown near the elbow of Perseus.
There are not any other
notable celestial events occurring this August, and the meteor shower was a bit
wimpy this year. For the most part,
September is also pretty dead, except for the one sign on the evening of
September 29 (Yom Teruah – The Day of Trumpets). At least I will have something of interest to
write about in the September/October newsletter. That sign includes Comet Elenin, which will
most likely not be visible to the unaided eye.
I would normally not write on comets that are
not seen with the unaided (there are many that pass by each year), since that
is not the way the signs were seen from antiquity. The magi of old would not consider something
they could not see as a sign. To say
that something is a sign that you can only see through a telescope (a recent
invention) can only come from speculation and not comparing it to evidence of
the way signs were seen from the creation of Adam until 400 years ago. But since this comet has drawn much interest,
I will cover it.
The crescent light of the
moon is a sign that begins each Biblical month.
It is sighted through the unaided eye just as it was sighted thousands
of years ago. Binoculars and Telescopes are
used, but only to locate it at times.
But if the crescent cannot be seen with the unaided eye, it is not
considered a new moon or a sign of the new moon, neither by the Jews or the
Arabs who also look for the first crescent light of the moon each month.
COMET ELENIN UPDATE
Chart 567 shows the path of Comet Elenin from August 1, 2011
to October 18, 2011. Each red dot on the
chart equals one day. As the comet gets
closer to the earth it appears to cover more distance each day. The comet started near the lion’s tail on
August 1 and then proceeded to Virgo.
It will then turn and head back for Leo (the Lion) and then on to
Cancer where it will be in mid October.
Chart 567 – The path of Comet Elenin
from August 1, 2011 to October 18, 2011.
There will be more charts as well as an article on
any possible Biblical significance or portrayal on Elenin in the
September/October 2011 issue of Biblical Astronomy. However, it will not be earth shattering.
The rumors and false info on the comet continue to
flow. NASA recently put out an answer
sheet to many of the questions about the comet.
Below is their answer. I believe
this sums up everything except for those who continue to believe that NASA is
hiding info on the comet or that they are conspiring to deceive. This is what happened back in 1997 when there
was that Comet Hale-Bopp companion story going around. There was no companion but those who put the
false info out were saying that NASA was lying.
It had a lot of popularity on the Art Bell Show. Many people believed in that lie that the
companion existed and that it was Jesus coming to gather His saints. Many people committed suicide (most in the
“Heaven’s Gate cult) over the false hype.
As it is written, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).
I do not believe that NASA is lying here. I also did my own study (and also going by common sense on many of the questions) and I find there answers sound. I am including the article here instead of a link because many subscribers do not have Internet access.
NASA Answers Your Questions About Comet
Elenin
Often, comets are portrayed as harbingers of gloom
and doom in movies and on television, but most pose no threat
to Earth. Comet Elenin, the latest comet to visit our inner solar system, is no
exception. Elenin will pass about 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) from
Earth during its closest approach on Oct. 16, 2011.
Also known by its astronomical name C/2010 X1, the
comet was first detected on Dec. 10,
2010 by Leonid Elenin, an observer in Lyubertsy, Russia, who made the
discovery "remotely" using an observatory in New Mexico. At that
time, Elenin was about 401 million miles (647 million kilometers) from Earth.
Since its discovery, Comet Elenin has – as all comets do – closed the distance
to Earth's vicinity as it makes its way closer to perihelion, its closest point
to the sun.
NASA scientists have taken time over the last several months to answer your questions. Compiled below are the some of the most popular questions with answers from Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and David Morrison of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
Most Popular Questions About Comet Elenin
When will Comet Elenin come closest to the Earth and appear the brightest?
Comet Elenin should be at its brightest shortly
before the time of its closest approach to Earth on Oct. 16, 2011. At its
closest point, it will be 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) from us.
Will Comet Elenin come close to the Earth or between the Earth and the moon?
Comet Elenin will not come closer to Earth than 22
million miles (35 million kilometers). That's more than 90 times the distance
to the moon.
Can this comet influence us from where it is, or where it will be in the
future? Can this celestial object cause shifting of the tides or even tectonic
plates here on Earth?
There have been incorrect speculations on the
Internet that alignments of comet Elenin with other celestial bodies could
cause consequences for Earth and external forces could cause comet Elenin to
come closer. "Any approximate alignments of comet Elenin with other
celestial bodies are meaningless, and the comet will not encounter any dark
bodies that could perturb its orbit, nor will it influence us in any way here
on Earth," said Don Yeomans, a scientist at NASA JPL.
"Comet Elenin will not only be far away, it is
also on the small side for comets," said Yeomans. "And comets are not
the most densely-packed objects out there. They usually have the density of
something akin to loosely packed icy dirt.
"So you've got a modest-sized icy dirtball that
is getting no closer than 35 million kilometers (about 22 million miles)"
said Yeomans. "It will have an immeasurably minuscule influence on our
planet. By comparison, my subcompact automobile exerts a greater influence on
the ocean's tides than comet Elenin ever will."
I've heard about three days of darkness because of Comet Elenin. Will Elenin
block out the sun for three days?
“As seen from the Earth, comet Elenin will not cross
the sun’s face,” says Yeomans.
But even if it could cross the sun, which it can’t,
astrobiologist David Morrison notes that comet Elenin is about 2-3 miles (3-5
km) wide, while the sun is roughly 865,000 miles (1,392,082 km) across.
How could such a small object block the sun which is such a large object?
Let's think about an eclipse of the sun, which
happens when the moon appears between the Earth and the sun. The moon is about
2,500 miles (4,000 km) in diameter, and has the same apparent size as the sun
when it is about 250,000 miles (400,000 km) away -- roughly 100 times its own
diameter. For a comet with a diameter of about 2-3 miles (3-5 km) to cover the
sun it would have to be within 250 miles (400 km), roughly the orbital altitude
of the International Space Station. However, as stated above, this comet will
come no closer to Earth than 22 million miles.
I've heard there is a "brown dwarf" theory about Comet Elenin.
Would its mass be enough to pull Comet Honda's trajectory a significant amount?
Could this be used to determine the mass of Elenin?
Morrison says that there is no 'brown dwarf theory'
of this comet. "A comet is nothing like a brown dwarf. You are correct
that the way astronomers measure the mass of one object is by its gravitational
effect on another, but comets are far too small to have a measurable influence
on anything."
If we had a black or brown dwarf in our outer solar system, I guess no one
could see it, right?
"No, that’s not correct," says Morrison.
"If we had a brown dwarf star in the outer solar system, we could see it,
detect its infrared energy and measure its perturbing effect on other objects.
There is no brown dwarf in the solar system, otherwise we would have detected
it. And there is no such thing as a black dwarf."
Will Comet Elenin be visible to the naked eye when it's closer to us? I
missed Hale-Bopp's passing, so I want to know if we'll actually be able to see
something in the sky when Elenin passes.
We don't know yet if Comet Elenin will be visible to
the naked eye. Morrison says, "At the rate it is going, seeing the comet
at its best in early October will require binoculars and a very dark sky. Unfortunately,
Elenin is no substitute for seeing comet Hale-Bopp, which was the brightest
comet of the past several decades."
"This comet may not put on a great show. Just as
certainly, it will not cause any disruptions here on Earth. But, there is a
cause to marvel," said Yeomans. "This intrepid little traveler will
offer astronomers a chance to study a relatively young comet that came here
from well beyond our solar system's planetary region. After a short while, it
will be headed back out again, and we will not see or hear from Elenin for
thousands of years. That's pretty cool."
This comet has been called 'wimpy' by NASA scientists. Why?
"We're talking about how a comet looks as it
safely flies past us," said Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office.
"Some cometary visitors arriving from beyond the planetary region – like
Hale-Bopp in 1997 -- have really lit up the night sky where you can see them
easily with the naked eye as they safely transit the inner-solar system. But
Elenin is trending toward the other end of the spectrum. You'll probably need a
good pair of binoculars, clear skies and a dark, secluded location to see it
even on its brightest night."
Why aren't you talking more about Comet Elenin? If these things are small
and nothing to worry about, why has there been no public info on Comet Elenin?
Comet Elenin hasn't received much press precisely
because it is small and faint. Several new comets are discovered each year, and
you don't normally hear about them either. The truth is that Elenin has
received much more attention than it deserves due to a variety of Internet
postings that are untrue. The information NASA has on Elenin is readily
available on the Internet. (See
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/comet20110504.html)
If this comet were any danger to anyone, you would certainly know about it. For
more information, visit NASA’s AsteroidWatch site at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/.
I've heard NASA has observed Elenin many times more than other comets. Is
this true, and is NASA playing this comet down?
NASA regularly detects, tracks and characterizes
asteroids and comets passing relatively close to Earth using both ground- and
space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly
called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset
of them and predicts their paths to determine if any could be potentially
hazardous to our planet. For more information, visit the NASA-JPL Near Earth
Objects site at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/
and the Near Earth Objects site at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/.
However, neither NASA nor JPL is in the business of
actively observing Elenin or any other comet. Most of the posted observations
are made by amateur astronomers around the world. Since Elenin has had so much
publicity, it naturally has attracted more observers.
I was looking at the orbital diagram of Comet Elenin on the JPL website, and
I was wondering why the orbit shows some angles when zooming? If you pick any
other comet, you can see that there are no angles or bends.
Many people are trying to plot the orbit of the comet
with the routine on the JPL website, without realizing that this is just a
simple visualization tool. While the tool has been recently improved to show
smoother trajectories near the sun, it is not a scientific program to generate
an accurate orbit. Yeomans explains that the orbit plotter on the Near-Earth
Object website is not meant to accurately depict the true motion of objects
over long time intervals, nor is it accurate during close planetary encounters.
For more accurate long-term plotting, Yeomans suggests using the JPL Horizons
system instead:
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=sb&sstr=C/2010%20X1.
As I said
previously, I have been doing my own research on the tall tales about
Elenin. Some are saying that it is
causing and will cause earthquakes on Earth.
Though tidal forces at times can cause earthquakes under certain
conditions, the amount of gravitational pull that Comet Elenin exerts on Earth
is way too miniscule to have any effect.
I did an
article in the June 1997 issue of Biblical Astronomy about a certain
planetary alignment that was expected by some would cause great earthquakes and
the earth getting knocked off of its axis.
The basic math for gravitational force works as well for Comet
Elenin. Part of what is written below is
from that article. You can find that
issue in the Newsletters section on the Biblical Astronomy Website.
I did the
calculations to provide scientific proof using Newton's law of gravitation. The
equation is: F=G(M1M2/r2). F is the
gravitational force in Newtons (1 newton is equal to the force needed to
accelerate 1 kilogram by 1 meter per second); G is the gravitational constant
which equals 6.672 x 10-11M3/Kg.sec2 (cubic
meters divided by kilograms per second), M1 is the mass (in
kilograms) of first object (ex. Earth), M2 is the mass of the second
object (ex. Moon), and r is the distance (in meters) between the two objects (r2
being the square of the distance: if the distance between the two objects
is 10 meters, then you would divide the multiple factor of the two masses by
100). I did all of the calculations for the sun, moon, and all of the planets
under consideration for this particular day and time. The gravitational force
that the sun will exert on Earth on May 4/5, 2000 will be approximately 3.48 x
1022 Newtons. The gravitational force that the moon will exert on
Earth will be approximately 2.13 x 1020 Newtons.
The total gravitational force that all of the five
planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury) combined will exert on
Earth will be 1.06 x 1018 Newtons. The x 10x are powers
of ten (ex. 1.2 x 106 = 1.2 million, 1.2 x 109 = 1.2
billion, 1.2 x 1012 = 1.2 trillion). The total gravitational force
of the sun and moon on Earth at this particular time is over 33,000 times
greater than the combined force of all five planets. The earth is constantly
subject to forces of this magnitude. There is far from enough excessive
gravitational force to send the earth toppling on its axis, even if the planets
were in direct alignment. To say that this minuscule difference in
gravitational force would topple the earth is analogous to saying that a small
fly striking the helmet of Bruce Smith of the Buffalo Bills as he is rushing in
for a tackle would knock him on his butt. HIGHLY unlikely.
Though
this particular alignment will most likely not topple the earth (physically),
it is a rare and interesting alignment nonetheless. There was an alignment of
this nature around the time of the birth of Abraham in the constellation
Aquarius (see "A Voice Crying in the Heavens" Pg. 38 and Charts
11-14). The planets, sun, and moon were in close alignment in early February,
1953 B.C. The charts in the book do not show this. Another such alignment
(excluding Saturn) occurred around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ on
August 28/29, 2 B.C., in the constellation Leo. At this time, Venus was between
the earth and the sun at a distance of 26.8 million miles from the earth versus
157.5 million miles, which is the distance that Venus will be from the earth on
May 4/5, 2000. The gravitational force of
Venus alone on the earth in the August, 2 B.C. alignment was
approximately 1.03 x 1018 Newtons, which is very close to the
combined gravitational force for all of the planets on May 4/5, 2000, which
will be approximately 1.06 x 1018 Newtons. The total gravitational
force exerted on the earth was greater in the 2 B.C. alignment than will be in
the May, 2000 alignment. The earth did not topple at that time, nor are there
any written records of massive, high magnitude, earthquakes occurring at that
time. However, a very important event took place less than a year before the 2
B.C. alignment - the birth of the Messiah.
At
any rate, the same formula works for the comet.
The moon is at least a billion times more massive than the comet. So on the mass alone in the formula, the
comet is 1/1 billionth the mass of the moon.
The distance is the key factor since the inverse square law comes into
play. We can call the distance from the
moon to the earth one lunar unit. The
closest distance of the comet to the earth will be about 90 lunar units. The distance is squared in the equation. 90 X 90 equals 8,100. So the mass of the comet is 1/1,000.000.000th
that of the moon, and the distance gives it another factor of 1/8100th
that of the moon. When you combine these
factors you can see how miniscule the gravitational force of the comet on the
earth is. It is similar to comparing your
mass with a grain of salt or a piece of dandruff. It would have no effect on you as you go
about.