This article is from NASA, Nov. 21, 2013.

The animation below shows the most common type of gamma-ray burst, thought to occur when a massive star collapses, forms a black hole, and blasts particle jets outward at nearly the speed of light. Viewing into a jet greatly boosts its apparent brightness. A Fermi image of GRB 130427A ends the sequence.

On April 27, a blast of light from a dying star in a distant galaxy became the focus of astronomers around the world. The explosion, known as a gamma-ray burst and designated GRB 130427A, tops the charts as one of the brightest ever seen.

A trio of NASA satellites, working in concert with ground-based robotic telescopes, captured never-before-seen details that challenge current theoretical understandings of how gamma-ray bursts work.

"We expect to see an event like this only once or twice a century, so we're fortunate it happened when we had the appropriate collection of sensitive space telescopes with complementary capabilities available to see it," said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos, thought to be triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star and erupt into space at nearly the speed of light.

Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of light. Hot matter surrounding a new black hole and internal shock waves produced by collisions within the jet are thought to emit gamma-rays with energies in the million-electron-volt (MeV) range, or roughly 500,000 times the energy of visible light. The most energetic emission, with billion-electron-volt (GeV) gamma rays, is thought to arise when the jet slams into its surroundings, forming an external shock wave.

The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope captured the initial wave of gamma rays from GRB 130427A shortly after 3:47 a.m. EDT April 27. In its first three seconds alone, the "monster burst" proved brighter than almost any burst previously observed.

"The spectacular results from Fermi GBM show that our widely accepted picture of MeV gamma rays from internal shock waves is woefully inadequate," said Rob Preece, a Fermi team member at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who led the GBM study.

NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Burst Mission detected the burst almost simultaneously with the GBM and quickly relayed its position to ground-based observatories.

Telescopes operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of the Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) Project quickly turned to the spot. They detected an optical flash that peaked at magnitude 7 on the astronomical brightness scale, easily visible through binoculars. It is the second-brightest flash ever seen from a gamma-ray burst.

Just as the optical flash peaked, Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) detected a spike in GeV gamma-rays reaching 95 GeV, the most energetic light ever seen from a burst. This relationship between a burst's optical light and its high-energy gamma-rays defied expectations.

"We thought the visible light for these flashes came from internal shocks, but this burst shows that it must come from the external shock, which produces the most energetic gamma-rays," said Sylvia Zhu, a Fermi team member at the University of Maryland in College Park.

The LAT detected GRB 130427A for about 20 hours, far longer than any previous burst. For a gamma-ray burst, it was relatively nearby. Its light traveled 3.8 billion years before arriving at Earth, about one-third the travel time for light from typical bursts.

"Detailed observations by Swift and ground-based telescopes clearly show that GRB 130427A has properties more similar to typical distant bursts than to nearby ones," said Gianpiero Tagliaferri, a Swift team member at Brera Observatory in Merate, Italy.

This extraordinary event enabled NASA's newest X-ray observatory, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), to make a first-time detection of a burst afterglow in high-energy, or "hard," X-rays after more than a day. Taken together with Fermi LAT data, these observations challenge long-standing predictions.

Why aren’t scientists more curious about this phenomenon? There are so many recorded stories it would be difficult to deny something unusual is happening.

The common attributes seemed to be a green fog, still waters, and an electric feeling in the air. And it all comes on rather quickly.

Here are some well known stories...

Ellen Austin
The Ellen Austin supposedly came across a derelict ship, placed on board a prize crew, and attempted to sail with it to New York in 1881. According to the stories, the derelict disappeared; others elaborating further that the derelict reappeared minus the prize crew, then disappeared again with a second prize crew on board. A check from Lloyd's of London records proved the existence of the Meta, built in 1854 and that in 1880 the Meta was renamed Ellen Austin. There are no casualty listings for this vessel, or any vessel at that time, that would suggest a large number of missing men were placed on board a derelict that later disappeared.

USS Cyclops
The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy not related to combat occurred when the collier USS Cyclops, carrying a full load of manganese ore and with one engine out of action, went missing without a trace with a crew of 309 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many independent theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some suggesting that wartime enemy activity was to blame for the loss. In addition, two of Cyclops's sister ships, Proteus and Nereus were subsequently lost in the North Atlantic during World War II.

Carroll A. Deering
Schooner Carroll A. Deering, as seen from the Cape Lookout light vessel on January 29, 1921, two days before she was found deserted in North Carolina. (US Coast Guard)

A five-mast schooner built in 1919, the Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on January 31, 1921. Rumors and more at the time indicated the Deering was a victim of piracy, possibly connected with the illegal rum-running trade during Prohibition, and possibly involving another ship, SS Hewitt, which disappeared at roughly the same time. Just hours later, an unknown steamer sailed near the lightship along the track of the Deering, and ignored all signals from the lightship. It is speculated that Hewitt may have been this mystery ship, and possibly involved in the Deering crew's disappearance.

Flight 19
Flight 19 was a training flight of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared on December 5, 1945, while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight plan was scheduled to take them due east from Fort Lauderdale for 141 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 140-mile leg to complete the exercise. The flight never returned to base. The disappearance is attributed by Navy investigators to navigational error leading to the aircraft running out of fuel.

One of the search and rescue aircraft deployed to look for them, a PBM Mariner with a 13-man crew, also disappeared. A tanker off the coast of Florida reported seeing an explosion and observing a widespread oil slick when fruitlessly searching for survivors. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident. According to contemporaneous sources the Mariner had a history of explosions due to vapor leaks when heavily loaded with fuel, as for a potentially long search and rescue operation.

Star Tiger and Star Ariel G-AHNP
Star Tiger disappeared on January 30, 1948 on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda; G-AGRE Star Ariel disappeared on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.

Douglas DC-3
On December 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, number NC16002, disappeared while on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft or the 32 people on board was ever found. From the documentation compiled by the Civil Aeronautics Board investigation, a possible key to the plane's disappearance was found, but barely touched upon by the Triangle writers: the plane's batteries were inspected and found to be low on charge, but ordered back into the plane without a recharge by the pilot while in San Juan. Whether or not this led to complete electrical failure will never be known. However, since piston-engined aircraft rely upon magnetos to provide spark to their cylinders rather than a battery powered ignition coil system, this theory is not strongly convincing.

KC-135 Stratotankers
On August 28, 1963, a pair of US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the Atlantic. The Triangle version of this story specifies that they did collide and crash, but there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles of water.

Connemara IV
A pleasure yacht was found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on September 26, 1955; it is usually stated in the stories that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season shows Hurricane Ione passing nearby between the 14th and 18th of that month, with Bermuda being affected by winds of almost gale force.

On the morning of September 22 Connemara IV was lying to a heavy mooring in the open road stead of Carlisle Bay. Because of the approaching hurricane, the owner strengthened the mooring ropes and put out two additional anchors. There was little else he could do, as the exposed mooring was the only available anchorage.

In Carlisle Bay, the sea in the wake of Hurricane Janet was awe-inspiring and dangerous. The owner of Connemara IV observed that she had disappeared. An investigation revealed that she had dragged her moorings and gone to sea.

More stories and Theories.
Bermuda Triangle Survivor

Is it a natural occurrence? Is it something left behind from Atlantis? Is it just a bigger version of the phenomenon in Antarctica?

You would think it would be an easy thing to investigate. Obviously, there is a power source in the area that is messing with our dimension. Either it is smack-dab in the center of the triangle, or it is at the three corners, Bermuda, Miami, and Puerto Rico.

There is a surprising discovery off the coast of Cuba on the Guanahacabibes peninsula in the Pinar del Río Province. A site thought by some to be a submerged granite complex structures. The discovery was reported by Pauline Zalitzki, a marine engineer, and her husband Paul Weinzweig. They recorded sonar images as being symmetrical and geometric stone structures resembling an urban complex were first recorded in early 2001 covering an area of 2 square kilometers (200 ha) at depths of between 2,000 ft and 2,460 ft. They filmed sonar images interpreted as various pyramids and circular structures made out of massive, smooth blocks of stone that resembled hewn granite.

Zalitzki said "It's a really wonderful structure which really looks like it could have been a large urban center, However, it would be totally irresponsible to say what it was before we have evidence."

It is estimating that it would have taken 50,000 years for such structures to have sunken to the depth at which they were said to be found, and 50,000 years ago there wasn't the architectural capacity in any of the cultures we know of to build complex buildings, or so we've been told...

A specialist in underwater archaeology at Florida State University added "It would be cool if they were right, but it would be real advanced for anything we would see in the New World for that time frame. The structures are out of time and out of place."

Click here for more on this discovery.

A 10,000 year old calendar was discovered in Scotland. Isn’t it bizarre how we know so little of that time. Or the preconceived notions by scientists that this is how humanity was...
Considering stone is the only item that would survive the elements makes me wonder how humanity truly existed, because so much would have deteriorated over time.

Could the Annunaki have been mining for gold during this time frame? What about ancient copper mine near the coastal town of Llandudno in North Wales? The Great Orme Copper Mine where a 64 pound sledge hammer was found.

The continental shelf between Florida and South America was said to have dropped into the ocean roughly 10,000 years ago. That would certainly create a worldwide flood noted in many historical documents. There is also where the Cuban archeologist who discovered a structure resembling a pyramid and ancient city was found 2,000+ feet, off the coast of Cuba in the Yucatán Channel. This would mean this structure sank 10,000 years ago. Which begs a person to wonder, could Atlantis have existed? Perhaps it was a country run by the Annunaki. The stories about Atlantis are very interesting. Was it in the Atlantic? Is there something in the ocean from Atlantis that explains the Bermuda Triangle?

What do we really know about the time period? Many question, very few answers... I will dive into each of these areas over the next couple of blogs.

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. But according to Snopes, this is not an exam question. The original was written by scientist Paule Darwin Foote as a humor piece in 1920. But not surprisingly, the bit at the end about "sleeping with Theresa" is a more recent addition and is hilarious!

Bet you didn’t know that there is a creature on this planet that doesn’t age or die. The Hydra undergoes tissue regeneration when injured or severed, and is believed to never age or die.


This is what wiki says;

So what does this mean?
It means immortality is a possibility. If it is possible in nature, then it is possible in science. Which then makes it possible for us to theoretically, live forever.
The question is; would YOU want to live forever?

It’s funny, but I don’t think I would. It would be nice to regenerate damaged parts, but I would want an expiration date. I think 200 years would be tops for me.
I believe a person could become very tired, bitter, easily irritated, and bored because of the somewhat predictability of life. Though in hindsight, it could be good for the Earth because people will start thinking of living on the planet for more than (80) years and start taking better care of our planet.

I'm sorry, he is just a cutie pie.

This optical illusion was first created in 1861. Look at the two thick vertical lines. Do they look straight or curved to you? Hold a ruler up to the screen and you will see that they are indeed straight.

Would you believe that the colors of squares A and B are the same? They are!
Use your fingers or a piece of paper with holes cut through it to block out the rest of the picture and you will see that they are.

When you move your eyes in a circular motion around this image, you will see what appears to be spokes moving around with your eyes.
Though I admit I see it better when I scroll the page up and down :)