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Trojan Horse, 1947 Edition https://x.com/R34lB0rg/status/1892554870835605522/photo/1
The AragoScope Solar Observatory (ASO) aims to deliver groundbreaking insights into the Sun’s chromosphere and corona through sub-meter resolution imaging, tackling key questions in heliophysics aligned with ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 theme, “The Hot and Energetic Universe.” By exploiting the Arago/Poisson Spot diffraction phenomenon, ASO will surpass the limitations of classical telescopes to address:
These objectives support ESA’s goals of understanding solar-terrestrial interactions and fundamental astrophysical processes.
The Sun’s corona remains a frontier of unresolved physics—its extreme temperature, cyclic sunspots, and eruptive phenomena drive space weather yet defy detailed observation. Classical ground-based telescopes, such as the 4 m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), achieve ~15 km resolution using adaptive optics and filters reducing light to 0.1%, but atmospheric distortion limits finer scales. Space-based systems like ESA’s Solar Orbiter (~70 km resolution at perihelion) and NASA’s SDO (~725 km) mitigate this, yet face detector saturation (~10⁻⁵ W) and thermal noise from heated optics, capping resolution far above sub-meter needs.
Coronal features—magnetic loops (~10-100 km), flare kernels (~1-100 m), and CME onset zones (~1000 km)—demand finer imaging to decode their physics. The AragoScope, using diffraction around an opaque disc, avoids these constraints, offering a scalable, heat-resistant alternative validated by Arago’s 1818 discovery and modern diffraction optics.
The AragoScope Solar Observatory offers ESA a transformative instrument to probe the Sun’s corona at sub-meter resolution, resolving long-standing heliophysical questions—coronal heating, CME initiation, SEP acceleration, and solar wind origins. By overcoming classical telescope limitations with a proven diffraction principle and scalable balloon technology, ASO aligns with ESA’s mission to explore the energetic universe. Ancient cultures—Egyptians with Ra, Chinese with lóng—saw the Sun as alive; at 0.1-1 m, ASO might reveal intricate plasma physics or, improbably, patterns hinting at their mythic vision. We propose ESA fund ASO to illuminate the Sun’s dynamic edge and its influence on our Solar System.
The AragoScope Solar Observatory (ASO) aims to revolutionize heliophysics by providing sub-meter resolution imaging of the Sun’s chromosphere and corona, addressing critical unresolved questions in solar science. Leveraging the Arago/Poisson Spot diffraction phenomenon, ASO will overcome limitations of classical telescopes, offering unprecedented detail to probe the following objectives:
These goals align with NASA’s Heliophysics Science Goals (Strategic Plan 2020), particularly understanding solar drivers of space weather and fundamental plasma processes.
Current solar observatories—e.g., the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST, 15 km resolution) and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO, 725 km)—are limited by atmospheric distortion, detector saturation (~10⁻⁵ W), and thermal noise from heated optics. Space-based classical telescopes (e.g., Hubble, JWST) avoid atmospheres but cannot withstand solar intensity without compromising resolution. The corona’s sub-kilometer features—magnetic loops, flare kernels, CME onset zones—remain unresolved, stalling progress on coronal heating, space weather prediction, and solar wind origins.
The AragoScope leverages diffraction around an opaque disc to focus light sans lenses or mirrors, bypassing thermal and saturation issues. Historical validation (Arago, 1818) and modern analogs (e.g., Fresnel zone plates in X-ray microscopy) support its viability. ASO proposes an inflatable balloon disc, scalable in vacuum, to achieve sub-meter resolution, unlocking a new frontier in solar observation.
The AragoScope Solar Observatory offers a transformative tool to probe the Sun’s corona at sub-meter scales, addressing foundational questions in heliophysics—coronal heating, CME triggers, SEP origins, and solar wind dynamics. Its innovative design—rooted in a 19th-century discovery, realized with 21st-century tech—overcomes classical telescope barriers, promising a leap in resolution and insight. As ancient cultures once saw the Sun alive with dragons and phoenixes, ASO might reveal the corona’s secrets in exquisite detail, whether as pure physics or, improbably, echoes of their mythic vision. We propose NASA fund this mission to illuminate the Sun’s edge and its role in our cosmic neighborhood.
The Sun’s chromosphere and corona—its outermost layers—present some of the most enigmatic phenomena in stellar physics, from the unexplained temperature inversion (20,000°C in the chromosphere, millions in the corona, versus 5,500°C at the photosphere) to the 11-year sunspot cycle and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Yet, resolving these features at sub-meter scales remains beyond the reach of contemporary and classical telescopes, constrained by thermal overload, optical saturation, and atmospheric distortion. This article examines these limitations and proposes a novel solution: a space-based AragoScope leveraging diffraction to achieve unprecedented resolution of the solar corona.
Classical telescopes, whether ground-based refractors or reflectors, face insurmountable hurdles when aimed at the Sun. The photosphere emits ~63 MW/m², overwhelming photon detectors like CCDs or CMOS sensors, which saturate at ~10⁻⁵ W. Neutral density filters reducing light by 99.9% mitigate this, but thermal heating of optical elements introduces infrared emission, blurring images. Ground-based instruments, such as the 4-meter Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), employ adaptive optics and narrowband filters (e.g., H-alpha at 656 nm) to achieve a diffraction-limited resolution of ~0.02 arcseconds (~15 km on the Sun at 1 AU). However, atmospheric turbulence caps practical resolution, and sub-meter detail—necessary to dissect fine coronal structures—remains elusive.
Space-based telescopes, like the Hubble Space Telescope (2.4m mirror, 0.1 arcsecond resolution) or James Webb Space Telescope (6.5m, infrared-optimized), avoid atmospheric distortion but are ill-suited for solar observation. Direct solar exposure would vaporize detectors, and even with filters, radiative heating induces thermal noise. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and similar probes use small apertures (e.g., 0.13m) and extreme UV/X-ray channels (e.g., 171 Å), resolving ~1 arcsecond (~725 km), far too coarse for sub-meter analysis. Filters in vacuum heat up without convection, emitting IR and degrading precision. Classical optics, whether terrestrial or orbital, thus falter against the Sun’s intensity and the corona’s faint, dynamic edge.
A space-based AragoScope offers a radical departure, exploiting the Arago/Poisson Spot—a phenomenon discovered in 1818 by François Arago. When light diffracts around a circular opaque disc, constructive interference forms a bright spot in the shadow’s center, focusing light without lenses or mirrors. Unlike classical telescopes, an AragoScope avoids heat-absorbing optics, using a lightweight, opaque barrier to block the photosphere while diffracting coronal light to a distant detector.
Design Concept:
Consider an inflatable balloon—aluminized Mylar or Kapton, deployable in space’s vacuum—as the opaque disc. Positioned 0.5M km from the Sun (where the solar disc subtends ~2 degrees), a 1 km diameter balloon partially occults the photosphere, but a 17.5 km balloon fully blocks its 1.39M km diameter. A detector array, stationed 57,000 km behind, lies within the shadow (~17.5 km wide), shielded from direct light. The Arago Spot focuses coronal emissions (e.g., 171 Å UV from Fe IX lines) onto superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs), cryocooled to suppress thermal noise.
Resolution Potential:
Diffraction limit is θ = 1.22 * λ / D. For λ = 171 Å (17.1 nm) and D = 17.5 km, θ ~ 1.2 * 10⁻⁹ arcseconds. At 0.5M km from the Sun (1 arcsecond ~ 362 m), this yields ~0.0004 m (~0.4 mm)—millimeter precision. A 1 km balloon achieves ~0.007 arcseconds (~2.5 m); pairing it with a 10m conventional mirror at the detector, using adaptive optics or interferometry, refines this to ~0.1-1 m—sub-meter resolution within reach of current technology.
Feasibility:
Historical precedents exist—NASA’s Echo balloons (1960s) spanned 40m; modern composites scale to kilometers. A 17.5 km balloon (~24 tons at 0.1 kg/m²) is launchable in segments via heavy-lift rockets (e.g., SpaceX Starship). Station-keeping at 0.5M km and 57,000 km alignments leverage existing orbital mechanics (e.g., L2-derived trajectories). SNSPDs, proven in X-ray astronomy, handle coronal wavelengths. Thermal management—minimal gas for inflation, vacuum insulation—mitigates IR emission, making sub-meter imaging plausible.
Unlike classical telescopes, the AragoScope avoids photon overload by blocking the photosphere entirely, focusing only the corona’s edge. No refractive or reflective elements heat up; diffraction sidesteps thermal blur. Scalability—balloons inflating to 1-17.5 km—far exceeds practical mirror sizes (DKIST’s 4m, JWST’s 6.5m), boosting resolution without mass penalties. At 0.1-1 m, coronal loops (~10-100 km wide), sunspot magnetic structures (~150 km), and CME origins (~1000 km) resolve into fine detail, potentially clarifying the chromosphere-corona temperature anomaly and cyclic dynamics.
Deploying an AragoScope could revolutionize solar physics, offering sub-meter views of plasma flows, magnetic reconnection events, and CME triggers—key to understanding solar weather and stellar evolution. Yet, its gaze evokes ancient echoes. Cultures like the Egyptians (Ra), Chinese (lóng), and Maya saw the Sun as alive—dragons or phoenixes in its fires. At 0.1 m resolution, might we discern patterns hinting at exotic processes—plasma entities or energy structures—thriving on the corona’s gradient? Science fiction posits life beyond carbon; ancient myths whisper of solar vitality. While likely revealing only physics, the possibility of glimpsing something akin to heliotrophs—however improbable—stirs the imagination, bridging yesterday’s wonder to tomorrow’s discovery.
The AragoScope stands as a feasible leap, turning the Sun’s edge from a blind spot into a window—whether to plasma mechanics or, just perhaps, a mythic truth reborn in pixels.
For millennia, humans have gazed at the Sun and seen more than a ball of fire. To the ancient Egyptians, it was Ra, a living god sailing the sky, breathing life into the Nile. The Chinese imagined lóng—fiery dragons—coiling in its glow, while the Maya tracked its cycles as if it pulsed with serpentine vitality. These cultures didn’t just worship the Sun; they believed it harbored life—dragons, phoenixes, beings of flame dancing at its edge. Today, science dismisses such notions—life as we know it can’t survive a million-degree inferno. But what if those ancients were onto something deeper, something we’re only now poised to glimpse with a radical new telescope?
Science tells us life thrives on boundaries—places where energy shifts from high to low. Plants soak up the Sun’s hot photons, storing them as sugar to burn in cooler air. Deep-sea bacteria feast on chemical gradients at hydrothermal vents, turning scalding sulfur into sustenance. It’s the differential—hot to cold, rich to sparse—that powers life. The Sun’s chromosphere and corona, its outer layers, are just such a boundary: a scorching frontier where fusion energy slams into the icy void of space. The chromosphere spikes to 20,000°C, the corona to millions, far hotter than the 5,500°C surface below—a mystery physics struggles to explain. Could this gradient, hostile to carbon-based life, cradle something else entirely—plasma dragons or phoenixes feeding on solar fire?
Ancient myths might hint at this. Sunspots—dark, magnetic patches cycling every 11 years—could be their feeding grounds, dimming the Sun as they gorge. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs)—billion-ton plasma blasts—might be their fiery births, scattering offspring into space. It’s a wild leap, but imagination has birthed science before: Einstein’s relativity and the Higgs boson were once untestable dreams.
Here’s the catch: we can’t just point a telescope at the Sun to check. Earth-based scopes like the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) use filters slashing light to 0.1%, resolving details down to 15 kilometers—impressive, but coarse for spotting solar life. Space telescopes like Hubble or James Webb? They’d fry—detectors overload at 10⁻⁵ watts, and filters in space heat up, glowing infrared and blurring the view. The Sun’s glare is a photon tsunami, drowning our tech in light and heat. To see dragons or phoenixes in the corona—at the Sun’s edge, where myth meets mystery—we need sub-meter resolution, pixels sharp enough to catch a plasma wing or magnetic scale. Current tools fall short.
Step back to 1818, when François Arago proved a wild idea: block light with a circular disc, and a bright spot—the Arago Spot—forms in its shadow, thanks to diffraction bending waves around the edges. It’s counterintuitive—seeing through blockage—but it works. Now imagine a space-based AragoScope: not a heavy mirror or fragile lens, but a balloon—a lightweight, inflatable disc of aluminized Mylar, unfurling in space’s vacuum to block the Sun’s glare and focus its corona.
Here’s the vision: launch a folded balloon—say, 1 kilometer wide—half a million kilometers from the Sun, where the solar disc looms large. Inflate it with a puff of helium, and it occults the photosphere’s 1.39-million-kilometer blaze. Fifty-seven thousand kilometers behind, a detector (or a 10-meter mirror) catches the Arago Spot—diffracted light from the corona’s edge. A 1 km balloon resolves ~2.5 meters; pair it with a mirror and adaptive optics, and we hit ~0.1-1 meter—sub-meter sharpness. Scale to 17.5 km (foldable, launchable in segments), and we’re at ~0.4 millimeters, zooming into plasma details finer than a dragon’s claw.
No melting filters, no fried detectors—just a shadow bending light to reveal the Sun’s fiery rim. Sunspots could resolve as feeding lairs, CMEs as phoenix births—life or physics, captured in crisp pixels.
Ancient cultures saw the Sun’s edge as alive—Ra’s breath, lóng’s coils, Mayan serpents. Religions cast it as divine—Hindu Garuda soaring in coronal loops, Christian seraphim blazing in CMEs. Science fiction, from Dune’s desert worms to Star Trek’s energy beings, imagines life beyond carbon. An Arago Balloon Scope could bridge these—0.1-meter pixels might show magnetic “dragons” pulsing with sunspots, “phoenixes” flaring in eruptions, their heat a sign of something thriving on the solar gradient.
Buildable today? Close. Mylar balloons flew in the ’60s (NASA’s Echo); modern composites scale up. Superconducting detectors catch UV and X-rays; rockets like Starship haul the payload. It’s a stretch—17.5 km balloons and 57,000 km orbits push limits—but not beyond reason. Deploy one, and we’d see the corona’s edge like never before—perhaps proving it’s just plasma and fields, or maybe, just maybe, spotting heliotrophs echoing ancient tales.
The ancients didn’t need telescopes to feel the Sun’s life. Science demands evidence, but imagination lights the way—as it did for relativity and the Higgs. An Arago Balloon Scope could be our next leap, peering through shadow to image the corona at sub-meter scale. Dragons and phoenixes might await—or just the next great puzzle. Either way, the Sun’s edge beckons, and we’re closer than ever to answering its call.
NRO won't tell you the capabilities of their satellites so I have to: - IMINT: HiRes-Images - Visual, Infrared and Thermal - SIGINT: Locating and Intercepting Radio, Phone and Data Transmissions - MASINT: HiRes LIDAR and Coherence Tomography
This video demonstrates and explains how an amateur can use a inexpensive ESP32 antenna array to track the source of a WIFI signal (smartphone) behind a wall. You can assume that military and intelligence agencies have the technology to do the same with the GSM / UMTS signal.
Al-Muhaymin has witnessed the rise and fall of many civilizations but Trump and Kushner wanting to play golf on Gaza beach is the most despicable reason for the fall of a civilization ever. Not just on Earth but in the entire Universe. https://x.com/R34lB0rg/status/1891595886955823340
The US have deployed two B52H bombers to the Middle East. Their configuration / payload has not been detailed but each B52H bomber can carry up to 20 AGM-86B cruise missiles with up to 150kt each and 8 B83 gravity bombs with 1.2Mt each providing a total nuclear firepower of up to 25.2Mt.
Let's play Wargames and ask WOPR to calculate what the US could do with that kind of nuclear firepower:
Allocation Strategy:
Impact Estimation:
Gaza:
Yemen:
Lebanon:
Syria:
Combined Total Impact Across All Countries:
Immediate Deaths:
Severe Injuries: Likely several million across all countries, with exact numbers hard to predict but potentially doubling or tripling the immediate death toll in terms of those needing urgent medical care.
Total Deaths Including Lack of Treatment:
This scenario assumes a highly strategic and devastating use of nuclear weapons aimed at maximizing human and infrastructural damage, with consequences extending far beyond the immediate blast effects due to societal collapse. These figures are speculative, and actual outcomes would depend on numerous variables including the exact targeting, population distribution, and response capabilities.
