Breaking: Iran and Israel Caught – Partnering in Nuclear Attack Ploy ...

Tel Aviv and Tehran Clergy in Oil Price – War Scare Fraud …Iran Nuke Arsenal Exposed

by Editors Gordon Duff and Jim W. Dean,  with Mike Harris

The news has been filled with stories of plans by Israel or the US to bomb Iran.  There was recently a series of accusations made against Iran involving the assassination of Saudi and other diplomatic officials.

These accusations were quickly discarded by most press organizations as “far fetched” but, for some reason drew responses from the US, France and others, responses that were “non linear” at best. 

Why would President Obama threaten Iran over accusations that all the networks said were nonsense?

Now, sources in Iran, at the highest levels, along with sources in the US and Britain, fearful of a “scam gone awry” tell of an extraordinary plot that is ready to unfold.

Secret contacts between Prime Minister Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khameni and counterparts in Israel, Russia and Turkey have been uncovered outlining a plan to stage an attack on Iran by Israel with full permission of the key groups within the leadership of the Iranian government and the clerics who oversee them. Members of opposition groups who have learned of this plan are livid.

The Sopranos Move to the Persian Gulf

The attack, scheduled for any day now, has one primary purpose.

It is meant to stabilize both the Iranian and Israeli governments, both of which have strong opposition at home and face charges of corruption and to correct major regional financial disaster each confront.

The “deal” between Israel and Iran is much closer to something out of the Sopranos than normal international relations.

This is pure “mob rule.”

THE OIL GLUT

Americans note that gasoline prices, recently at $4.50 per gallon, now approach $2.99 despite the continuation of artificial price supports due to illegal market speculation.

Gas price manipulation bankrupted the auto companies and has bled trillions of dollars out of theAmerican economy that, not only destroyed our balance of trade but has lowered our standard of living.

This manipulation has been to prevent downward pressure on oil prices from three major market forces.

Will We Get the Old Gas Prices Back at This Critical EconomicTime – Or Will We Get Raped Instead?

1)  There has been an 8% decrease in demand for oil and other petrochemical products worldwide, causing massive downward pressure on oil prices.

Price platforms that had been over $150 per barrel (2008) with current futures trading up to $120 per barrel while actual sale prices according to Platts Marketscan are at $86.00 per barrel less discounts of up to $8.00.

Corrected prices based on actual supply and demand would have oil at or below $60 per barrel and gasoline on the American market at $1.79 per gallon and on most European markets at E .79 per litre including all applicable taxes and fees.

The truth about supply issues has been suppressed.  Not only is demand down but supply is skyrocketing.

2)  Recent discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean and West Africa/Cameroon place available reserves at nearly 40% higher than estimated 3 years ago.

Accurate reporting of these reserves would make oil futures virtually worthless, something that in a normal world would be of interest to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Now its “big oil’s” time for its own “pump and dump” in the futures market.  With this comes more powerful political backing for this crazed and apocalyptic scheme.

3)  New gas pipelines have broken Russia’s stranglehold on the market for natural gas and will push costs and profitability in that commodity through the floor.

Thousands of Highly Mobile Silkworms Line thePersian Gulf

THE WAR FIX

There is only one way to stabilize gasoline prices that are in “free fall,” closing the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow waterway serving Iraq, Kuwait and other Gulf States that is controlled militarily by Iran through its vast network of Silkworm missiles will do exactly that.

Such an act would hit just like a worldwide oil embargo and could be triggered in hours by any Israeli attackon Iran.

What had been seen, in the past, as a potential world disaster, is now just another way to make a quick buck, despite the fact that those involved are, at least according to stories in our press, “blood enemies.”

IRAN’S PROBLEM

To Save Themselves Financially – Would They Do Something Crazy?

Iran’s government is unstable, unpopular, considered extremely corrupt and is subject to pressure both internally and externally and we note from the continual talk of “sanctions.”

Post revolutionary Iran has a theocratic government, whose elected officials are subject to oversight by a religious authority.

However, it is the religious authority itself that is currently the subject of most accusations of corruption and reported to be behind this new deal with Israel.

Additionally, Iran had chosen to invest around the imagined stability of the Euro, both out of poor financial judgement and a belief it was a way of opposing the influence of the United States in the region.

However, as the Euro is currently in total collapse and the banks looked to for providing support for the Euro, banks Iran is heavily invested in, are insolvent due to hundreds of trillions of Euros of “toxic assets,” worthless securities they have used to underwrite their most profitable lending activities.

Thus, Iran’s financial picture isn’t very hopeful and much less so if oil markets are under threat.

A collapse of oil prices would lower Iran’s GNP (Gross National Product) significantly, causing additional social discord and the inability on behalf of the government to subsidize key constituencies.  Currently, veterans of the Iraq/Iran war are one of the key political constituencies in Iran and are very mobilized for political action.

They stand ready to act against the current government if financial policies threaten their interests, as does the military and the Revolutionary Guard.

NOT JUST IRAN

Just look at Nigeria.  With a population of nearly 200 million, any cut in revenue due to falling oil prices would threaten their already beleaguered situation, a nation facing, not only terrorism but revolution.

Venezuela faces the same as does Ghana, Sudan, Chad, Angola, Tunisia, Indonesia and a dozen other nations without the financial wherewithal to remain stable with significant changes in the oil market.

Though “flush with cash,” the big loser is Russia, not just a potential big loser but also a “big player” in the region.

THE PLAN DISCOVERED A YEAR AGO

On June 18th, 2010, I wrote the following in Veterans Today:

Israel’s Iran Strike Logistics Basing Area

A week ago, Israel leaked to the press that they had permission from Saudi Arabia to use their air space to attack Iran. The Saudi’s quickly denied this.

The effort on Israel’s part was a ruse to cover their real plans, to attack from the Republic of Georgia, close to Iran’s northern border.

However, the breakdown in relations with Turkey after miscalculating the response to their Flotilla raid on a Turkish ship in international waters may have ended this operation.

Israel, whose arms agreements with Turkey mounted to nearly $5 billion dollars over a period of years, had been training pilots in Turkey for bombing attacks on Iran. During these training missions, Israel was smuggling aircraft through Turkish airspace.

Turkey had allowed Israel to use their air space for training because their terrain closely resembled areas of Iran that Israel planned to attack. However, Turkey was unaware that planes involved in this effort were being relocated to forward staging areas in the Republic of Georgia, making Turkey, technically, fully complicit in this planned illegal attack.

Helping coordinate the attack are intelligence units forward stationed in Azerbaijan, under the guise of technicians, trainers and advisors under the broad armaments agreements with that small nation.

Supply operations, moving necessary ordnance, much of it supplied by the United States under ammunition storage agreements, is being moved through the Black Sea to the Georgian Port of Poti, a major site for exporting coal and manganese ore….

USS Graple

Cover for the supply operations is being performed by the Georgian Coast Guard, set up by Israel and manned with Israeli observers.

Their job is to keep Russian surveillance craft away from supply operations under the guise of a “Gaza type” naval blockade of Abkhazia, a separatist province supported by Russia….

US Naval forces began operating in the Black Sea in late May, with the USS Graple (T-ars 53), a service and salvage ship, visiting the Georgian port of Poti for joint military exercises which ended June 8th.

Prior to that, the last US Navy ship in the region was the USS John L. Hall (FFG-32), a Perry class guided missile frigate. A Russian spokesman said, “The US is trying to turn the Black Sea into an American lake.”

The US is also maintaining a training and observation command in Tiblisi, a unit from Ramstein AFB in Germany, that is coordinating air traffic and radar functions.

With regular visits by the US Navy scheduled and ramping up at the same convenient time Israel is building up its arms cache in Georgia for the upcoming attack on Iran, the current debacle with Turkey may have set things back or ended this gambit completely.

Turkish air controllers had to know something was afoot when the attack bombers failed to return to the agreed upon flight plans and return to Israel.

Russian made S-300 Air Defense Missiles

A critical issue, of course, is the S300 air defense system that Russia has agreed to withhold from Iran as part of the program of sanctions. The current Tor 1 system, though robust, can be defeated by a well planned low level attack.

As the use of Georgia may be seen as a provocation by Russia, even if the attacks never manifest as anything other than more “firing blanks” like Israel’s tussle with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Russia may reconsider the delivery of this vital defense technology.

Without the ability to use forward bases in either Georgia, Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan, Israel would be unable to attack Iran at all except by flying a circuitous 4500 mile “each way” route or using the limited capabilities of its nuclear armed submarine off the coast of Iran. It is uncertain how Turkey will deal with the illegal use of their airspace by Israel as relations are already at a low ebb.

With a number of former Soviet airfields spread across Georgia and 4 of 5 fields in Azerbaijan available for operations and support, the region makes a perfect area for broad operations, not only against Iran but for movement of contraband of every variety.

WHAT HAS CHANGED – WHAT WE MISSED

Yes – America Has Been Talking to the Iranians

What we didn’t know but suspected, is that Iran and Israel had been doing more than talking in Dubai where both do more than occasional banking.

Back channel communications between the Iranian government and the US had been done through Indonesia with Robert Gates as initial intermediary.

Since that time, such talks have gone through many hands.  What we didn’t know is that “talks” included “plots.”

The current issue has an unusual flavor to it with money flowing freely into the hands of all involved.

Participation in such a plan, with the risk of nuclear war very real despite the careful mechanizations of the conspirators, could very well have ramifications leading to global war.

Wars have been started over less, as an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 taught all of us.

ISRAEL

Is Netanyahu Betting It All on a Grand Slam?

Israel gets to focus its internal problems on an external enemy and, in the process, get another “big win” like the one the US got when it killed the long dead Osama bin Laden.

Netanyahu’s belief is that his domestic opposition, more powerful than ever, will be silenced and his strained relations with the US will be repaired.

Added to “the deal” are provisions for generous financial windfalls for all involved.

Similarly, we have traced payments to Hamas made by Israel, stretching back many years.

We have also traced Israel’s control in a number of publications supposedly dedicated to the Palestinian cause, all carefully used by Israel to orchestrate tensions and derail any potential trust or cooperation.

The supposed “anti-zionist” Palestinian publications and select Islamic organizations, particularly in Lebanon, have been among Israel’s most valuable assets.

Now with the discovery of the covert relationship between Israel and Iran, this has become much more understandable, particularly in light of the new-found fear of political destabilization as Israel primary “assets” in the region, Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya have both fallen to what we hope will be democratic regimes.

THE WAR PLANS – NUCLEAR IRAN

Thermonuclear Warhead

We had been receiving information about nuclear weapons in Iran for several months.  Sources were given that had not checked out, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa and even Israel.

However, one source did check out, the Ukraine.  We don’t have the exact date or number but we are told that the Ukraine sold Iran 6 thermonuclear warheads, probably in or around 2003.

Iran was fearful of US forces on both borders and nuclear weapons would have only been usable as a “last resort,” not against Israel but against American armies moving into Iran.

That the warheads are from an American ally, one being courted for NATO membership at the time, made this issue one of great sensitivity.

It was easier to continue talking about nuclear programs that didn’t exist than weapons that did.

For Iran, these weapons, back in 2003 at least, were going to be a great surprise to the neocons at PNAC (Project for a New American Century) that had planned their demise.  Things never got that far.

Now Iran is stuck with weapons they can never use, not against Israel, certainly not against American forces in Iraq who are currently in full scale withdrawal.  Each weapon has taken on the effect of being an albatross around Iran’s neck, far more of a security risk than asset.

WHAT WE ALSO KNOW

Discussions within the Iranian clergy, unknown to their new Israeli friends, indicate that these nuclear devices, each deliverable by ballistic missile, will be made operational as a “safety measure.”  What can they be thinking?

One must realize that this is the same religious organization that regularly has government officials charged with witchcraft.

This highly classified information is being published at great risk by many in America, Great Britainand Iran in hopes that that the “clear light of day” will bring about a period of reflection and a restoration of sanity.

Major Offshore Oil and Gas Fields in Good Water

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Geologists Closely Monitoring Surge In Arkansas Earthquakes ...

The Arkansas Geological Survey says it is stepping up its monitoring of seismicactivity in central Arkansas after dozens of small earthquakes in the region.

Six minor quakes were recorded Friday near Quitman, the latest of more than 50 temblors in October. The Friday tremors began with a 2.0-magnitude quake around 7:45 a.m. and peaked with a 2.5 quake later in the morning.

The shaking follows more than 1,000earthquakes centered between Guy and Greenbrier from September 2010 to July of this year, when the Arkansas Oil and GasCommission ordered four gas disposal wells shut down and voted to create a large moratorium area in which no future disposal wells could be drilled.

Geologists said the activity – which involves injecting pressurized liquid into the ground – was likely contributing to the shaking.

The quakes between Guy and Greenbrier tailed off significantly in August, but more quakes began occurring in October closer to Quitman. It sits about 10 miles northeast of Guy.

That distance is potentially concerning, warned Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey. The Quitman quakes are occurring along the same line as the Guy-Greenbrier ones, but there’s a miles-long gap between Guy and Quitman in which no quakes have been recorded.

That might suggest that the tension is building, possibly leading up to a larger quake centered on that gap along the fault. A similar-sized gap occurred on the southern end of the Guy-Greenbrier fault and it in February unleashed a 4.7-magnitude quake, the largest of any of the recent tremors.

Anytime there is a gap in seismicity along an active fault, it “bears watching,” Ausbrooks said.

“I’m not saying that’s what it is,” he said. “I don’t want to scare people and I don’t want to say it’s going to happen. It’s just something we’re looking at.”

The 4.7 tremor was felt across Arkansas and in neighboring states, though no injuries or major damage was reported.

It and the other hundreds of smaller quakes that rumbled the area helped convince the Oil and Gas Commission to take action. So why is the shaking continuing if the drilling has stopped?

Ausbrooks has a few ideas, though he said the phenomenon is still very much underinvestigation. Officials have already placed one temporary quake-monitoring station near Center Ridge and he said another will likely be placed elsewhere in the region in the next two weeks.

“We’re kind of beefing back up because of this renewed seismicity,” he said

Ausbrooks said the shaking could be purely natural. Earthquakes continued for years after drilling ended at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where an injection well is thought to have initially triggered seismic activity.

The continuing shaking could also be related to ongoing drilling activity about 8 miles outside of Quitman, Ausbrooks said, though he noted that’s a significant distance. Or it might be tied somehow to the plugging of one of those four shuttered wells.

Ausbrooks said he couldn’t preliminarily pinpoint how the plugging of a well would induce quakes, but the shaking in Quitman started just days after the northernmost of the four closed wells was plugged.

“Right now, we’ll just say it’s a coincidence,” he said.

 Source

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Many Survive With No Bank Account ...

More people in the Southeast don’t have bank accounts than in any other part of the country. Mississippi leads the country with more than 16% of households using cash-and-carry for all their transactions.

A new interactive map released by Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows state-by-state comparisons for median bank fees and policies, as well as percentage of households that don’t have a bank account, across the United States.

The national median monthly fee for a checking account is $8.95 — or more than $107 per year. The national median minimum combined balance to avoid a monthly fee is $2,500.

But with fees rising for accounts at the biggest banks — and with the median income falling — more Americans could find themselves on the margins of the banking system, and unable to afford an account. Amenities that are part of having a bank account, including checking, savings, and access to credit, could slip out of reach for more millions. Today, many people without bank account rely on borrowing money from friends and family, or from payday loan operators, short-term lenders that charge interest rates of up to 400% annually.

In eight states and the District of Columbia, at least 10% of households don’t have any kind of bank account, according to the Pew Trust data. Overall, around 12% of all Americans do not have any financial institution to call their own, based on 2009 data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

States with the fewest number of account-less households are clustered in northern New England, as well as Washington,Montana, Utah and Minnesota. Utah has the smallest percentage of unbanked households: Just 1.7% of households are unaffiliated with a financial institution.

People without a bank account also have trouble moving up the social ladder, as their lack of one puts things like mortgage loans out of reach.

“We know that those who are banked are much better able to save for long-term goals,” says Susan Weinstock, director of the Safe Checking in the Electronic Age project for the Pew Trusts.

Source

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Entire West Coast Hit Hard By Fukushima Radiation ...

“High concentrations” of radiation hit US andCanada — Plume was rich in Cesium-137 and “close to the surface” from Vancouver southward — See also Hawaii,Florida (MAPS)

SOURCE: Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, Stohl, A., Seibert, P., Wotawa, G., Arnold, D., Burkhart, J. F., Eckhardt, S., Tapia, C., Vargas, A., and Yasunari, T. J., October 20, 2011

Here are some excerpts concerning NorthAmerica [Emphasis Added]:

• “Already on 15 March, a first isolated 133Xe cloud reached western North America, followed by the arrival of high concentrations of both 133Xe and 137Cs on 19 March.”
• “The main part of the radioactive plume entered western North America on 17–18 March. On 18 March at 12:00UTC, the head of the plume had already arrived over the North Atlantic, but the main part was located over the eastern Pacific Ocean and western North America, where it could be detected at monitoring sites. This part of the plume was also rich in 137Cs, as it was still close to the surface south of 50 [Most of US/Canada border is 49°]. At the same time, the plume penetrated the subtropics and arrived at Hawaii on 19 March.”
• “A map of the simulated surface concentrations of 133Xe for 22 March shows that all of western North America was engulfed by the FD-NPP plume, as well as parts of eastern North America and eastern  Asia.”

ABSTRACT: ACPD – Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition

SOURCE: Discussion Paper

Note Florida, in comparison to the rest of the southeastern U.S.:

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Japan Warned Of Another M9.0 Earthquake ...

Tepco has announced that there are 1,331 spent fuel rods in the pool of reactor 4.

However, 10/14/2011, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced that the pool contained 204 units of new fuel rodsas well.

They assumed that once aftershock hits the pool and it’s damaged, the fuel rods get to 900 C, melting out of the zirconium cover in 2.3 hours later. As the zirconium alloy cover (Zircaloy) is destroyed, it emits hydrogen, which is likely to cause hydrogen explosion.

The melted fuel rods are estimated to have reached 2,800 C and started to melt down some 7.7 hours later.

Currently Tepco is reinforcing the fuel pool, which is now exposed to outside because it lost the wall from the explosion.

Today Hokkaido University stated that there is a possibility that another M9.0 hits north Japan again (soon? imminent?).

They say they caught the sameearthquake echo of 89.9MHz as what they caught before 311.

According to their report, another M9.0 may hit from December to January, the epicenter may be from South Miyagi prefecture offshore to Ibaraki offshore, which is beside Fukushima plant.

Even apart from this report, it is rational to assume another major aftershock hits Fukushima plants anytime.

Fukushima is still on the edge.

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NASA In Final Preparations For Nov 8 Asteroid Flyby ...

NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon’s orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on “spacecraft Earth” to scan it during the close pass.

Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time (PDT) on Nov. 4, using the massive 70-meter (230-foot) Deep Space Network antenna, and last for about two hours. The asteroid will continue to be tracked by Goldstone for at least four hours each day from Nov. 6 through Nov. 10. Radar observations from the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico will begin on Nov. 8, the same day the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 3:28 p.m. PST.

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on anything here on Earth, including our planet’s tides or tectonic plates. Although 2005 YU55 is in an orbit that regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth (and Venusand Mars), the 2011 encounter with Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at least the last 200 years.

This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was generated from data taken in April 2010 by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico. Image credit: NASA/Cornell/Arecibo
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During tracking, scientists will use the Goldstone and Arecibo antennas to bounce radio waves off the space rock. Radar echoes returned from 2005 YU55 will be collected and analyzed. NASA scientists hope to obtainimages of the asteroid from Goldstone as fine as about 7 feet (2 meters) per pixel. This should reveal a wealth of detail about the asteroid’s surface features, shape, dimensions and other physical properties (see “Radar Love” – www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-00a).

Arecibo radar observations of asteroid 2005 YU55 made in 2010 show it to be approximately spherical in shape. It is slowly spinning, with a rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid’s surface is darker than charcoal at optical wavelengths. Amateur astronomers who want to get a glimpse at YU55 will need a telescope with an aperture of 6 inches (15 centimeters) or larger.

Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55 – November 8-9, 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing 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 plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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Three New Planets And A Mystery Object Discovered Outside Our Solar System ...

Three planets — each orbiting its own giant, dying star — have been discovered by an international research team led by a Penn State University astronomer. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the astronomersobserved the planets’ parent stars — called HD 240237, BD +48 738, and HD 96127 — tens of light years away from our solar system. One of the massive, dying starshas an additional mystery object orbiting it, according to team leader Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor ofAstronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, who, in 1992, became the first astronomer ever to discover planets outside our solar system. The new research is expected to shed light on the evolution of planetary systems around dying stars. It also will help astronomers to understand how metal content influences the behavior of dying stars.

The research will be published in December in the Astrophysical Journal. The first author of the paper is Sara Gettel, a graduate student from Penn State’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the paper is co-authored by three graduate students from Poland.

The three newly discovered planetary systems are more evolved than our own solar system.

“Each of the three stars is swelling and has already become a red giant — a dying star that soon will gobble up any planet that happens to be orbiting too close to it,” Wolszczan said. “While we certainly can expect a similar fate for our own Sun, which eventually will become a red giant and possibly will consume our Earth, we won’t have to worry about it happening for another 5 billion years.” Wolszczan also said that one of the massive, dying stars — BD +48 738 — is accompanied not only by an enormous, Jupiter-like planet, but also by a second, mystery object.

According to the team, this object could be another planet, a low-mass star, or — most interestingly — a brown dwarf, which is a star-like body that is intermediate in mass between the coolest stars and giant planets. “We will continue to watch this strange object and, in a few more years, we hope to be able to reveal its identity,” Wolszczan said.

The three dying stars and their accompanying planets have been particularly useful to the research team because they have helped to illuminate such ongoing mysteries as how dying stars behave depending on their metallicity. “First, we know that giant stars like HD 240237, BD +48 738, and HD 96127 are especially noisy. That is, they appear jittery, because they oscillate much more than our own, much-younger Sun. This noisiness disturbs the observation process, making it a challenge to discover any companion planets,” Wolszczan said. “Still, we persevered and we eventually were able to spot the planets orbiting each massive star.

Once Wolszczan and his team had confirmed that HD 240237, BD +48 738 and HD 96127 did indeed have planets orbiting around them, they measured the metal content of the stars and found some interesting correlations. “We found a negative correlation between a star’s metallicity and its jitteriness. It turns out that the less metal content each star had, the more noisy and jittery it was,” Wolszczan explained. “Our own Sun vibrates slightly too, but because it is much younger, itsatmosphere is much less turbulent.”

Wolszczan also pointed out that, as stars swell to the red-giant stage, planetary orbits change and even intersect, and close-in planets and moons eventually get swallowed and sucked up by the dying star. For this reason, it is possible that HD 240237, BD +48 738 and HD 96127 once might have had more planets in orbit, but that these planets were consumed over time. “It’s interesting to note that, of these three newly-discovered stars, none has a planet at a distance closer than 0.6 astronomical units — that is, 0.6 the distance of the Earth to our Sun,” Wolszczan said. “It might be that 0.6 is the magic number at which any closer distance spells a planet’s demise.”

Observations of dying stars, their metal content, and how they affect the planets around them could provide clues about the fate of our own solar system. “Of course, in about 5 billion years, our Sun will become a red giant and likely will swallow up the inner planets and the planets’ accompanying moons. However, if we’re still around in, say, 1 billion to 3 billion years, we might consider taking up residence on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, for the remaining couple billion years before that happens,” Wolszczan said. “Europa is an icy wasteland and it is certainly not habitable now, but as the Sun continues to heat up and expand, our Earth will become too hot, while at the same time, Europa will melt and may spend a couple billion years in the Goldilocks zone — not to hot, not to cold — covered by vast, beautiful oceans.”

Penn State’s Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds is organizing a conference in January 2012 to discuss planets and their dying stars. The conference will be held in Puerto Rico and is scheduled to take place at exactly 20 years from when Wolszczan used the 1,000-foot Arecibo radiotelescope to detect three planets orbiting a rapidly spinning neutron star — the very first discovery of planets outside our solar system. This discovery opened the door to the current intense era of planet hunting by suggesting that planet formation could be quite common throughout the universe and that planets can form around different types of stellar objects. Information about the conference is online at www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/PLANETS2012/index.html.

In addition to Wolszczan and Gettel at Penn State, other members of the research team include Andrzej Niedzielski, Gracjan Maciejewski, and three graduate students: Grzegorz Nowak, Monika Adamow, and Pawel Zielinski, who all are from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland.

Funding for this research was provided by NASA and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

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