A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. And, as bizarre as these objects may seem, they are predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity. But black holes also feature in other competing theories of gravity, too.

And now, an intriguing new study says black holes could one day help us test – and likely disprove – these alternative theories.

The study focuses on a part of a black hole known as its shadow. This is a region around twice the size of the event horizon – the point of no return – where the black hole’s gravity pulls light in, making it appear dark to us.

Click here to read the article

“The days that are past have gone forever, and those that sleep in the womb of the future may not be seen by you in your present state of being. Therefore, it is well to concern yourself wholly with the present, forgetting the past and not expecting too much from the future.

“The present alone is yours, and the fortunes of futurity will be dispensed according to the Law; therefore, you cannot know what the unborn days will bring forth. As to your own future state, subject to the Law, it is being conceived in your present thoughts and deeds.

“Idleness is the parent of poverty, but success and prosperity, attend upon the industrious and diligent.

“Waste not the early hours of the day. Serve your master with diligence, and promotion will be your reward. The man of affairs rises early to establish himself. Neglect not the affairs of the day, nor fill them with idle dreams of yourself when greater, for thus, you feed yourself on wind while your bread is eaten by another.

-The Kolbrin Bible (MPR:23:1-4)

The Past is Gone

While it is true that the past is gone, that doesn’t mean we should forget the lessons of the past, both negative and positive. If we forget the past, we would be like babies again, not knowing how to speak or walk. So it is not desirable to forget the past. I think the point the quote is trying to make is that we should not let the failures of the past prevent us from doing better in the present.

We cannot know the Future

While it is largely true that we cannot know the future, we can predict many future events with accuracy. We can predict that the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening and be nearly certain that it will happen. Likewise, we can predict that those of us who practice spiritual development techniques will advance spiritually, while those who do not will remain trapped in the material. So even though we can’t say how long it will take for each individual to achieve total enlightenment, we can say that those working towards that result will achieve it. As the quote admits, the future is being “conceived” by our thoughts and deeds, so by controlling our thoughts and deeds, we can control our future.

Idleness is the Parent of Poverty

While it is true that we must work for what we want, there are exceptions, such as those individuals who inherit fortunes and never have to work at all. For us spiritual people, it is true that those who are spiritually idle, that is, who do not practice their spiritual growth techniques regularly, will achieve little and thus live in spiritual poverty.

Waste not the Early Hours

Those of us in Cosolargy know how important it is to be up early, at least early enough to practice our spiritual techniques at sunrise. Some of us find that early morning is a good time to work on other things as well, such as writing these articles, which I am doing at 7:00 am. I find that I am less likely to get interrupted by phone calls, or noise in the early morning hours.

Idle Dreams

We also should not spend time on idle dreams of success without working to achieve it. As the quote says, that can result in others getting our share of “bread”. We in Cosolargy know that when talking about spiritual matters, “bread” as mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer, refers not to the baked good found in the physical realm, but to the Light that comes from God that nourishes the spirit. So rise early and do your spiritual development techniques so you will get the true Bread promised by God.

Three enormous and peculiar radio light rings were discovered far, far outside our own galaxy, shedding more light on one of the enigmas that have long perplexed astronomers.

The find was reported by the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory — a citizens science community that combines professional astronomers with amateur citizen volunteers who sift through vast radio sky surveys.

Click here to read the article

Brown dwarfs are a growing area of focus for astronomers, thanks to improved instruments that have the necessary resolution to visualize them. The term describes substellar objects that are about 13 to 80 Jupiter masses, making them too small to become stars, but massive enough to experience some nuclear fusion in their cores and produce heat. Initially theorized in the 1960s, it was not until the mid-1990s that this class of stellar object was confirmed through direct observation. And thanks to next-generation telescopes and improved data-sharing techniques, there are growing opportunities to study these objects.

Click here to read the article

When the Sun reaches the end of its main sequence, approximately 5 billion years from now, it will enter what is known as its Red Giant Branch (RGB) phase, during which it will expand and potentially consume Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. Not long after, it will undergo gravitational collapse and blow off its outer layers, leaving behind a dense remnant known as a white dwarf.

Click here to read the article

“Joy and contentment come from something a man has within himself, not from things without. Solitude is a torment to the uneasy heart but balm to the contented one.

“A man who can be satisfied with little is the possessor of wisdom. He who desires no more than sufficient will always have enough; his cares will be few.

“Riches do not bring peace to the soul. The greatest treasure of all is a contented heart.

“The coming of riches is not a misfortune; the inheritance of estates is not a calamity to the wise man, for he will utilize them with temperance and discretion.

“The cup of gladness may be sipped by man, but to drain it is too much for the constitution of mortals.

“Contentment is the goal of life, but first the race has to be run. None can receive the crown of the victor until the course is finished and he takes his place among the competitors in the Halls of Eternity.

-The Kolbrin Bible (MPR:22:7-12)

Joy and Contentment

Joy and contentment do come mostly from within a man or woman. While it is true that some external things can affect our contentment, such as music, it is still coming from within because different people can feel differently when listening to the same song.

Solitude

Solitude is difficult for materialistic people, so they will change sides and join movements they really don’t believe in just to be part of a group. While the spiritual person is also happy to be part of groups, they can handle solitude as well. They would rather be on their own than compromise the truth to belong to a group.

Few possessions

The wise person is content with few possessions. One reason for that is they know that possessions tend to increase our attachments to the physical world, and those attachments can be used by the dark beings to trick them into doing things they shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean that spiritual people must live in poverty. They can live in reasonable comfort as God does not want any of us to suffer, but they must avoid becoming too attached to those material comforts. Also, the person who is content with only what is necessary will not be wasting time pursuing more and more material wealth, as we see so many materialists doing.

The Greatest Treasure

Where the quote says the greatest treasure is a contented heart, it really means a contented spirit. An awakened and developed spirit is the greatest treasure a person can have. But we must all make an effort to awaken and develop our spiritual faculties that lie dormant when we enter the physical realm.

Coming of Riches

A spiritual person who inherits wealth will not be harmed by that inheritance. They will use that wealth for their own spiritual development and to aid the spiritual community they belong to. If they don’t belong to a spiritual community, they will donate much of it to worthy charities.

The Crown of Victory

What the quote calls “the crown of the victor” means developing the spirit to the point where it reaches the highest level of consciousness and becomes One with God and the Angels in heaven. It is extremely rare for someone to achieve that level while still in the physical realm. But if we do as much as we can while alive in this world, the process of spiritual development will continue in the afterlife that the quote calls “the Halls of Eternity”.

Star formation has a lot of complex physics that feed into it. Classical models used something equivalent to a “collapse” of a cloud of gas by gravity, with a star being birthed in the middle. More modern understandings show a feature called a “streamer”, which funnels gas and dust to proto-stars from the surrounding disc of material. But our understanding of those streamers is still in its early stages, like the stars they are forming.

Click here to read the article

• The universe’s expansion has already begun to slow, says a new study from Yonsei University. This challenges the long-held belief that the universe is rapidly accelerating due to dark energy.
• Researchers found that Type Ia supernovas – used to measure cosmic expansion – are affected by the age of their progenitor stars. So previous evidence for acceleration may be faulty.

Click here to read the article

Nature’s like a photographer’s canvas backdrop, lit up by the different types of electromagnetic radiation. Gamma radiation is the most powerful, strong enough to rip your double helix in two. Radio waves are at the low end. They’re generally safe, and are almost omnipresent; we live in a sea of radio waves.

While much of the radio waves we’re exposed to here on the surface of the Earth come from our own technology—AM/FM radios, WiFi, GPS signals and the like—there are also natural sources.

Click here to read the article