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NEWSFEED
May 3, 2014: 14:08:32
Earlier today NASA finally started live streaming from M-AL468v, the newly discovered parallel universe.
Last week the US space agency issued a press release announcing the existence of a different universe parallel to our own, turning the beloved science fiction element into a reality.
“We can now say for a fact that we are living in a multiverse!” The press quoted Greg Shaw, mission director at NASA who had been working on this since early 2000. He was also the mind behind the probe Malcom, which is now high orbiting Inora (designated I-N0R4), a parcelestial body currently classified as a minor planet. Because of the current position of Malcom’s cam module, Inora is not in view; it should be visible in a few hours.
NASA also released some information about M-AL468v yesterday, stating that this newly found universe is very much similar to our own universe. Of course, it’s too soon to say anything, but we are hoping space agencies around the world would like to send more probes to M-AL468v in the near future.
Reminder: Do check back for our exclusive chat with Greg sometime tomorrow.
See the live feed HERE.
May 3, 2014: 15:28:14
The live streaming is up for about six hours now and that not-so-surprisingly is the most watched and most talked about thing on the internet. NASA has never been this mainstream since the moon landing.
Presidents of all the nations have come on record to congratulate one another. This has been such a unifying moment, for the human race, as a whole.
Go check it out, we’ve seen it and it’s gorgeous!
Here’s the link.
May 3, 2014: 17:20:66
NASA has to cut the feed for 30 mins because of the heavy web traffic. There is news of a failed hacking attempt on the server but all such reports are dismissed by the agency.
Streaming will be up at 08:15 EDT (UTC-4).
May 3, 2014: 17:48:37
NASA’s multiverse live stream is up and running.
Follow this link.
May 3, 2014: 18:55:41
We’ve been following the NASA’s Malcom live stream of the parallel universe M_AL468v. If you haven’t checked it yet, here’s a rundown for you:
• The stream began at 00:00 EDT (UTC-4)
• The first few minutes were unclear, later the camera went offline.
• An official tweet (from @NASA_M-AL-Com) clarified that it was the probe’s cam module. The probe had “jumped” universes and was subject to a massive amount of pressure and electromagnetic charges, which might have affected the camera. However, it turned out to be a simple issue and the probe fixed itself in no time.
• The stream re-started at 00:18 EDT and we saw a very familiar view. As NASA had described in its press release earlier this week, M-AL468v is very much like our own universe. We noticed nebulae, stars and galaxies; nothing extraordinary; however, some interesting shapes can be seen in the distant view.
• Malcom rotates its rear cam module 15 degrees every 30 minutes; you can expect the first 360º view image in the next few hours. This hexagonal prism rear cam module consists of 6 cameras, only two of which are to be used for the stream.
• Conspiracy theorists are going crazy about it. Many conspiracy theorists have posted “proofs” of this being another of “those stunts”.
• NASA turned off the stream for 30 minutes due to technical issues, but the streaming is live now.
• You can check the stream here.
May 3, 2014: 20:22:28
Inora is in view! This is our very first look at the planetoid which NASA is using as an anchor for Malcom. It is estimated to be closer to the size of Jupiter’s moon Io. Doesn’t it look like an eye?!
Go check the stream now! : LINK
May 3, 2014: 21:10:50
This has been wonderful! The world just has its first closer look at a truly unique otherworldly body. We don’t know much about Inora as of now, but hopefully with Malcom’s data we will soon get a lot of information.
May 3, 2014: 21:15:20
Malcom is experiencing some difficulties with its rear cam module again, this time it’s with the motor. NASA has stopped the rotation for a few hours; Inora is in clear view, so you can have plenty of time to enjoy this parcelestial beauty!
May 3, 2014: 21:21:19
NASA has cut the feed again, they’re working on fixing the cam module.
Meanwhile, some fun facts about Malcom:
• Malcom stands for M-AL-Communicator.
• It is a deep space probe, built specifically to study M-AL468, the point of contact with M-AL468v(erse), back in 2011. It was launched April 3, 2012; and it’s been in space ever since.
• Malcom was never intended to travel through the portal. Yes, in fact NASA was not even sure of the portal back then. It was the data that Malcom provided that confirmed the presence of a portal and of the other universe.
• Its work is done. Malcom was practically retired (of its original mission) in early 2014, and was supposed to be left in space. It was Greg Shaw who then convinced everyone to send it through the portal to see what’s in there. By now they already knew this other universe was stable enough and Malcom would survive the “jump”.
• Based on a design that’s slightly reminiscent of Cthulhu, Malcom is 11 ft tall and 15.5 ft wide (span). This giant human-like robot that has six octopus-like arms, has a mass of 490kg (1,080 lb) .
• It has a complex AI brain system, and it’s capable of taking intuition-based decisions on its own in case of emergency, because information is not getting transferred instantaneously.
• Greg Shaw had initially proposed the model of the M-AL-Communicator to aid in the search of the lost shuttle Serenity, as he’d suspected that M-AL468 could be responsible for the disappearance of the orbiter almost 16 years ago.
Bonus facts: Space Shuttle Serenity got “lost in spacetime” when it mysteriously vanished on September 27, 1998. It was on mission STS-K64.
Launched on September 2nd, 1998, STS-K64 transported 5 Astronauts to the International Space Station. But the orbiter disappeared while returning back to the Earth. It had a crew of four at the time of its disappearance: Shuttle Commander K. Rajaswamy, Pilot “Major” Glen Washburne, Mission Specialist Mariam Khan, and Flight Engineer Joshua S. Smith.
Greg Shaw, who was also close friends with Rajaswamy and Smith, was on the Shuttle Mission Control Center when the accident happened.
May 3, 2014: 21:21:19
Stream is live again however, the rotation is still inactive. NASA tweeted this might take some time, till then enjoy the view!
May 4, 2014: 10:30:21
The feed has been cut for the past two hours now. But according to the recent tweet from @NASA_M-AL-Com, the live feed should start about anytime now. However, cam is still fixed at Inora. (Not that we’re complaining!)
Meanwhile, TGB had a brief correspondence with Greg Shaw this morning. And he shared much more insights about the ins and outs of the program:
According to Greg, it all started back in 2002 when NASA first detected an anomaly. “It was a radio signal but unlike anything we’d ever seen, the waves were “shredded” so to speak. My first instinct was…Aliens!” He joked. However, it turned out to be a system glitch.
In May 2003, they received three separate signals, within a period of two weeks, leading back to one specific point in space. It took his team 16 months to “read” the signal; the team developed a Synthetic Wave Port to “stitch” the shredded radio waves into a readable signal. The current live streaming is made possible because of that SWaP technology. And in October 2004 they confirmed the signal was from the lost orbiter Serenity.
“There was no message, just checking prowords. And we tracked back all three signals to the exact same point in space—M-AL468, or the Zero Point as we called it internally. The most fascinating thing about the Zero Point was that it was a fixed point.
“It kind of sounds counterintuitive because we cannot have a fixed point in space, and motion is relative.”
[Note: We’ll try to explain him as much as we can, so bear with us, it’s kind of complicated: We cannot have a fixed point, because we are in constant motion, there’s no gravity in space, and the initial pop of the big bang is still pushing our universe and everything in it; as a result we’re just moving. So, imagine an infinitely long always-moving baggage carousel in an airport, and you are standing there looking at a pink box, next to a yellow bag. You can see that the carousel, and so the luggage, is in constant motion; in other words, the pink box cannot be fixed because the carousel is moving; but you can still track it by following the luggage trail, it’s next to the yellow bag.
Now if you sit on the carousel and look at the luggage, they’re not moving at all. The pink box becomes fixed for you despite the moving carousel, because motion is relative. But you can still track it next to the yellow bag.]
“But strangely,” Dr Shaw continued, “M-AL468 was kind of fixed.
[The box on the carousel is not moving with the carousel. So if you’re sitting on the carousel, you can see the pink box receding away from you because you are moving with the carousel along with the other luggage.]
“And that fascinating part was also a challenge, the tracking of the zero point was tricky because of the constantly changing reference frames, we had to devise a complex system of thousands of reference frames to track the Zero Point for these years.
[It’s hard to track a fixed pink box, because it’s not always next to the yellow bag. So to track it, you have to keep switching the reference points, from the yellow bag to the blue bag behind it, then to the red one behind that. Getting the point? Good.]
“Another challenge was its constantly increasing distance from us,” paused Greg, “let me give you a visual example: Take a balloon and draw some dots on it, and if you fill the balloon with air, you will notice that as the balloon grows larger, the dots will start to travel away from each other.
[Just like the pink box goes away from the yellow and blue bags, except the distance between the yellow and blue bags is also increasing.]
“Now imagine the universe is the balloon and all the stars, galaxies, etc. are the dots. And the balloon is inflating, the universe is getting bigger and bigger and everything is travelling away from each other. This is in fact the current state of our universe.
(fig.1)
“So this was a challenge because we also had to keep in mind that the distance between the zero point and our earth was constantly increasing.”
Using the above example, Greg explains this newly found universe:
“This other universe (M-AL468v) is like a second balloon in our main universal balloon. The accelerated expansion of the main balloon is NOT affecting the balloon that’s inside, as it stays independently of the two. And the edge of the other balloon is ever so slightly touching the main balloon, that point of contact is M-AL468.
“We can find these points of contact by calculating the leftover thermal radiation of our early universe; these points of contact usually appear colder than the surroundings. And because we’ve seen a few cold spots, it is quite possible that there are more than one balloon inside our own universal balloon. And even our main balloon could be inside some other larger balloon universe, that is, the multiverse.”
(fig.2)
As you can imagine, this was a very complex mission; not to mention, a very expensive one. Malcom is almost a 200 billion dollar project, even its approval was a surprise, considering the yearly budget of NASA is not even 10 percent of that! And whereas some taxpayers are concerned about the use of their tax money, most people trust NASA’s judgement. Even so, some have frowned upon the idea of spending such an amount just to get an old shuttle back.
One comment on the website, by @TheScipticGuy posits that the mission was in fact not about the Serenity but they have figured out wormholes or portals. And as we know it, that was indeed a major part of the project.
We must add that the search of Serenity is indeed a major part of the project; however, due to the amount of time that’s passed between receiving the signal and sending the probe, the chances of finding it are pretty slim.
Update: The steaming is like now. Link.
May 4, 2014: 15:10:29
Malcom is fixed now, the cam module is rotating at this moment. Check it out! Link.
May 4, 2014: 16:45:11
NASA just announced that the Space Shuttle Serenity has been found, unfortunately, the news is not good. After the recent rotation, Malcom captured a terrible view. NASA cut the feed quickly, but we noticed some space debris. Later in a tweet NASA confirmed it was the remains of the lost orbiter. Scientists are trying to figure out what caused such destruction, but a plausible explanation is that Serenity was sucked in by the portal and the shuttle couldn’t survive and got “shredded” in the process.
The feed will be off for sometime now. You can follow us or Malcom’s official twitter handle @NASA_M-AL-Com for any updates.
May 4, 2014: 22:18:52
NASA just released a two-minute long audio of STS-K64 crew, recovered from a personal recorder found in the debris.
It is a great achievement, thanks to its design and AI, Malcom successfully manoeuvred its way to grab a recorder without destroying itself. The tape in question apparently came from Mariam Khan, mission specialist on STS-K64. Joshua was sitting beside her, and the ship apparently experienced a major jolt as they travelled through the portal.
Also, we must warn you that some of it is not very pleasing. But in any case, do not panic. There is nothing to be worried about.
The following transcript begins 12 seconds after NASA lost all communications with the shuttle, when it disappeared, with astronaut Joshua Smith saying, “What was that?”
Times from the moment of the apparent jump are shown in minutes and seconds and are approximate. Male and female voices are indicated by M and F.
T+12:13 (M-F) What was that? What the hell just happened?!
T+12:15 (M) Oh god, no! Oh god! (sobs)
T+12:19 (F) (Screams.) Ya Allah! We are going to die! (sobs)
T+12:20 (F) It was a blast[?] Swamy? It was a blast! (screams) Swamy!
T+12:25 (M) You alright? Lift up your visor!
T+12:28 (F) I want to see my kids! (sobs) I don’t wanna die like this!
T+12:38 (M) We are not [dying]! All good. Calm down.
T+12:41 (F-M) We are okay(?)
T+12:44 (F) I can’t breathe! I.. (indiscernible) What is that? That is an eye!
T+12:45 (M) Turn on your air pack! Calm down. Ship’s fine! What eye?
T+12:50 (M) (Screams.) Josh! Look at that! Oh god, where the hell are we?!
T+12:55 (M) Where th..(indiscernible) We are not moving….(indiscernible)
T+12:59 (F) Why are we not? Ya Allah! Gene?
T+13:15 (M) Calm down. We’re fine.
T+13:21 (M) Swamy no contact. Intercom dead. No readings either.
T+13:25 (F) What are we supposed to do now? I don’t wanna die here. (sobs)
T+13:32 (M) We are not [dying here]. I’m hailing both ISS and MCC.
T+13:37 (M) But where the hell are we? How did this happen?
T+13:46 (M) Did you see that? (Gasps) Wow! It’s an eye!
T+13:58 (M) Mariam? Mariam?! Look at me. Mariam?
T+14:08 (M) Open her visor! [Is] she passing out?
T+14:17 (M) Her eyes are bleeding! She’s n..(indiscernible)
T+14:29 (M) What the hell is happening!
T+14:55 (M) Don’t look at that. Josh, don’t look at the eye! Don’t…my brain hurts.. (indiscernible)
T+16:04 (M) (Screams) don’t look at the eye!
T+16:42 (M) Mariam? Glen? Swamy? Oh, god!
T+16:47 (M) God! No! My hea…
T+16:49 to end. None. Static, silent.
Nasa released a statement asking everyone to keep calm. There is absolutely no reason to panic. What happened with the crew is not in any way related to the visuals. And it is advisable to not jump to any conclusions.
May 4, 2014: 23:30:22
NASA is cutting the live stream for now, just to make sure people don’t panic.
As we’ve reported earlier today, people around the world are experiencing eye fatigue, which is clearly because of the streaming, not because of Inora but because of the weird colours we’ve been watching all this time. So don’t worry about it. Seriously, there’s no evil eye killing you slowly.
We can assure you that’s not the case. But yes, NASA is getting thousands of requests every minute to abort the mission. We’ll report if there are any updates. And again, don’t panic.
Follow this space for updates. I can personally assure you nothing is wrong with your eye. We will see you tomorrow.
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