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THE SECRET OF CYGNU S X-3

Why Should We Care About This Very Distant Star?

BY ANDREW COLLIN S

Recently the prestigi ous journals Nature and Science announced that Cygnus X-3,

either a black hole or neutron star located 30,000 light years away in the constellation

of Cygnus, the celestial swan, has now been shown to produce periodic bursts of high

energy gamma rays, the fi rs t confirmed source in the Mil ky Way galaxy (Tavani e t al,

Nature, 2009 & Fermi LAT Collaboration et al, Science, 2009. See also Reddy, 2009).

This is a revelation, for extreme cosmic radiation of this type is normally only

associated with extra-galactic objects such as quasars, powered by sus pected s uper-

mass ive bl ack holes at the heart of distant galaxies (also known as AGNs , active

galactic nuclei). Scientists now believe that monitoring Cygnus X-3 in its role as a

microquasar, i.e., a smaller quasar ins ide our galaxy, might well lead to a better

under standing of the production of gamma rays i n quasars.

This announcement is, pres umably, wonderful news for ast rophysics, but why is it so important to the person in the

street? Well, the answer lies in the fact that Cygnus X-3s production of high energy gamma rays is merely one

facet of its ext raordinary influence on the solar system, f or it is known to spew out elect romagnetic radiation across a

broad spect rum of frequencies , f rom radio waves and infrared radiation to higher f requency X-rays and cosmic radia-

tion. This is because Cygnus X-3 has addit ionally been proposed as the galaxys firs t microblazar, a galactic form of

a so-called blazar.

Cosm ic Gun Barrel

So what exact ly is a blazar? Elect romagnet ic radiation and cosmic particles across a whole range of f requencies are

produced by black holes and neutron stars as they accrete gaseous matt er, generally from close proximity stars,

which they then use to create a highly energized ring of ionized gas that encircles the st ar around its equator and isthought t o be the source of the high energy gamma rays now being monitored f rom Earth. This so-called accret ion

disk feeds the star which ever so oft en owers u b emitt in unima inable et s of lasma ionized as that ex-

SEPT./OCT. 2010 #8 3

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IN THIS ISSUE

ALTERNATIVE

ARCHEOLOGY

Ice Age Civilization in the

Bahamas?

BY DR. GR EG LITTLE

Water Wizards of Ancient

Arizona

BY FR ANK JOSEPH

The Pursuit of Ancient Precision

BY ARLAN AN DREWS

Alien Giants & Alien DNA Or

Not?

BY ZECHARIA SITCHIN

ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE

Nikola Tes la & the God Particle

BY MARC J. SEIFER, Ph.D.

The Secret of Cygnus X-3

BY ANDREW COLLINS

CLASSIC ASTROLOGY

The Phases of the M oon

BY JULIE LOAR

COMMENTARY

Hidden in Plain Sight

BY WILLI AM B. STOECKER

EARLY RAYS

Atlantis Rising MagazineAncient Mysteries, The Unexplained, and Future Science

The Secret of Cygnus X-3 Atlantis Rising Mag... http://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/2010/09/01/th...

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unexpected and quite sudden leaps in human evolution (Sagan, 1973). N ormally, s uch changes are att ributed t o more

mundane causes, such as diets, environmental factors, and even simple human neces sity. H owever, a growing

number of scientists are beginning to consider that cosmic rays might have played a role in human evolution, causing

either mutations in DNA, or even the delet ion of DN A sequences , which are then carried through to subsequent

generations.

This is poss ible; yet even if it were true, pinning down the exact s ource of any incoming cosmic rays responsible f or

such mutations is problematic, as nearly all cosmic particles are posit ively charged which means that they are de-

flected left, right, and center by intense magnetic fields, both out in the galaxy and inside t he solar system. Only

those particles that posses s a neutral charge avoid being aff ected in this way and so reach us directly from their

source. However, t racing their source via their trajectory has proved a tricky process, with no confirmed candidates to

date. I n fact, other than the cygnets arriving direct ly from Cygnus X-3, there are only a few other poss ible sources of

cosmic rays inside our galaxy, t he mos t likely being an X-ray binary star called Hercules X-1, located around 20,000

light years away.

It is reasonable to conclude that if cosmic rays do aff ect human evolution, then the cygnets of Cygnus X-3 have

played some role in this process, particularly as it is s uspected that t his star has been in its current s tate of

spontaneous, periodic activity f or an es timated 700,000 years (Marti, 2005). This is when mankinds direct forerunners

are known to have reached Britain. Although these so-called hominids (or hominins as the scientists like us to refer

to them today) preceded the Neanderthals by as much as 500,000 years, they would appear to have been not unlike

modern humans. As has been determined from a number of breathtaking discoveries in a thick clay layer dating back

700,000 years, exposed along a stretch of beach at Pakefield in Suffolk, thes e hominids used quite s ophisticated

hand tools made of f lint (Kinver, 2005). Was it around this t ime that cosmic rays f rom Cygnus X-3 f irst began

aff ect ing human evolution?

It is plausible. Yet more important is at tempting to unravel Cygnuss overall impact on humanity. Learn this and you will

perhaps answer why the constellation became so important to our Palaeolithic ancestors, when humanity was s till

creating fabulous art in the caves of Weste rn Europe. The key, I feel, is the simple fact that we can see cosmic

rays. This was f irst realized on the Apollo space miss ions during the 1960s. When ast ronauts attempted to go to

sleep, they began see ing flashes of light before their eyes. This occurred either with their eyes open or closed; it

didnt matter which. In-f light experiments on subsequent miss ions determined that what the ast ronauts were

experiencing were cosmic rays producing a burst of light as t hey decayed en route t hrough the vitreous part of the

eye.

This ef fect had not really been noticed before, s imply because down here on Earth the upper atmosphere s helters

us from t he brunt of cosmic radiation hitt ing the planet . M oreover, we are rarely in a pitch black environment in which it

might be poss ible to witness a cosmic ray pass through our eyes. Yet it probably does occur, and more frequently

than is realized, just ask a caver who spends long periods underground. They will tell you that they f requently witnes s

unaccountable f lashes of light that seem object ive but are in fact probably only occurring inside t he head. I even found

that miners who used to work in the Soudan iron mine in Minnesota, before it became t he s ite of an underground

particle detector, would occasionally see weird flashes of light in the total darkness. Were t hese, in fact, cosmic rays

inbound from Cygnus X-3, like those regist ered by the Soudan facility in the 198 0s? Id like t o think it was possible.

What all this means is t hat if you were hundreds of me ters below the surface of the planet, deep inside a cave, and

you witness ed a blue-white f lash before your eyes , the chances are t hat this was, in fact, a cosmic ray. Yet since

only a tiny percentage of cosmic rays penet rate the earth, there has to be a small chance t hat what you experienced

was a particle inbound from Cygnus X-3; and this is important, for it tells us something about why Cygnus might have

attracted the attention of our distant ancestors.

In time t hose who occupied the caves for religious purposes would, I sense, have realized, eventually, that the

flashes were more f requent, or pronounced, when the Cygnus constellation was overhead, just as cygnet s were

found to be more eas ily detected when Cygnus was high in the sky. If s o, then this might well have helped forge aspiritual link, not just with this particular cluster of s tars, but also the area of the Milky Way which they occupied, i.e.,

the Cygnus Rift . In time, a connect ion between the light triggering process underground and the Cygnus constellation

would surely have led to cosmological myths featuring both the ast ronomical position of the ast erism and its abst ract

form as a bird (or indeed a cross ), identified most usually as a swan or goose flying, wings outs tretched, down the

Milky Way. This avian form then became a symbol of divine knowledge and creative inspiration, explaining why perhaps

the mythical song of the swan came t o represent the divine s ource of inspiration for epic st orytelling and poetry in

Homeric tradition, Homer himself being referred to as the Maeonian Swan, or the Swan of M eander.

The first mortal poet in Greek Hellenic tradition was Orpheus, who was not only Homers mythical ances tor but also

one of the identities of the swan of Cygnus in classical star lore. Orpheus was said to have been transformed into a

swan and cast into the sky next to his beloved lyrethe constellation of Lyraafter his body was torn apart by the

crazed female followers of the god Dionysius. In Pythagorean tradit ion, the souls of great poet s were s aid to have

become s wans. The s oul of Apollo, the god of music and song, was thought t o have been transformed in this

manner.

The s wan also became a s ymbol of poet ry and inspiration in India, where in Hindu tradit ion it is the vehicle of the


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goddess Saraswati, the consort of t he creator god Brahma. Indeed, it was Saraswat i who is said to have alerted her

husband to the sound of t he cosmic swan-goose hamsa, enabling him to effect the creation of the physical

universe. In Vedic star lore, the stars of Cygnus were identified with the swan-goose hamsa (Collins, 2006).

Elsewhere in the world, the bird of Cygnus was seen as the creator of the cosmic egg that subsequently broke or

opened to become the physical universe and everything within it. It is also likely that very similar cosmogonies , fea-

turing birds t hat bring forth the physical world, were inspired by earlier traditions linking the s tars of Cygnus with t he idea

of cosmic creation. Whet her such conviction was either directly or indirect ly influenced by visionary experiences,

triggered by cosmic rays seen as flashes of light by Palaeolithic shamans deep inside caves, is debatable. H owever,

at t he root of many ancient cosmologies is, I believe, a profound connection with the Cygnus const ellation; and

confirmation that one of its stars, Cygnus X-3, produced bursts of high energy gamma rays has moved us closer to

understanding its greater influence on both human evolution and the origins of t he worlds earliest sky-religions.

by admin - September 1st , 2010.

Filed under: Alternative Science, S tories .

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