M.J. Rose

Never mind the cathedral, look at the rose….

Painting by an anonymous artist from 1652 illustrating the founding legend of the cathedral; it is held by the Hildesheim Cathedral Museum.

From The Vintage News,

The Rose of Hildesheim: A thousand-year rose that’s believed to be the oldest living rose in the world

“The beautiful German city of Hildesheim is the home of the oldest living rose on the planet known as the rose of Hildesheim or the thousand-year rose.

She’s 69 feet tall and 30 feet wide and it’s believed that she was established by King Louis the Pious back in 815.

The rose climbs up the walls of a Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. The cathedral was hit by  Allied bombers during World War 2, and although the building was completely destroyed, the roots of the rosebush somehow survived and she blossomed among the ruins again.

The cathedral was rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s in a simplified form and without its previous baroque elements that gave the building its Romanesque charm. After many years, on August 24, 2015, its renovation became a subject of the largest construction project in Germany in order to bring back the building’s old charm.

However, tourists visit the cathedral not only to see the building’s new look but also to admire the thousand-year rose that has become its most remarkable feature…”

For the rest, click here.

Water is life….?

Credits: AFP

From Futurism,

One of Earth’s Closest Alien Planets Appears to Be An “Ocean World”

The case for Proxima b
“Proxima b’s proximity to Earth — about 4.2 light years away — makes it the nearest exoplanet that is potentially habitable and could contain life. While it may be tidally locked (meaning one side of Proxima b perpetually faces its star as it completes its 11.2 year revolution), Proxima b’s proximity to the star it orbits, the red-dwarf Proxima Centauri, puts it right in the Goldilocks Zone. This means there’s a strong possibility that water exists on this exoplanet.

A team from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France believes Proxima b may not just contain water; it could be covered in it. “The planet could be an ‘ocean planet’, with an ocean covering its entire surface, and similar water to some icy moons around Jupiter or Saturn,” the team says.

Water = Life
To figure out just how much water may be on Proxima b, the CNRS team used simulations that play with the estimated range of the planet’s radius, between 0.94 and 1.4 times that of the Earth. At the lowest limit, the simulations suggest a dense planet with a metallic core surrounded by a rocky mantle, and surface water of about 0.05% of the planet’s total mass.

With the maximum limit, however, the simulations show the planet’s radius at 8,920 km (5,542.6 miles), with a mass that’s equally divided between a rocky core and surrounding water. “In this case, Proxima b would be covered by a single, liquid ocean 200 km deep,” the researchers explained…”

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YOU GUYS. This is amazing amazing amazing!

A photo discovered in the National Archives shows a woman who resembles Amelia Earhart on a dock in the Marshall Islands. National Archives

From NBC News,

Amelia Earhart May Have Survived Crash-Landing, Newly Discovered Photo Suggests
by Tom Costello and Daniel Arkin

“A newly discovered photograph suggests legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished 80 years ago on a round-the-world flight, survived a crash-landing in the Marshall Islands.

The photo, found in a long-forgotten file in the National Archives, shows a woman who resembles Earhart and a man who appears to be her navigator, Fred Noonan, on a dock. The discovery is featured in a new History channel special, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” that airs Sunday.

Independent analysts told History the photo appears legitimate and undoctored. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director for the FBI and an NBC News analyst, has studied the photo and feels confident it shows the famed pilot and her navigator…”

For the rest, click here.