The Sundering War of the Ancients Book 7

 In the final, apocalyptic chapter of this epic trilogy, the dragon-mage Krasus and the young druid Malfurion must risk everything to save Azeroth from utter destruction. Banding together with the dwarves, tauren and furbolg races, the heroes hope to spark an alliance to stand against the might of the Burning Legion. For if the Demon Soul should fall into the Legion's hands, all hope for the world will be lost. This then, is the hour...where past and future collide!

Ulysses: The Explorer That Unveiled the Secrets of the Sun's Poles

Imagine trying to study Earth without ever leaving the equator. Our understanding of the climate, the oceans, or the poles would be incomplete. Until the 1990s, the same was true for the Sun. All our spacecraft observed our star from the plane where the planets orbit (the ecliptic). But a daring mission, the Ulysses probe, broke that mold to show us, for the first time, the unknown face of the Sun: its poles.

A Feat of Cosmic Engineering

Launched on October 6, 1990, from the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-41 mission), Ulysses was a pioneering collaboration between the ESA and NASA. Its objective was a monumental physical challenge: to escape the plane of the ecliptic to fly over the solar poles, something that would require propulsion energy unattainable for any rocket of the time.

The solution was a maneuver as elegant as it was ambitious.

In February 1992, the spacecraft reached Jupiter and used the gas giant's gravity as a cosmic slingshot to deflect itself southward, out of the planetary plane. The result was a highly inclined elliptical orbit—80.2°—that allowed it to fly over the Sun's north and south poles approximately every 6.2 years.

It was the first time in history that a spacecraft had achieved such a perspective.

The Heart of the Spacecraft: Technology for the Abyss

With a mass of only 371 kg and the size of a small desk, Ulysses was designed to withstand an extreme environment. Since its orbit took it as far as Jupiter—where sunlight is 25 times weaker than on Earth—solar panels were useless. Instead, it relied on a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) powered by plutonium-238. On board, it carried 10 main instruments (plus two additional experiments), which functioned as its senses:

- Magnetometer (VHM/FGM): Measured the strength and direction of the solar magnetic field.

- SWOOPS and SWICS: Plasma analyzers to study the composition, velocity, and temperature of the solar wind.

- DUST: Sensor to detect impacts of interplanetary and interstellar dust particles.

- GRB: Gamma-ray burst detector, useful for high-energy astronomy.

- COSPIN: A set of detectors to study cosmic rays and energetic particles.

- URAP: Instrument to measure radio and plasma waves in the solar environment.

Each contributed essential pieces to reconstruct the three-dimensional dynamics of the solar environment.

Discoveries that Rewrote the Textbooks

During its nearly 19 years of operation, Ulysses made three complete passes over the solar poles, observing the Sun during both periods of calm and at its peaks of activity. Its findings were revolutionary:

The Solar Wind Has Two Speeds

Ulysses confirmed that the solar wind is a “two-speed machine”:

- From the poles flows a fast and stable wind (750–800 km/s).

- From the equator emerges a slower, denser, and more turbulent wind (~400 km/s).

This discovery completely changed models of the heliosphere.

The Solar “Bubble” is Not Spherical

The mission revealed that the heliosphere is asymmetrical and changes drastically with the 11-year solar cycle.

- At solar minimum, it is more stable and uniform.

- At solar maximum, it becomes a chaos of coronal mass ejections and magnetic distortions.

A More “Open” Magnetic Field

Ulysses measured how the solar magnetic field extends into space more uniformly than expected at high latitudes, creating veritable highways for charged particles. Interstellar Invaders

It was the first mission to directly detect neutral helium atoms and dust from the Local Interstellar Cloud, allowing scientists to study the galactic environment without leaving the Solar System.

Comet Tail Record

In 1996, it crossed the tail of Comet Hyakutake at a record distance of 500 million kilometers from its nucleus, demonstrating that ion tails can extend much farther than previously imagined.

A Silent and Lasting Legacy

The mission came to an end on June 30, 2009. This was not due to technical failures, but rather a natural decline: the RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) no longer generated enough heat to prevent the hydrazine—the maneuvering fuel—from freezing in the pipes. In a final act of service, the spacecraft oriented its antenna toward Earth before falling silent.

Update

Today, its legacy lives on in missions like Solar Orbiter, which will take the first real images of the Sun's poles, and Parker Solar Probe, which is plunging into the corona to study the origin of the solar wind.

Ulysses taught us that the Sun is a complex and dynamic three-dimensional structure, and that to understand how it influences Earth, we must dare to observe it from all angles... even from "above."

Captain Antifer- Jules Verne

Original title:: Mirifiques Aventures de Maître Antifer

It all starts when a stranger Ship, with an unknown captain. He goes in search of an unknown island in an unknown sea.

Actually this unknown ship is commanded by Captain Zo, and for the last fifteen months he has seek an "unknown island," for cartographers. I wanted to find this island was his to migo Kamylk Pasha, who accompanied him on the trip. Which she was an Egyptian, who had a huge fortune in diamonds, rubies, gold, silver and other jewelry, worth a hundred million francs.

He wanted to hide this fortune, his cousin Murad, who was his only heir who was six years younger than him, and his enemy by political ideologies, Kamylk-Pasha is even prepared jettison his enormous fortune if not Islet is the case before it fell into the hands of his cousin.
On September 9 at twilight, the lookout, currency earth, according to the maps in that location should not have land along several leagues round bone found in the much desired to hide this treasure island.

Kamylk Pasha, was cast prisoner and sentenced to death after capitulation of Jaffa, March 6, with a group of four thousand soldiers during the war that kept Napoleon Bonaparte to conquer Egypt and later as he fled from his cousin He enjoyed the support of the viceroy of Egypt, who wanted to seize his fortune. In these circumstance, three people get help to escape several times, moving his vast fortune from Egypt to Syria, and has then escape from Syria, declared war when the viceroy of Egypt, inspired by his cousin. And to let them inherit this vast fortune the following people:
These people live in different parts of the globe: one was called Thomas Antifer and was captain and lived in Saint-Malo in Brittany, France, which saved his life for the killing of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The other was Zambuco, a banker who was originally from Malta but who had spent many years living as a lender in Tunisia, and was the one who put his safe in Aleppo in Syria with his fortune.

The latter, called Tyrcomel, who was a esquire, who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland in England.

To all this he sent a letter notifying that in some years later compensate them for they services, leaving a legacy his enormous fortune, equally, less than one percent of that wealth belonging to the executor for having informed Kamylk death Pasha, and where that is the "unknown island".

This was a notary executor of Alexandria in Egypt called Ben-Omar.

Thus when Ben-Omar, twenty years later visit the Pasha Kamylk death in prisons in Cairo, the son of Thomas Antifer, having died this in his old age without receiving the letter. Begins an adventure through Europe, middle Eastand Africa, across the sea and by land. Interesting and fun to unite all surrogates and go in search of the "Unknown Islet". Especially when the scene comes Sauk, who was the son of Murad, who also hated Kamylk Pasha, like his father.