There’s a planet between Mars and Jupiter you’ve probably never heard of…

This animation showcases a series of images NASA's Dawn spacecraft took on approach to Ceres on Feb. 4, 2015 at a distance of about 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) from the dwarf planet.

Way out beyond Mars, but before you get to Jupiter, is a planet.

You read that right. There’s a planet between Mars and Jupiter.

You may not have heard of it, but it was discovered in 1801 — 129 years before Pluto. It originally was called a planet, then later an asteroid and now it’s called a dwarf planet.

Its name is Ceres (pronounced like series) and you’ll likely be hearing a lot more about it in the coming weeks.

Ceres is one of five named dwarf planets recognized by NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The other four are Eris, Pluto, Makemake and Haumea.

But Ceres is the first of these worlds to get a visitor from Earth: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is arriving on March 6.

“Ceres is a ‘planet’ that you’ve probably never heard of,” said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Ceres may be considered a dwarf planet, but it’s “the giant of the main asteroid belt,” Dr. Marc Rayman, chief engineer and mission director of the Dawn mission, told CNN. “It is not only the largest object between Mars and Jupiter, it is the largest object between the sun and Pluto that a spacecraft has not yet visited.”

“We are tremendously excited,” Rayman said. “We have guided this robotic probe for well over seven years on an interplanetary journey of more than 3 billion miles. Along the way we sailed past Mars. We spent 14 months orbiting and scrutinizing the giant protoplanet Vesta. … Now, finally, we are on the verge of conducting the first exploration ever of the first dwarf planet.”

New images from Dawn, taken when the probe was about 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) from Ceres, show craters and what NASA calls mysterious bright spots. Rayman said its surface is pretty beaten up and that the craters that are “scars from life in the rough and tumble asteroid belt.”

Why study a beaten-up space rock? Rayman said because it’s a survivor — and a mysterious one. Made up of rock and ice, Ceres may even have liquid water deep beneath its surface — “perhaps as ponds or lakes or even oceans,” Rayman said.

He said Ceres “appears to have been in the process of growing to become a full-sized planet when Jupiter terminated its growth nearly 4.6 billion years ago.”

So by studying Ceres, scientists learn more about how the rest of the solar system formed. And he said, we should study Ceres because it’s there — and we need to understand the universe we live in. “We should study it because we hunger for knowledge and understanding. Grand undertakings like this nurture our spirit,” Rayman said.

Rayman said that if you had learned about the solar system 200 years ago, “you would have learned that Ceres was a planet, just as people who learned about the solar system in more recent generations learned that Pluto is.”

Speaking of Pluto, the most famous of the dwarf planets gets its own visitor in July. The New Horizons spacecraft is closing in for a flyby of Pluto and its moons.

This talk of planets and dwarf planets is still a little confusing, so here’s the most recent tally: NASA currently recognizes eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and the five named dwarf planets we listed earlier.

But a sixth possible dwarf planet already is on NASA’s watch list.

Called 2012 VP113, it’s believed to be one of the most distant objects in our solar system. On its Solar System Exploration website, NASA says the object was nicknamed “Biden” after Vice President Joseph Biden because of the VP in its initial designation. It will be up to the IAU to decide whether i2012 VP113 is a dwarf planet and whether it gets an official name.

But expect the numbers for planets in our solar system to keep changing. Mike Brown, the CalTech astronomy professor who helped discover dwarf planet Eris and who takes responsibility for killing off Pluto as a full-fledged planet, has his own tally listing more than 360 possible dwarf planets. And NASA has said there may be many more dwarf planets that we haven’t found yet.

So Ceres, and its cousins, may soon outnumber the traditional planets you learned about in grade school.

Filed in: News

Topics: NASA

{ http://myfox8.com/ }

04-06-2015 om 00:39 geschreven door peter  

You can believe your eyes: NASA to test flying saucer

Two members of the Navy's Explosive Ordinance Disposal team perch on the test vehicle used in the first flight of NASA's Low-density Supersonic Decelerator project. The test vehicle was fished out of the waters of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range within hours of splashdown. During the June 28, 2014, engineering flight, the saucer-shaped test vehicle climbed to over 180,000 feet (about 55,000 meters) in altitude and went as fast as four times the speed of sound

A saucer-shaped test vehicle holding equipment for landing large payloads on Mars is shown in the Missile Assembly Building at the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kaua'i, Hawaii.  The vehicle, part of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator project, will test an inflatable decelerator and a parachute at high altitudes and speeds over the Pacific Missile Range this June.  A balloon will lift the vehicle to high altitudes, where a rocket will take it even higher to the top of the stratosphere at several times the speed of sound. This image was taken during a "hang-angle" measurement, in which engineers set the vehicle's rocket motor to the appropriate angle for the high-altitude test. The nozzle and the lower half of the Star-48 solid rocket motor are the dark objects seen in the middle of the image below the saucer.

KAUA’I, Hawaii — Keep an eye on the skies over Hawaii on Wednesday. If all goes to plan, NASA will be testing out a saucer-shaped craft that could hold the key to a future human mission to Mars.

The test flight was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed because of unfavorable ocean conditions. The craft will splash down in the sea, so operators need to be able to recover it safely.

If conditions are suitable Wednesday, an enormous balloon will lift the test vehicle carrying the disc-like Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, or LDSD, to a height of 120,000 feet, or more than 20 miles (32 kilometers), above Earth.

Then, mission controllers will set the LDSD free to fire its rockets and try out the centerpiece of the test: a giant supersonic parachute, measuring 100 feet (30 meters) across.

For those on the ground, live video will be relayed from four cameras aboard the pioneering saucer-shaped craft.

“You get to see all the same video I do, at the same time I do,” Mark Adler, project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in an online news release.

“This year’s test is centered on how our newly designed supersonic parachute will perform. We think we have a great design ready for the challenge, but the proof is in the pudding and the pudding will be made live for everyone to see.”

Updating decades-old technology

Last year, when the LDSD was tested for the first time — also launched from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range facility in Kauai, Hawaii — the deployment of the parachute was the only fly in the ointment, when it didn’t inflate as expected.

This time around, a new design is being tested: the Supersonic Ringsail parachute, which NASA says is the largest supersonic parachute ever tested for use on Mars.

Current technology for decelerating from high speeds during reentry into the atmosphere to the final stages of landing on Mars dates back to NASA’s Viking Program, which put two landers on the Martian surface in 1976.

The basic Viking parachute design has been used ever since. It was successfully used again in 2012 to deliver the rover Curiosity to Mars.

NASA will need new and improved landing technologies to handle the larger spaceships of tomorrow and land them on rocky surfaces, as well as at higher altitudes.

Atmospheric drag

NASA scientists hope this saucer-shaped craft could be the key.

“As NASA plans ambitious robotic science missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human expeditions to come, the spacecraft needed to land safely on the Red Planet’s surface will become larger and heavier in order to accommodate explorers’ extended stays on the Martian surface,” the agency’s website said.

This means the supersonic parachute will have its work cut out to create sufficient atmospheric drag to slow the vehicles down so they can be landed safely. Using drag for deceleration means precious fuel can be saved for landing maneuvers.

A third test flight for the LDSD is scheduled for the summer of 2016.

{ http://myfox8.com/ }

04-06-2015 om 00:31 geschreven door peter  

Huge Underwater Pyramid Found Near Portugal

(Before It's News)

Huge Underwater Pyramid Found Near Portugal

Further investigations are beginning to point to the possibility of an underwater volcanic hill based on more recent scans.[3] More information should come to the surface. Some believe this new explanation may be a cover up but that position is currently based on a belief only.

Portuguese news reported the discovery of a very large under water pyramid first discovered by Diocleciano Silva between the islands of São Miguel and Terceira in the Azores of Portugal. According to claims, the structure is said to be perfectly squared and oriented by the cardinal points. Current estimates obtained using GPS digital technology put the height at 60 meters with a base of 8000 square meters. The Portuguese Hydrographic Institute of the Navy currently has the job of analyzing the data to determine whether or not the structure is man-made.

“The pyramid is perfectly shaped and apparently oriented by the cardinal points,” Silva told Diário Insular, the local newspaper.

The pyramid was found in an area of the mid-Atlantic that has been underwater for about 20,000 years. Considering this is around the time of the last ice age where glaciation was melting from its peak 2000 years prior, whatever civilization, human or not, that was around before the ice age, could be responsible for building the pyramid. While the Portuguese Navy still hasn’t determined the origins, many might question why this hasn’t been first reported on sooner than late 2012. Certainly the NOAA who studies volcanic activity in the area of the pyramid would have discovered the pyramid through sonar imaging and so forth since the area is heavily studied due to volcanic activity. Either the NOAA hasn’t yet come across it, they are hiding what they have found, or the pyramid doesn’t exist. The last theory does not seem to be likely given the authenticity of the find.

To further support the idea that this pyramid could have been built by different civilizations, archeologists from the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research have recently discovered evidence on Pico island that suggests their belief that humans existed in the Azores region before the arrival of the Portuguese thousands of years ago. As of today, there is still no explanation for who created the rock art found on the islands. Was the pyramid built by whatever civilization existed prior to the Portuguese? Is it possibly not even man-made?

Here is the Portuguese news report with English subtitles for those who wish to look into the authenticity of the claims.

The Azores are an interesting region as they are a chain of nine volcanic islands in three main groups that are roughly 930 miles west of Lisbon. They are all situated around the fault lines between the North American, Eurasian and African tectonic plates. An interesting place to have a pyramid given the energetic qualities often associated with pyramids.

This video discusses some interesting bits of information that explore the authenticity of the story and the possible location visually using some maps. It is important to note that exact coordinates of the pyramid have not been released. He believes that there may be a discovery of 2 more pyramids in the area as images suggest there could be a design link to that of the pyramids built in Egypt.

04-06-2015 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

03-06-2015 om 23:46 geschreven door peter  

Wat zijn die mysterieuze blauwe plekken op de rode planeet? - HLN.be

 Bron: ESA 

© ESA.

MARS 'Blue lagoons' op de rode planeet? Dat lijkt zo op deze beelden van ESA van Mars. Maar de wetenschappelijke verklaring toont iets helemaal anders aan. De blauwe vlekken zouden te maken hebben met winden tot 100 km/uur die Mars teisteren en het landschap er mee vorm geven.

Mooi blauw water? Niet volgens ESA. De wetenschap houdt het bij een optische illusie. Gigantische stofstormen - die dagen of weken kunnen duren en met winden tot 100 km/uur - droppen donkere, vulkanische, basaltrijke materie over heel de planeet. Lagen van donkerdere stof van vulkanen zetten zich vast in de kraters van Mars. Na verloop van tijd is er genoeg van dat stof verzameld om een blauwige kleur te tonen. Dat is wat we zien.

Ook op onze eigen planeet bepalen winden door de tijden heen overigens mee de vorm van het landschap, van rotsen, van duinen.

Op de foto hieronder zie je de gevolgen van een veel recentere storm, die vulkanische stof en as in een krater op Mars blaast. Je kan op dit beeld bijna de kracht van de storm voelen.

 

03-06-2015 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

Amerikaanse luchtmacht bouwt tuig dat in één uur van New York naar Londen vliegt - HLN.be

Bron: The Independent 

De X-51 WaveRider wordt uit een conventionele bommenwerper gedropt en haalt ruim vijf keer de geluidssnelheid. Impressie van het toestel. © Kos.

De Amerikaanse luchtmacht bouwt samen met Boeing een ultrasnel wapen dat vijf keer de geluidssnelheid zal halen. Daarmaa kan het vliegtuig in een uur de Atlantische Oceaan oversteken. Het toestel zal als wapen dienstdoen en werken als een raket.

03-06-2015 om 23:12 geschreven door peter  

The difference between asteroids and meteorites

Various meteorites from 2008 TC3 asteroid that landed in the Sudan in 2008. Credit: P. Jenniskens, et. al. 

Asteroids, meteors, and meteorites … It might be fair to say these rocks from space inspire both wonder and fear among us Earthlings. But knowing a bit more about each of them and how they differ may eliminate some potential misgivings. While all these rocks originate from space, they have different names depending their location—i.e. whether they are hurtling through space or hurtling through the atmosphere and impacting Earth's surface.

In simplest terms here are the definitions:

• Asteroid: a large rocky body in space, in orbit around the Sun.
• Meteoroid: much smaller rocks or particles in orbit around the Sun.
• Meteor: If a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and vaporizes, it becomes a meteor, which is often called a shooting star.
• Meteorite: If a small asteroid or large meteoroid survives its fiery passage through the Earth's atmosphere and lands on Earth's surface, it is then called a meteorite.

Another related term is bolide, which is a very bright meteor that often explodes in the atmosphere. This can also be called a fireball.

Let's look at each in more detail:

Asteroids

Asteroids are found mainly in the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Sometimes their orbits get perturbed or altered and some asteroids end up coming closer to the Sun, and therefore closer to Earth. In addition to the asteroid belt, however, there have been recent discussions among astronomers about the potential existence of large number asteroids in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

Asteroids are sometimes referred to as minor planets or planetoids, but in general, they are rocky bodies that do not have an atmosphere. However, a few have their own moons. Our solar system contains millions of asteroids, many of which are thought to be the shattered remnants of planetesimals – bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets.

The size of what classifies as an asteroid is not extremely well defined, as an asteroid can range from a few meters wide – like a boulder—to objects that are hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The largest asteroid is asteroid Ceres at about 952 km (592 miles) in diameter, and Ceres is so large that it is also categorized as a dwarf planet.

Most asteroids are made of rock, but as we explore and learn more about them we know that some are composed of metal, mostly nickel and iron. According to NASA, a small portion of the asteroid population may be burned-out comets whose ices have evaporated away and been blown off into space. Recently, astronomers have discovered some asteroids that mimic comets in that gas and dust are emanating from them, and as we mentioned earlier, there appears to be a large number of bodies with asteroid-like compositions but comet-like orbits.

How Often Do Asteroids Hit Earth?

While we know that some asteroids pass very close to Earth's orbit around the Sun, we've been lucky in the history of humanity that we haven't had a large asteroid hit Earth in the past several thousand years. It wasn't until satellite imagery of Earth became widely available that scientists were able to see evidence of past asteroid impacts.

One of the more famous impact craters on Earth is Meteor Crater in Arizona in the US, which was made by an impact about 50,000 years ago. But there are about 175 known impact around the world – a few are quite large, like Vredefort Crater in South Africa which has an estimated radius of 190 kilometers (118 miles), making it the world's largest known impact structure on Earth. Another notable impact site is off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and is believed to be a record of the event that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

These days, asteroid impacts are less of a threat. NASA estimates that about once a year an automobile-sized asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball and disintegrates before ever reaching the surface. Studies of Earth's history indicate that about once every 5,000 years or so on average an object the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage. Once every few million years on average an object large enough to cause regional or global disaster impacts Earth.

Meteors, Meteoroids and Bolides

Space debris smaller than an asteroid are called meteoroids. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than an asteroid and frequently are only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that enter the Earth's atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet's surface. When they burn up during their descent, they create a beautiful trail of light known as a meteor, sometimes called a shooting star.

Mostly these are harmless, but larger meteors that explode in the atmosphere – sometimes called bolides—can create shockwaves, which can cause problems. In February 2013 a meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia shattered windows with its air blast. This meteoroid or bolide was estimated to be 18 meters (59 feet) in diameter. In 1908, a rocky meteoroid less than 100 meters in diameter is believed to have entered the atmosphere over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 and the resulting shockwave knocked down trees for hundreds of square kilometers.

How often is Earth hit by meteroids?

Because of the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013, astronomers have acquired more information about the frequency of larger meteors that hit Earth, and there is now a growing consensus that the Earth gets hit by bigger space rocks more often than we previously thought.

https://vimeo.com/92478179

The B612 foundation says that a Hiroshima-scale asteroid explosion happens in our atmosphere on average once a year, but many are not detected because they explode high in the atmosphere, or because most of the Earth's surface is water and even a large percentage of land is fairly uninhabited by humans.

Enlarge        

Estimates vary of how much cosmic dust and meteors enter Earth's atmosphere each day, but range anywhere from 5 to 300 metric tons. Satellite observations suggest that 100-300 metric tons of cosmic dust enter the atmosphere each day. This figure comes from the rate of accumulation in polar ice cores and deep-sea sediments of rare elements linked to cosmic dust, such as iridium and osmium.

But other measurements – which includes meteor radar observations, laser observations and measurements by high altitude aircraft—indicate that the input could be as low as 5 metric ton per day.

Enlarge        

Meteorite

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite. Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder). Meteorites smaller than 2mm are classified as micrometeorites.

Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories, depending on their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. Stony meteorites are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals; iron meteorites that are largely composed of metallic iron-nickel; and, stony-iron meteorites that contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material.

Meteorites have also been found on the moon and Mars and conversely, scientists have traced the origination of the meteorites found here on Earth to four other bodies: the moon, Mars, the asteroid 4 Vesta, and the comet Wild 2. Meteorites are the source of a great deal of the knowledge that we have have about the composition of other celestial bodies.

Enlarge        

How Often Do Meteorites Hit Earth?

According to the Planetary Science Institute, it is estimated that probably 500 meteorites reach the surface of the Earth each year, but less than 10 are recovered. This is because most fall into water (oceans, seas or lakes) or land in remote areas of the Earth that are not accessible, or are just not seen to fall.

Summary

In short, the difference between asteroids and meteors all comes down to a question of location. Asteroids are always found in space. Once it enters an atmosphere, it becomes a meteor, and then a meteorite after it hits the ground. Each are made of the same basic materials – minerals and rock – and each originated in space. The main difference is where they are when they are being observed.

Enlarge        

Explore further:     Two years on, source of Russian Chelyabinsk meteor remains elusive   

More information: "Eight billion asteroids in the Oort cloud." arxiv.org/abs/1410.7403 

{ http://phys.org/ }

03-06-2015 om 23:00 geschreven door peter  

NASA Starts Testing Its New Mars Lander

NASA has started testing its new Mars lander, which is scheduled to leave for the red planet in March of 2016. It’s big, about the size of a car, and a-roving it will not go. It will stay where it lands because it has a very specific purpose. In terms of what we know about Mars, we have, quite literally, just scratched the surface, leaving us guessing about some very fundamental questions about the red planet. What is Mars’ interior structure? What is the nature of the core? Does Mars have a crust with liquid magma beneath it? And even more fundamentally, how is Mars geologically like Earth and different? The new lander called InSight will drill into the martian surface in an attempt to fill in some of these crucial gaps in our knowledge.

If you’ve been following stories about NASA over the past few years, you may have noticed that almost every name they give to one of their missions or vehicles stands for something, so, here it is for InSight: Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. Geodesy? A bit of shoehornery there, NASA? Well, in any case, InSight will, in fact, be doing some very important science. Here’s the thing: The only planet that we’re really drilled into so far is the Earth. So when InSight begins drilling into Mars and sending back data, in addition to providing crucial information about Mars, it will also, for the first time in history, give us something to compare the Earth to.

The current round of tests will put InSight through its paces to ensure that it can withstand  the trip to Mars, the landing there, and the harsh conditions the lander will face on the martian surface, all while remaining operational. NASA engineers want to make sure that any faults with the craft are identified and fixed while it’s still here on Earth. If anything goes wrong with InSight once it’s on its way, the only possibility of a repair man coming by will be many years in the future, when the first manned missions arrive on Mars, in the the 2030’s, or if either of the two private ventures to colonize Mars about ten years earlier actually happen.

This environmental testing on InSight will take place at Lockheed Martin's Space Systems facility near Denver. There InSight will be subjected to the sorts of extreme temperatures and vacuum conditions the lander will be exposed to during its journey through  interplanetary space. Once InSight passes this set of tests, it will be subjected to several other batteries of them over the next seven months, including vibrations to simulate launch conditions, and checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft. The final set of tests will include a second thermal vacuum test to simulate the conditions the spacecraft will be exposed to on the Martian surface.

"It's great to see the spacecraft put together in its launch configuration," says Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Many teams from across the globe have worked long hours to get their elements of the system delivered for these tests. There still remains much work to do before we are ready for launch, but it is fantastic to get to this critical milestone.”


(Source: phys.org)

03-06-2015 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

Ultraviolet study reveals surprises in comet coma

Rosetta's continued close study of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has revealed an unexpected process at work, causing the rapid breakup of water and carbon dioxide molecules spewing from the comet’s surface.                                

ESA's Rosetta mission arrived at the comet in August last year. Since then, it has been orbiting or flying past the comet at distances from as far as several hundred kilometres down to as little as 8 km. While doing so, it has been collecting data on every aspect of the comet’s environment with its suite of 11 science instruments.

One instrument, the Alice spectrograph provided by NASA, has been examining the chemical composition of the comet's atmosphere, or coma, at far-ultraviolet wavelengths.

At these wavelengths, Alice allows scientists to detect some of the most abundant elements in the Universe such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. The spectrograph splits the comet's light into its various colours – its spectrum – from which scientists can identify the chemical composition of the coma gases.

In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, scientists report the detections made by Alice from Rosetta’s first four months at the comet, when the spacecraft was between 10 km and 80 km from the centre of the comet nucleus.

For this study, the team focused on the nature of 'plumes' of water and carbon dioxide gas erupting from the comet's surface, triggered by the warmth of the Sun. To do so, they looked at the emission from hydrogen and oxygen atoms resulting from broken water molecules, and similarly carbon atoms from carbon dioxide molecules, close to the comet nucleus.

Rosetta uncovers processes at work in comet’s coma. (Further information and full credits can be found here.)

They discovered that the molecules seem to be broken up in a two-step process.

First, an ultraviolet photon from the Sun hits a water molecule in the comet’s coma and ionises it, knocking out an energetic electron. This electron then hits another water molecule in the coma, breaking it apart into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, and energising them in the process. These atoms then emit ultraviolet light that is detected at characteristic wavelengths by Alice.

Similarly, it is the impact of an electron with a carbon dioxide molecule that results in its break-up into atoms and the observed carbon emissions.

"Analysis of the relative intensities of observed atomic emissions allows us to determine that we are directly observing the ‘parent’ molecules that are being broken up by electrons in the immediate vicinity, about 1 km, of the comet’s nucleus where they are being produced," says Paul Feldman, professor of physics and astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and lead author of the paper discussing the results.

By comparison, from Earth or from Earth-orbiting space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the atomic constituents of comets can only be seen after their parent molecules, such as water and carbon dioxide, have been broken up by sunlight, hundreds to thousands of kilometres away from the nucleus of the comet.

"The discovery we’re reporting is quite unexpected," says Alice Principal Investigator Alan Stern, an associate vice-president in the Space Science and Engineering Division of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

"It shows us the value of going to comets to observe them up close, since this discovery simply could not have been made from Earth or Earth orbit with any existing or planned observatory. And, it is fundamentally transforming our knowledge of comets."

"By looking at the emission from hydrogen and oxygen atoms broken from the water molecules, we also can actually trace the location and structure of water plumes from the surface of the comet," adds co-author Joel Parker, an assistant director in SwRI’s Space Science and Engineering Division in Boulder, Colorado.

The team likens the break-up of the molecules to the process that has been proposed for the plumes on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, except that the electrons at the comet are produced by solar photons, while the electrons at Europa come from Jupiter’s magnetosphere.

The results from Alice are supported by data obtained by other Rosetta instruments, in particular MIRO, ROSINA and VIRTIS, which are able to study the abundance of different coma constituents and their variation over time, and particle detecting instruments like RPC-IES.

"These early results from Alice demonstrate how important it is to study a comet at different wavelengths and with different techniques, in order to probe various aspects of the comet environment," says ESA’s Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor.

"We’re actively watching how the comet evolves as it moves closer to the Sun along its orbit towards perihelion in August, seeing how the plumes become more active due to solar heating, and studying the effects of the comet’s interaction with the solar wind."

More information

"Measurements of the near-nucleus coma of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with the Alice far-ultraviolet spectrograph on Rosetta," by P Feldman et al is accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

{ http://www.esa.int/ }

03-06-2015 om 22:28 geschreven door peter  

Hubble observes chaotic dance of Pluto's moons

In a new study, scientists have gathered all available NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope data on the four outer moons of Pluto to analyse the system in more depth than ever before. The observations show that at least two of Pluto's moons are not neatly rotating on their axes but are in chaotic rotation while orbiting around Pluto and its companion Charon. The study also hints that one of the moons has a mysterious jet-black colouring. These surprising results appear in the 4 June issue of the journal Nature.                                

Almost every moon in the Solar System, including our Moon, rotates on its axis at the same speed as it orbits its parent body. It is for this reason that we always see the same side of the Moon facing us on Earth. On Pluto, however, astronomers have now discovered that there are no hidden sides to its moons.

The chaotic spin of Pluto's moon Nix. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Showalter (SETI Inst.), G. Bacon (STScI)	Pluto's four small satellites in comparison to its companion, Charon. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Field (STScI)

In a surprising new study, it has been found that two of Pluto's moons, Nix and Hydra, are in a chaotic rotation. This means that an observer on Pluto would not see the same face of the moons from one night to the next. For visitors on the moons themselves, things would get even more confusing, as every day would be a different length to the one that preceded it.

The other two moons studied, Kerberos and Styx, will likely be found to be chaotic too, pending further study.

"Prior to the Hubble observations, nobody appreciated the intricate dynamics of the Pluto system," explains Mark Showalter of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, USA, main author of the study.

The chaotic motion of the moons is caused by the system's two central bodies, Pluto and Charon [1].

"These two bodies whirl around each other rapidly, causing the gravitational forces that they exert on the small nearby moons to change constantly," explains Doug Hamilton, co-author of the study. "Being subject to such varying gravitational forces makes the rotation of Pluto's moons very unpredictable. The chaos in their rotation is further accentuated by the fact that these moons are not neat and round, but are actually shaped like rugby balls!"

The movement of the moons in the Pluto–Charon system offers valuable insights into how planets orbiting a double star might behave. "We are learning that chaos may be a common trait of binary systems," Hamilton continues. "It might even have consequences for life on planets orbiting binary stars."

Clues to the Pluto system chaos first came when astronomers measured variations in the light reflected off of the two small moons. Looking at images taken by Hubble between 2005 and 2012, the brightness was found to change unpredictably — instead of following a regular cycle — in a way that could only be explained by chaotic movement.

These images also showed that the moon Kerberos is charcoal-black in colour, a stark contrast to the bright white of the other moons. It was predicted that pollution from dust blasted off the satellites by meteorite impacts would coat the moons, giving their surfaces a homogenous look, but why Kerberos is black is a mystery.

The chaotic rotation of the moons was not the only surprise that arose from the study; Hubble's monitoring also revealed a connection between the orbits of the three moons Nix, Styx, and Hydra.

"Their motion is tied together in a way similar to that of three of Jupiter’s large moons," noted Doug Hamilton of the University of Maryland, co-author of the study. "If you were sitting on Nix, you would see Styx go around Pluto twice every time Hydra goes around three times."

The chaotic movements found in this fascinating system do not necessarily mean that it is on the brink of flying apart. More studies are needed to determine the long-term fate of the Pluto system.

The researchers agree that a combination of monitoring data from Hubble, a close-up look from NASA's New Horizons space probe, which flies by the system in July 2015 [2], and, eventually, observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will help to settle some of the many mysteries of the Pluto–Charon system.

"Pluto will continue to surprise us when New Horizons flies past it in July," Showalter said. "Our work with Hubble just gives us a foretaste of what's in store."

Notes

[1] Due to Charon's large size, Pluto and Charon orbit about a common centre of gravity that is located in the space between the bodies. Our moon has one eightieth of Earth's mass, whereas Charon has one eighth of Pluto's mass.

[2] NASA's New Horizons space probe was launched in 2006 to study Pluto, its moons, and other Kuiper belt objects. It will fly past the Pluto-Charon system on 14 July 2015 and will produce detailed surface maps of Pluto and all of its moons.

Notes for editors

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

The team of astronomers in this study consists of Mark R. Showalter (SETI Institute, USA) and Doug Hamilton (University of Maryland, USA).

Pluto's moons are hypothesised to have formed by a collision between the dwarf planet and another similar-sized body early in the history of the Solar System. The smashup flung material that coalesced into the family of satellites observed around Pluto today. Pluto's large binary companion, Charon, was discovered in 1978. The object is almost half the size of Pluto. Hubble discovered Nix and Hydra in 2005, Kerberos in 2011, and Styx in 2012. These little moons, measuring just tens of miles across, were found as part of several Hubble searches for moons and rings to characterize the system in preparation for the New Horizons spacecraft flyby.

Contacts

Mark R. Showalter
SETI Institute California, USA
Tel: +1 650 810 0234
Email: mshowalterseti.org

Doug Hamilton
Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland Maryland, USA
Tel: +1 301 405 1548
Email: dphamilastro.umd.edu

Mathias Jäger
ESA/Hubble, Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 176 62397500
Email: mjaegerpartner.eso.org

{ http://www.esa.int/ }

03-06-2015 om 22:23 geschreven door peter  

Daily UFO Headlines 6/3/2015

(Before It's News)

openminds.tv

• The hunt for missing pieces – Herald Tribune
• Think Finding Bigfoot Is Hard? Try Finding Love – Huffington Post
• NASA enlists help of San Antonio research institute in search for alien life on Europa – San Antonio Express
• The Non-UFO Explanation For That Plane Flying Backwards At The French Open – Pedestrian TV
• Does Planet Earth Need Its Own Flag? – Smithsonian

Source: http://www.openminds.tv/daily-ufo-headlines-632015/33795

03-06-2015 om 21:59 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Unexplained Green Jellyfish-Like Lights Visible Over Holland: What Are They?

(Before It's News)

MessageToEagle.com – Mysterious green jellyfish-like lights have been spotted in the skies over Holland. Some have suggested this is a UFO floating in the night sky.

There are also those who think this could be an interdimensional portal leading to unknown invisible worlds.

The images have sparked a debate and many are trying to explain the nature of these mysterious and unexplained lights.

See also:

Unexplained Terrifying “Trumpet” Sound Emanating From The Sky Heard World-Wide – What Is It?

Two Astonishing Cases Of Men Who Say They Traveled Through Time

Can Parallel Universes Explain The Déjà Vu Phenomenon?

Suddenly he was left stunned when he appeared to capture the UFO on camera.

03-06-2015 om 21:56 geschreven door peter  

An Underground City Of Giants Discovered In The Grand Canyon?

(Before It's News)

^{Why Did the Leshan Giant Buddha Cry 4 Times? Is It a Sign?}
  Newly Found – Books By Prophets of Melchizedek Priesthood Found

Don’t Believe in Nephilim? You Will After This: Photos, Top-Secret FBI Documents and More Mind-Blowing Information…

03-06-2015 om 21:52 geschreven door peter  

Australische studente laat als eerste zien dat er gigantische plasmabuizen boven de aarde zweven

Astronomen hebben voor het eerst bewijs gevonden voor het bestaan van buisvormige plasmastructuren in de onderste lagen van de magnetosfeer. “Wetenschappers dachten al meer dan 60 jaar dat deze structuren bestonden en wij hebben nu het eerste bewijs dat ze echt bestaan,” zei Cleo Loi van de Universiteit van Sydney.

Het onderzoek van Loi, dat onderdeel was van haar thesis, is gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Geophysical Research Letters. “De ontdekking van de structuren is belangrijk omdat ze onze navigatiesystemen kunnen verstoren,” zei ze. “We moeten ze dus leren begrijpen.”

De plasmastructuren worden in onderstaand filmpje uitgelegd:

Het gebied rond de aarde binnen de invloedssfeer van het magnetisch veld wordt de magnetosfeer genoemd. Het magnetisch veld beschermt ons tegen de straling van de zon en tegen kosmische straling. De magnetosfeer is gevuld met plasma dat ontstaat doordat de atmosfeer wordt geïoniseerd door zonlicht.

De onderste laag van de magnetosfeer is de ionosfeer en erboven bevindt zich de plasmasfeer. Ze bevatten een aantal vreemd gevormde plasmastructuren, waaronder de plasmabuizen. “We hebben ze op 600 kilometer boven de grond waargenomen, in de bovenste laag van de ionosfeer, tot en met de plasmasfeer,” zei Loi. “Daar houdt de neutrale atmosfeer op en gaan we over naar het plasma van de ruimte.”

[Business Insider]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

03-06-2015 om 21:40 geschreven door peter  

Experiment bewijst dat realiteit niet bestaat zonder waarneming

Het universum bestaat niet als niemand het nog langer waarneemt. Dat stelt althans een populaire theorie binnen de kwantummechanica. Volgens de theorie verandert de staat van een deeltje zodra het wordt waargenomen.

Wetenschappers hebben een experiment gedaan om te bewijzen dat deze theorie klopt. Volgens de wetten van de kwantummechanica is er geen duidelijke grens tussen de buitenwereld en ons subjectieve bewustzijn.

Als natuurkundigen naar lichtdeeltjes of atomen kijken, zullen hun waarnemingen worden beïnvloed door hun experiment. Om dit te testen hebben natuurkundigen van de Australian National University onlangs het gedachte-experiment van John Wheeler gedaan.

Tijdens het experiment kreeg een bewegend object de keuze om zich als deeltje of als golf te gedragen. Op welk moment maakt het object de keuze? Je zou zeggen dat de staat van het object niet afhankelijk is van de meting die door de wetenschappers wordt gedaan.

De kwantummechanica voorspelt echter dat het gedrag van het object afhangt van de manier waarop het aan het einde van zijn reis wordt gemeten. “Alles draait om de meting,” zei professor Andrew Truscott. “Op kwantumniveau bestaat de realiteit niet als je er niet naar kijkt.”

Als je aanneemt dat een atoom een bepaald pad neemt moet je accepteren dat een toekomstige meting wordt beïnvloed door het verleden van het atoom, aldus Truscott.

“De atomen gingen niet van A naar B,” zei hij. “Pas zodra we aan het einde van de rit een meting deden gedroegen ze zich als golf of als deeltje.” Het onderzoek is verschenen in Nature Physics.

[ANU]

© Copyright (c) NineForNews.nl

03-06-2015 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

Gray Hay Field’s Crop Circle: Aliens or Prank?

Skeptics would argue that extraterrestrials behind UFOs lie with the believers. They need to gather data and determine substantial evidence being presented. According to the BLT Research, there was a crop circle seen in a hay-field, near the town of Gray, north-eastern Tennessee nearby Virginia. The president of BLT, Nancy Talbott said that the design being reported consist of 2 ‘half-moon’ shapes that are facing in the opposite directions. There is a recent Crop circles are areas designed to grow cereal crops (barley, wheat, rye, oats, etc.). They also occur in grasses, corn, seeds, and vegetables.

In terms of the hayfield, what created its circular pattern is unknown. But a veteran crop circle researcher in Massachusetts was hoping to get the photos from the person who photographed with the hope that she might find out if the circle was created either by a man-made or energy force. The circle has been reportedly in the high grass that pushed down, and there are no vehicle tracks or footsteps leading up to the formation.

As reiterated, Talbott said that the interest was to find out the kind and type of energy that might have caused the crop circle. Their remedy is to organize the field teams around the world since these circles were already common to different countries. Regardless of what country they were in, they discovered fundamental changes that were found consistently in sample plants from inner circles compared to the control samples found outside the circle.

Whether or not the crop circle found in Gray hay field is a strange UFO activity or a prank, it is not a huge issue for Ms. Talbott. With deeper studies, they find out that such formation was due to the intense radiation. Furthermore, she believes that such activity is not a hostile act.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

03-06-2015 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

Strange activity above Vallejo, California 2-Mar-2015

This triangle-shaped UFO was seen and recorded in the sky above Vallejo in California on 2nd March 2015.

Watch the video here:

{  http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

03-06-2015 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

Unknown lights flying over Terrebonne, Canada 31-May-2015

New footage of a bright unidentified flying objects flying across the night sky above Terrebonne in Quebec, Canada. This happened on 31st May 2015.

Witness report: 1-Seen from my back yard
2-My wife called me after noticing weird lights thru the spa window
3-Ufo’s after I wondered if they were lanterns but wind was in opposite direction
4-To me they looked like a squadron of Ufo’s on parade
5-Amazed,goose bumps and excitement
6-they simply vanished out of sight due to tree foliage

Author (source: mufon)

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

03-06-2015 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

UFOs Are No Longer A Theory!

Leslie Kean will be on to chat about her extraordinary book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record.” Leslie spent two years interviewing military officers and government insiders with access to top secret files, about what they knew (and we didn’t) about extra terrestrial encounters.

{  http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

03-06-2015 om 21:21 geschreven door peter  

03-06-2015 om 01:09 geschreven door peter