The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
06-12-2016
VIDEO: Mysterie rond kilometerslange menselijke figuur in Australische woestijn
VIDEO: Mysterie rond kilometerslange menselijke figuur in Australische woestijn
In juni 1998 maakte piloot Tevor Wright een routinevlucht over de Australische outback toen hij iets geheel onverwachts ontdekte.
Wright keek omlaag en zag een vreemde vorm in de grond: een menselijke figuur met de kop van een vogel.
De bizarre figuur is meer dan vier kilometer lang.
Grootste ooit
De vraag is nu niet alleen hoe de tekening is gemaakt, maar ook wie deze in het zand heeft gemaakt.
De vreemde tekening bevindt zich in de buurt van de plaats Marree in Zuid-Australië, op een kleine 600 kilometer van Adelaide.
Het gaat om de grootste afbeelding van een mens die ooit is gemaakt en het indrukwekkende is: de figuur is zelfs zichtbaar vanuit de ruimte.
Of was dat ook de bedoeling?
Onopgelost
Jarenlang bleef het mysterie onopgelost tot geruchten de ronde deden dat de excentrieke Australische kunstenaar Bardius Goldberg verantwoordelijk was voor de tekening.
Enkele jaren na de ontdekking van de ‘Marree Man’ overleed de kunstenaar echter onder vreemde omstandigheden.
Goldberg heeft nooit openlijk gezegd dat hij de ‘Marree Man’ heeft gemaakt, wat betekent dat lokale bewoners nog steeds geen idee hebben wie deze enorme figuur heeft achtergelaten.
UFO Appears And Disappears Over Brazil December 5, 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Appears And Disappears Over Brazil December 5, 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Dec 5, 2016 Location of sighting: Brazil Here is a video posted on Youtube by user Gagare1952. The video shows a UFO that is making a cloud trail. Its telepathic emotion sensors realised that someone had noticed it, so it immediately cloaked...as you see in the video below. Have you ever seen such a UFO in the sky, only to have it disappear with seconds of noticing it? Yes, you have, and so have most the population on Earth. Out of sight, out of mind. Scott C. Waring
Deze gloeiende UFO is vergelijkbaar met zowel de UFO's gezien door duizenden over de bergen van Denver, Colorado en de UFO die werd gezien op een oude tempel van duizenden jaren oud, Koepel van de Rots, die ook werd gezien door duizenden. U kunt ze noemen engelen, maar ik noem ze een hoog ontwikkeld uitheemse soorten, die een positie die de mensheid kan een dag aandeel.
Scott C. Waring
Inexplicata luidt als volgt:
** Dit is niet de eerste keer dat Roberto Ruiz heeft een ervaring zoals die op donderdag, toen hij ging naar buiten om een storm te fotograferen. Bekijk de video**
Fotograaf Roberto Ruiz uit Jachal (San Juan Provincie) getuige van een lichtgevend object in de lucht boven zijn geboortestad op donderdagavond, toen hij ging met zijn collega Nito Martín om de storm te fotograferen.
Hun lenzen waren gericht op Cerro Los Blanquitos ongeveer tien uur 's avonds, wanneer een krachtige groenachtig licht zichtbaar op de bergkam werd. Volgens de ooggetuigen, het object verplaatst en later verdween achter de top.
Dit is de eerste keer dat de fotojournalist een soortgelijke ervaring heeft. In augustus 1984, Ruiz alleedly zag een UFO vanuit het raam van een vliegtuig waarop hij vloog.
Planet Mars: It's Not Just a Rock, Enlightening Tour Of Mars, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Planet Mars: It's Not Just a Rock, Enlightening Tour Of Mars, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of video: Nov 30, 2016 Maker of video:TheRealJimmyRoberts1 This very enlightening video was made by TheRealJimmyRoberts1 of Youtube. He carefully takes us on a tour of Mars using NASA photos. He shows how NASA expertly hides the truth, by altering the photos, and how we can get it back into focus. Listen to him and at the end of the 38 minute video, you will better understand what we have been finding in Mars photos. Scott C. Waring Video states: 38 Minutes that are guaranteed to change your perspective on the reality of both past and present life on Mars. The basics of "HOW, WHY and WHO" are covered here along with hundreds of telling images. This is not conspiracy theory. This is not the occult. This is reality and it is extremely important that we begin to understand our relationship to both the past and present inhabitants of the Red Planet. Why? Because evidence strongly indicates they were destroyed by nuclear explosions.
Location:Hortense ga Date:December 1, 2016 Submitted by Whitney
Witness report:
We was driving in the car, and I seen something in the sky with alot of lights on it and I told my sister to follow it, so we did. I took a picture of it and then it zoomed away! Soo freaky!
Location: Cumbria, UK Date:26.11.16 Submitted by Melanie
Witness report:
Never really noticed anything. .was out walking in the fells..taking photos..wasn’t till looking at photos we noticed a mark on the picture. .wen blown the photo up..we think it looks like an u.f.o…..it looks very sharp and metallic. ..would love to see Wat it is. ..
Location:Port Macquarie Australia Date:1 November 2016 Submitted by Anon
Witness report:
Myself and 5 others were at a westward lookout facing mountain range, my eldest 17yr spotted something hovering, appeared to be jumping left to right rapidly, giving off white flash’s. Had the handy cam so these pics are only frame grabs. The battery went flat !!!! was a fully charged 2200mah charged 30mins prior, only just switched it on. We then saw a huge flash of white and it was gone
Ancient Coin Of France Apparently Depicts An Unidentified Flying Saucer
Ancient Coin Of France Apparently Depicts An Unidentified Flying Saucer
Absolute proof of UFO sightings from hundreds of years ago has been found in a 17th-century French token, UFO hunters claimed.
The coin-like object, known as the ancient jeton, was used for counting. It reportedly depicts a strange-looking circular entity that looks like a classic flying saucer.
Some even went to speculate that it represents the wheel in the Book of Ezekiel of the Bible, which they believe the Bible’s tale of a UFO encounter. Some skeptics say that the object just represents a drifting mushroom or flower. Others say that it shows a shield.
Meanwhile, many UFO hunters say that the token is an evidence of frequent UFO sightings in ancient France. So numerous that French decided to inscribe such sightings on coins. The object is a French jeton minted somewhere from 1680 to 1856.
It has almost the same size of a U.S. quarter-dollar. It was used for educational purposes to help people count money, and sometimes, used as a substitute for money in playing games. It also looks like other jetons with different educational and religious designs.
Researchers found a Latin inscription that says OPPORTUNUS ADEST, which means “It is here at an opportune time.” The other side of it shows rain drenching a plant-like thing.
UFO Expert Claims Government Withheld More Than Half of the Truth About Aliens and UFOs
UFO Expert Claims Government Withheld More Than Half of the Truth About Aliens and UFOs
A paranormal investigator made a claim that the British government has involvement in the cover-up of the truth about UFOs and aliens.
UFO expert Malcolm Robinson said intelligence that could clarify unsolved British mysteries involving UFOs and aliens had been withheld from public access.
Founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations, Mr. Robinson, has collected and examined UFO evidence for years. In 2015, he presented a collection of evidence containing detailed information about UFOs and aliens to Downing Street, requesting then Prime Minister David Cameron to open an inquiry. However, it failed to materialize.
He said governments in different parts of the world, including Britain, know far more than what they disclosed to the public for sure.
He claims that Nick Pope, the manager of the now defunct UFO desk, once told him that the government did not disclose even half of the truth.
According to documents obtained under Freedom of Information, the department and hotline for UFO sighting reports was shut down in 2009 for the reason that it no longer served a defense purpose and only taking away resources and staff to more significant defense-related activities. The documents further revealed the Ministry of Defence concluded that no UFO report in 50 years had evidence of a potential threat to the U.K.
Now, Mr. Robinson has called for the government to conduct an inquiry in several sightings, including police files from Bonnybridge Scotland. Robinson said that there were over 300 UFO sightings in the small town during the 1990s.
Mr. Robinson noted that about 95% of the sightings could be explained after checking with airports, the National Security Agency, the Ministry of Defence, and meteorological stations, but some 5% don’t have a rational explanation.
Earlier this year, many UFO conspiracy theorists claimed that some MoD UFO files which had been sent to the National Archives had been sent back for further censorship.
ALIENS: While UFOS menaced the US – the Soviet Union was getting the same treatment
During the 1940s and 1950s UFO-mania gripped the US as reports of flying saucers, men in black and alien abductions filled newspaper pages.
But as alien encounters became a sideshow in the states, their communist enemies were also being rocked by mysterious encounters with UFOs.
Around the same time the Soviets also began to have increasing contact with apparent aliens and growing reports of spacecraft entering airspace over Russia.
Soviet-born UFO researcher and author Paul Stonehill told Daily Star Online: “The Soviets were shocked so many UFOs could penetrate their borders and basically just do what they wanted without any control from the Kremlin.
“There were many more cases of direct encounters than in the United States, and anything which was flying over the Soviet Union was very interested in secret military installations.”
GETTY
SUPERPOWER: The Soviet Union was at the height of its power during the Cold War
“The aliens would fight back and destroy whatever unit would shoot at them.”
Paul Stonehill
Throughout the Cold War and the space race Soviet forces frequently clashed with UFOs.
Mr Stonehill said: “The Kremlin was paranoid but they could not do anything about it.
“They tried on several occasions where orders were given out from on high to shoot down UFOs, or local commanders would take it upon themselves.
“However, it always ended badly for them.”
GETTY
TOP SECRET: UFO reports and alien encounters were dealt with utter secrecy
The researcher, whose articles have been published in 11 languages, unearthed a culture of total secrecy over the phenomena in the Soviet Union.
Kremlin bigwigs would pass off any public reports of the phenomena as a “hoax perpetrated by the Western powers”.
A secret research programme called SETKA was established in 1977 after the Petrozavodsk incident in which 48 UFOs appeared in the atmosphere across the Soviet Union.
The incident came to a head in the industrial city of Petrozavodsk when a huge glowing object appeared overhead – seemingly beaming shafts of light towards the Earth.
GOOGLE
UNEXPLAINED: A photograph of the Petrozavodsk object which triggered panic in the Soviet Union
The aim of the programme was to work out what the UFOs were – with Soviet higher-ups acknowledging the craft could not be of Earth-bound origin.
Stonehill said much of the archives of the programme remain under lock and key, but he added it was passed down between the communist state’s top military minds and scientists.
Forms were also then handed to any soviet soldier, sailor or airmen who reported a UFO encounter for them to file fully detailed reports.
He said: “It was prolific enough to really make you wonder just how much the Soviets knew”.
GETTY
PIONEER: Soviets lead the space race for many years – possibly sparking alien attention
A bloody encounter between an alien craft and Soviet forces occurred in 1953 shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin.
The large UFO, initially thought by witnesses to be a “blimp of dirigible”, appeared above the Taiga in Siberia.
Soviet military chiefs dispatched a military special detachment to the area.
When they attempted to engage the craft with aircraft the three Soviet planes just “burned away”, says Mr Stonehill.
GETTY
MANKIND: Soviets managed to put the first man in space and carried out the first space walk
A secret order was issued to Soviet forces during the mid-1960s giving Russian commanders strict instructions to “not shoot at UFOs, leave them alone”.
Mr Stonehill said: “The aliens would fight back and destroy whatever unit would shoot at them.
“They would disintegrate planes, and in some cases the UFOs also acted first.”
He added: “No government wants to be powerless in the face of a threat, and it got to the case of the Soviets being very scared.”
GETTY
SPACE: Soviet dream of space dominance collapsed – retiring their space shuttle before launch
But despite these violent clashes, he says most Soviet encounters were characterised by alien craft simply “observing” activity.
He said: “It was as if they were under a microscope. There were reports of UFOs present at most, if not all, of the Soviet space launches.
“The craft seemed to know about the space ports and the secret facilities.”
However, he added the motivations of whoever is piloting the UFOs remains a mystery.
Mr Stonehill has spoken to former military intelligence personnel, government officials and Soviet scientists to reveal the depths of the Soviet UFO encounters.
He has had numerous books published on the subject such as Mysterious Sky: Soviet UFO Phenomenon, Soviet UFO Files and UFO Case Files of Russia.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:News from the FRIENDS of facebook ( ENG )
Is er leven mogelijk in Pluto's ondergrondse oceaan?
Is er leven mogelijk in Pluto's ondergrondse oceaan?
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Als in Pluto’s ondergrondse oceaan leven te vinden is, dan ziet het er waarschijnlijk heel anders uit dan wij gewend zijn.
Recent stelden onderzoekers – waaronder William McKinnon, verbonden aan Washington University – dat Pluto hoogstwaarschijnlijk een ondergrondse oceaan bezit. Het roept een interessante vraag op: is er in die oceaan wellicht leven mogelijk? McKinnon sluit het niet uit.
Giftig en koud Hij denkt dat onder het hartvormige gebied op Pluto – Sputnik Planitia – een oceaan te vinden is. Die oceaan beschrijft hij als “giftig, heel koud, zout en rijk aan ammoniak”. Het klinkt niet direct heel leefbaar. “Het is geen plaats voor bacteriën en al helemaal niet voor vissen of inktvissen of elke andere levensvorm zoals wij die kennen,” erkent McKinnon. “Het leven kan veel hebben: het kan veel zout, extreme kou, extreme warmte, enzovoort tolereren. Maar ik denk niet dat het de hoeveelheid ammoniak die Pluto nodig heeft om te voorkomen dat deze oceaan bevriest – ammoniak is een uitstekende antivries – kan tolereren (…) Maar net als de methaanzeëen op Titan – de grootste maan van Saturnus – roept het de vraag op of er in deze exotische, koude vloeistoffen wellicht een werkelijk nieuwe levensvorm kan bestaan.”
Primitief Maar hoe zou zo’n levensvorm er dan uitzien? Als er al leven mogelijk is in de oceaan, dan is het waarschijnlijk zeer primitief. “Misschien is het zelfs – net als wellicht de eerste levensvormen op aarde – pre-cellulair.”
Volgende generatie Lang niet alle onderzoekers zijn er overigens van overtuigd dat Pluto een ondergrondse oceaan bezit. Tot op heden is er alleen indirect bewijs gevonden voor het bestaan van de oceaan. Het bestaan van de oceaan kan maar op één manier bevestigd worden: opnieuw een sonde naar Pluto sturen en deze in een baan rond de dwergplaneet plaatsen. “Het is aan de volgende generatie om verder te gaan waar New Horizons is opgehouden,” stelt McKinnon. Als uit vervolgonderzoek blijkt dat Pluto daadwerkelijk een ondergrondse oceaan bezit, dan zijn er in de Kuipergordel waarschijnlijk nog veel meer van deze oceanen te vinden. In de Kuipergordel bevinden zich namelijk nog veel meer hemellichamen die qua omvang vergelijkbaar zijn met Pluto.
In juli 2015 scheerde ruimtesonde New Horizons langs Pluto. Voor het eerst konden we de dwergplaneet in detail bewonderen. Het leverde een schat aan informatie op en nog altijd zijn onderzoekers bezig om de door New Horizons verzamelde gegevens te analyseren. New Horizons haast zich ondertussen dieper de Kuipergordel in. Daar zal deze opnieuw onderzoek gaan doen naar een Kuipergordelobject dat – voor zover we nu weten – net zo rood is als Pluto.
Bronmateriaal:
"Could there be life in Pluto’s ocean?" - Washington University De afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel is gemaakt door NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
An artist's conception of the Spiderweb Galaxy, which is actually a massive collection of growing galaxies in the early universe. Protogalaxies are shown in white and pink, while the blue indicates the location of the carbon monoxide gas surrounding them.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Like a spider devouring prey from its web, a mature young galaxy is devouring the recycled gas that surrounds it, rather than snacking on its neighbors.
"This is different from what we see in the nearby universe, where galaxies in clusters grow by cannibalizing other galaxies," lead study author Bjorn Emonts, a researcher at Spain's Center for Astrobiology, said in a statement from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). "In this cluster, a giant galaxy is growing by feeding on the soup of cold gas in which it is submerged."
Working with an international team of astronomers, Emonts made detailed observations of the Spiderweb Galaxy — which is actually a cluster of protogalaxies in the early universe — using the NRAO's Very Large Array in New Mexico and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s (CSIRO) Australia Telescope Compact Array. Rather than forming through collisions with other galaxies (the "cannibalizing" Emonts mentions), the researchers found that the massive galaxy at the heart of the cluster was slurping up cool gas between the infant galaxies. [The Universe Has 10 Times More Galaxies Than Scientists Thought]
"Cosmic Recycling"
The most massive galaxies in the universe form through a combination of rapid star formation and the cannibalization of other, smaller galaxies, but how much each process contributes in the building of super-galaxies has been an ongoing question.
"Extremely massive galaxies are seen in the young universe, but their presence is puzzling because we do not yet understand how they became so massive so quickly," said Nina Hatch, an astronomer at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. The research was published in the journal Science. Hatch, who was not involved in the study, authored an accompanying Perspectives article about the new research paper. "How do they get enough fuel to form stars so rapidly?"
In search of an answer, Emonts and his team turned to the Spiderweb Galaxy cluster, located 10 billion light-years from the sun. Because of the time it takes for light to travel across space, they are seeing the cluster as it was when the universe was less than 4 billion years of its 13.7-billion-year age. Like a giant spider web, the collection hosts a relatively mature galaxy at its center, surrounded by a web of diffuse ultraviolet light in which tens of smaller, fly-like galaxies are caught. Despite its young age, the central galaxy is one of the most massive galaxies in in the young universe, according to Hatch.
In hopes of finding the gas that fuels the growth of galaxies in the Spiderweb, the researchers studied the gas around it, which serves as the building blocks for stars and galaxies. They found a cloud of gas roughly 100 billion times the mass of the sun that engulfed the growing galaxies. Previous work revealed that billions of young stars had lit up the Spiderweb, leading the researchers to conclude that the super-galaxy is growing directly from the cloud.
"This is a huge system, with this molecular gas [cloud] spanning three times the size of our own giant Milky Way," said co-author Preshanth Jagannathan, of the NRAO, in a statement from Spain's Center for Astrobiology.
"It appears that this whole system eventually will collapse into a single, gigantic galaxy," Jagannathan said.
In addition to its size, the cloud of gas is surprisingly cold.
"It's shocking how cold this gas must be — about minus 200 degrees Celsius (minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit)," study co-author Matthew Lehnert, a professor at the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris, said in the same statement. "We expect a fiery process — lots of galaxies falling in and heating gas up. Therefore, we expected that all the cold gas would be locked up deep within the galaxies."
Instead, the cold cloud surrounded the protogalaxies, feeding their evolution. Its composition is also surprising. Observations revealed a large quantity of carbon monoxide, material forged in the heart of stars and released in their explosive deaths. Only a third of that material is locked up inside the galaxies, while the rest lies between them. Rather than consuming pristine gas, the Spiderweb Galaxy is relying on recycled material to fuel its growth. Still, its exact source remains a mystery.
"The carbon monoxide that we detected is a byproduct of previous stars, a form of cosmic recycling, but we cannot say for sure where the gas came from or how it accumulated in the cluster core," Emonts said. "To find out, we'd have to look even deeper into the universe's history."
Swiss Finance Company Invests Big Shares in Mars One
Swiss Finance Company Invests Big Shares in Mars One
NASA
IN BRIEF
The shareholders of a Swiss financial services company have agreed to a takeover bid of the Mars One space organization. Hopefully, the move will forward the company's big plans to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars.
Getting to the Red Planet is an expensive business, and the leading contenders are scrambling to acquire sufficient cash to underwrite their dreams.
Mars One consists of two entities: the Dutch not-for-profit Mars One Foundation and a British public limited company Mars One Ventures
FUNDING THE MISSIONS
Many Mars missions are facing a very blunt controversy: how much is it going to cost to send people up there to study and possibly colonize the Red Planet?
A contender in the Mars space race is Mars One, a space tech organization that originates in the Netherlands. The company has two direct arms: the Dutch non-profit Mars One Foundation, and the British public company in charge of monetization, Mars One Ventures. Now, the Ventures profit arm has announced an agreement with Swiss InFin Innovative Finance AG to a shares takeover bid.
Conceptual illustration of the Mars One habitats.
“The acquisition is now only pending approval by the board of Mars One Ventures,” the companies said in a joint announcement.
The finance takeover solidifies Mars One’s efforts to establish a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet. On the Mars One website, they discussed their reliance on corporate investments and donations as a primary funding source. The space tech company did try to gain additional funding by pitching a television reality show about the missions to and life on Mars, but this was axed by their partner production company.
$PACE RACE
To get to the Red Planet is a big dream that needs to bring in big bucks. The different companies gearing up to get us there are funded in different ways.
NASA plans to bring astronauts to Mars itself by the 2030s. It’s funded by the US governmentusing federal revenue from income, corporate, and other taxes.
SpaceX receives most of its seed money from billionaire founder Elon Musk. It also gains much from its government subsidy, with an estimated $4.9 billion coming in for the space tech company and Musk’s electric car empire, Tesla. SpaceX has a more urgent timeline, and they plan to get millions of people up to the Martian “colonies” by 2024—just check out their new outline for a future “Mars-shot.”
Lockheed Martin, based in Maryland, is another privately-owned aerospace company with dreams of the Red Planet dancing through its head. Their Mars Base Camp, a collaboration with NASA, believes it can send astronauts to space by around 2028. It sources funds from its numerous corporate profits, together with investments.
While we’re not sure who can get us to Mars first, what’s certain is that it’s going to take a lot of money to do it.
Atlas the Life-Sized Robot Just Became a Bit More Human
Atlas the Life-Sized Robot Just Became a Bit More Human
IHMC
IN BRIEF
Humanoid robots just got a major upgrade: they can walk!
A new "walking algorithm" has been developed at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) for Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot.
A sped-up animation of the algorithm in action.
STEPPING OUT
We’ve come a step closer to those human-like, walking “droids” we all love from the Star Wars universe. A new locomotion algorithm has been developed that allows the Atlas robot to gingerly walk through rough and uneven terrain.
Most robots would need flat surfaces to traverse. This control algorithm, developed at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) for the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics, mimics a human-like line of thinking of deliberating carefully before making a step. Atlas balances itself before stepping onto an uneven foothold.
“Our humanoid projects are focused on enabling our bipedal humanoids [to] handle rough terrain without requiring onboard sensors to build a model of the terrain,” said the developers from IHMC. “Our goal is to tackle increasingly more difficult walking challenges.”
HUMAN ROBOTS?
Boston Dynamics’ Atlas has been in the works for a while now under the DARPA Robotics Challenge, a competition funded by the US Government. The company, a subsidiary of Google, has been continuously bringing out developments to make this robot as close to the human form as possible. Particularly, they have been focusing on equipping Atlas with balance and agility, qualities that traditionally would be quite difficult for robots.
Humanoid robots, once a tale from science fiction, are slowly coming to life. Today, they’re mastering walking through rubble and keeping balance on a thin plank of wood. Tomorrow, they could be indispensable partners in our daily lives. The calculated steps that Atlas now makes could be life-saving when put to the right uses. Like in the movies, the future could have artificially intelligent healthcare providers, policemen, and more.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, dubbed the VSS Unity, took to the skies over Mojave, California this morning to complete the craft’s first ever free-flight test. And preliminary data shows it was a huge success.
Today’s flight marked the fifth overall flight for the VSS Unity, which has the distinction of being the only spacecraft built by the company’s in-house manufacturing team — TheSpaceshipCompany — and the 218th flight for its mothership, the WhiteKnightTwo.
Earlier in the week, the duo joined forces to complete a fourth captive carry test. Following the pair’s second captive-carry test in September, engineers decided that all systems were performing as expected and the crew could move onto free-flight testing. The first two attempts (both in November) were thwarted due to weather and an unexpected anomaly, which prevented the crew from separating the two vehicles.
That was not the case today. Following takeoff, the pilots of both vehicles tested multiple onboard systems, ensuring they were ready (and able) to release the spacecraft. Once they received the green light from the control room, the VSS Unity was set free and coasted down to a gentle landing.
During free-flight (also known as a glide test) testing, the two vehicles take off as a mated pair, with the SpaceShipTwo detaching from the WhiteKnightTwo during flight before gently gliding back to the runway. In-flight testing allows engineers thoroughly study how various systems on board the vehicles perform during flight.
The glide tests are not designed to go into space; however, they are a major step towards Virgin Galactic’s ultimate goal: launching people into space. Before that can happen, the aerospace company must first prove its vehicles are safe to carry human passengers. In order to do so, the company has to complete a lengthy testing process that includes captive-carry, free-flight, and rocket-powered tests.
The road to space.
Rocket-powered testing was suspended following a tragic accident in 2014, when the first SpaceShipTwo crashed as a result of pilot error. The accident resulted in the death of one pilot, leaving a second injured.
Today’s successful free-flight test, was a crucial step to resuming rocket-powered flights.
What do NASA and Netflix have in common? Probably more than you would think. Researchers have developed a technique that uses artificial intelligence to help them search for and identify stable planetary systems. The technique is based on learning algorithms used by the streaming giant to offer online recommendations. This new tool will be used in tandem with NASA’s fleet ofplanet-hunting telescopes to identify planets that could potentially support life.
“Machine learning offers a powerful way to tackle a problem in astrophysics, and that’s predicting whether planetary systems are stable,” Dan Tamayo, lead author of the research and a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Planetary Science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, explained in a news release.
As a form of artificial intelligence, machine learning enables computers to learn on their own, without having to be constantly fed data or programmed for a specific task. These types of advanced systems are specifically designed to learn and adapt on their own when exposed to different data.
Tamayo says the team’s technique is 1,000 times faster than traditional methods in predicting stability. The results are available online in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The team hopes the tool will be a valuable asset in astronomy, able to help scientists locate new planetary systems that could potentially hold life, as well as discern new information that would otherwise go undetected with current methods of observation.
Artist conception of NASA's TESS spacecraft.
Tamayo explains that, currently, astronomers rely on multiple methods to detect exoplanets. However, these methods are only capable of providing information on a planet’s size and orbital period — neither of which affects stability.
Understanding how stable a system is will allow researchers to glean insights into how they formed and better assess a planet’s chances for hosting life.
With the technique developed by Tamayo and his team, astronomers will now be able to measure a planet’s mass and its orbit, which will come in handy when analyzing data from NASA’s upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The two-year mission will search for new exoplanets by focusing on the brightest stars in close proximity to our solar system and is set to launch next year.
“It could be a useful tool because predicting stability would allow us to learn more about the system, from the upper limits of mass to the eccentricities of these planets,” says Tamayo.
The Hubble Space Telescope just snapped an image of cosmic crime in process: a supermassive black hole slowly consuming its host galaxy.
This supermassive black hole is lurking in the heart of an elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4696, which is the largest galaxy in the massive Centaurus galaxy cluster about 150 million light-years from Earth. The new observations from Hubble reveal that the supermassive black hole at its center of NGC 4696 has shaped the otherwise typical elliptical galaxy into a cosmic question mark.
Black holes are well known as cosmic monsters, with centers of gravity so dense they gobble up anything that crosses their path. On the plus side, these stellar behemoths tend to be messy eaters, which often results in beautiful works of cosmic art.
The new images reveal spectacular bands of curling filaments, which are composed of dusty ionized hydrogen, spiraling out into interstellar space. Data collected shows that the supermassive black hole is responsible for the dusty tendrils and thread-like filaments we see. Like brush strokes on a cosmic painting, the black hole is painting the cosmos with material from its host.
A view of NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster.
New research also suggests that the galaxy’s own supermassive black hole is also preventing the galaxy from creating new stars — meaning the galaxy is essentially dead. With no new stars being formed, once the black hole has consumed all of the surrounding galactic material, NGC 4696’s lights will go out forever.
HAWKING'S NEW CHILLING WARNING: 'WE’RE AT MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT IN HISTORY OF HUMANITY!'
HAWKING'S NEW CHILLING WARNING: 'WE’RE AT MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT IN HISTORY OF HUMANITY!'
The rise of the new worldwide Nationalism and Britain’s Brexit vote come at “the most dangerous time in the history of the human race,” according to the physicist Stephen Hawking.
The Cambridge professor warns the political shift shows the majority of people on Earth are sick of the status quo and felt they had been “abandoned by their (ruling) leaders.
“It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere.
“For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together,” he added.
Hawking claims the world is facing major challenges, including climate change, overpopulation, food production, the decimation of other species on Earth, epidemic disease and pollution of the oceans.
“Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity.
“We can do this [overcome the challenges], I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humanity.”
He also added: “We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it.
“Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.”
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
Russia's secret UFO files: Soviet Union waged Cold War conflict with aliens
'UFO cover-up' REVEALED: Astronaut begged White House for release of secret alien fi
September 11: Footage which claims to show a reptilian alien emerging from the Twin TowersWinston Churchill’s X-Files: Top secret UFO probe revealed
Alien abductions at Area 51 army base: Ex-soldier reveals secrets from inside joined HQ
EXPOSED: Prince Philip’s UFO ‘fascination’ revealed
