Best Space Stories of the Week — Jan. 1, 2016

Purple rocks on Mars, the sudden loss of a "Star Wars" icon, unexpected orbits from China's satellites and (expected) New Years' comet flybys — it's Space.com's best space stories of the week.

Redhead goes purple

Although Mars looks entirely red from Earth, NASA's Curiosity rover caught a glimpse of purple rocks embedded in the planet's surface. The rocks, near the foot of the Red Planet's 18,000 ft (5.5 km) Mount Sharp, likely contain an iron-oxide mineral called hematite, also found in other Mars rocks. [Full Story: NASA's Curiosity Rover Spots Purple Rocks on Mars]

Loss of a legend

Carrie Fisher, the actress best known as Princess Leia from the "Star Wars" films, passed away the morning of Dec. 27 after suffering a heart attack two days earlier. She most recently reprised her famous role in 2015's "The Force Awakens." [Full Story: Actress Carrie Fisher, 'Star Wars' Icon, Dies at 60]

Out of place

Two commercial Chinese Earth-observation satellites reached a different orbit than intended, looping around Earth lower than expected after their Dec. 28 launch. The two are following an egg-shaped orbit, and would re-enter Earth's atmosphere within months without adjustment. [Full Story: China's New Earth-Observation Satellites in Unexpected Orbits: Report]

See also: China's Lofty Space Ambitions Include 2018 Landing on Moon's Far Side (New White Paper)

Ancient seas

The dwarf planet Ceres holds what seems to be an ocean's worth of ice layering its cold, dark craters — suggesting it could have hosted an ocean billions of years ago. Ceres is the largest body in the solar system's main asteroid belt, and it is about a third the size of Earth's moon. [Full Story: Dwarf Planet Ceres Likely Had Ocean Long Ago]

Slow-motion breakup

A rocky object called 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid with comet-like features, is being slowly shredded to pieces as it orbits hair-raisingly close to the sun. The strange asteroid features a comet-like tail of debris because of its extremely close orbit — it approaches closer to the sun than any other named asteroid, to within half Mercury's orbit, before swinging away again — and its trail of debris sparks the yearly Geminid meteor shower when Earth passes through. [Full Story: Space Shredder: Sun May Be Tearing Asteroids Apart]

Earth-sci panic

Amid rumors and what-if scenarios regarding Earth science's fate in the new US presidential administration, NASA tells researchers to "be a source of signal, not a source of noise." [Full Story: Earth Scientistss Are Freaking Out. NASA Urges Calm.]

Go deep

Astrobiologists are advocating for NASA's 2020s lander on Jupiter's moon Europa to drill into the moon's ice — in order to avoid any contamination caused by thrusters blasting to slow the lander down. The moon's tantalizing water-vapor plumes make the moon one of the solar system's most promising potential sites for extraterrestrial life. [Full Story: NASA's Europa Lander May Drill to Find Pristine Samples on Icy Moon]

Good location

New research suggests that the faint star Proxima Centauri, home to the newly-discovered exoplanet Proxima b, is indeed gravitationally bound to the nearby Alpha Centauri binary system. Researchers have wondered since Proxima Centauri's discovery whether the star orbits the binary system — and if it does, that's a very good sign for the habitability of Proxima b, our nearest exoplanet neighbor. [Full Story: Proxima Centauri's Origins Could Mean Its Exoplanet Really Is Habitable]

New Mars digs

NASA has made progress toward picking the landing site for its Mars 2020 rover, narrowing the choices down from 54 to 8 high-priority sites that could have hosted water (and therefore supported life) in the ancient past. The agency is also considering the best locations for a future human landing site. [Full Story: Where to Land on Mars: NASA Makes Progress in Quest for 2020 Rover Site]

Plus: A Promising Spot for Life on Mars

New Years' comets are coming

Comets in the New Year's Eve and early 2017 skies will be a feast for the eyes — if you have a telescope or binoculars handy. Look out for their shining flybys above. [Full Story: 'New Year's Eve Comet' and More: Three Flybys Will Kick Off 2017 New Year]

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Destination Mars: NASA’s 2020 Mars Rover Science Plan | Video
• Planets, Constellations and Quadrantid Meteors In Jan. 2017 Skywatching | Video
• What's It Like On Our Neighbor, Proxima b?

{ http://www.space.com/ }

09-01-2017 om 00:23 geschreven door peter  

Impact: An asteroid impact wold spark climate disaster claim the theorists 

(Photo: PA)

IN BRIEF

• Who can forget the startling scenes of a giant meteor flashing across the cold winter skies of Russia in 2013, when the "Chelyabinsk Event" reminded us of just how vulnerable we really are to asteroid impacts?
• Now, the White House has finally released a report outlining the protocols for responding to an Earth-bound near-Earth object (NEO).

In 2013, a meteor broke apart over Russia, sparking panic and injuring over 1,400 people. Called the “Chelyabinsk Event,” the culprit meteor was estimated to be around 17-20 m (56-65 ft) in diameter and released approximately 500 kilotons of energy. In fact, before the atmosphere absorbed most of the energy, the meteor had about 29 times the energy of the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima.

POSSIBLE ASTEROID IMPACTS

Every year, there could be dozens (if not more) of interstellar objects like comets and asteroids that come very close to Earth. In fact, as of January 3 of this year, 15,420 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) had been discovered. On March 21, 2016, an NEO under 1 LD (lunar distance) from Earth was estimated to be 35-86 m (114.8-282.1 ft) in diameter. If that object had broken through the atmosphere and landed on Earth, the damage and devastation would be immense.

Yet even more threatening is the possibility of asteroid 2013 TV135 impacting the Earth. This asteroid has only a 1 in 63,000 chance of impacting within the next 100 years, but if it does, it would be absolutely catastrophic. The asteroid measures in at about 400 m (1,300 ft), which is around 4% of the size of the asteroid that is said to have killed the dinosaurs. So, while no dino-killer, the asteroid would certainly pack enough of a wallop to give the Earth one cosmic migraine.

WORKING TOGETHER

The United States government is not taking the possibility of an asteroid impact lightly. In January of 2016, NASA joined with US defense and research agencies to form the Detecting and Mitigating the Impact of Earth-bound NEOs (DAMIEN) group. This group released a report detailing its strategy for dealing with NEOs.

The authors of this report state that “While it is highly unlikely that there will be a civilization-ending NEO impact over the next two centuries, the risk of smaller but still catastrophic NEO impacts is real…There is currently no whole-of government or international strategy to respond to such an even through all phases of a NEO impact scenario.”

Within the report, this group outlines seven strategic goals that they will use to help mitigate the risks of a possible asteroid impact.

1. Enhance NEO Detection, Tracking, and Characterization Capabilities

2. Develop Methods for NEO Deflection and Disruption

3. Improve Modeling, Predictions, and Information Integration

4. Develop Emergency Procedures for NEO Impact Scenarios

5. Establish NEO Impact Response and Recovery Procedures

6. Leverage and Support International Cooperation

7. Establish Coordination and Communications Protocols and Thresholds for Taking Action

According to Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer: “The amount of time needed to mount a robotic planetary mission is typically 5-6 years, so I’d say realistically, you’d need about 8-10 years advance warning to do something about an asteroid in space.”

Our civilization is now truly global in scale and scope, and it behooves us to comport ourselves accordingly and take cognizance of all the potential threats to our survival—whether destructive wars, disease pandemics, climatic change, or the threat of extraterrestrial impactors. Hopefully, the survival of humanity will not be threatened by the impact of an NEO anytime soon; but if it is, we can rest a little easier knowing that measures are being taken and there is finally a sound plan in place.

Space disaster: Artist's impression of a 'super-impact'. A very large asteroid, about 800km in diameter, strikes the Earth

 (Photo: NASA / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

References: 

• Motherboard, 
• The White House, 
• NASA

{ https://futurism.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

Two Exclusive Videos: Military Aircraft and UFOs!

(Before It's News)

How likely is it that UFO’s are indeed just secret military aircraft?
When all the evidence is compiled and what facts we know are brought forth, could all these UFO sighting really just be a catagory of military technology that is so secret that only a handful of top officals truely know about it? 

We all know the Goverment has decieved the public time after time,in fact they tend to cover the truth with rumors on top of rumors then a few far fetched tales to confuse the public even more. Could the UFO phenomenon really just be th ultimate cover story for one of the most secret operations. 

UFO Maryland Settembre 2016

The presidents of the United states most likely have very little information into these operations, as it would give the the deniablity when asked questions. Think about this, top generals of the military hold there position for years longer than a president can be in office so who really controls what is happening, and what secrets can be withheld. 

Given the pace of how fast technology moves and how advanced our computers alone have become I think it is quite possible that the majority of sighting really are prototype systems. 

What better cover than its a “unidentified flying object” you can literilly fly it over a vast population and then say “We dont know” its the perfect cover. Dont get me wrong i stongly believe that we are not alone in this universe however there really has not been a smoking gun that could not be disputed. If there is that smoking gun that has crossed the path of the public then the “man’ has done a very good job at making it go away. Especilly in this day and age where just about anything can be duplicated by fancy graphics programs. 

Could there be both manmade systems as well as extraterestrial systems among us?

{ http://beforeitsnews.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

Leslie Kean's new Infrared UFO Video from Chile - Solved?

Leslie Kean is a well-known UFO writer, author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (2010. See my review of it here).

In recent years Kean has been working with the CEFAA, an official organization within the Chilean Air Force to investigate UFOs (similar to the now-disbanded Project Blue Book in the U.S. Air Force). In 2012, she promoted a newly-released "UFO video" by CEFAA, asking provocatively "Is this the case UFO skeptics have been dreading?". In the end, the much-hyped "UFO" turned out just to be a fly buzzing near the camera, and all those Chilean Generals and Pilots and Government Officials who pronounced it authentic were full of baloney.

The now-retired blogger Kentaro Mori explained in 2011 that the CEFAA's supposed "world's best UFO photo" appears to be nothing more than a reflection on a car windshield.

This photo taken in 2010 near the El Yeso Reservoir is the "world's best UFO photo," according to the CEFAA.

After that embarrassment, for a long time one didn't hear much about Leslie Kean, or the CEFAA. In May of 2015, Kean announced another marvellous UFO video received from the CEFAA. She wrote

The CEFAA, a government agency investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) within the department of civil aeronautics (DGAC) in Chile, has released a summary of its meticulous investigation into the relatively recent “AGA case.”  The acronym “AGA” refers to the prestigious Air Force War Academy (Academia de Guerra Aérea) in Santiago, Chile, which provides training for high level Air Force officers.

The sighting of unexplained lights in formation at the Academy was video taped on two cell phones. Due to technical problems, the videos are not accessible on the CEFAA website.

By "technical problems," she apparently means that none of the Chilean Generals, Pilots, or government officials could figure out how to upload a cell phone video to a website. However, since that video only showed indistinct lights in the sky, taken on a shaky camera, practically nobody else got excited about this case.

Kean took time out from UFOlogy to write a book presenting "evidence for an Afterlife."

But now she is back, big time. The CEFAA recently released a new UFO video, some of it using infrared imaging, and it quickly became the #1 trending item on Facebook. In a January 5, 2017 article on the Huffington Post, Kean wrote

An exceptional nine-minute Navy video of a UFO displaying highly unusual behavior, studied by Chilean authorities for the last two years, is now being released to the public. The CEFAA - the Chilean government agency which investigates UFOs, or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), has been in charge of the investigation. Located within the DGAC, the equivalent of our FAA but under the jurisdiction of the Chilean Air Force, CEFAA has committees of military experts, technicians and academics from many disciplines. None of them have been able to explain the strange flying object captured by two experienced Navy officers from a helicopter.

The object and its "envelope," according to astrophysicist Luis Barrera.

UFOlogist Ted Roe is a member of NARCAP, the group that investigated the CEFAA's fly video and pronounced it to be an unknown object. Roe posted to a Facebook discussion of the current video, "Our experience w CEFAA has been pretty good. .. they've got a pretty strong college of experts and, at first glance, this case is provocative" (ellipsis in original). Apparently by describing his experience with the CEFAA as "pretty good," that means "we made fools of ourselves over this video of a fly." (Roe is currently embroiled in a nasty controversy concerning how he allegedly drove Isaac Koi, an outstanding researcher, out of UFOlogy.)

CEFAA caption: "The object moved away from the massize plume it ejected just moments earlier. "

In France, a group called IPACO specializes in "Analysis of photo/video documents of alleged ufos."  They investigated this video, and produced a sixteen-page report, completed November 26, 2015. They performed a highly technical analysis of the video. Their conclusion: "The object observed in the video was most probably a medium-haul twin jet airliner in a landing phase, flying ahead of the helicopter at a higher velocity, with a low altitude and a low velocity, in view of landing."

IPACO updated the CEFAA's map to show the calculated path of the presumed aircraft (blue). The red line shows the helicopter's path.

And now Mick West of Metabunk seems to have driven the final nail into the coffin of the great Chilean IR UFO video. After explaining how all of the aspects of the video are consistent with that of an aircraft, West writes

This looks like a plane, flying away from the camera considerably higher than the helicopter (somewhere around 15,000 to 25,000 feet), that briefly creates an aerodynamic contrail.

The plane that seems to fit best is LA330, a two engined A320, which was reported to be climbing through 20,000 feet at that exact visual position at 14:01:39. It was actually 65 miles away, not 35-50. This explain[s] why it was not seen on radar (the actual plane was on radar, just not where they thought it was)

As the French skeptic Gille Fernandez noted, we have a situation here where a major UFO case was solved by 'amateurs' in two or three days, after having been unsuccessfully investigated by "experts" for two or three years. The same thing happened with the "Roswell slides" in 2015. 

Leslie Kean doesn't agree with this at all. On January 7 she wrote on her Facebook page

There are many holes in this flight LA330 hypothesis. First and foremost is that the Chilean authorities would have easily determined this to be the explanation if indeed it were.

Those same Chilean "authorities" who gave us the El Yeso reflection UFO and the El Bosque fly UFO video? She has a lot more confidence in them than I do.

08-01-2017 om 22:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA is plunging into the solar system’s origins, selecting two planetary missions to visit mysterious asteroids. The agency has chosen Lucy, which will visit Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, and Psyche, which will orbit a large metallic asteroid, for its next Discovery missions, its low-cost planetary science mission line.

Lucy, set for a 2021 launch, will take advantage of a unique orbital moment to fly past six of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, which precede and follow the gas giant's orbit, a region previously unexplored by spacecraft. Launching in 2023, Psyche will orbit a rare iron and nickel asteroid of the same name, believed to be the stripped-bare core of an ancient planetesimal, and will test whether such bodies could have been hot enough to have formed molten, spinning cores.

“Lucy and Psyche will take us to unique worlds that humankind has never explored before," says Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. "With this, NASA is continuing its legacy of firsts.”

The Jupiter Trojans have long been an exploratory goal for NASA. But Harold Levison, Lucy's principal investigator and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, came to the project from his theoretical work. A decade ago, he helped devise a leading model of the solar system's formation that, among its virtues, gave birth to objects with orbits like the Jupiter Trojans. These are the fossils of planet formation, he says. "If we're going to detangle what happened out there, the Trojans are the place to look."

Lucy will make a grand tour, examining its targets with an infrared spectrometer and new versions of the black-and-white and color cameras found on New Horizons, the Pluto explorer. After passing one asteroid in the main belt, in 2027 it will fly past four Jupiter Trojans over the course of a year and a half. And then, 5 years later, it will pass a rare binary asteroid system in an orbit highly tilted from Jupiter’s orbital plane. It's a complicated trajectory that was only possible with the 2021 launch, which may have helped its selection. "I've been worshipping at the feet of the celestial mechanics god for the last 30 years," Levison says, "and they're paying us back."

Little is known about Lucy's targets. The team knows their colors, from which they infer composition, and some of their reflectivity. From this limited information, it's clear they are diverse in type, and not homogenous leftovers from the formation of Jupiter. It's likely they originated farther out from their current orbit, Levison says, and found their way to Jupiter during the reconfiguration of the planets. The most interesting target is the binary pair Patroclus and Menoetius, Levison adds. Binaries are rare in much of the solar system, but common in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, far from the gravity of planets. That could indicate the duo are nearly pristine leftovers from that early era.

Psyche, meanwhile, has its origins in research conducted by Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the project's principal investigator and planetary scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe. With several colleagues, Elkins-Tanton identified remnant magnetic fields in meteorites that could be linked to ancient planetesimals, the building blocks of planets. Such magnetism was thought only to come from the spinning molten cores of full-fledged planets, not cooler, smaller protoplanets. But they surmised that a radioactive isotope of aluminum may have been abundant enough to heat the planetesimals from the inside-out, forming a molten core.

It was controversial. At the first meeting where they presented this idea, in 2011, "they lined up three deep at the microphones to rebut me even before I started talking," Elkins-Tanton says. But it gradually caught on, and then the Jet Propulsion Lab called, suggesting a mission to test their hypothesis.

They settled on 16 Psyche as a target. At 210 kilometers in diameter, it is one of the largest known members of the asteroid belt, and thought to be largely iron and nickel in composition, similar to Earth's core. They suspect it could have once been the molten core of a planetesimal that might have neared Mars in size. And late last year, observations from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility also discovered signs of what looks to be water or hydroxyl on Psyche's surface, which could make it a promising resource-rich depot for human exploration in the future.

After its launch in October 2023, Psyche will arrive at its target in 2030. While orbiting, it will use a magnetometer to search for signs of a remnant magnetic field, which could have once been half as strong as Earth’s. "A little fridge magnet in space," Elkins-Tanton says. It will also employ a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer to study radiation emitted by the asteroid, to judge its metallic composition. It's not an asteroid mission in the classic sense, Elkins-Tanton adds. "We want to understand the interior of a planet. It just happens this planet is categorized as an asteroid."

NASA has supported many missions to small bodies in recent years, but its appetite has not waned. Lucy and Psyche are different, but worthy, missions, says Michael A'Hearn, an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park. "Psyche is important because it will tell of the evolution of bodies in the solar system, whereas Lucy is telling us more about the origins of Trojans." Many scientists suspect the Jupiter asteroids are similar in composition to comets, he adds.

Each capped at $450 million in costs, these proposals were selected from five final candidates, all focused either on Venus or small solar system bodies. After an initial cull in 2015, the teams received $3 million to flesh out their proposals. After weeks of waiting over the holidays, the candidates learned of their selection only hours before the final announcement today.

The agency also announced it would extend another year of funding to the Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), one of the finalists, though its plans beyond that were not immediately clear. “This mission is an important capability for the agency,” says Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science division director in Washington, D.C.

The final five candidates were:

• Lucy and Psyche;
• NEOCam, a space-based telescope that would discover and study 10 times more Earth-threatening asteroids and comets than known today;
• DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging), a probe that would plunge into Venus's atmosphere for 63 minutes and study its chemical and isotopic composition; and
• VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy), a Venus orbiter that would map the planet with radar at high resolutions, hunting for active volcanism.

The announcement comes as a particular rebuke for planetary scientists focused on Venus. For years, these researchers have been frustrated by NASA's refusal to return the planet, which it last directly targeted in the early 1990s. After failing to win selection in the previous Discovery round earlier this decade, scientists worked to clarify their scientific questions and needed measurements. By selecting two Venus missions among its final five candidates, NASA seemed to signal their success in coming together.

Many planetary scientists were also wary of the NEOCam mission. NASA faces a congressional mandate to identify 90% of mid-sized near-Earth objects by 2020. Although NEOCam would provide worthy scientific research, scientists feared it would take a Discovery slot away from more deserving work—fears that were ultimately unfounded. But bypassing NEOCam means it is unlikely that NASA will meet its congressional obligation, unless Congress ultimately decides to separately finance the mission.

The B612 Foundation, which once promised to launch a private asteroid telescope similar to NEOCam, has backed away from its plans. The $650 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently being built in Chile with the support of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, will identify many near-Earth asteroids as it surveys the entire sky every 3 nights once it begins operations in 2023. But simulations suggest the LSST is unlikely to meet the 90% threshold on its own. According to a White House strategy memo released late last month, the best strategy may be to combine a space-based telescope with the LSST.

For 2 decades, NASA's Discovery program has supported low-cost planetary missions, with a goal of launching a new probe every 2 to 3 years. However, it has been 5 years since the last launch, and the most recent selection, the InSight probe to Mars, has been plagued by delays, with its launch falling back to 2018. NASA had a goal of selecting two Discovery missions this round to help it get back on schedule, though there had been concerns whether federal budget uncertainty would allow it. Green says missions should launch every 32 to 36 months going forward. “The program is now back, now healthy.”

{ http://science.sciencemag.org/ }

08-01-2017 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

NASA is Sending a Probe to Explore a “New Type of World”

 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

IN BRIEF

• NASA's given the go-ahead for a mission to the asteroid 16 Psyche—a giant piece of metal that may be all that's left of the nickel-iron core of an ancient protoplanet.
• As part of the agency's low-cost Discovery Program, it may furnish us with some insight about the Earth's mysterious inner core, and shed some light on the evolution of the Earth and the other planets.

Psyche is believed to be the stripped-bare core of an ancient planetesimal.

LEARNING ABOUT INNER SPACE

It’s the only known asteroid in the Solar System not made of rock or ice. Discovered way back in 1852, 16 Psyche is a strange hunk of metal orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, and is one of the ten most massive objects in the asteroid belt. Recently, NASA just gave the thumbs up for a mission to send a probe to 16 Psyche, as part of two newly approved Discovery Program missions—missions that could reveal a great deal about how the earliest planets that orbit the Sun were formed.

“This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world—not one of rock or ice, but of metal,” explained planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, who first proposed the mission in 2015. “16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the Solar System, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”

The Psyche mission is expected to launch by 2023 and arrive at its destination in 2030. The long journey will include an Earth gravity assist maneuver in 2024, and a Mars flyby in 2025—two encounters that will provide an opportunity to do some interesting science on the voyage. The robotic mission will spend 20 months in orbit taking photos of 16 Psyche, measuring its composition, and registering the object’s magnetic field strength and gravity.

Believed to have once been the liquid metallic core of a planet about the size of Mars, 16 Psyche has a diameter of more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) and seems to be mostly made up of iron and nickel—with a surface possibly bearing volatiles like water or hydroxyl, according to observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. It’s thought that the surface of the ancient planet was whittled down after a series of collisions with multiple objects in the Solar System, leaving behind the naked metallic core as a kind of stillborn protoplanetary embryo.

DISCOVERY PROGRAM

The Psyche mission can open a window onto the earliest ages of the Solar System, an era less than 10 million years after the birth of the Sun. The mission will help us understand how planets were formed, and give us an idea as to how planets and other bodies in the cosmos develop and differentiate into multiple layers—cores, mantles, and crusts—in their earliest histories.

Apart from the Pysche mission, NASA also approved a mission called Lucy to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. “Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that’s never been visited before,” explains Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Like Psyche, Lucy will also help us understand an earlier, fascinating era in our Solar System’s history. “This is what Discovery Program missions are all about—boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science,” Zurbuchen added. At the moment, both Psyche and Lucy are in their mission formulation stages.

While Discovery Program missions are relatively low-cost, the significance of their potential contributions is priceless. “These are true missions of discovery that integrate into NASA’s larger strategy of investigating how the Solar System formed and evolved,” said Jim Green, Planetary Science director at NASA. “These additional pieces of the puzzle will help us understand how the Sun and its family of planets formed, changed over time, and became places where life could develop and be sustained—and what the future may hold.”

References: 

• ScienceAlert - Latest,
• Science Mag AAAS,
• NASA, 
• University of Arizona

{ https://futurism.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 21:52 geschreven door peter  

Our Universe May Exist in a Multiverse, Cosmic Inflation Discovery Suggests

The first direct evidence of cosmic inflation — a period of rapid expansion that occurred a fraction of a second after the Big Bang — also supports the idea that our universe is just one of many out there, some researchers say.

On Monday (March 17), scientists announced new findings that mark the first-ever direct evidence of primordial gravitational waves — ripples in space-time created just after the universe began. If the results are confirmed, they would provide smoking-gun evidence that space-time expanded at many times the speed of light just after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

The new research also lends credence to the idea of a multiverse. This theory posits that, when the universe grew exponentially in the first tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, some parts of space-time expanded more quickly than others. This could have created "bubbles" of space-time that then developed into other universes. The known universe has its own laws of physics, while other universes could have different laws, according to the multiverse concept. [Cosmic Inflation and Gravitational Waves: Complete Coverage]

"It's hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse," Alan Guth, an MIT theoretical physicist unaffiliated with the new study, said during a news conference Monday. "It's not impossible, so I think there's still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously."

Other researchers agreed on the link between inflation and the multiverse.

"In most of the models of inflation, if inflation is there, then the multiverse is there," Stanford University theoretical physicist Andrei Linde, who wasn't involved in the new study, said at the same news conference. "It's possible to invent models of inflation that do not allow [a] multiverse, but it's difficult. Every experiment that brings better credence to inflationary theory brings us much closer to hints that the multiverse is real."

When Guth and his colleagues thought up cosmic inflation more than 30 years ago, scientists thought it was untestable. Today, however, researchers are able to study light left over from the Big Bang called cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).

In the new study, a team led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics found telltale signs of inflation in the microwave background. The researchers discovered a distinct curl in the polarization pattern of the CMB, a sign of gravitational waves created by the rapid expansion of space-time just after the Big Bang.

Linde, one of the main contributers to inflation theory, says that if the known universe is just one bubble, there must be many other bubbles in the cosmic fabric.

"Think about some unstable state," Linde explained. "You are standing on a hill, and you can fall in this direction, you can fall in that direction, and if you're drunk, eventually you must fall. Inflation is instability of our space with respect to its expansion.

"You have something growing exponentially," he added. "If you just let it go … it will continue exponentially growing, so this [the known universe] is one possibility of something going wrong with this instability, which is very, very right for us because it has created all of our space. Now, we know that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong once and a second time and a third time and into infinity as long as it can go."

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

{  http://www.space.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

Detlev van Ravenswaay / Photo Researchers, Inc

IN BRIEF

• Parallel universes are a staple of science fiction, but the notion originates in some very important cosmological theories that may help us understand our universe.
• And if parallel universes really do exist, could we ever travel to one?

MULTIVERSAL

It’s a frequent staple of science fiction—the notion that there’s another universe out there, coextensive with yet sejunct from our own; a distinct, alternate reality populated by our doppelgängers, who made all the right choices and are happily living the life we always dreamed for ourselves.

Or perhaps there’s a “multiverse”—a multitude of divergent spacetime continua, offspring of that same primordial Big Bang that gave rise to our own, each exhibiting some uniquely different physical, mathematical, or chemical property that might preclude the evolution of life as we know it.

These are familiar concepts—but what is a parallel universe, really? There are nearly as many definitions as there are potential universes in a multiverse, but let’s take a look at just a few of the myriad possibilities of cosmological plurality.

MANY WORLDS

Imagine an infinite universe. That’s not exactly in keeping with the best theoretical models propounded by cosmologists, which indicate we exist within an expanding but definitely finite universe that arose some 14 billion years ago.

But if the universe were infinite, then it’s mathematically conceivable that somewhere out there amidst all that immeasurable vastness is a lonely pocket of spacetime where matter and energy have assumed identical, or nearly identical, configurations to our own little corner of cosmic creation.

This form of “parallel universe” would be safely cushioned from us by the universal speed limit set by the velocity of light; but if you really wanted to get there, it’s been calculated that an identical cosmological volume would only be 10^{10^115} meters away, and your identical copy just 10^{10^29} meters away.

And that’s hardly the strangest form of parallel universe. Some cosmologists envision the early inflationary epoch spawning a multitude of “bubble universes”—in other words, the universe expanded at such a breakneck speed that pocket spacetimes pinched off and became contiguous but separate universes.

“Every experiment that brings better credence to inflationary theory brings us much closer to hints that the multiverse is real,” says Andrei Linde, a theoretical physicist at Standford University.

And there are, of course, many other scenarios that admit of cosmological parallelism. If certain superstring cosmologies are correct, our universe is a 3-dimensional “brane,” one of many, floating like drifting plankton within a hyperdimensional “bulk.” Or, according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which alternate universes are continually generated by every particle in the universe exploring every possible timeline, we’re living in a sea of infinite potential subject to our every whim.

VOYAGE TO ANOTHER UNIVERSE

So even if there are multiple universes floating around out there somewhere, what are the odds of us ever being able to reach and explore one? Probably less than zero. We’ve already discussed above the physical impossibility of traveling fast enough to reach the disparate pockets of statistical repetition in an infinite universe; the odds hardly improve when it comes to universes even further removed from us.

And if the brane-theories are remotely correct, it would require liberating oneself completely from the tridimensional constraints of our local brane and “casting off” into the hyperdimensional spaces beyond, hoping somehow to locate and enter another brane. Or, if the “ekpyrotic” scenario is correct, you could conceivably wait until two branes collide, and make the transition at that catastrophic and highly uncertain point in time. This all assuming one is in possession of near-godlike powers of control over matter and energy, and is invulnerable to cosmos-creating energies.

Bottom line: parallel universes or no, we’ve got plenty to keep us occupied within the humble ambit of our own restricted and provincial little spacetime configuration, so perhaps it’s time we adjust our expansive imaginations to just accept the Lilliputian dimensions of our local spacetime.

References: PBS, Space.com

{ https://futurism.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

China Claims It’s Made the Impossible EmDrive Possible

 

shutterstock

IN BRIEF

• Rumor has it that the Chinese are testing that fabulous Sangraal of spacecraft propulsion—the EmDrive.
• But the Chinese have been known to make some pretty fantastic, and insupportable claims; and there's so far not a shred of evidence that the EmDrive actually works.

MADE IN CHINA

If you’ve seen Rogue One (or any Star Wars movie), you’ve seen how those X-Wing and TIE fighters were able to do those crazy maneuvers in space using just their thruster engines, right? Well, that’s supposed to be impossible in a vacuum. But with the EmDrive (short for Electromagnetic Drive), which is able to generate thrust without needing a propellant, it just might be possible—of course, it’ll need more than just that.

This is assuming that the EmDrive actually works—and not just in theory.

Well, China claims to have been able to prove that it does, and says it’s already begun testing one. The news comes from a government-sponsored article published at the Science and Technology Daily, the official newspaper of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, which claims that the country has been doing “key technology research” for five years now into the EmDrive for “possible engineering applications.”

In a press conference announcement, officials from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) confirm that they have indeed developed EmDrive prototypes and have begun testing if the device could actually work in space.

“We have successfully developed several specifications of multiple prototype principles,” claimed CAST communication satellite division head Chen Yue. “The establishment of an experimental verification platform to complete the milli-level micro thrust measurement test, as well as several years of repeated experiments and investigations into corresponding interference factors, confirm that in this type of thruster, thrust exists.”

Also at the press conference, Li Feng, chief designer of the communication satellite division of CAST, explained what exactly it is they’re doing. “This technology is currently in the latter stages of the proof-of-principle phase, with the goal of making the technology available in satellite engineering as quickly as possible,” he said. “Although it is difficult to do this, we have the confidence that we will succeed.”

This would seem to confirm information from unnamed sources which claim that an EmDrive is being tested on its Tiangong-2 space laboratory.

NO REAL PROOF

Apart from these mysterious sources, however, there’s no actual indication that China indeed has a functioning EmDrive in space—especially since China doesn’t exactly enjoy a good record when it comes to trustworthy research. And, Chinese tests or no, it’s certainly not proven that this “propellantless” thruster technology actually works. Despite NASA’s recent publication of their peer-reviewed study, experts remain skeptical about the EmDrive. They are also taking the NASA study with a sizable grain of salt.

As the University of Connecticut’s advanced propulsions system expert Brice Cassenti explained:

This is a violation of Newton’s third law of motion, which says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Action and reaction is a direct result of the conservation of momentum. The violation of such a basic law as the conservation of momentum would invalidate much of the basis for all of physics as we know it. Hence, many scientists and engineers feel the thrust measurements reported for the EM Drive are due to experimental error. Adding to this is the fact that those who believe the results are valid do not yet have an experimentally or a theoretically plausible proven physical explanation.

So we may not be zooming through space just yet.

How the EmDrive works

The EmDrive is the invention of British scientist Roger Shawyer who, in 1999, proposed that – based on the theory of special relativity – electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a truncated cone-shaped closed metal cavity causes microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone. There is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity, so this thereby generates thrust.

His critics say that – according to the law of conservation of momentum – his theory cannot work as, in order for a thruster to gain momentum in one direction, a propellant must be expelled in the opposite direction – and the EmDrive is a closed system.

However, Shawyer says that, following fundamental physics involving the theory of special relativity, the EmDrive does in fact preserve the law of conservation of momentum and energy.

For an in-depth explanation, see What is the EmDrive and why should I care?

References: ScienceAlert - Latest, International Business Times, Science and Technology Daily, emdrive.com

{ https://futurism.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 21:16 geschreven door peter  

Hello! This is how scientists plan to communicate with aliens

The song Across the Universe by The Beatles, and compositions by Vivaldi and Gershwin have been sent to space for communicating with aliens.

Scientists from San Francisco-based Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI) plan to send signals to distant planets and communicate with aliens instead of waiting for them to initiate the interaction.

Also Read: Here's how NASA is using a laser to save Earth

Keeping it simple, the first message METI researchers plan to send to the intelligent aliens is "Hello".

An image of Sun's nearest star Proxima Centauri shot by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

ESA/Hubble & NASA

The astronomers are planning to start the talks with aliens by sending laser or radio signals. The first celestial body they will send the message to is none other than Proxima Centauri, the star that is nearest to the Sun. Other far-off celestial bodies located hundreds or thousands of light years away will then be sent the communication signals. 

"If we want to start an exchange over the course of many generations, we want to learn and share information," said Douglas Vakoch, president of METI and former director of Interstellar Message Composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in California, phys.org reported.

Founded last year, METI is going to host two workshops in 2017 in St. Louis and Paris. The organisation also plans to raise $1 million for its mission to install transmitters at remote spots in space.

For now, the researchers are thinking about how to create and send the simple yet powerful message, "Hello," to the aliens. However, the project is also turning controversial, with people asking whether we want aliens to know our whereabouts, especially if they are hostile.

To this question, physicist Mark Buchanan reacted by stating: "We have almost zero idea of whether aliens are likely to be dangerous," according to the journal, Nature Physics.

On the other hand, positive responses have also been received by METI. 

"I think there's something to be learned, nothing to be feared, and at least the possibility of discovering something truly revolutionary: We have company nearby," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer with the SETI Institute, was quoted as saying by phys.org. 

The first mission of this sort was spearheaded by NASA in the early 1970s, when Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft had carried a message in the form of a gold plaque, which was followed by a phonograph record. 

Also, a radio message was beamed by SETI's Frank Drake, which could be collected in the form of a pictogram of images.

The song Across the Universe by The Beatles, and compositions of Vivaldi and Gershwin have also been sent to space for communicating with distant celestial bodies and aliens.

So far, no regulations have been formulated for sending the signals to space.

Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner funded the SETI and the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project at the University of California, Berkeley, which aims at scanning space in order to discover any sign of alien technology.

{http://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

08-01-2017 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

Watch: Chilean government declassifies UFO encounter details after 2 years [VIDEO]

In a rare instance, the government agency of Chile has confirmed that one of its helicopters encountered an "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon".

In picture: A screenshot from the video that shows the UFO.Video Screengrab

{ http://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

08-01-2017 om 20:50 geschreven door peter  

Autoriteiten tasten in het duister over ufo boven Chili - HLN.be

Bron: AD.nl

De Chileense autoriteiten hebben een opmerkelijk filmpje van het leger van ruim 9 minuten vrijgegeven waarin een onverklaarbaar vliegend object is te zien. De ufo werd op 11 november 2014 bij daglicht gespot en geregistreerd door een helikopter die een controlemissie vloog boven zee ten westen van de hoofdstad Santiago.

© Wiki.

Experts van de CEFAA - een overheidsorganisatie die merkwaardige verschijnselen in de lucht onderzoekt - hebben twee jaar lang intensief gespeurd naar een verklaring. Omdat die niet is gevonden, zijn de beelden nu openbaar gemaakt. CEFAA-generaal Ricardo Bermúndez, die nauw betrokken was bij het onderzoek, staat voor een raadsel. "We weten niet wat het was, maar we weten wel wat het niet was", meldt hij in een verklaring.

Wat er precies gebeurde op de dag dat het object werd gezien, is uitvoerig beschreven. Aan boord van de legerhelikopter (een Airbus Cougar AS-532) waren een piloot, een legerkapitein en een legertechnicus die tijdens de missie een nieuwe, geavanceerde infraroodcamera zou testen. Het weer was helder, de temperatuur 10 graden Celsius en de vliegsnelheid 152 kilometer per uur. Om 13.52 uur ontdekte de techicus, terwijl het toestel over de kustlijn vloog om de grond te observeren, boven zee een vreemd object. 

Blote oog
De drie mannen konden, zo blijkt uit verklaringen die ze los van elkaar gaven, het raadselachtige ding makkelijk met het blote oog zien. Het vloog op een afstand van circa 65 kilometer bij de heli vandaan. De technicus richtte direct de camera op de ufo, zoomde in terwijl de piloot en legerkapitein contact zochten met twee radarstations op de grond. Die konden wel de heli zien, maar niet het vliegende object. Ook de radars van de heli en de camera registreerden het verschijnsel niet.

Uit een bandopname blijkt dat de helikopterpiloot meermaals heeft geprobeerd tijdens de vlucht contact te maken met de CEFAA. De man gebruikte daarvoor een internationale radiofrequentie die zowel door het leger als burgers mag worden gebruikt. Hij kreeg echter nooit antwoord. Terwijl hij zat te bellen bleef de techicus filmen met als eindresultaat een zwartwit-filmpje van bijna 10 minuten. De beelden tonen zwarte, grijze en witte gebieden die gerelateerd zijn aan verschillende temperaturen. Zwart staat voor heet, grijs voor warm en wit voor koel. 

Omkeren
De drie mannen zouden zich zijn rotgeschrokken van de verschijning. De technicus stopte met filmen toen de heli weer terug moest naar het vliegveld. Tijdens het keren verdween de ufo achter de wolken. Weer op de grond alarmeerden ze de CEFAA die de beelden direct ging onderzoeken. Gedurende die analyse werd ook de heli-crew ondervraagd. "Het zijn goed getrainde, betrouwbare professionals die geen enkele reden hebben om zoiets te verzinnen. Ze hebben iets gezien wat ze niet kunnen verklaren, zo benadrukken ze nog steeds'', aldus Ricardo Bermúndez.

Op de vrijgegeven beelden is te zien dat het object lijkt te bestaan uit twee, door een horizontale as verbonden, ovale of ronde delen die naast warmte mogelijk ook een soort gas, rook of vloeistof produceerden. Volgens de Chileense autoriteiten, die ook nog ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA en andere landen inschakelden, zijn het in geen geval straalmotoren van bijvoorbeeld een vliegtuig, omdat er tijdens de bijzondere waarneming geen andere toestellen in de lucht waren. Ook was geen sprake van een weerballon, bijzondere weersomstandigheden of apparatuur van de heli die onvoldoende functioneerde. 

Het filmpje is volgens de CEFAA reglementen openbaar gemaakt, omdat de organisatie er verder niks mee kan. "Wij weten het niet. Laat het publiek nu maar oordelen", aldus de generaal.

Lees ook

• Vlaanderen ziet bijna de helft minder ufo's: voor 3 waarnemingen was er geen verklaring
• Britse ufo-expert braakte zwarte vloeistof vlak voor zijn mysterieuze dood
• In dit Frans dorpje zijn UFO's officieel verboden
• Dit gebeurt er wanneer je 'geheime' toegangsweg tot beruchte Area 51 uitprobeert

{ http://www.hln.be/ }

08-01-2017 om 20:36 geschreven door peter  

Uniek: er komt een nieuwe ster bij aan de hemel, maar ze bestaat wel al 1.800 jaar - HLN.be

Bron:

• Business Insider;
• The Telegraph;
• National Geographic

© thinkstock.

In de derde eeuw was het hommeles op het Europese vasteland: talrijke oorlogen deden het Romeinse rijk langzaam maar zeker afbrokkelen. Maar niet alleen op aarde stond die periode in het teken van onrust, ook in de ruimte heerste er chaos. Twee sterren botsten met elkaar en veroorzaakten zo een gigantische explosie. Het resultaat daarvan kunnen we binnenkort bewonderen, bijna twee millennia later.

Unieke gebeurtenis

De nieuwe ster zal tevoorschijn komen in de Cygnus-constellatie. 

© rv.

"Voor het eerst in de geschiedenis kunnen ouders naar een donkere vlek in de hemel wijzen en zeggen: 'Kijk kinderen, daar verstopt zich een ster die weldra zal oplichten!'" zo zegt Matt Walhout, astronoom aan het Calvin College in Michigan, waar de voorspelling werd gedaan. "Niemand heeft ooit de geboorte van een ster voorspeld. We denken dat amateur astronomen zullen wedijveren met andere liefhebbers om de ster als eerste te spotten."

Niet alleen is dit een prachtige en unieke gebeurtenis voor sterrenliefhebbers, het is ook een uitgelezen kans voor astronomen om de geboorte van een nieuwe ster van dichtbij mee te maken. De wetenschap kan er alleen maar wel bij varen.

Zes maanden lang zal de zogenoemde 'Boom Star' een van de helderste sterren aan het firmament zijn voor ze geleidelijk aan weer uitdooft. Na twee tot drie jaar zou de ster haar oorspronkelijke helderheid terugkrijgen.

{ http://www.hln.be/ } 

08-01-2017 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

AMAZING! GIANT STAIRCASE FOUND IN ANTARCTICA HAS SPARKED MYSTERY!

{ http://7tales.net/ }

08-01-2017 om 20:13 geschreven door peter  

THE MYSTERIOUS CIVILIZATIONS OF ANCIENT GIANTS

08-01-2017 om 20:09 geschreven door peter  

UFO Over Mountains In Horseshoe Band, Idaho In Great Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: 9-1-2014 but released today
Location of sighting: Horseshoe band, Idaho, USA
Source: MUFON #81381

This is a great capture of a UFO over a small area of Idaho back in 2014, but released today. Smaller UFOs will shoot past and examine any activity that stands out, like a human in a forest area. These smaller UFOs will later gather in a cloudy area and wait to be picked up by the main ship. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states:

This is a short story. I was on Jerusalem Road outside of Horseshoe Bend ID. I stopped to take a picture of the landscape. I saw no planes in the air nor did I hear anything. There were no birds around. Later when I reviewed the picture an object was present. This photo was taken on a Samsung Galaxy 3 Note. A second photo of the same site showed nothing.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 19:41 geschreven door peter  

UFO Over Arizona Causes Reflection Of Itself On Clouds Above, Arizona, Jan 2016, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 6, 2016

Location of sighting: Arizona, USA

This UFO was noticed when the sun lit it up and caused a disk reflection above it on the clouds. Only a metal reflective surface could do this, and as you see, the dark area of the cloud is the actual UFO. The lighter parts are the thin cloud as the sun shines through it. Even cloaked in a cloud, this is clearly a UFO. Below is the negative colors, making the UFO stand out from all its surroundings. Its metallic surface is a different material than anything in the sky or the ground. 
Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-01-2017 om 19:01 geschreven door peter  

07-01-2017 om 15:09 geschreven door peter  

The ultimate evidence: Earth has been visited by intelligent Alien civilizations

It’s very true that humans continue learning throughout their lives, but not only humans, society in general and even perhaps our civilization as one, has strived to evolve and develop through time, and if we have learnt one thing from the past is that we are continuously exploring our past, uncovering the true origin of mankind. As society and civilization on Earth develop, we seek to uncover the enigma of our origin, and just as we strive to understand where we come from, we have always wondered if we are the only ones out there, in the vast cosmos which was believed to be insignificantly small in the distant past when the Earth was believed to be flat, until Pythagoras asserted that our planet isn’t flat but spherical.

Major turnarounds have happened recently, and the best example is Mars.

Not so long ago, it was believed that Mars was a completely dead planet, without water, without any chance of life. Today, thanks to the rovers exploring our neighboring planet we have learnt that not only is Mars much different than what we thought, it has flowing liquid water on its surface, in the distant past, it had huge oceans lakes and rivers on its surface.

So, we continue to learn new things about our planet, solar system and the universe, and as we travel along this galactic path of knowledge we understand that it is very unlikely that we are the only ones out there. Those who have remained skeptical about the possibility of Alien life in the cosmos have changed their views in recent years, and it is very likely that the next major paradigm-shift that will change everything we know about life in the universe is the ultimate proof that life, intelligent life exists beyond Earth.

According to astronomers there could be over 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe that is if you don’t believe in the multiverse theory, which could prove to be another game-changer. Scientists say that the number of planets similar to Earth aren’t that rare as we believed before, and this increases the chance that life cold have developed elsewhere in the cosmos as it did on Earth.

So, what are the chances that Alien life exists, and Earth has been visited?

Well, according to experts in the field, it is nearly impossible that we HAVE NOT been visited by beings not from Earth.

Unrecognizable Alien technology

An intelligent Alien civilization capable of visiting other Solar Systems and galaxies must have very advanced technology at their disposal, technology that goes far beyond anything our civilization has. The chances that this kind of technology is present in our solar system and that we can’t even recognize it is something that according to researchers is a very likely possibility.

According to scientists from the University of Edinburgh there are possibilities that “self-replicating” robotic alien spacecraft are venturing into our solar system. If this turned out to be true, these probes would be product of such highly advanced technology to our understanding, that these probes would literally appear invisible to human perception, researchers said. And it isn’t that far-fetched is it? The idea that somewhere out there are alien civilizations which are so advanced in every aspect, that we could not even see their existence in our reality.

The mathematicians used computing power to inform their predictions, which might not sound out of place in a sci-fi novel. The two mathematicians analyzed the possibility that probes could travel through space in a study published in the Journal of Astrobiology.

In their work, Duncan Forgan and Arwen Nicholson affirm the possibility that highly advanced alien races are taking advantage of the gravitational field of the stars to speed up “their” spacecraft travelling through space. Interestingly, this “technique” would not be something exclusive to highly advanced alien beings: in fact, we use this technology for our own spacecraft. For example, the voyager probes are making use of the gravitational field of the planets to gain speed through space. According to a mathematical analysis, a fleet of alien probes, with highly advanced technology could self-replicate constructing new realities for themselves, making use of cosmic dust and gas, dividing into parent and child probes which would set off to explore a different star, in their goal to look for signs of life and so on in their never-ending journey through the universe.

Unclassified Secret documents about Alien Life

In the last couple of years, a number of secret documents about Alien life and UFOs have become accessible to the general public. These documents are considered by many as the ultimate proof that alien life exists elsewhere in the universe and that we have been visited by beings not from Earth for thousands of years.

NSA Top Secret Document about 29 Alien messages

On October 21, 2004 the National Security Agency (NSA) authorized the release of a then top secret document, NSA Journal Vol. XIV No 1, which is in fact a report presented to the NSA by Dr Howard Campaigne. The report addresses the decoding of extraterrestrial messages that were received from ‘outer space’. To verify the authenticity of the document, visit the following link: https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf which will take you to the official website of the NSA. To download the document click here.

According to reports, the messages were intercepted by the Sputnik satellite but no one had the necessary knowledge to decode them at the time they were received.

FBI and visitations from Beings from other dimensions

In 2011 after some documents were “declassified” a report written by a special agent of the FBI in 1947 reached the public. The special agent of the FBI, a lieutenant colonel whose identity, remained anonymous because of “national security” gather numerous data on the UFO phenomena after interviewing and studying the phenomena for years. According to reports and “Declassified” documents, we have been visited by numbs extraterrestrial species, some of these, are not only from other planets, but from other dimensions. Some of these beings originate from an ethereal plane coexistent with our physical universe. These “entities” that could “materialize” on our planet appeared as giant translucent figures. The official document from the FBI vault can be found by clicking here.

The Top Secret Document Written by Oppenheimer and Einstein:

RELATIONSHIPS WITH INHABITANTS OF CELESTRIAL BODIES

There is a top-secret (now unclassified) document written by Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist, and Albert Einstein, a German theoretical physicist who wrote a report about the “Relationship with Inhabitants of Celestial Bodies”. This enigmatic six-page document is one of the first to make reference to Extraterrestrial Biological Entities and states that the presence of UFOs is something accepted by the military for a long time. (You can read the entire document by clicking here).

Project Blue Book

The Project began in 1947 after a series of UFO sightings that shocked media and people across America. One of those cases that caught the attention of the government was when pilot Kenneth Arnold observed nine unidentified flying objects moving at high speeds through the skies over Washington’s Mount Rainier; a scenario that has not been explained and people today still wonder what happened.

Project Blue Book investigated 12,618 UFO sightings over a period of two decades. Huge amounts of data were collected, researched and analyzed, and even though we can get access to the data, some Ufologists believe that the truth has been hidden even though secret documentation has been declassified.

As a result, from 1947 to 1969, a total of 12, 618 sightings were reported to Project BLUE BOOK, where 90 percent of those sightings were attributed to explainable phenomena, caused by known astronomical phenomena, atmospheric or artificial (man-made) phenomenon, but out of the 12,618 sightings, 701 remain “Unidentified” meaning that there was insufficient information to assign or attribute the event to a known cause.

Surely 701 unexplained cases is a number that has something to say. What are those 701 unidentified cases? Is there a slight possibility that out of those 701 reports, some can be credited to extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth? While project blue book might seem at first as a real initiative that looks into the unexplained sightings over the U.S. some believe that this project is an actual marketing trick, or a public PR campaign created to calm people’s nerves.

If the above documents aren’t enough material to believe in Alien life, we can look at some of the statements made by highly-ranked officials in the military and government.

Official Transcript: How the CIA informed President Reagan about UFO’s

Transcript of Classified Tape Recording Made At Camp David, Maryland

During A Presidential Briefing
RELEASE 27a – Reagan Briefing

Transcript of classified tape recording made at Camp David, Maryland during a presidential briefing regarding the subject of UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS and EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION of EARTH. President RONALD REAGAN was present.

The recording was made between March 6 and 8, 1981. You can read the entire transcript here.

Many have made shocking comments about alien life and omitted information regarding alien life, here below are some of our favorite quotes

“Not every discovery has been announced.”

— Dr. Farouk El Baz, NASA scientist.

In a recent interview, renowned scientist Professor Stephen Hawking said: “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational” (Source)

“I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high.” As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, gray and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn’t look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk. About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me — and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off. It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared.” – Donald Slayton, Mercury astronaut, 1951

It was a little different when James Lovell on board the Apollo 8 command module came out from behind the moon and said for everybody to hear: ‘PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS.’ Even though this happened on Christmas Day 1968, many people sensed a hidden meaning in those words. [B] ‘PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS.’ – Astronaut James Lovell, Apollo 8. December 25th, 1968

“We thought they could have been Russian ¬ we regularly had MiG-15s over flying our base. We scrambled our Sabre jets to intercept and got to our ceiling of 45,000 feet . . . and they were still way above us traveling faster than we were.” “These vehicles were in formation like a fighter group, but they were metallic silver and saucer-shaped. Believe me, they weren’t like any MiGs I’d seen before! They had to be UFOs.” – Major Gordon Cooper

 According to James Godwell, an aerospace journalist who wrote for several publications like Jane’s Defense Weekly, Aviation Week and Space Technology, and Interavia, during some of his interviews with highly ranked individuals in the military and aerospace industry, some of his contacts said “we have things out there that are literally out of this world, better than Star Trek or what you see in the movies.”

You can read more here.

UFO sightings of the past: the Ultimate Ancient Alien Evidence

According to experts, the Vedas speak about two categories of flying objects that visited ancient India in the distant past. These mysterious objects are described in Sanskrit writing, where you can find incredible devices and technologies that were not supposed to be present on our planet for thousands of years. In the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and the Ramayanas, we find more descriptions of mysterious devices that surpass technological understanding of ancient man.

The descriptions of highly advanced vehicles found in ancient texts are both incredible and confusing. In the ancient book of the Vaimanika Shastra or the Science of Aeronautics, there are texts which speak about crafts that are literally controlled with our minds, made possible because of extremely advanced technology which has been kept away from society in modern times.

According to Dr. V. Raghavam, a well-known a Sanskrit scholar and musicologist, who authored over 120 books and 1200 articles, ancient Indian texts speak about humans that lived on other planets and alien beings that visited our ancestors thousands of years ago. Dr. V. Raghavam won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sanskrit in 1966.

We quote Dr. Raghavan:

“Fifty years of researching this ancient work convinces me that there are living beings on other planets, and that they were visiting the earth as far back as 4000 B.C.”

He further explains:

“There is a just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons, that can be found in translations of the Vedas (scriptures), Indian epics, and other ancient Sanskrit text”.

Ancient Egypt and the Tulli papyrus: Evidence of a massive UFO sighting

In Ancient Egypt the Tulli papyrus tells an incredible story of a mass UFO sightings. It is believed that this ancient document, which in fact isn’t a papyrus actually, offers the earliest citation of flying saucers on the planet. The Tulli “papyrus” is a translation of a modern transcription of an ancient Egyptian document:

“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day […] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor. Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice. It came toward His Majesty’s house. Their heart became confused through it, and they fell upon their bellies. They [went] to the king, to report it. His Majesty [ordered that] the scrolls [located] in the House of Life be consulted. His Majesty meditated on all these events which were now going on.

After several days had passed, they became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shined in the sky more than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of heaven […] Powerful was the position of the Fiery Disks.

The army of the King looked on, with His Majesty in their midst. It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and other volatiles rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country. And His Majesty caused incense to be brought to appease the heart of Amun-Re, the god of the Two Lands. And it was [ordered] that the event [be recorded for] His Majesty in the Annals of the House of Life [to be remembered] forever.”

In Roman history numerous mysterious objects were reported in the sky. In 154 BC, in modern-day Italy people from the north reported seeing countless objects flying in the sky. In 217, people witnessed shiny disks- resembling shields in the sky. These mysterious UFO’s were reported in many parts of Europe not only over modern-day Italy. In 214 BC, Roman historian Livy wrote about ‘phantom ships gleaming in the sky.’

{ http://www.ancient-code.com/ }

07-01-2017 om 15:07 geschreven door peter  

Aliens Existence: The Undeniable Proof that we are not Alone in the Universe

Photo Credits: via conspiracyclub.co

Wikileak’s founder Julian Assange recently got the attention of the world when he mentions the site plans to publish leaked cables that reference UFOs. Believe it or not, WikiLeaks released secret cables that disclosed information about ETs in our solar system and hardly anybody battered an eyelid!

The documents offered hints about aliens and extraterrestrial presence. NASA has been accused of hiding alien life. However, with the release of the new evidence, would they accept the fact that we are not alone in the universe?

If all goes as planned, we will meet aliens in a decade or two! Wikileaks documents did not mention any people from the government or agencies that have deceived us and have implicated in the cover-up, but it did tell us all one crucial thing, way before NASA breathed a word and that is the existence of extra-terrestrial beings.

We’re already halfway through 2013 and the world continues to wake up to the fact that we are not alone in the universe. This year alone we’ve seen a tremendous step forward regarding UFO disclosure.  In early May, researchers, activists, political leaders and high ranking military/agency personnel from around the world testified to the reality of the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon in front of several former United States members of congress. To watch an interview with the former 2008 presidential candidate and ex-congressman Mike Gravel (who participated in the hearings) click here.  You can watch interviews with all of the senators that participated in the event here.

For more CE articles on the subject of UFOs and extraterrestrials, click HERE.

Prior to the recent hearing on UFOs and extraterrestrial life, we’ve had explosive statements made by NASA astronauts and professors, you can watch some of those statements here and here. Not only has the world heard from all of these credible people, its also been privy to official documentation released by dozens of governments worldwide that outline the reality of the UFO phenomenon. Documents indicate that UFOs are of concern to governments, and they put a significant amount of  time, effort and resources into studying them. Apart from governments, agencies like the National Security Agency also released official files regarding UFOs, you can view some of these previously classified documents here.

It’s now a fact that UFOs are tracked on radar, performing maneuvers that defy our idea of physics. Jets are constantly scrambled to take a closer look at them. This is no longer a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact. Release of files began early in 2007 with the UK, among others. Since then they’ve released thousands of pages every year, with the latest ones published in June 2013 made available at the UK’s National Archives. You can view them here.

Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.

—Former CIA Director, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960.

 

The UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon is extremely top secret, access to this type of documentation and the deeper truth behind it is almost impossible. CIA directors, presidents and other high ranking officials barely have any access to these programs. That being said, all of the information that’s already out in the public domain is overwhelming. It makes you wonder how far down the rabbit hole this topic goes.

As most of the world today already knows, Wikileaks is an international, online, non-profit organization that publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified material from anonymous sources. They’ve been a tremendous threat to the controlling elite for a number of years, and have gained the attention of major mainstream media outlets worldwide. For the most part, these mainstream media outlets have bashed Assange, pointing to the idea that the release of classified documents is a threat to national security. That’s not true, it’s more like a threat to the truth that the elite try to cover up on a daily basis that would threaten their ability to control the human race.

Since a large amount of official documentation has already been released, documents from the Wikileaks cables shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Assange has already mentioned that there are yet to be published cables that make reference to UFOs. This is no joke, below are quotations taken from official transcripts via the official Wikileak cables. You can view it here: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10DUSHANBE82.html

On January 13 Ambassador called on Dushanbe Mayor and Chairman of the upper house of Parliament Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev at his parliamentary office. The Mayor began the meeting with a lengthy discourse on Afghanistan, thanking the United States for its contributions and sacrifices there, and saying that U.S. activities there were very important “as we enter the third millennium and the 21st century.” Ubaidulloev thought the main task there was to build a sense of national identity among ethnically disparate groups, and said the United States was an example for this. He noted that “war is very dangerous”, and said “we know there is life on other planets, but we must make peace here first.

In a platitude-ridden meeting, Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev said upcoming elections would be free and fair, that contributions to the Roghun Dam were voluntary, and that the losses suffered by the United States in Afghanistan were felt by Tajiks as their own. Ubaidulloev asked for help in getting Tajik students admitted to Harvard University, but effectively declined to help find a new location for an American Corner in Dushanbe. He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth. End Summary.

Not only do these cables raise an eyebrow, but a statement given by Julian Assange himself raises the need for further inquiry. The audio on the video is delayed. What points to this interview being real? For one, if you can read lips it’s not hard to follow. Secondly, it sounds exactly like Julian. Thirdly, multiple mainstream media outlets (Telegraph, CBS news and more) published the original version of the video which was taken down immediately. One of the mainstream media outlets was Forbes, you can view that poorly written article here in which you will see access to the video has been cut off. Articles written by major media outlets are usually very poor, and do their best to ridicule the subject of UFOs.  The original version had perfect audio, the same sound and was in the same setting.

“I have said in passing there is information about UFOs in Cablegate. And that is true, but these are only small passing references. Most of the material concerns UFO cults, and their behaviour in recruiting people. For instance, there is quite a large cable, which we’ll try and release in the next few days, concerning the Raelians, a UFO cult which has a strong presence in Canada and was of concern to the U.S. ambassador in Canada – Julian Assange”

It’s not surprising that that the U.S. ambassador in Canada was concerned with this group. High level agencies are also concerned with abductees and ET contactees. Their mail is stamped in a special way, they are constantly surveyed by army intelligence, phone tapping and are also confronted by ‘men in black’ (intelligence officers). Agencies that are active in the UFO phenomenon keep close tabs on UFO/extraterrestrial activity outside of their sphere of influence. That being said, again, it’s no surprise that the U.S. ambassador had an interest in this ‘UFO cult.’ Anything extraterrestrial would be a concern to the elite, as they are the ones active in the cover up.

We are living in an extremely unique time, our world has become much more transparent than ever before. One aspect of multiple realizations is the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon, but it seems to branch into every aspect of our reality depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Our perception of life on other planets largely comes from external sources like television programming. As a result, many are filled with fear when giving thought to this subject. Hopefully as we move through the shift in consciousness the planet is currently experiencing, fear will dissipate as it will no longer serve the human race. This is undoubtedly one of the largest realizations in human history. The only thing that goes beyond it, in my opinion, is the realization of humanities infinite potential to create a new experience from a place of peace, love, co-operation and understanding.

“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon.” – Dr Brian O’leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)

“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time” Apollo 14 Astronaut (source # 1) (source # 2)

“Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about the direction we were heading and offered to help. Instead, some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after. It is ironic that the US should be fighting monstrously expensive wars, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on black projects which both congress and the commander in chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.” –

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via Collective-evolution.com, wikileaks.org, forbes.com, ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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07-01-2017 om 15:06 geschreven door peter