The Fermi Paradox Revisited

If we haven’t heard from extraterrestrials, maybe it’s because we’re not using the right technology—yet

The Fermi Paradox is one of the major unanswered questions in astrobiology. It started with physicist Enrico Fermi, who in 1950 asked his co-workers over lunch: “Where are they?” What he meant was intelligent extraterrestrials. If there are billions and billions of stars and probably even more planets, why have we not already been in contact with extraterrestrial (ET) civilizations?

This is even more puzzling since our Sun and Earth are relatively young, meaning that life could have originated on other worlds long before it did here, and intelligent beings on those planets could easily be millions of years ahead of us.

There are two principle answers to the paradox: The alien civilizations are (1) present but for some reason we can’t detect them, or (2) they simply are not there, or at least not in our vicinity. In regard to the first option, Star Trek’s prime directive comes to mind, or perhaps a scientific variation of the Zoo hypothesis (aliens don’t interfere with us because we are an unstable emerging civilization).

There are in fact so many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox that whole books are written about it. Nevertheless, assuming aliens are around us, shouldn’t there be some evidence? Well, not necessarily. Carl Sagan pointed out that if an ET civilization is far ahead of us, their actions would appear to us as magic. Just imagine us flying a spy drone over our Stone Age ancestors!

What about the so-called UFO sightings that we astrobiologists are sometimes asked about (see, for example, the top UFO cases of 2012 as judged by the Mutual UFO Network). On one hand, I believe that we scientists are sometimes too dismissive of eyewitness reports, and too quick to rationalize them away as natural phenomena or hallucinations. On the other hand, we rely on the scientific method, and reported sightings are not reproducible events that we can test in the laboratory.

What about the second answer—that aliens simply do not exist? The Drake equation, which is usually used to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the universe, includes a term for the probability of life originating on a planet. If this term is near zero, the number of expected ET civilizations is near zero. Usually we assume that life on Earth was not a singular event, and that it would have happened elsewhere under similar conditions, but we don’t know for sure. We still don’t know how life occurred on Earth, and what ingredients were needed. It’s possible that the rise of intelligent civilizations is such a rare event that the next civilization with our kind of technology is thousands or even millions of light years away.

Or perhaps there’s another possibility, which I raised once at a SETI meeting when we were examining the question of why we haven’t had a positive detection yet. Imagine using a walkie-talkie in modern New York, and wondering why no one responds on your frequency. It’s because everyone is on Facebook or Twitter! So it might be with ET, who may be using technology well advanced of our own.

{ http://www.airspacemag.com/ }

06-02-2017 om 12:18 geschreven door peter  

Interstellar travel, a timeworn staple of science fiction, can already be science fact if one has cash to spare. For just $100 million or so, a customer could actually purchase a top-of-the-line commercial rocket and ride right out of the solar system. But patience would be key. If launched tomorrow toward the nearest port of call—Proxima b, a potentially habitable Earth-mass planet recently discovered in the triple star system of Alpha Centauri about four light-years away—that rocket would take 80,000 years to arrive.

Instead of spending $100 million on a slow boat to the stars, in April of last year the billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner announced he would use that same sum to forge a new path to Alpha Centauri within a human lifetime. Called Breakthrough Starshot, the initiative calls for largely abandoning rockets in favor of “light sails”—gossamer-thin reflective sheets that, once unfolded in space, could be propelled to very high speeds by laser beams. Starshot’s tentative plans involve using conventional rockets to place thousands of one-gram, four-meter-wide light sails in Earth orbit as early as the 2040s. Each sail would be embedded with a one-centimeter-wide chip containing cameras, sensors, thrusters and a battery. From Earth orbit, each featherweight spacecraft would be boosted toward Alpha Centauri at 20 percent light-speed by a minutes-long pulse from a ground-based, 100-gigawatt laser array. The interstellar crossing would take just a little over 20 years, so the probes could reach Alpha Centauri in the 2060s.

But such high speeds come at a high price. Even the most conservative cost estimates for Starshot far exceed Milner’s initial $100-million investment—the multi-decadal project could easily consume $10 billion, and perhaps much more, largely due to the enormous expense of building the ground-based laser array. Government assistance and international collaboration would likely be required. Moreover, the light sails that survive the 20-year voyage would pass through the Centauri system in a flash, moving so fast they would have only seconds to capture high-quality close-up images and other data from Proxima b and any neighboring planets that may be there. As they fall deeper into the dark between the stars, the light sails would attempt to transmit their precious findings back to Earth using laser beams no more powerful than the signal from a typical cell phone.

A SLOWER SAIL TO THE STARS

Some critics say these problems make Starshot’s rush to Alpha Centauri look like a poor investment. “When we read about [Starshot], we found it wasteful to spend so much money on a flyby mission which is en route for decades, while the time for a few snapshots is only seconds,” says Michael Hippke, an independent researcher in Germany. Working with René Heller, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Hippke has developed an alternative mission profile that he says could offer greater scientific returns for a fraction of the cost. Rather than using multibillion-dollar laser arrays to boost small light sails to relativistic speeds for one-time flybys, Heller and Hippke propose using starlight alone to send larger sails on more leisurely journeys that would take them to all three stars in the Alpha Centauri system and leave them parked in orbits there. Their findings appear in the February 1 edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The crux of their proposal is not only to use sunlight to accelerate outbound light sails, but also rely on the light and gravitation of Alpha Centauri’s triple stars at journey’s end. Heller and Hippke have calculated that a mind-bogglingly low-density sail weighing approximately 100 grams but spread across 100,000 square meters (that’s about 15 football fields!) could do the trick. Such a sail’s construction appears possible, based on rapid progress in material science. Incrementally adjusting its angle as it approaches to soak up more radiation pressure from the stars, that sail could bleed off enough speed to be captured into orbit within the system.

To reach the potentially habitable planet Proxima b, these “photogravitational” assists counterintuitively require first sending the light sail swooping blisteringly close to the bright, sunlike stars Alpha Centauri A and B—even though they are nearly two trillion kilometers farther from us than Proxima b’s smaller, dimmer host star, Proxima Centauri. This is because the greater radiation pressure from Alpha Centauri A and B provides more deceleration, and thus a faster approach, for any light sail targeting the system. But the twin stars’ radiation pressure has its limits; if Heller’s and Hippke’s 100,000-square-mter light sail came in any faster than 4.6 percent light-speed, it would simply overshoot the system. All together, they envision their sail’s journey to Alpha Centauri A and B taking nearly a century, followed by another half-century voyage to the final destination—a stable orbit around Proxima.

 

“You would need to travel about seven times as long as Starshot’s 20-year mission, but in return you would get years or decades of close-up exploration instead of only seconds,” Heller says. Comparing the ratio of exploration time with travel time for both cases, Heller adds, “Starshot could use one hundred-millionth of the mission’s lifetime for in situ science whereas we could use of the order of one hundredth—or about a million times more.” Plus, by using sunlight to launch the sail, the new proposal obviates the need for a multibillion-dollar gigawatt-scale laser array.

Even so, their proposed 150-year voyage could not start tomorrow. Heller’s and Hippke’s proposal utilizes a rare configuration of Alpha Centauri’s stars that only occurs once every 80 years, when their orbits all align in a plane that intersects the trajectory of any incoming probe from our own solar system. Alpha Centauri’s 80-year triple-alignment next occurs in 2035, far too soon for any conceivable light sail from Earth to be anywhere close to the system; instead, Heller and Hippke suggest it might be more realistic to target the subsequent alignment, in 2115.

As far-off as that is, the timing could be much worse, Heller says: Sending their sail directly to Proxima Centauri would demand much slower interstellar speeds due to the smaller star’s weaker radiation pressure and braking ability, raising the total travel time to nearly a millennium.

PATIENCE, PLEASE

For Hippke, a multigenerational mission ending in orbit around Alpha Centauri would be worth the wait, even if he would never see its returns. “Our children and grandchildren will receive the amazing photos from these space probes. Imagine alien rivers, volcanoes and perhaps exotic life!” Opting for a mission with a century timescale also opens possibilities for exploring other nearby bright stars, Hippke says. The massive star Sirius, for example, is just over twice as far away as Alpha Centauri—but because it shines some 25 times brighter than our sun, it offers a stronger radiation-pressure braking effect, allowing light sails to approach at much higher speeds. If nothing else, the possibility of sending light sails to orbit many nearby stars suggests a natural next-generation, longer-term follow-up to Starshot’s more urgent mission goals.

Despite these perks, Avi Loeb, an astronomer at Harvard University and chair of Breakthrough Starshot’s Scientific Advisory Committee, remains unconvinced this alternative proposal offers realistic advantages over Starshot’s plan to use gigawatt-class lasers to boost smaller sails to the stars. “In using starlight to reach relativistic speeds, one must use an extremely thin sail,” Loeb says, noting that the weaker push of sunlight calls for a correspondingly lower-density light sail. Hippke and Heller say their sail could in theory be constructed from low-weight, high-strength material such as graphene, but Loeb questions whether making and using a few-atoms-thick 100,000-square-meter sheet of graphene for an interstellar probe would actually be any easier than building a massive laser array. “Such a surface is orders of magnitude thinner than the wavelength of light that it aims to reflect, and so its reflectivity would be low,” Loeb says. “It does not appear feasible to reduce the weight by so many orders of magnitude and yet maintain the rigidity and reflectivity of the sail’s material.” In other words, a 100,000-square-meter graphene sail could prove far too flimsy to actually fly. Additionally, Starshot plans to fly thousands of sails, not just one—even if each successful interstellar crossing yielded only a few seconds of close-up observations, they could quickly accrue across multiple successive flybys.

Perhaps the biggest issue, Loeb says, is whether ambitious plans for multigenerational projects can really survive their inescapable encounters with human mortality. “If one ignores the duration of the journey, one can always use conventional rockets and reach Alpha Centauri in 80,000 years for a very modest cost,” he says. “But the people who work on Starshot are more ambitious. We want to get there within our lifetime.”

{ https://www.scientificamerican.com/ }

06-02-2017 om 12:11 geschreven door peter  

ALLEGED APOLLO 20 CIGAR UFO FINALLY FOUND IN A MOON CRATER ON GOOGLE EARTH MAP

06-02-2017 om 12:03 geschreven door peter  

Hundreds Of Glowing Pillars Over Korean City On TV News, Feb 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 5, 2017
Location of sighting: Busan, Korea
News source: http://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0115_201702051732556673

Pillar lights were seen over a Korean city this week. Similar pillar lights have been seen all over the world for unknown reasons. Scientists try to explain it, but it seems few scientists can settle down on one theory and this amazing and beautiful phenomenon continues to go unexplained. I will place another video with pillar lights from around the world below to compare. Could they be caused by a fleet of UFOs? Or are they light beings, watching over an area together? Maybe, but it looks natural, like the Aurora Borealis. Like its a cosmic connection between the Earth and the rest of the universe. I am however worried...about it being caused by CERN. The last thing we want is a black hole to form that would eat the earth from inside out. This could be CERN messing around again. 
Scott C. Waring

News states: 
Unidentified flying objects in Busan night sky, columns of light like UFO appear, and it is gone for a long time.
There are many speculations among the citizens, but it is the explanation of the refraction phenomenon of light caused by squid fishing boats with strong lighting.

Reporter Kim Jongho.

Something shaped like a pillar appeared in the night sky.
Over ten pillars remain in the same place over time.
The so-called 'light pillars' in Busan on the last three nights.

A lot of citizens witnessed the sea.
[Preferential w / Busan Munhyun-dong: It's growing in convex lens form. So this is not an object or something, but I thought it was where the light was reflected or something.]
By the way, Moonhyun-dong was located at the back of Pusan ​​Hangang Bridge, at Dongzam-dong National Maritime Museum, and at Yeongju-dong Observatory at Yeongdo-dong Observatory.
Along with the sightings spread to the SNS, there were also citizens who were worried about UFO, Aurora, and "Analysis of Disaster".
However, the Meteorological Agency explained that it is a phenomenon caused by the strong lighting on the squid fishing boat and the ice crystal, an ice crystal in the clouds.
[Eum Ki-cheol / Busan Regional Weather Bureau: (squid grilled pear) Reflecting on the cloud or something like that, from the side we see, the light is said to be a 'light pole' because it looks like a pole.

Experts explain that this phenomenon is sometimes seen on the east coast, where squid catches are frequent, even if not frequently.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

06-02-2017 om 11:53 geschreven door peter  

Helicopter follows and waits patiently for UFO to leave the area In Palm Springs, Feb 4, 2017, UFO Sighting News.

 

These are two examples of real UFO sightings at Palm Springs, but not the one from this report.

Date of sighting: February 4, 2017
Location of sighting: Palm Springs, California, USA
Source: MUFON #81924

Wow, I read this report and I really wish I was in Palm Springs to see it. This guy saw a helicopter hunting a red orb UFO that had landed on the mountain top. Of course the helicopter can only watch and wait for the aliens to get the message to leave. I included two photos above of past UFO sightings in Palm Springs, because the report didn't come with one. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

In my front yard checking my security camera. We have the Palm Springs mountain directly across from our home and often look up at it when the moon is out because of the glow from the moon on the snow I enjoy. What I saw first was a helicopter flying around the top of the mountain by the arial tramway.(we have request reports of missing hikers on the mountain)and when I saw the helicopter shining a spot light on the mountain,I though they were looking for someone,and went inside and got my wife to outside and take a look. I was in the Marine Corp with a helo squardren as a medic and got to see quite a few different styles of helicopter so I knew what I was looking at, especially after I heard the rotors of the helicopter and the search light. I then went inside and got my field telescope to see what was going on.

The helicopter seem very focused on the one particular area but did fly around to different spots. The area they focused on when I zoomed in on the area I saw a large red sphere that remained on. The helicopter never shined the light directly on the object but behind and to the right side of it. I assumed it was a team of people maybe rescue crews looking for others? I made a comment to my wife about how skilled this pilot must have been,I had an outstanding view of the helicopter even at 7 pm in the evening and because it really isn't that far from our home.the pilot remained absolutely still in midair over the object for very long periods of time without moving at all,completely stationary.and that was on the side of the mountain about 10,100 feet up, 400 feet from the very top of the mountain by the tram itself.

My wife had a few looks of it too and we still were wondering what on earth was going on up there. I made a few comments as time was going by like how very strange this all was,was this a downed plane? I brought the tripod and telescope closer to end of the property in my front yard to get even closer look and to my absolute astonishment as I was looking at the helicopter shining the spotlight again,this sphere changed different colors first white then light blue then red again and paused changing colors. With my wife right beside me and as I was looking through the scope the red sphere changed shape, flattened like a pancake and from the exact spot it was on flew straight to the right due north with the helicopter observing it,it traveled about a quarter of a mile then stopped changed direction and traveled due south and disappeared out of view. It wasn't flying fast at all more like a controlled glide.

It observed flat from the side but as I was able to keep it in view with the telescope I could clearly see 3 lights, 2 brilliant red (like rubies) the front and rear and a smaller white on the side, the object appeared see through and triangular in shape and when observing it,it had a dreamlike quality to it, it was exceptionally beautiful to look at and it never made a sound.As I'm writing this seeing how it happened less than 2 hours ago I'm absolutely amazed at what I saw,my wife got to view this object and the helicopter also but didn't see the object change color or shape as I witnessed. I have mixed feeling,shock comes to mind,I never thought in a million years that the red object that we were observing would actually take flight and fly away. We lost sight of it as it went behind the lower edge of the mountain going south with the helicopter still flying around the top of the mountain by the Tram. I wonder now, we're they looking for occupants on the side of the mountain? I will submitted a drawing if asked. An added noted note: Palm Springs Tramway is a very popular attraction during the winter months here.

When we were observing the helicopter flying around and then seeing the red sphere the tramway that runs every fifteen minutes with a trolling going up and coming down the mountain,not one cable car came up or down the mountain,chances are for the length of time we were looking we would have seen one of the cable cars or both. Also during the entire event through the telescope we saw different (teams?) of people with high powered flashlights trying to get over to where the helicopter was shining the spot light by this object but with the recent snow fall from storms weren't having much luck,or so it seemed.

Thank you

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

06-02-2017 om 11:49 geschreven door peter  

UFO sighting caught on tape over Whitby, Canada 4-Feb-2017

This UFO video of a bright objects hovering in the sky above Whitby, ON, Canada was filmed on Saturday, 4th February 2017.

Witness report:

 Observed 5-6 pulsing lights moving slowly back and forth low in sky 30+km away from position. At approximately 9 -10 p.m on February 4th 2017 on Ashburn Rd. In Whitby,Ontario we first observed 4 lights, 3 of which in rough triangle formation viewed head on to west of position while driving. Stopped to observe objects and took approx. 1.30 min video. Observed objects hovering and moving lazily in no specific flight path. Objects(5-6) appeared to pulse and glow with orange/yellow light ONLY when hovering.Would dim considerably when moving. Two objects appeared to “exchange” light or energy with one dimming and the other brightening in close proximity. Objects also appeared to “fly” in very close proximity on purpose with no apparent regard to their proximity. Objects would move from hovering position approx. North of first position and back and forth in an indeterminate manner almost “lazily”. Observed this for approximately 1.5 hours. Dimmer lights appeared to travel north and back to original position. At first we thought the objects could be helicopters or planes but we observed them glowing and dimming and doing odd, lazy movements in sky approx. 50° to 60° over horizon. No spotlights seen. Objects appeared to have red and green lights when dim. Felt that objects were NOT normal aircraft due to odd behaviour. Was exhilarated at prospect of encountering unknown objects in sky never having seen anything like it before. Did not feel any particular negative feelings, just that we were seeing something unusual. Attempted to move to higher ground to observe objects more clearly. Watched them in two positions over approx. 1 hour. As far as we know we were the only people to observe this event. Never truly lost sight of objects and left after 1.5 hours as it was late and we were tired.

Author (source: MUFON)

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

06-02-2017 om 11:40 geschreven door peter  

How New Hubble Telescope Views Could Aid Interstellar Travel

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have gotten their best looks yet at the mysterious interstellar clouds surrounding the solar system, a new study finds.

These observations could shed light on the challenges that future interstellar missions dispatched to the nearest stars might face, the researchers said.

In 2012, NASA's Voyager 1 probe crossed the so-called heliopause — the giant bubble of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields surrounding the sun — and, in the process, became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched in 1977, giving the world some of its first good looks at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and the moons of these planets. [Photos from NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 Probes]

NASA notes that Voyager 1 and 2 are currently zipping through space at roughly 38,000 mph (61,000 km/h). Voyager 1 is about 12.8 billion miles (20.6 billion kilometers) from Earth, making it the farthest human-made object ever built. In about 40,000 years, it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis, the agency says. 

Voyager 2 hasn't entered interstellar space yet; it's about 10.5 billion miles (17 billion km) from Earth, NASA says. In 40,000 years, the probe will pass within 1.7 light-years of the star Ross 248, the agency says.

The two Voyager spacecraft remain in contact with Earth through NASA's Deep Space Network of telecommunications links. The probes are still collecting data that scientists can analyze to learn more about the interstellar medium — the clouds of gas and dust that lie between the stars. The interstellar medium holds the building blocks of stars and planets, and is replenished when stars and planets die.

In the future, the $100 million Breakthrough Starshot project, unveiled in 2016, aims to launch tiny spacecraft to the nearest star system to the sun, Alpha Centauri. It consists of three stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B and a small red dwarf named Proxima Centauri. Recently, astronomers discovered that Proxima Centauri hosts a small, potentially habitable rocky planet, raising scientists' hopes that Starshot might be able to send probes to an alien world in our lifetimes.

These new projects and discoveries make any data that the two Voyager spacecraft gather on the interstellar medium potentially key for exploration, the researchers said.

"It's important for us to be aware of what kinds of objects are present beyond our solar system, since we are now beginning to think about potential interstellar space missions, such as Breakthrough Starshot," said study lead author Julia Zachary, an undergraduate astronomy student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

To learn more about the interstellar medium, Zachary and her colleagues examined data that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope collected regarding the same interstellar gas and dust that Voyager 1 and 2 are currently analyzing.

"An analogy we like to use is that of Google Maps," Zachary told Space.com. "If the Voyager spacecraft are the Google Maps cars going around neighborhoods, taking pictures and giving you the street view, then Hubble provides the overview."

Until 2015, Hubble had not gazed at any nearby stars lying along the paths of the Voyager spacecraft. The scientists used Hubble to analyze the light from these stars to learn more about the interstellar clouds the radiation passed through.

The scientists discovered at least two interstellar clouds along Voyager 2's path, and one or two interstellar clouds along Voyager 1's path. They were also able to measure the density of electrons in the clouds along Voyager 2's path, and found that one had a greater electron density than the other.

"We think the difference in electron density perhaps indicates a difference in composition of overall density of the clouds," Zachary said.

In addition, the researchers successfully detected a broad range of elements in the interstellar medium, such as electrically charged ions of magnesium, iron, carbon and manganese. They also detected neutrally charged oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen.

All in all, "we think the Voyager spacecraft are moving into a very rich and complex interstellar environment," Zachary said.

Zachary and her colleagues Seth Redfield, an associate professor in the Wesleyan University Department of Astronomy; and Jeffrey Linsky, a research professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, detailed their findings Jan. 6 at the 229th American Astronomical Society meeting in Grapevine, Texas.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Hubble in Pictures: Astronomers' Top Picks (Photos)
• Gallery: Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel
• Voyager Welcomed To Interstellar Space | Video

{ http://www.space.com/ }

06-02-2017 om 01:37 geschreven door peter  

Fast radio bursts now a bit less mysterious

The dishes of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array depicted making the first-ever localization of a Fast Radio Burst. 

Danielle Futselaar [www.artsource.nl]

For as long as astronomers have known about Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), they’ve been stumped. About a decade ago, researchers discovered in archived 2001 data an extremely fast — just a few milliseconds — burst of radio emissions. They’d never seen anything like it before, and didn’t know where it came from or what could cause it.

Finally, we’re starting to get a few answers.

Astronomers announced today at the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society that, for the first time, they’d pinpointed the origins of one of these FRBs: a small dwarf galaxy about 2.5 billion light-years away. Today’s news, which is also detailed in articles in Nature and The Astrophysical Journal Letters, also found a new source of persistent, weaker radio emissions nearby; presumably the two are related but it’s not clear.

It’s big step in the study of the cosmos, but we’ve still got a ways to go before we fully understand FRBs.

Seeing Clearly

The first break came in 2012, when the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico detected the first-ever repeating FRB, dubbed FRB 121102 (after the date of the first detection, Nov. 02, 2012). Before that, each one had been a single, one-off event. That alone was instructive: FRBs (or this one, at least) must not be the result of cataclysmic events, since something was still around to send the repeated signals. But even better, it meant other observatories could look in the same area to try to spot future repeat. It was “A good place to go fishing,” said lead author Shami Chatterjee of Cornell.

Luckily, the universe obliged.

“The FRB was extremely generous to us,” said Casey Law of UC Berkeley, one of the co-authors, because the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observed a total of 9 bursts in its 83 hours of observing time in 2016. This narrowed down FRB 121102’s origins considerably, but still not enough. Subsequent observations from around the world, in radio and visual light spectra, found the source galaxy, in the direction of Auriga. Finally, we learned for sure FRBs (or, at least, this one) originated outside the galaxy, as had been suspected.

These observations also revealed a steady source of radio emissions within 100 light-years of the FRB’s precise location. The two could be results of the same process, or be otherwise related, but the answers will have to wait until more observations come in.

Start of Something Big

So, mystery solved, right? Not quite. We still don’t know what actually causes FRBs, but at least now astronomers have some improved hypotheses. One option is a variety of exotic star, a highly magnetic kind of neutron star, which could cause just the right kind of emissions astronomers are seeing. Another possibility is a massive black hole within FRB 121102’s host galaxy, which could cause the radio signals.

Still, the scientists cautioned, this is still just a single data source. It’s still the only known repeating FRB, after all; maybe there are multiple types of FRB, or this particular one is just an outlier.

But that’s good news! “New mysteries in astronomy are somewhat rare,” Sarah Burke-Spolaor of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, so FRBs are increasingly becoming the exciting new thing. There are more hypothesized models causing FRBs than actual detected bursts, said Chatterjee, “a great situation for us to be in.”

With any luck, the next few years will answer more of these questions — and pose new ones.

This post originally appeared on Discover.

06-02-2017 om 01:21 geschreven door peter  

How the Voyagers and Hubble work together to map the final frontier

WikiMedia Commons

It’s not just a cloudy day somewhere here on Earth. For Hubble, it’s always a cloudy day along the paths of the Voyagers 1 and 2.

Mind you, Hubble can’t see the car-sized probes that far out. But Hubble has actively been working with the Voyager probes to measure and define interstellar space.

The results are … weird.

“It looks like in our local neighborhood, there’s a big blob of stuff,” Julia Zachary, an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, said in a press conference at the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. “That’s actually a cloud of interstellar dust.”

Those clouds extend out for several light-years. Voyagers 1 and 2 are headed in separate directions. When Hubble glances in the direction of each probe, it uses four total stars as guide posts. For Voyager one, those stars are Gliese 686 and Gliese 676A. For Voyager 2, that’s Gliese 780 and Gliese 754.

The Voyagers use their still-operational instruments to measure interactions between “outward moving solar wind and inward pressure from the interstellar medium.” Optically, Hubble can characterize what the materials in the path are.

The Hubble telescope’s images reveal that the clouds of dust can obscure the view of stars, dimming them in the same way a cloudy day on Earth can blot out the Sun. This is a problem for Gliese 754, the dimmest of the stars at 12th magnitude.

“Unfortunately we’ve had some trouble detecting magnitude features from (Gliese 754),” Zachary says.

There’s only a few years left to make these kinds of studies. The Voyagers are currently the only operational probes at or near the edge of interstellar space, but the decay of the Plutonium-238 inside each craft will reach a half-life within a decade that will dampen the ability of power output to match up with spacecraft needs. Even now, only the lowest power instruments, like the magnetometers and particle detectors, are online. After the P-238 energy is exhausted, the Voyagers will likely go dark.

The Voyagers are some of NASA’s oldest operating spacecraft. But be careful how you put that.

“Well … they’re not old,” Zachary said. “They’re only 40. It’s old for a space craft, let’s put it that way."

06-02-2017 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-02-2017 om 01:07 geschreven door peter  

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-02-2017 om 01:02 geschreven door peter  

UFO Hotspot Has Another Mass Sighting

 MJ Banias

Devon county in England has been a hotbed of UFO activity. The sighting a few days ago only lends more fuel to the fire. Why do the people who live in Devon see so many strange objects in the sky?

Ever since the 12th century, when religious pilgrims reported seeing a glowing dragon emerge from the sea and disappear into the sky, the entire southwest of England has had many a strange sighting. The most recent sighting occurred only a few days ago, when Mark Emmins, a musician, spotted the object over the town of Exmouth. He wrote on his Facebook page,

It stood still in the sky for some hours and then decided to move and then vanish. We got photos too.

The photographs were taken by Tyron Osborne, a friend of Emmins. They noted that the object hovered for several hours until it eventually moved eastward out of sight.

In July of 2016, John Mooner spotted a strange orange object hovering over his town of Newton Abbot. He grabbed his Nikon camera, and snapped several images. John Mooner stated in an interview with The Plymouth Herald,

The object was definitely not any type of known aircraft. The object was glowing bright orange and had a white pulsing light on the top left side. The object was large and just hung there silently over the housing estate it gave me the creeps.

Photo taken by John Mooner

In September of 2016, residents in Exmouth witnessed two triangular objects being chased by a helicopter. Multiple witnesses came forward with the same story. One of the witnesses, a serving soldier, told reporters,

I believe I have seen the same thing. On hearing the sound of a helicopter I looked out to see if it was another police chopper. I am a serving soldier and I can say I’ve never seen anything move in the way these objects were.

Perhaps one of the most famous cases out of the Devon area occurred in 1967. Known as the Devon Flying Cross UFO, the case made headlines around the globe. Two police constables Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott, chased a strange cross shaped UFO in their police car in the early hours of October 24th. Constable Willey told the press at the time,

It was travelling about tree-top height over wooded countryside near Holsworthy, Devon. We drove towards it and it moved away. It then led us on a chase as if it was playing a game with us.

Front page of The Times in 1967

The Flying Cross Incident led to multiple other sightings of a similar object throughout Devon during that year. In fact, the year of 1967 was a major UFO flap year, with UFO sightings occurring all over the planet. A few interesting cases of that year are the Shag Harbour UFO Crash, the Falcon Lake UFO Encounter, and the Malmstrom Air Force Base UFO Incident.   
Whether these strange objects are drawn to the area, or there is simply something wrong with the drinking water, Devon is definitely well known for its history with UFOs. If you are ever near the area, it’s best to look up once in awhile. You may just catch of glimpse of something odd.

 TAGS: Devon, Mysterious Object, UFOs, united kingdom 

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-02-2017 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

UFO Hotspot Has Another Mass Sighting

 MJ Banias

Devon county in England has been a hotbed of UFO activity. The sighting a few days ago only lends more fuel to the fire. Why do the people who live in Devon see so many strange objects in the sky?

Ever since the 12th century, when religious pilgrims reported seeing a glowing dragon emerge from the sea and disappear into the sky, the entire southwest of England has had many a strange sighting. The most recent sighting occurred only a few days ago, when Mark Emmins, a musician, spotted the object over the town of Exmouth. He wrote on his Facebook page,

It stood still in the sky for some hours and then decided to move and then vanish. We got photos too.

The photographs were taken by Tyron Osborne, a friend of Emmins. They noted that the object hovered for several hours until it eventually moved eastward out of sight.

In July of 2016, John Mooner spotted a strange orange object hovering over his town of Newton Abbot. He grabbed his Nikon camera, and snapped several images. John Mooner stated in an interview with The Plymouth Herald,

The object was definitely not any type of known aircraft. The object was glowing bright orange and had a white pulsing light on the top left side. The object was large and just hung there silently over the housing estate it gave me the creeps.

Photo taken by John Mooner

In September of 2016, residents in Exmouth witnessed two triangular objects being chased by a helicopter. Multiple witnesses came forward with the same story. One of the witnesses, a serving soldier, told reporters,

I believe I have seen the same thing. On hearing the sound of a helicopter I looked out to see if it was another police chopper. I am a serving soldier and I can say I’ve never seen anything move in the way these objects were.

Perhaps one of the most famous cases out of the Devon area occurred in 1967. Known as the Devon Flying Cross UFO, the case made headlines around the globe. Two police constables Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott, chased a strange cross shaped UFO in their police car in the early hours of October 24th. Constable Willey told the press at the time,

It was travelling about tree-top height over wooded countryside near Holsworthy, Devon. We drove towards it and it moved away. It then led us on a chase as if it was playing a game with us.

Front page of The Times in 1967

The Flying Cross Incident led to multiple other sightings of a similar object throughout Devon during that year. In fact, the year of 1967 was a major UFO flap year, with UFO sightings occurring all over the planet. A few interesting cases of that year are the Shag Harbour UFO Crash, the Falcon Lake UFO Encounter, and the Malmstrom Air Force Base UFO Incident.   
Whether these strange objects are drawn to the area, or there is simply something wrong with the drinking water, Devon is definitely well known for its history with UFOs. If you are ever near the area, it’s best to look up once in awhile. You may just catch of glimpse of something odd.

 TAGS: Devon, Mysterious Object, UFOs, united kingdom 

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

06-02-2017 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

What Are Good Reasons For The Government To Hide Proof Of Alien Contact?

I am going to try and deal with some potentially realistic scenarios. Keep in mind the government plans for the worst case scenario but hopes for the best. So these describe the worst case scenarios of the public finding out. Any worst case scenario that is impossible to tame or deal with would indicate it might be best to keep the info hidden until they need to tell us.

High tech: Is this really a 'TR3B craft' with three glowing engines?

Also, we should remember any species that is capable of surviving for the hundreds of years it would take to get here under less than light speed or any species capable of faster than light travel would also be hundreds and hundreds of years more advanced than us. Both long distance slow travel and faster than light travel are so incredibly difficult that it would far exceed our science. So much so that their technology would seem almost like magic to us. It would be like showing someone from the middle ages tv’s, jet planes and open heart surgery. They might have active nanotech, the ability to manipulate gravitons, antimatter, and magnetic monopoles or some other exotic technologies we haven’t even dreamed of yet.

To be very clear: These are hypothetical scenarios based on the question. Personally, I know of no evidence that leads any direct credence to any of these. While each might be possible there is no known evidence of any of these scenarios.

1. Aliens are suspected to have visited but only a very long time ago and there is no evidence of hostility. It would not make sense to get the public up in arms over something that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. Such a revelation would create a host of issues from religious to political as well as boldening fringe groups, militants, and wackos. Why create alarm if it was so long ago, there is no evidence they are harmful and we don’t even know if they would come back?
2. Aliens visited but only a few times and there is either no evidence of hostility or not enough to make a determination of if they are potentially friend or foe. In this scenario, the aliens might be peaceful or might not but if you get the whole world and the internet talking about it. You will eventually have high profile and visible people making stupid or dangerous statements that could be misinterpreted by the aliens. Our movies are bad enough in how we depict aliens but if we have talking heads talking about how we need to put killer satellites in space to defend against what may in fact be peaceful aliens we risk creating a more tense situation than is necessary. When the aliens do return they will see us going crazy over aliens.That is probably not the way the government wants to make first contact.
3. Aliens have visited us could be hostile and they have technology that we cannot hope to compete with. This is the worst of all possible scenarios. They seem to be potentially hostile and they have weapons that would make it near impossible to beat them in a conflict. Widespread panic would engulf the world including doomsday cults and those that want to worship the aliens.Religious leaders would have to explain how aliens fit into systems that are inherently human biased.Speculation and talk of how to defend or fight such aliens in the media and public would make a potentially bad situation against a superior enemy worse. It might even move them to make a preemptive strike as opposed to accepting some kind of surrender or treaty.
4. The aliens are friendly, social and responsible. They are working with the government to quietly and slowly acclimate us to the idea of there being aliens without admitting it until we are ready to reduce panic and social unrest. Even if the aliens were good natured they could easily see how exposing themselves to us could disrupt our societies. Thus they would tell the government to deny any existence but they would encourage us to explore the concepts in movies, TV and books and plays. Occasional leaks would happen because such a coverup cannot be perfect but those only help to seed the idea that aliens might exist.In this scenario, they are actually keeping it quiet so they can do a slow and phased exposure to this idea. First they would show life on Mars and other planets in a simple and harmless form and might even fake such results (if these planets are barren) just to get the dialog going. Once we have accepted life can exist on other planets other revelations would come in a very slow pace maybe once every 5 or 10 years such as receiving a strange but brief broadcast signal. Eventually these kinds of events and experiences would ramp up until we get to the point of actually trying to send messages to the aliens. The aliens which might very well already be here would pretend to be sending the messages from very far away and thus replies take 10 or more years. Eventually, they would plan for our first public first contact. Using a scenario like this most of the threats from the above scenarios could be avoided.
5. We know that they exist but we only know from receiving very distant and very faint communications. In this scenario, the government would want to tread very lightly and take it very slowly. They might not want to communicate back and confirm we are here until they know more about the aliens. There is no evidence the aliens have ever visited us and based on the source of the communications any trip or message would take a very long time to arrive. They would likely want to wait and learn more as well as ramp up our space spending so we can try to have sufficient technology to deal with any political or hostile situations that might arise.
6. There is evidence of aliens and it points to them either interfering directly with human development or the genetics of all life on our planet. The potential questions and issues surrounding alien-initiated Panspermia are too many to name.It would throw most religions into a tailspin because it would mean life was created by aliens and not by some deity. Many religions would fracture and either declare such evidence to be false and demonic or might even move to start embracing the aliens as gods and worshipping them. Others would leave the churches and yet others might join them seeking some kind of help as they fear the implications of such a revelation. Socially this would mean a great deal of upheaval given the numbers of religious people worldwide.Scientifically it would validate some science and throw others out the window. We would then have to begin looking at how this alien abiogenesis was accomplished and how much of the development of life was altered and how much was from natural evolution. All data on evolution would need to be carefully scrutinized.On top of all of that, the question would be if they are still here or not and how much they have continued to interfere with human development. Are we just a big experiment to them?

No matter how you look at it, although proof of extraterrestrial life in any form especially a sentient form would be both a big boon and a big strife to our society. It would likely be a transformative event on the scale of nuclear bombs. Using nuclear weapons as an example, governments were researching and developing the technology for them for decades and denied any knowledge of their existence until the USA actually dropped the first ones. Such things that shake up a society you do not take lightly. I trust the government would take finding aliens very carefully too.

Much thought has gone into what might be the Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact. These include many additional scenarios to the ones above including loss of identity as a species, being forced to remove weapons of mass destruction, risks from technology we do not yet know how to use, legal issues over personhood and rights of aliens and so much more.

{ http://www.theangryufologist.us/ }

06-02-2017 om 00:49 geschreven door peter  

United States spaceship preparing to depart a LEO space dock.

Should NASA build spacefaring logistics infrastructure?

by Mike Snead

In the 1990s, I began to focus on how to build an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure to open outer space to true commercial human spacefaring operations. While the United States has had the technological ability to do this since the 1990s, a sound political need for the infrastructure was missing. Politicians place great care in spending any scant discretionary infrastructure funds they control. A political misstep, such as the infamous Alaskan “bridge to nowhere”, costs them dearly as “wasted” funding ends up being spent elsewhere. While America needs to build an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure to transition to a true commercial human spacefaring nation, we cannot afford a misstep by building the wrong “bridge” to space.

For the past decade, I have been advocating that the United States needs to build an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure to enable it to undertake commercial space-based sustainable energy. A substantial part of my efforts has been explaining how such infrastructure, as illustrated above and in this short video, are not far-term concepts as most presume, but are now ready for engineering development and capability deployment.

Recently, some space advocates, such as Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, are now recognizing the need for spacefaring infrastructure, but are calling on this to be done by NASA. The purpose of this article is to explain why this should instead be done by a new federal government corporation established specifically to build and operate the required integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure. NASA is an inappropriate choice to lead this effort. As the operational history of the Space Shuttle program shows, building and running a space railroad is not where NASA shines. As discussed below, there is much for NASA to do in pathfinding America’s transition into a commercial spacefaring nation concurrently with the building of this infrastructure.

Spacefaring logistics thinking in the 1950s

American space planners have long recognized the need to build an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure to enable routine human spacefaring operations to and beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). This thinking goes back to the early 1950s, when Wernher von Braun and other leading American space visionaries first started to describe these concepts. The two illustrations below, by space artist Terry Sunday, illustrate von Braun’s early concepts. The primary elements of such an infrastructure—reusable aircraft-like space access, LEO spaceports, and reusable spaceships to transit space—have been understood for 60 years.

Reusable spaceplane and rotating wheel space station. (Credit: Terry Sunday, Digital Space Art; used with permission.)

Reusable lunar lander approaching the lunar surface. (Credit: Terry Sunday, Digital Space Art; used with permission.)

As mentioned, some prominent space advocates are now calling for the Trump Administration to direct NASA to build spacefaring infrastructure. Perhaps, looking back to President Kennedy’s daring proposal to land a human on the Moon within the decade, these advocates seek a comparable dramatic proposal to have NASA build spacefaring logistics infrastructure. Is this a good idea? No, for reasons discussed below.

Infrastructure building is not central to NASA’s core mission

Infrastructure primarily serves and enhances commerce. At this time, there is no sound reason to build a spacefaring infrastructure primarily designed to support human space exploration, such as a science-focused lunar base or the first human Mars missions, as the 1950s infrastructure proposals were intended to support. Today, the need is for spacefaring infrastructure to enable new space-based sustainable energy, space mining, and space manufacturing industries to be built and operated. Building and operating this interplanetary industrial railroad does not fall within NASA’s core competencies and, in fact, conflicts with its primary science, technology development, and robotic and human exploration missions. NASA does not need the organizational and budgetary drama that such an undertaking would bring. The Space Shuttle program presented similar issues and building an operational infrastructure will be a much greater organizational challenge.

The coming space industrialization revolution

Having written in The Space Review last year about the clear national energy and environmental security needs for the United States to transition this century to space-based sustainable energy, I believe this will drive an immense American space industrialization revolution. Starting from scratch, by 2100 roughly 800 five-gigawatt space solar power platforms will need to be constructed in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) for the United States to replace fossil fuels; for the world, this grows to 10,000 platforms. The two-gigawatt Hoover Dam was a remarkable American engineering success of the 1930s. For perspective, by 2100 the power generation equivalent of 25,000 Hoover Dams must be built in GEO for the world’s transition from fossil fuels to go smoothly and peacefully. That a space industrialization revolution will be needed to accomplish this major human civilization milestone is very apparent. That this will far overshadow, in the scale of human spacefaring operations, any human space exploration effort, is also quite apparent. Space industrialization will drive American non-military space policy and investment, both private and federal, for most of the rest of this century.

View west over the Cacapon River Valley in West Virginia. (Credit: Mike Snead)

National infrastructure is a federal responsibility

At the formal end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, George Washington returned to Mount Vernon with the expectation of leading a quiet life of retirement. After eight years of warfare, he had certainly earned it. Yet, within months he became restless. Already quite familiar with western Virginia, he rode west, stopping on the journey at a mountaintop in today’s West Virginia looking west across the Cacapon River valley towards America’s new “frontier”—the Ohio Valley—beyond the distant hills. The view above is much as Washington saw it in 1784.

What Washington was seeking was a way to build infrastructure—portage roads and canals—to connect the Potomac and Ohio Rivers so that the vast untapped economic wealth of the Ohio River Valley, a key concession by Great Britain with the peace agreement, could flow to the new United States. Already, settlers were heading west in large numbers. In an agrarian society, land was wealth and the Ohio Valley had immense tracts of federal land that would be sold. Without infrastructure, however, it was impractical to establish easy commerce back east across the Appalachian Mountains. Instead, commerce was forced downriver to New Orleans, then Spanish territory. Washington and many other American leaders understood that it would be quite easy for the Ohio Valley to come under Spanish control, or even British control through Canada. Washington understood that infrastructure was the key to securing America’s western border.

Returning to Mount Vernon, he set to work to build infrastructure. He became the president of two canal companies with the intent of enabling canal boat travel up the Potomac. This effort failed because America then lacked the engineering expertise to undertake this effort. His infrastructure-building outreach effort to the other states was more successful. In part, this led to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, with Washington as its (somewhat reluctant) president, that wrote the current US Constitution. This constitution gave substantially more authority to a federal government, making this government responsible for regulating American interstate commerce and promoting the general welfare of the country.

These two new federal responsibilities became the centerpiece of American infrastructure building that began in the early 1800s. To move beyond a local agrarian society, America needed both intrastate and interstate commerce, which required the construction of infrastructure. Where there was no ready commercial market to justify private infrastructure investment—typical for opening a new physical or technological frontier—Congress often enabled the federal government to get the effort underway. The National Road to cross the mountains to the Ohio Valley was the start of these federal efforts.

Like the Ohio Valley in the late 1700s, there is an immense potential economic value to be created from space-based sustainable power. Like the situation with the Ohio Valley in Washington’s time, there is no current way to exploit this space economic value. And just as Washington recognized that infrastructure was needed to transit the Appalachian Mountains, America must now build an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure to climb out of Earth’s gravitational well, first to serve LEO, then, the entire Earth-Moon system, and, finally, the inner solar system. Only this will encourage and enable establishing American commercial space power, mining, and manufacturing industries. (For details on what this new infrastructure may entail, readers are referred to “Spacefaring Logistics Infrastructure: The Foundations of a Spacefaring America”.)

A spacefaring logistics federal government corporation is needed

I argue that the establishment and operation of this spacefaring logistics infrastructure must be overseen and regulated by the federal government to ensure acceptable safety, operability, and equitable private access as well as beneficial government utilization. Achieving this will best be accomplished through new public-private partnerships and commercial contracts undertaken by a new federal government corporation often referred to as a port authority. From the cited article:

For such large public works programs, a special authority, commission, or not-for-profit corporation is generally established to provide the necessary public oversight, planning direction, and financial control. Rather than assign the infrastructure development responsibility to an existing government agency, this approach has these advantages:

• The purpose, responsibilities, required operational capabilities, internal structure, implementation timeline, and public accountability can be clearly defined.
  • A clear line of authority can be established and potential conflicts of interest or internal organizational competition for project funding, resources, and priorities can be avoided.
  • A new budget line item for the organization can be created which helps to segregate needed public funding for the infrastructure effort from other governmental costs.
  • The authority can be legally enabled to: issue bonds, in the name of the government, to raise the capital required for the development and construction of the infrastructure; to issue contracts for the construction and operation of the infrastructure; and, to raise revenue to help retire the incurred debt.
  • The authority can be staffed by people whose primary motivation is to successfully build and operate the infrastructure rather than being internally reassigned to undertake a task of which they may have little personal interest.

In the new Trump Administration, getting this spacefaring infrastructure ball rolling will require two steps. First, a national sustainable energy security policy is needed to identify space-based sustainable energy as the nation’s primary means of transitioning from fossil fuels and ending fossil fuel carbon emissions. This establishes the need for space industrialization and, consequently, for an integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure. And, second, introduce legislation to establish a new federal government corporation, perhaps generally modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority, to create and oversee the commercial operation of an integrated American spacefaring logistics infrastructure.

What’s in this for NASA?

Building 10,000 space-based sustainable energy platforms by 2100 will require space mining and space manufacturing, as well as the ability to conduct acceptably-safe and routine commercial human operations throughout the central solar system. Just as happened with the emergence of commercial aviation and, especially, jet-powered aviation, the federal government will need to take a proactive role to lead the development of critical-path technologies and to undertake pathfinding human space exploration missions as a precursor for follow-on commercial space operations on the Moon and throughout the central solar system. This is NASA’s cup of tea, so to speak. The Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System will provide the initial capabilities NASA will need to get back to the Moon to start this process. While NASA scientists will certainly undertake science missions as part of these efforts—perhaps even using the new infrastructure to support a manned Mars mission—a significant part of their efforts will be helping American industry develop the industrial mastery needed to mass-produce GEO power platforms in space from extraterrestrial resources.

Conclusion

As the Trump Administration begins, America is now in a very good position technologically to begin to build the spacefaring logistics infrastructure needed to become a true spacefaring nation. America has the ability to build fully-reusable, airworthiness-certified passenger space access and in-space transportation systems, and to deploy a substantial initial infrastructure in LEO. Undertaking these in a hodgepodge manner through disconnected private enterprise efforts will not be successful. Infrastructure needs to be well organized to operate with acceptable safety, efficiency, and effectiveness. As with major past American infrastructure programs, like the Panama Canal and the Interstate Highway System, the federal government needs to now take the helm. Specifically, a new federal government corporation should be established to lead both government and private enterprise spacefaring logistics infrastructure efforts.

Mike Snead is a professional engineer and Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He president of the Spacefaring Institute™ (spacefaringinstitute.com) and writes the Spacefaring America blog (spacefaringamerica.net). He can be reached through the contact form on the Spacefaring Institute web page.

{ http://www.thespacereview.com/ }

05-02-2017 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

The mysterious ‘Wandjina’ of Aborigines: ancient gods came from the Pleiades

The mysterious ‘Wandjina’ of Aborigines: ancient gods came from the Pleiades. The paintings have received all sorts of interpretation: the stylized representation of being human, or even owls, up to the theorists of the Ancient Astronauts, according to which the ancient travelers Wandjina would not land descended to Earth in antiquity.

In 1938, Dr. Andreas Lommel, a member of the Institute Frobenius, he lived for several months in the north-western part of Australia, in the region of Kimberly, with an Aboriginal tribe called Unambal, a culture that has existed for at least 60,000 years. During this period, Lommel noted and photographed the daily lives of these hunter-gatherers still in the stone age.

What most he caught the attention of researchers was the discovery of a cave considered sacred by the aborigines, in which were represented the enigmatic Wandjina, cave paintings of mythological beings associated with the creation of the world.

Kimberly is the only place in the world where these strange beings are represented. According to the researchers, it is very ancient accomplishments, as much as the aboriginal culture that created them.

The tradition of Unambal wants the members of the tribe paint the images periodically, in order to ensure the continuity of tradition and not lose the memory. For these men it is something very important. There are many who believe that extraterrestrials have had a direct role in the creation of the world and the legends tell of the Aboriginal truly extraordinary events. Despite the antiquity of Unambal, traditional law and culture are still active and alive.

The Worora, the Ngarinyin and the Wunumbul are the three tribes who worship the Wandjina and consider themselves the guardians of the oldest rock art in Australia.

What seems to be the most interesting is the style used by Aborigines to represent these enigmatic divine beings: white faces, no mouth, big eyes blacks and a head surrounded by a halo, or some kind of helmet. It is natural that looking at the Kimberley pictograms the extraordinary similarity immediately known with the stereotypical image of an extraterrestrial, a ‘gray‘ to be exact.

Precisely for this reason, there are many who wonder why the Aborigines have painted the Wandjina just this way: because they have white skin if the artist wanted to represent another aboriginal black leather? Because the eyes are paintings always so disproportionate to the face and nose? And why all these beings have no mouth?… The Wandjina pictograms use common colors: black, red, yellow on a white background. They appear alone or in groups, either vertically or horizontally depending on the size of the rock, and can be represented with figures and objects, such as the Rainbow Serpent.

Around the heads of Wandjina there are lines or blocks of color, depicting lightning, clouds or rain. The Wandjina can punish lawbreakers with floods, lightning and tornadoes. Aboriginal people are still convinced that the images possess these powers, and therefore must be approached and treated with respect.

Tags: Wandjina

{ https://cognitiomatrix.com/ }

05-02-2017 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/ }

05-02-2017 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

Filer’s Files #6 -2017 UFOs Are Entering Earth - PART II

05-02-2017 om 23:12 geschreven door peter  

Humanoid Robots to Flying Cars: 10 Coolest DARPA Projects

Credit: DARPA

INTRO : The way of the future

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has a reputation for working on some of the most cutting-edge, futuristic projects — many that could easily be mistaken for science fiction. The agency, which falls under the watch of the U.S. Department of Defense, is responsible for developing new technologies for the military.

From humanoid robots to flying armored cars, here are 10 of the coolest DARPA projects.

1. WildCat and BigDog

As their names suggest, WildCat and BigDog are four-legged, headless robots designed to walk, run and carry heavy loads through potentially dangerous terrain, much like deployed troops. DARPA awarded contracts to Boston Dynamics to develop WildCat and BigDog for use by the military.

BigDog, created in 2005, is 3 feet (0.91 meters) long, and stands 2.5 feet (0.76 m) tall. The robot, which is roughly the size of a small mule, is capable of hauling 400 pounds (181 kg) of cargo, and can navigate difficult terrain and inclines up to 35 degrees.

WildCat, however, is quicker and more agile. The robot can gallop up to 16 mph (25 km/h) on flat surfaces, and is part of a DARPA mission to develop robots that can assist human soldiers on a variety of ground missions.

Credit: © 2007 Twentieth Century Fox

2. Avatar Project

Sometimes life imitates art, as is the case with DARPA's project to develop interfaces that enable soldiers to control and partner with semi-autonomous bipedal machines that, "act as the soldier's surrogate." Sound familiar? Hollywood director James Cameron explored the idea in his 2009 blockbuster hit "Avatar."

In its 2013 budget, DARPA allocated $7 million to its "Avatar Project," which could enable soldiers to control surrogate robots in dangerous combat situations.

Credit: DARPA

3. Excalibur

To reduce the amount of "collateral damage" in war, particularly during battles fought in urban settings, DARPA is developing laser weapons that are small and efficient enough to be used in combat. These experimental laser weapons will be 10 times lighter than existing high-power laser systems currently in use, DARPA officials have said.

The lasers, developed for airplanes, may also be used for laser communications, target designation and airborne self-protection, agency officials added.

Credit: DARPA

5. Transformer

Imagine a militarized version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This is the thrust of DARPA's Transformer project, which aims to develop a flying armored car. The four-person vehicle will be able to drive normally but also take to the skies to avoid road obstructions or other threats on the ground.

The vehicle is being designed to take off and land from the vertical position, and will be able to fly up to 250 nautical miles on a single tank of fuel. Eventually, these flying tanks may be used for strikes, raids, counterinsurgency operations, reconnaissance, medical evacuation and supply missions.

Credit: DARPA

6. Atlas

DARPA's Atlas project was revealed to the public on July 11, 2013. The bipedal humanoid robot stands 6-feet tall (1.8 m), and is designed to assist with a range of emergency services, including search and rescue operations. The U.S. Department of Defense is not interested in using the Atlas robot in combat situations, officials have said.

Atlas was developed by Boston Dynamics and was based on some of the company's earlier robot creations.

Credit: DARPA

7. Navigation chip

Advances in GPS technology revolutionized tracking and navigation, but what about areas where GPS is unavailable, or the signals are interrupted? To help soldiers find their way around areas of GPS blackout, DARPA researchers are developing a tiny navigation chip that is smaller than a penny.

The so-called timing & inertial measurement unit (TIMU) chip incorporates three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and a highly accurate master clock into a single miniaturized system that can provide precise information for navigation, including orientation, acceleration and time.

DARPA officials have said the navigation chips will not replace GPS, but rather are designed to work when GPS is unavailable or doesn't work.

Credit: Boeing

8. X-37

The Boeing-built X-37 reusable space plane started as a NASA project in 1999, but was eventually transferred to DARPA in 2004 before the Air Force took control of the project two years later. 

The unmanned X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle, which resembles a miniaturized version of the space shuttle, rides into orbit atop a rocket and returns to Earth and lands as a space plane. The X-37 launched on its first orbital mission in April 2010.

Previously, DARPA reported it was developing the X-37 to rendezvous and refuel older satellites or perform minor repairs in space using a robotic arm. Speculation mounted, however, that the X-37 was being used by DARPA and the Air Force as a vehicle for space-based weapons. In 2010, a high-ranking Air Force official involved with the project dismissed the rumors, and stressed that the X-37's main purpose is to test space technology.

Credit: PNAS, 2013

9. Brain-Machine interfaces

Imagine if your brain could communicate with an external device, such as a thought-controlled mechanical arm or a device to restore sight. DARPA researchers are investigating potential communication pathways between the human brain and machines to build, assist, augment or repair human cognitive or sensory-motor functions.

Research on these so-called brain-machine interfaces began in the 1970s, and work by DARPA researchers is focused on neuroprosthetics that aim to restore damaged sight, hearing and movement. One of DARPA's brain-machine interface projects is Proto2, a thought-controlled prosthetic arm. Proto2 consists of a dexterous hand and fingers that can perform 25 joint motions.

Credit: DARPA

10. Microscale pumps

DARPA-funded researchers created the world's smallest vacuum pump system that can be used for any electronics or sensors that require a vacuum. In 2008, DARPA's Chip-Scale Vacuum Micro Pumps (CSVMP) program set out to develop the smallest, most power-efficient pumps ever created.

The vacuum pumps could be used to build tiny chemical sensors, such as ultra-sensitive gas analyzers to detect chemical or biological attacks, or to design new sensors or instruments for micro-drones. The penny-size vacuum pumps were created by researchers at the University of Michigan, MIT and Honeywell International.

05-02-2017 om 21:04 geschreven door peter  

NASA Jupiter Probe Makes 4th Flyby of Giant Planet

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NASA's Juno spacecraft has flown by Jupiter for the fourth time.

Juno skimmed about 2,670 miles (4,300 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops at 7:57 a.m. EST (1257 GMT) this morning (Feb. 2), zooming by at 129,000 mph (208,000 km/h) relative to the giant planet, NASA officials said.

All eight of Juno's science instruments were on and collecting data during the flyby if all went according to plan, they added.

Juno launched in August 2011, on a $1.1 billion mission to learn more about Jupiter's composition, magnetic field and interior structure, including whether or not the gas giant harbors a solid core. The probe arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

Juno is in a highly elliptical orbit that brings it close to the gas giant just once every 53 days. Most mission-relevant data is gathered during these flybys, the previous three of which occurred last August, October and December.

Though mission scientists are still analyzing the information collected during these previous encounters, they have already learned some interesting things.

"Revelations include that Jupiter's magnetic fields and aurora are bigger and more powerful than originally thought and that the belts and zones that give the gas giant's cloud top its distinctive look extend deep into the planet's interior," NASA officials wrote in a statement today. "Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first three flybys are expected to be published within the next few months."

Juno was originally supposed to shift into a 14-day orbit in October, but an issue with engine valves caused mission controllers to call off a planned thruster firing that would have made that happen. The Juno team is still investigating the possibility of moving the probe onto a shorter orbital path, NASA officials said. 

Juno's mission is scheduled to end in February 2018 with an intentional death plunge into Jupiter's thick atmosphere.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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05-02-2017 om 20:32 geschreven door peter