The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
04-05-2017
I Found Two More Sunken Ships, This One Is 138 Meters, One 60 Meters Across, Mexico, Google Earth Map, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
I Found Two More Sunken Ships, This One Is 138 Meters, One 60 Meters Across, Mexico, Google Earth Map, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: May 4, 2017 Location of discovery: Costa Verde, Mexico Google Coordinates: 19°13'24.25"N 96° 2'57.04"W Google date settings at: 2/25/2013 (most clear view of it at this setting) Update: I also found a second ship that is 61 meters across and had a wooden hull. Its on the same island as the first ship, but is on opposite sides of the island and again, settings must be 2/25/2013 to see it or some times other dates it will not be visible. SCW Ok guys, you know me...always searchings for the hidden mysteries of life. Well today I stumbled upon something thats not a UFO, but is still absolutely amazing due to its size. I found an old shipwreck off Mexico, and you know I have reported others in the past, but this one is huge! Its 138 meters across according to Google Ruler. The detail is outstanding, but know this, if you are seeking it using my coordinates, PLEASE GO TO THE DATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GOOGLE MAP AND CLICK IT, THEN GO TO 2/25/2013. This method will give you the clearest view of the ship and its detail. Oh, and by the way, it is a treasure. 138 meters of iron is roughly 10+ million US dollars recycled. Let alone the other artifacts it must still have on it. Its not a freighter because its thin along its ends, more like an old battle ship. I researched old sunken ships in the area there, but couldn't find any that match. Just thought you guys would like to see it. Scott C. Waring
For decades, radio telescopes have scanned the skies, hoping for a signal from intelligent aliens in another solar system.
But could signs of extraterrestrial life be lurking a little closer to home?
One astronomer believes we should be looking harder for signs of ancient, extinct civilisations in our own solar systems – buried ‘technosignatures’ of aliens from millions of years ago.
Jason Wright told Gizmodo, ‘There is zero evidence for any prior indigenous technological civilizations. My paper asks, have we completely foreclosed the possibility, or is there a chance that there could be some evidence we overlooked?
‘If we have overlooked something and we find it in the future, what are the chances it could have come from a prior indigenous technological species versus an interstellar one?
Wright suggests that the evidence might buried under the surfaces of moons or asteroids in our own solar system.
He says, ‘While all geological records of prior indigenous technological species might be long destroyed, if the species were spacefaring there may be technological artifacts to be found throughout the Solar System.
Ancient aliens?
Soviet-born American writer Zecharia Sitchin wrote a hit 1976 book ‘The 12th Planet’ where he claimed there was an unseen planet in the Solar System – Nibiriu – which was inhabited by a race of ‘ancient aliens’.
The aliens, called the Annunaki, had created the human race.
Sitchin’s work remains in print and has a devoted following around the world.
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual says, ‘Zecharia Sitchin claims that Nibiru collided with a planet called Tiamat that was situated between Mars and Jupiter. The result was the creation of the asteroid belt and planet Earth.’
‘Nibiru is populated by the Anunnaki, an advanced humanoid race, who visited Earth thousands of years to mine gold in Africa. As an outcome of needing workers to carry out these mining operations they used genetics to create Homo Sapiens.’
‘The popularity of these type of ideas makes it certain that every new discovery by our spaceships will be be minutely studied for any evidence of Nibiru, or any other similar body that might be populated by extraterrestrials.’
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UFO sightings reported in the area in the 1970s
UFO sightings reported in the area in the 1970s
By Louise Carroll For The Ledger
Submitted photo
Residents living near the old water tower, right, on Wiley Hill reported seeing a UFO in 1973. The tower has since been torn down; the new tower can be seen on the left.
ELLWOOD CITY -- In the early 1970s, Unidentified Flying Objects were being spotted all over the United States, including several in the Ellwood City area.
On Dec. 6, 1973, The Ledger ran a story, "UFO Reports Abound," and interviewed a resident of Wiley Hill in neighboring North Sewickley Township, who refused to let her name be used because she was afraid she might be ridiculed for "seeing things."
The woman said the UFO kept coming closer and closer to the ground as she watched it, and she first knew something unusual was happening when her usually clear television picture became distorted.
Chuck Wehr, 49, of North Sewickley Township, said the woman was his mother, Helen Wehr, who died two years ago.
"After my father died, my mother gave me the yellowed Ledger clippings from 1973 and we talked about it. She asked me if I remembered the UFO and I did. I remember that it sounded loud to me like a freight train and I was terrified," Wehr said. "I remembered that it would be there and then suddenly it would disappear or be silent.
"My mother was always curious about the incident and yet didn't talk about it. She took pictures, but the camera was gone and she did not want to talk about what happened to the camera," he said.
Wehr said at the time of the incident they were living in the house nearest the green water tower on Wiley Hill.
On Dec. 12, 1973, The Ledger reported more sightings in the Wiley Hill area.
James Stoynoff of Ellport saw a red-and-blue flashing UFO shortly after 7 p.m. Dec. 11 in the area above the North Sewickley Presbyterian Church on Mercer Road near the Connoquenessing Country Club in North Sewickley. Stoynoff was driving west on Chapel Drive toward Ellwood City when he and his girlfriend, Patty Kelly, saw the UFO flying toward Christy's Plaza.
A similar sighting was reported by Mrs. Joseph Stabryla of Chewton who was visiting with relatives on Brown Road on Saturday evening. Stabryla said she had been playing cards with friends and saw the object in the area of Constitution Avenue and Treece Avenue on the way home.
Janna Hulick of Brown Road, and a number of Wiley Hill residents, reportedly watched the pulsating red-and-blue lights of the object, but some would not comment for fear of being ridiculed.
All of the reports received by The Ledger indicate that the object seemed to return to an area between the water tower on Wiley Hill and the Limestone Park area, currently Stiefel Park.
Nick Viccari, who lived on Rosanna Street, saw a red-and-blue blinking object hovering above the park area when he looked out his window in that direction, and he heard a sound like a distant train.
There were many other credible witnesses, including Ellwood City police officers Frank Zona and Robert Ramella, who saw the object hovering above the former U.S. Steel Corp. plant in Ellwood City.
One woman traveling with her 15-year-old daughter to Ellwood City reported spotting a "perfect triangle" in the sky along Ellwood-New Castle Road in Wayne Township. The woman described the object as having red-and-green lights flashing very rapidly around the edges and two white lights underneath. It approached rapidly and made a noise that sounded like a motor and then it was gone.
Dom Viccari of Ellwood City recalled that he saw a UFO sometime in the early 1970s when he was driving on Sixth Street heading toward the municipal building. As he approached the railroad tracks, he saw a bright light and wondered what it was.
"I continued up Sixth Street. I was trying to chase it and it headed toward Brighton Road and Stiefel Park and I lost it. I probably went to my job at The Ledger and told people about it," Viccari said.
More than 100 people, including state and Union Township police, reported seeing a UFO hover above the New Castle Airport on Nov. 3, 1973. It was described as a glowing, dome-shaped object. Observers told troopers that the object was different colors and changed from bright to dim and hovered there for an hour before it headed southwest toward Boardman, Ohio.
There were no explanations from government officials as to what the reported UFOs might have been.
Cheryl Costa, a Corning native who now lives in the Syracuse area, recently pored over UFO sighting data reported to two organizations from 2001 to 2015.
Amanda Renko / Staff video
Cheryl Costa’s interest in UFOs first developed in the Steuben County hills.
Now, the Corning native has taken her interest in the flying objects and compiled data from 15 years’ worth of reported sightings, turning her work into a resource for UFO researchers and enthusiasts.
(Photo: Provided photo)
Costa and her wife, Linda Miller Costa, spent nights and weekends for 16 months putting together the UFO Sightings Desk Reference, which breaks down more than 121,000 sightings reported to two UFO reporting organizations between 2001 and 2015 — to the state and county level, by month and even by the shape of the spotted object. UFOs are reported to appear in the form of spheres, lights, fireballs, triangles and cigars, to name a few.
Costa, 65, a retired information security professional from the aerospace industry who now lives in the Syracuse area, says she has no proof of whether the sightings indicate life on other planets. But the sheer volume of reported sightings is proof to her that UFOs, at least, are indisputably real.
“People say, ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’" said Costa, a graduate of Corning East High School. "I just count them. I report what people say they saw.”
The objects have fascinated Costa since she was about 12 years old. She vividly remembers a trip home from visiting family in Savona in the 1960s when she spotted a strange object in the skies overhead — "a round ball, parked out there like a rock," she said.
Her mother pulled the car over and explained the object could simply be a balloon, or it could be "people from another world," she said. "I watched it for about 20 minutes, then we started driving again. I kept my eyes on it. It was like one of those starships in the movies — it just whizzed away and winked out."
Costa and her mother would read books on UFOs at the library. Later, she'd stay for several months at the home of a friend with his own collection of books on the subject. She casually followed online UFO forums.
But it wasn't until she read a 2012 report that sightings of the objects were declining that her interest peaked.
“That didn’t sound right to me,” said Costa, a veteran of the Navy and Air Force.
Initially, Costa looked at data from the Mutual UFO Network, which accepts sighting reports, to confirm her hunch. The number of sightings reported to MUFON, she said, "shoots up like a rocket. My first thought was, what memo didn't the UFOs get? They were supposed to be declining."
She began collecting data from MUFON and a second organization, the National UFO Reporting Center. Her curiosity evolved into a look at New York's data, down to the county level.
In July 2013, she began writing a blog on UFOs for the Syracuse New Times, where she discusses her findings and highlights witness accounts she's received from friends, strangers and families.
Most people she’s talked to about their sightings “are sincere. Most people are very level-headed. You can see it in their eyes," she said. "They’ll often say, 'We were just coming home from a movie; we were just coming home from dinner; I was out walking the dog.'"
The data reveal some interesting patterns, Costa said. New York has the sixth-highest number of reported sightings over the 15-year period, with 5,141 total reports.
Locally, Broome County had 103 reported sightings over the 15-year period. Tompkins had 39, Chemung 31, Steuben 27, Tioga 22 and Schuyler 20.
But those numbers pale in comparison to the counties with the highest sightings, Costa said. With 554 reported sightings over 15 years, Suffolk County, on the eastern tip of Long Island, had the highest figure in the state. Manhattan (New York County) was second at 426 sightings, and Erie, Nassau and Monroe counties round out the top five.
Some have argued that the state's most populated areas have the most sightings, but Costa said population doesn't appear to be the only contributing factor. Sightings appear to be reported more frequently in the counties that border the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway and Hudson River. Just over half of New York's sightings appear to have occurred around the state's waterways, Costa said.
Reports in New York also tend to skyrocket in July and August, when viewers are most likely to be outside, she said. In southern states, where it's typically warmer, no such spike exists. And more sightings tend to occur on weekends, according to Costa's figures.
Costa, who often speaks at UFO conferences, said the book is gaining traction in the community, particularly among serious researchers. Regardless of whether or not its readers believe in UFOs, Costa said she's hoping the data will start a conversation.
“It’s disclosure at a civilian level. Some people are really crass about it — ‘oh, you have no proof’. We do have data here," she said. “We have thousands and thousands of people reporting them and telling us what they are. Are they extraterrestrial craft? Couldn’t tell you. Interdimensional? Couldn’t tell you. But with high numbers of these things, anything is possible.”
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Witness says deer noticed two hovering objects nearby
Witness says deer noticed two hovering objects nearby
A California witness at Pioneer reported watching two objects the size of a pencil emitting light and hovering near deer just 10 feet off the ground, according to testimony in Case 82988 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
Pioneer is about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento.
(Credit: Google)
The witness was in her living room doing housework when she noticed a pulsating light down the hill from her location.
“I looked and then looked again,” the witness stated. “I saw a pencil-like, definitely light-emitting ‘thing’ hovering. Then I noticed a second one, only it was pulsing slower. It was approximately 10 feet off the ground.”
The witness then noticed a wild deer looking up at the object, then grabbing a mouthful of food, then looking back up at the object.
“No rotor, no feet, no noise, definitely larger than a pencil, but pencil-like. The second object was moving around a tree, first one side,and then the other, almost like it was trying to hide.”
The objects were hovering just 10 feet off the ground. Pictured: Pioneer, CA. (Credit: Google)
The witness said that she did not take a picture because there are a lot of trees and the object was small and would not have stood out in any picture.
“It was below me, but I knew if I went outside, it would have left when I opened the door and made noise. At first I thought it was something hanging from the tree, but the longer I watched, the more I realized that I was actually looking at a UFO.”
The witness described the objects.
“The main object (the one not hiding) pulsated light the entire length, but not the whole thing at once. It was like small lights all along the thing pulsing. Same for the other unit. The deer didn’t seem to be bothered much by the item, but it definitely knew it was there as it kept looking at it.”
The deer near the objects seemed to take notice to them, but continued to eat. Pictured: Pioneer,
CA. (Credit: Google)
The witness continued to watch.
“I was standing up, so I went to get a chair, and then watched for an additional 5 to 7 minutes. My phone rang. I went to answer it, and when I came back, both objects were gone. I know what I saw, and even though this might not be a large sighting, I wanted to report it as it was such an odd shape (to me) – one I wasn’t familiar with. I called my family to tell them what I saw, as we have been familiar with UFOs our entire lifetime. I wondered if these things were ‘monitoring’ the deer somehow. I’m sure they did not know I was watching. The rate of the pulse of light on the ‘main’ object varied, first fast, then slower, then fast again.”
Pioneer is in Amador County, California, population 1,094. MUFON California State Section Director Nancy Felipe is investigating. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.
UFO Passes Over Active Volcano On Live Cam, April 30, 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Passes Over Active Volcano On Live Cam, April 30, 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 30, 2017 Location of sighting: Popocatepetl, Mexico Here is another UFO flying over a volcano in Mexico last week. The UFO is flying extremely close to the open mouth of the active volcano, which would rule out any jet. Also the camera would catch the detail of the jets wings if it were a jet. No passenger jet would fly over an active volcano, let alone low and close to one. This object was round and moving slow. Awesome video of a real extraterrestrial craft. Scott C. Waring
Dark UFO Over Brooklyn, New York On May 3, 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Dark UFO Over Brooklyn, New York On May 3, 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: May 3, 2017 Location of sighting: Brooklyn, New York, USA Source: MUFON #83501 Here is a UFO report of a rectangle shaped UFO over Brooklyn. Very strange shape to say the least, and the object seems to be studying the buildings below it. This one is semi-transparent, which means its cloak was vulnerable, probably due to the rising sun in early morning. Aliens frequently NY a lot. It was the famous Beetle John Lennon who said he saw a UFO from his balcony in his penthouse apartment back in Aug 23, 1974. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
A very large size, gray color object hover without any noice over Brooklyn. I personally don't know what it could be. I had a good 15 minutes sharp view of the object. I was trying to be rational but find no answer. Unfortunately the video footage doesn't give back the ratio of the object. Much larger than a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. I have photos captured also and after zooming I saw the object have colors and lights. Date 03-05-17 Brooklyn 8am
'Excess' Gamma-Rays Likely Not Sign of Dark Matter After All
'Excess' Gamma-Rays Likely Not Sign of Dark Matter After All
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
An excess of gamma-rays coming from the center of the Milky Way is likely due to a population of rapidly spinning, very dense and highly magnetized neutron stars, called pulsars, a new study suggests.
Credit: NASA/CXC/University of Massachusetts/D. Wang et al.; Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
A promising lead about the nature of elusive dark matter may have just dried up.
A mysterious abundance of gamma-rays — the highest-energy light in the universe — at the Milky Way's center is likely being produced by fast-spinning stellar corpses called pulsars, rather than bits of dark matter slamming into each other, a new study suggests.
"Our study shows that we don’t need dark matter to understand the gamma-ray emissions of our galaxy,” co-author Mattia Di Mauro, from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) in California, said in a statement. [The Hunt for Dark Matter: Images and Photos]
"Instead, we have identified a population of pulsars in the region around the galactic center, which sheds new light on the formation history of the Milky Way," added Di Mauro, who led the analysis for the Fermi LAT Collaboration. This is a group of researchers who used the Large Area Telescope on NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to study the galaxy's gamma-ray glow.
Though dark matter apparently neither emits nor absorbs light (hence the name), astronomers know the stuff exists; they have observed its gravity affecting the "normal" matter we can see and touch. Indeed, such work suggests that dark matter makes up about 85 percent of the material universe.
However, scientists still don't know what the mysterious stuff is. One leading hypothesis holds that dark matter is composed mostly of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Theoretical physicists think that WIMPs generate gamma-rays when they interact with each other, either via direct annihilation or the production of a fast-decaying secondary particle.
So it was exciting when, several years ago, Fermi spotted an "excess" of gamma-rays near the Milky Way's core that astronomers said could not be explained by traditional sources such as pulsars. Process of elimination seemed to indicate that dark matter — in the form of WIMPs — was responsible.
The researchers behind such studies stressed at the time that this interpretation was tentative and in need of backing by other observations.
Pulsars the culprit?
Such confirmation has yet to materialize.
"Two recent studies by teams in the U.S. and the Netherlands have shown that the gamma-ray excess at the galactic center is speckled, not smooth as we would expect for a dark matter signal," KIPAC's Eric Charles, who contributed to the new analysis, said in the same statement.
"Those results suggest the speckles may be due to point sources that we can't see as individual sources with the LAT because the density of gamma-ray sources is very high and the diffuse glow is brightest at the galactic center," Charles added.
The new study further supports this idea, linking the speckled signal to pulsars.
"Considering that about 70 percent of all [gamma-ray] point sources in the Milky Way are pulsars, they were the most likely candidates," Di Mauro said. "But we used one of their physical properties to come to our conclusion. Pulsars have very distinct spectra — that is, their emissions vary in a specific way with the energy of the gamma-rays they emit. Using the shape of these spectra, we were able to model the glow of the galactic center correctly with a population of about 1,000 pulsars and without introducing processes that involve dark matter particles."
There are other reasons to doubt that the gamma-ray excess is being generated by dark matter, study team members said.
"If the signal were due to dark matter, we would expect to see it also at the centers of other galaxies," Seth Digel, head of KIPAC’s Fermi group, said in the same statement. "The signal should be particularly clear in dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. These galaxies have very few stars, typically don’t have pulsars and are held together because they have a lot of dark matter. However, we don't see any significant gamma-ray emissions from them."
The team plans to observe the Milky Way's center with radio telescopes, in an attempt to determine if the point sources there are emitting their light in pulses, as pulsars seem to do. (This is just an illusion, however. Pulsars emit light beams continuously in opposite directions; the light appears to flicker because pulsars spin, and their beams are therefore not always pointing at Earth.)
The new study has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. You can read it for free at the online preprint site arXiv.org.
NASA Plans to Delay First SLS/Orion Mission to 2019
NASA Plans to Delay First SLS/Orion Mission to 2019
By Jeff Foust, SpaceNews Writer
NASA now expects the first Space Launch System flight, Exploration Mission 1, to slip to some time in 2019 regardless of whether or not it carries a crew.
Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON— NASA now expects the first launch of the Space Launch System to slip to 2019, regardless of any decision to put a crew on that mission, given ongoing issues with development of the launch vehicle and the Orion spacecraft.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administration for human exploration and operations, acknowledged the delay in a letter included in a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released April 27 that concluded that Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) would not meet its current November 2018 launch date.
"We agree with the GAO that maintaining a November 2018 launch readiness date is not in the best interest in the program, and we are in the process of establishing a new target in 2019," Gerstenmaier wrote in the letter, dated April 12 and included as an appendix in the GAO report. [Behind the Scenes Look: NASA's Orion Spacecraft (Video)]
Gerstenmaier said, in response to one recommendation in the GAO report, that NASA would develop a new launch readiness date by the end of September. "NASA is assessing the EM-1 schedule in light of a number of ongoing activities," he said, which include the tornado that damaged the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in February, disrupting work on the core stage of the SLS, and the ongoing development of the administration's fiscal year 2018 budget request.
The GAO, in its examination of progress NASA was making on EM-1 requested by Congress in the report accompanying the fiscal year 2016 appropriations bill, had already concluded that the mission would not be ready for launch in late 2018 as planned. "With little to no schedule or cost reserves remaining as the programs finalize production and enter integration and testing activities, the EM-1 launch readiness date is in a precarious position," the report stated.
The GAO noted in the report progress made in the development of SLS, Orion and ground systems, but added that all faced serious challenges with little margin. "The magnitude of the schedule delays that the programs have experienced amid this progress, however, foreshadows a likely schedule slip for the November 2018 EM-1 launch readiness date," the report concluded.
One example is the delivery of the European-built service module for Orion, which is on the critical path for EM-1. Once scheduled for delivery in January, it has been delayed until at least August. Once delivered, the program requires 12 months of work to integrate it with the crew capsule and perform testing before delivering it to the Kennedy Space Center for final launch preparations.
"NASA officials stated that they would not be able to maintain a launch readiness date of November 2018 if Kennedy Space Center receives the Orion spacecraft after July 2018," the report noted. "As a result, the November 2018 launch readiness date is likely unachievable unless NASA identifies further mitigation steps to accommodate delays." The conclusion of the report added that the service module is now expected to be delivered in September, with the possibility of an additional two-month delay.
The report is the second in two weeks to conclude that delays in the SLS/Orion program were all but certain. An April 13 report by NASA's Office of Inspector General concluded that both EM-1 and EM-2, the first launch to carry a crew, faced schedule slips. "NASA's first exploration missions – EM-1 and EM-2 – face multiple technical challenges that will likely delay their launch," that report stated.
Delays in the EM-1 schedule don't take into account the possibility of placing a crew on that flight. NASA announced in February it was studying adding a crew to that mission. That report has been completed and briefed to both NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot and White House officials. The agency has not announced a decision, although one is expected by the time the White House releases its detailed fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, expected by mid-May.
One condition on that study, Gerstenmaier said in February, was that adding crew not delay EM-1 past the end of 2019. "I didn't want to go much beyond 2019," he said in a Feb. 24 briefing. "I felt that if we went much beyond 2019, then we might as well fly EM-2 and actually do the plan we're on."
That study had its origins in expected delays in EM-1. Chris Shank, who led the NASA transition team for the incoming Trump administration, said during a panel session at the Goddard Memorial Symposium March 8 that the study had its origins at a meeting where Gerstenmaier said the delivery of the Orion service module would likely be delayed.
"We asked, if given more time, if there are some additional things that you could do with the mission," he recalled. "This is genuinely a study on how to get the best bang for the buck."
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Gat tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen blijkt verrassend schoon te zijn
Gat tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen blijkt verrassend schoon te zijn
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Wetenschappers staan voor een raadsel: hoe kan het dat dit stukje ruimte vrijwel stofvrij is?
Ruimtesonde Cassini dook vorige week voor het eerst in het 2000 kilometer brede gat tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen. Onderzoekers hadden verwacht dat de sonde daarbij heel wat stofdeeltjes tegen zou komen. Om te voorkomen dat die deeltjes de ruimtesonde zouden beschadigen, werd de vier meter brede antenne van de sonde als schild gebruikt. Maar dat was niet nodig geweest, zo moet NASA nu concluderen.
Grote leegte “Het gebied tussen de ringen en Saturnus is blijkbaar een grote leegte,” stelt Cassini’s projectmanager Earl Maize. Slechts enkele keren botste een stofdeeltje op Cassini. En de weinige stofdeeltjes die Cassini ontmoette, waren bovendien klein: niet groter dan 1 micron (een duizendste deel van een millimeter).
DE FOTO’S
Bekijk hier de foto’s die Cassini maakte toen deze voor het eerst in het gat tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen dook.
Foto: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
Een van de vele onbewerkte foto’s die gisteren is gemaakt. De atmosfeer van Saturnus ziet er in ieder geval spannend uit.
Nog een foto van de atmosfeer van Saturnus.
Veilig Blijkbaar is het gebied tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen veel veiliger dan gedacht. En dat is goed nieuws. Want NASA heeft nog 20 duikvluchten in het gat tussen Saturnus en zijn ringen gepland staan (exclusief de tweede duikvlucht die vanmorgen heeft plaatsgevonden). Vier van de 20 resterende duikvluchten voeren Cassini mee naar de binnenste randen van Saturnus’ ringen. Tijdens die duikvluchten zal Cassini wel wat stof tegenkomen en wordt de antenne sowieso ingezet om de sonde te beschermen.
Terwijl wetenschappers proberen te achterhalen hoe het kan dat het gebied tussen Saturnus en de stoffige ringen vrijwel stofvrij is, hult Cassini zich – net als tijdens de eerste duikvlucht – in radiostilte. Pas morgen worden de eerste onderzoeksgegevens en beelden die Cassini tijdens de duikvlucht van vanmorgen heeft gemaakt, naar de aarde verstuurd. En wat mogen we daarvan verwachten? Tijdens deze duikvlucht heeft Cassini de ogen gericht op de ringen van Saturnus. Ook bestudeert de sonde Rhea in de hoop meer te weten te komen over de samenstelling en structuur van het oppervlaktemateriaal van de maan.
Nieuw bewijs dat ster Epsilon Eridani meerdere puingordels bezit
Nieuw bewijs dat ster Epsilon Eridani meerdere puingordels bezit
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het bevestigt dat dit stelsel – bestaande uit een ster en één planeet – heel wat overeenkomsten heeft met ons zonnestelsel.
Er is al aardig wat onderzoek gedaan naar Epsilon Eridani, een ster die op zo’n 10,5 lichtjaar afstand staat. Zo weten we inmiddels dat rond de ster zeker één planeet cirkelt: Epsilon Eridani b. Deze planeet heeft een massa die vergelijkbaar is met de massa van Jupiter. Ook weten we dat er veel overeenkomsten zijn tussen hoe onze zon er in haar kinderjaren uitzag en Epsilon Eridani. Dat laatste is ook de reden dat onderzoekers dit stelsel graag bestuderen: het is het dichtstbijzijnde planetaire stelsel rond een ster die lijkt op de jonge zon en dus de ultieme gelegenheid om meer te weten te komen over de wijze waarop planeten rond sterren zoals onze zon ontstaan.
De stofschijf Eerder onderzoek heeft ook aangetoond dat rond Epsilon Eridani een stof- en puinschijf te vinden is. Dit puin kun je zien als bouwmateriaal dat over is gebleven nadat de ‘bouw’ van Epsilon Eridani b voltooid was. Het puin kan de vorm van gas of stof hebben, maar ook bestaan uit kleine rotsachtige en ijzige brokken. Dergelijk puin kan zich verzamelen in één brede stofschijf, maar ook verspreid zijn over meerdere smalle ringen. Onduidelijk was hoe dat precies bij Epsilon Eridani zat.
KOMT HET BEKEND VOOR?
Doet de naam Epsilon Eridani ergens een belletje rinkelen? Maar weet je even niet waarom? Misschien ken je de naam uit de televisieserie Babylon 5. Het gelijknamige ruimtestation dat in deze fictieve serie centraal staat, bevindt zich nabij deze ster.
Twee ringen Maar een nieuw onderzoek schept nu duidelijkheid. Wetenschappers hebben de ster Epsilon Eridani dit keer bestudeerd met behulp van het Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (kortweg SOFIA). En die waarnemingen tonen aan dat er zeker twee stofringen zijn. “We kunnen nu met veel zekerheid zeggen dat er een scheiding is tussen de binnenste en buitenste puingordel,” vertelt onderzoeker Massimo Marengo. “Dat gat is waarschijnlijk gecreëerd door planeten. We hebben die nog niet gedetecteerd, maar ik zou zeer verrast zijn als ze zich daar niet bevinden.” Mogelijk kunnen we deze planeten met de volgende generatie telescopen opsporen.
Veel overeenkomsten Dat Epsilon Eridani niet één brede, maar zeker twee smalle stofringen bezit, betekent dat dit planetaire systeem veel meer met ons zonnestelsel gemeen heeft dan gedacht. Ook ons zonnestelsel heeft immers twee puingordels: de planetoïdengordel en de Kuipergordel. Aan de rand van de binnenste planetoïdengordel vinden we Jupiter. Aan de buitenste rand van de planetoïdengordel van Epsilon Eridani vinden we Epsilon Eridani b (met een massa die vergelijkbaar is met die van Jupiter). Aan de rand van de Kuipergordel vinden we Neptunus. En deze studie wijst er sterk op dat aan de binnenste rand van de kometengordel van Epsilon Eridani ook een planeet te vinden is (zie ook de afbeelding hieronder). “Het is echt indrukwekkend dat Eri (Epsilon Eridani, red.), een veel jongere versie van ons zonnestelsel, net zo in elkaar steekt als het onze,” vindt onderzoeker Kate Su.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL / Caltech / R. Hurt (SSC).
Door naar Epsilon Eridani te kijken, reizen we eigenlijk terug in de tijd: naar het tijdperk waarin onze eigen zon nog piepjong was. “We zien een glimp van het verleden van de aarde door in het heden een nabijgelegen jonge zon te bestuderen,” stelt Marengo.
Monsterachtige golf ontdekt in het Perseus-cluster
Monsterachtige golf ontdekt in het Perseus-cluster
Caroline Kraaijvanger
De golf is miljarden jaren geleden ontstaan en 200.000 lichtjaar lang, oftewel ongeveer twee keer zo groot als onze Melkweg.
Het Perseus-cluster is een enorme groep sterrenstelsels die door de onderlinge zwaartekracht bij elkaar wordt gehouden. Het cluster is ongeveer 11 miljoen lichtjaar groot en staat op zo’n 240 miljoen lichtjaar afstand. Het grootste deel van de waarneembare materie in het cluster is superheet gas. Dit gas is zo heet dat het röntgenstraling afgeeft.
Golf Wetenschappers hebben het gas in het Perseus-cluster nu bestudeerd met behulp van röntgenobservatorium Chandra. Daarbij ontdekten ze allerlei structuren in het gas, waaronder een reusachtige golf.
Ontmoeting met een ander cluster Grote vraag is natuurlijk: hoe is die golf ontstaan? Om die vraag te kunnen beantwoorden, maakten de onderzoekers gebruik van simulaties. De simulatie die het dichtst bij de werkelijkheid in de buurt kwam, ging uit van een groot cluster met koud gas in het centrum en drie keer warmer gas daaromheen. Wanneer een kleiner cluster op geringe afstand van dit grote cluster langskwam, werd het gas in beweging gebracht. En doordat koud gas een andere snelheid heeft dan warm gas ontstaan golfbewegingen.
Onderzoekers noemen dat ook wel Kelvin-Helmholtz-golven. Dergelijke golven kunnen ontstaan in aardse oceanen, wolken en zelfs op de zon. Het exemplaar dat nu in het Perseus-cluster is ontstaan, is zeer waarschijnlijk echter de grootste Kelvin-Helmholtz-golf die ooit is geïdentificeerd.
De onderzoekers ontdekten verder dat de omvang van deze Kelvin-Helmholtz-golven sterk afhankelijk is van het magnetisch veld van een cluster. Als dat magnetisch veld heel zwak is, worden de golven groter. Is een magnetisch veld heel sterk, dan kunnen de golven helemaal niet ontstaan. Het betekent dat dergelijke golfachtige structuren in het gas van clusters meer kunnen vertellen over de sterkte van het magnetisch veld van deze clusters.
For those familiar with indie space game Stellaris, one of the key moments before encountering ancient intelligent life is finding traces of technology. While the game is a work of science fiction, the concept isn’t outlandish to those behind the real life search for extraterrestrial life (SETI). According to astronomer Jason Wright, discovering traces of advanced technology, termed technosignatures, from alien civilizations is just as important as looking for biosignatures. He outlines his theory in new paper published online, and while he doesn’t claim there’s existing, direct evidence of aliens, he does wonder if we’re just not looking hard enough – or for the right signs.
Contrary to what some have said, Wright’s paper isn’t saying that there’s already evidence pointing to an alien civilization that existed in the solar system before us. Instead, he merely asked whether we’ve exhausted all possible angles in our search for extraterrestrials.
“There is zero evidence for any prior indigenous technological civilizations,” Wright told Gizmodo. “My paper asks, have we completely foreclosed the possibility, or is there a chance that there could be some evidence we overlooked? [And] if we have overlooked something and we find it in the future, what are the chances it could have come from a prior indigenous technological species versus an interstellar one?”
Currently, the hunt for aliens is focused on finding even the smallest signs of life, or mechanisms that could support life (most notably, the presence of water). These are all good, of course, but Wright suggests that we might also start looking for technosignatures from ancient alien civilizations.
“A ‘technosignature’ is evidence of technology,” he said, which potential could have been left behind by some long-gone alien civilization. In his paper, he explained his point further: “We might conjecture that settlements or bases on [rocky moons or asteroids] would have been built beneath the surface for a variety of reasons, and so still be discoverable today.”
Image: NASA, JPL-Caltech
What Are We Really Searching For?
The discovery of a new planet — or even better, a new system in some near or distant galaxy — is always good news for alien hunters. Most recently, the TRAPPIST system presented some possibilities — albeit ones quickly dashed by the intensity of solar flares its planets experience. Another possible candidate is a huge, Earth-like planet dubbed super-Earth LHS 1140b. Inside our own solar system, the planetary satellites of Jupiter and Saturn — particularly Europa and Enceladus — tickle the imagination because of the presence of water. And where there is water, the chance of life is higher.
However, despite the odds seemingly in our favor, we really haven’t found any such example of alien life out there — yet. Fermi Paradox, yes? But, could it be that we’ve been looking at the wrong things? Or are we simply not looking hard enough?
Wright just wants us to explore all possible options: “While all geological records of prior indigenous [extraterrestrial] technological species might be long destroyed, if the species were spacefaring there may be technological artifacts to be found throughout the Solar system.”
What does a void sound like? (Insert the name of your least favorite cable news channel here.) Now that we’ve had our fun, NASA has provided us with the sound of an actual void and you’ll probably find it eerie, yet in most cases preferable to cable news.
On April 26th, the Cassini spacecraft passed between Saturn and its innermost ring and NASA engineers turned on a recording instrument. Believe it or not, they were hoping to capture the sounds of – cue Simon & Garfunkel – silence. Noise would be an indicator that the void isn’t an actual void but a corridor filled with dust or larger particles … and that would not be good for Cassini, which is scheduled to make many more passes through the area prior to its eventual death plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere in September.
While not a deal-breaker – or in this case, a dive-breaker – an abundance of dust would force NASA engineers to turn the craft so that its 13-foot-wide antenna would shield instruments from a particle bombardment, since even tiny ones can wreak havoc on them and there’s no electronics store nor robotic repair person around to fix them.
As you can hear in the audio, the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument picked up something.
RPWS detected the hits of hundreds of ring particles per second when it crossed the ring plane just outside of Saturn’s main rings, but only detected a few pings on April 26.
Is that good or bad news? William Kurth, RPWS team leader at the University of Iowa, gave the answer.
It was a bit disorienting – we weren’t hearing what we expected to hear. I’ve listened to our data from the first dive several times and I can probably count on my hands the number of dust particle impacts I hear.
In other words, the so-called void is really void of dangerous — at least to Cassini — dust particles. The RPWS detected very few radio and plasma waves to convert into the sounds of pops and cracks that would indicate particles. That means Cassini gets the go-ahead to keep on diving like Greg Louganis going for the gold. Twenty more dives are scheduled, including one on May 2 whose results were not available as of this writing.
Project Manager Earl Maize listening to the sounds from Cassini
While the sounds — or lack of them — from Saturn will probably not inspire any songs, they’ve inspired NASA engineers to keep on analyzing the data to figure out why a planet with so much stuff orbiting it has a such a big circle of nothing inside the innermost ring. As Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a press release:
The region between the rings and Saturn is ‘the big empty,’ apparently. Cassini will stay the course, while the scientists work on the mystery of why the dust level is much lower than expected.
The Big Empty … sounds like the perfect description for cable news.
Max Planck astrophysicist René Heller proposed a novel and innovative way to explore the stars.
Instead of just relying on the actual distance, Heller proposed using the light form a star to propel photon ships faster.
The bright lights could just draw you in
NASA, ESA, H. Bond (STScI), and M. Barstow (University of Leicester)
THE QUICKEST ROUTE
You’ve heard it said that the quickest route from point A to point B is the straightest path. Nowhere more does this apply than in space, where distances are measured by the direction that light travels, which is fairly straight. However, astrophysicist René Heller from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany thinks there’s more to interstellar travel than just a straight path.
Heller and his colleagues, in a recently published article, argued that traveling to a star isn’t just a function of distance, but also of how bright the star is. The concept is called a photogravitational assist. Simply put, the light emitted by a star powers photon or light sails (remember Count Dooku’s ship?) traveling in space.
Their calculations initially surprised Heller, he told New Scientist. However, the math is simple and sound: the time that it takes to travel to the nearest star is a function of distance divided by the square root of a star’s luminosity.
CHANGING OUR STELLAR TRAVEL SCHEDULE
Following these calculations, this means that we could get to Sirius faster than we could to any star in the Alpha Centauri system simply because it’s 18 times brighter, despite being twice as far as Proxima Centauri. We could reach Sirius in just 69 years, compared to the 140 years it would take to reach Proxima Centauri.
To do this, “We need a very light, solid, temperature-resistant, and highly reflective sail material that can span an area of several hundred meters squared,” Heller said. It could be graphene-based and coated by some metamaterial.
A similar effort by Breakthrough StarShot proposes using light sails to travel to Alpha Centauri. According to their calculations, it would take them only 20 years to make the journey. However, they only computed for a flyby mission that would last a couple of seconds, which wouldn’t allow them to observe that much. So, while it would present a unique and incredible opportunity to explore the Universe farther than we ever have before, it wouldn’t allow scientists to collect a lot of data.
In this case, Heller’s unusual route presents an advantage. “If this works out, then humanity can really go interstellar,” he said.
he Phoenix Lights incident 20 years ago is still seen as unexplained by some UFOers.
The National UFO reporting Centre (NUFORC) based in the US has been inundated with witness accounts about a series of UFO sightings on April 25 over parts of Florida.
Peter Davenport, NUFORC director, said: "Approximately a dozen high-quality sighting reports were submitted in rapid sequence by witnesses in multiple locations in Florida.
"Three adult witnesses in Largo reported having had a disc-shaped object descend out of nearby clouds, and hover briefly near their residence in the night sky.
"They report that the object suddenly darted back into the same area of the sky from which it had first come, disappearing again into the clouds."
The first report came from Bradenton at 8.40pm when three orange lights were seen in a triangle formation.
There were 11 further reports of odd airborne activity between 11pm, when at Jupiter, "something travelling in a straight line leaving a trail of fire or sparks" was seen for two to three minutes, and 1.47am, when, in Orlando, "eight spherical balls of light” emerged from the clouds.
The spectacle went on for three to four minutes when they "whipped back and forward across the sky in a straight line, then stopped and formed a circle and began to rotate around each other and form different shapes", according to a witness report.
Eight of the events took place in the 15 minutes between 11.45pm and midnight.
There was another sighting at 12.27am at Pinellas Park, when for 15 seconds, a "plane with a red blinking light seemed to be pulling what looked like a sparkler."
It reportedly went into a cloud and stayed stationary".
NUFORC says it usually receives just a fraction of actual UFO sightings, so expects many more people to have seen something and urges them to come forward.
The infamous Phoenix Lights incident happened on March 13 1997, when five lights were seen in a formation by thousands of people over three hours from 7.30pm to 10.30pm.
The sightings took place a cross a 300-mile area from Phoenix to Tucson.
It is considered one of the world's biggest ever mass UFO sightings, but was later blamed by officials as military flares at the time.
Eerder deze week had het Amerikaanse ruimtevaartbureau NASA laten weten dat de ruimte tussen de ringen van Saturnus en de planeet verrassend leeg is, nu is dat ook met geluid gestaafd. Die leegheid is vastgesteld door de Amerikaanse sonde Cassini.
De NASA pakte vandaag uit met twee audiofragmenten. Het eerste dateert van 18 december 2016 toen Cassini zijn 253 baantjes rondom de planeet maakte. Wat men hoort, is te omschrijven als een symfonie van een knetterend kampvuur en een zwaar beschadigde vinylplaat.
Op de video hieronder zijn de audiofragmenten van 18 december 2016 te horen:
Groot is het contrast met een audiofragment van 26 april jongstleden, toen de sonde een eerste duik in de ruimte tussen de ringen en Saturnus maakte. Er is enkel een aanhoudende ruis te horen zoals wanneer het beeld op televisie uitvalt. Het zwelt soms wat aan, er is een zeldzaam piepje en er zijn wat Morse-signaalachtige geluidjes te horen.
Op de video hieronder zijn de audiofragmenten van 26 april 2017 te horen:
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Mysterieus iets gevonden op Google Earth. Onderzoekers staan voor een raadsel. Enig idee wat dit is?
Mysterieus iets gevonden op Google Earth. Onderzoekers staan voor een raadsel. Enig idee wat dit is?
In 2007 zocht een amateurarcheoloog op satellietbeelden naar vindplaatsen toen zijn aandacht werd getrokken door een vreemde figuur in de woestijn.
De foto’s waren gemaakt boven de steppe van Noord-Kazachstan. De geogliefen die werden ontdekt waren zo opvallend dat ze zelfs de aandacht trokken van NASA-wetenschappers.
Met behulp van satellieten onderzochten ze het woestijnachtige gebied. Ze ontdekten al snel meer vreemde symbolen in het landschap.
Indruk
In Kazachstan zijn honderden vreemde geogliefen ontdekt. Ze bestaan uit kruizen, stippen, ringen of lijnen.
“Ze zijn prachtig, enorm en laten zien dat de mens dingen kan doen die zelfs vanuit de ruimte indruk maken,” zei Amanda Marchetti van DigitalGlobe, die de foto’s analyseerde, in het programma What On Earth?
Onontdekt
Onderzoekers die naar het gebied afreisden kwamen tot de ontdekking dat de patronen bestaan uit heuvels van aarde. Ze lijken bovendien veel ouder te zijn dan gedacht.
Door hun enorme omvang zijn ze duizenden jaren onontdekt gebleven. Ze zijn enkel zichtbaar vanuit de lucht. Door en voor wie zijn ze gemaakt?
Artist's illustration of the Epsilon Eridani system showing Epsilon Eridani b
(Credit:NASA/SOFIA/Lynette Cook)
The number of planetary systems discovered seems to grow on a daily basis, but most of them are wildly different to our own solar system. Now a team of University of Arizona researchers led by Kate Su have used NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) flying observatory to take a closer look at a system 10.5 light years away and discovered it has a familiar general structure.
The star in question is Epsilon Eridani (ε Eri) in the southern hemisphere of the constellation of Eridanus. Its previous claims to fame were as the setting for the sci fi television series Babylon 5 and the disputed location of Star Trek's planet Vulcan. It's also been the subject of several early studies seeking extrasolar planets and was even monitored in the 1960s by Project Ozma as a possible source of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Previously, Epsilon Eridani was found to have a debris disk made of gas, dust, and perhaps asteroids circling it, as well as a planet with about the mass of Jupiter and orbiting the young star at a comparable distance to that which the gas giant orbits the Sun.
None of this is very remarkable by today's standards, but when Su's team examined images from SOFIA, a different story emerged. SOFIA is a 100-in (2.5-m)-diameter telescope mounted inside a Boeing 747SP jetliner that operates out of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center's Hangar 703, in Palmdale, California.
Much of the previous work on Epsilon Eridani involved the Spitzer Space Telescope, but SOFIA is over twice the size of Spitzer, has three times the resolution, and can operate in the infrared at wavelengths between 25 and 40 microns. What this meant was that SOFIA could discern much smaller details, especially from warm materials, than before, which suggested an alternative model to the one provided by Spitzer's data.
What the University of Arizona scientists found was that Epsilon Eridani's inner system is clear of debris with a narrow debris ring just inside the orbit of the Jupiter-like planet. Beyond this is another clear region with another debris ring about where Neptune would be in our solar system. In other words, it's a lot like the inner Solar System, asteroid belt, Jupiter, the outer Solar System and the Kuiper Belt.
"The high spatial resolution of SOFIA combined with the unique wavelength coverage and impressive dynamic range of the FORCAST camera allowed us to resolve the warm emission around eps Eri, confirming the model that located the warm material near the Jovian planet's orbit," says Su. "Furthermore, a planetary mass object is needed to stop the sheet of dust from the outer zone, similar to Neptune's role in our solar system. It really is impressive how eps Eri, a much younger version of our solar system, is put together like ours."
Artist's illustration of the Epsilon Eridani system showing Epsilon Eridani b. In the right foreground, a Jupiter-mass planet is shown orbiting its parent star at the outside edge of an asteroid belt. In the background can be seen another narrow asteroid or comet belt plus an
outermost belt similar in size to our solar system's Kuiper Belt.NASA/SOFIA/Lynette Cook
Man's quest to know more about the vast universe received a shot in its arm after a new planetary system was discovered by NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a flying observatory.
Kate Su, who is an associate astronomer at the University of Arizona and the university's Steward Observatory, is the lead author of this study.
SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP jetliner which has been altered to carry a 100-inch diameter telescope which possesses a diameter of 100 inches (2.5 meters); the diameter is bigger in comparison to the Spitzer space telescope whose diameter is equal to 33.5 inches (0.85 meters). With the help of SOFIA, the researchers could study the details that were three times smaller; this wouldn't have been possible with Spitzer.
The planetary system discovered is located at a distance of 10.5 light years away in constellation Eridanus' southern constellation. A Sun-like star named Epsilon Eridani, aka eps Eri, which is believed to be less than a billion years old, was believed by astronomers as capable to reveal more about our solar system. The location is very apt for the astronomers to research about planet formations around Sun-like stars.
"Additionally, SOFIA's powerful mid-infrared camera called FORCAST, the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope, allowed the team to study the strongest infrared emission from the warm material around eps Eri, at wavelengths between 25-40 microns, which are undetectable by ground-based observatories," a NASA statement said.
The data collected by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was studied by the researchers in 2009 in order to explain about the eps Eri's debris disk which was formed from the remains of the space rock collisions and planet formations. The researchers revealed that this debris disk comprised different belts of asteroids, just like the Kuiper and asteroid belts of our solar system.
This space dust can be in the form of dust, gas and also tiny rocky and icy bodies. Further details revealed that a planet having a mass similar to that of Jupiter orbits the eps Eri star at a similar distance at which the gas giant Jupiter orbits the Sun.
Marengo revealed that the findings are crucial as they confirm epsilon Eridani is a good model of the early days of our solar system and can provide hints at how our solar system evolved.
"This star hosts a planetary system currently undergoing the same cataclysmic processes that happened to the solar system in its youth, at the time in which the moon gained most of its craters, Earth acquired the water in its oceans, and the conditions favourable for life on our planet were set," one of the co-authors Marengo stated in a summary of the project, as reported by Phys.org.
"The high spatial resolution of SOFIA combined with the unique wavelength coverage and impressive dynamic range of the FORCAST camera allowed us to resolve the warm emission around eps Eri, confirming the model that located the warm material near the Jovian planet's orbit," said Su.
"Furthermore, a planetary mass object is needed to stop the sheet of dust from the outer zone, similar to Neptune's role in our solar system. It really is impressive how eps Eri, a much younger version of our solar system, is put together like ours," Su said.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
