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!!!
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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.
Reading Brent Swancer’s May 8 article, “Mysterious Deaths and the Black Eyed Kids,” reminded me of the strange story, and untimely death, of a certain pursuer of the Loch Ness Monster. His name was F.W. “Ted” Holiday. He was the author of a number of very good books: The Great Orm of Loch Ness; The Dragon and the Disc; and The Goblin Universe. Like more than a few monster-hunters, Holiday started out as someone who believed the Nessies to be flesh-and-blood animals, but who later came around to the idea that they had paranormal origins – and were deeply dangerous, too. But, I’m not here today to talk about Holiday’s theories on what the beasts of Loch Ness are. Or are not. Rather, I’m here to share with you a strange saga that involved a creepy character in black, two suicides, and a couple of heart-attacks. One of them fatal.
On the night of June 2, 1973, Ted Holiday took part in an exorcism at Loch Ness – an exorcism which was performed by the Reverend Donald Omand, who had a deep interest in tales of lake-monsters and who believed them to have had paranormal origins. It was a drama-filled affair, to say the least. Before heading home, Holiday had a very ominous encounter. In Holiday’s own words (extracted from the aforementioned The Goblin Universe: “The next morning before breakfast I decided to step down to the lower caravan to collect some oddments from my suitcase. It was a beautiful fresh morning and the lawns were wet with dew. As I turned the corner of the house I stopped involuntarily. Across the grass, beyond the roadway and at the top of the slope leading down to Loch Ness at the top of which the caravan was located, stood a figure.”
Holiday continued: “It was a man dressed entirely in black. Unlike other walkers who sometimes pause along here to admire the Loch Ness panorama, this one had his back to the loch and was staring at me fixedly as soon as I turned the corner.”
F.W. “Ted” Holiday
It’s important to note that this was no regular man. Perhaps, the darkly-dressed figure wasn’t even human. On looking at the Man in Black, said Holiday, he felt “…a strong sensation of malevolence, cold and passionless.” The mysterious figure was attired in an outfit that Holiday said looked like “black plastic.” He wore black gloves and black headgear which resembled a biker’s helmet. Holiday tentatively walked towards the definitive Man in Black. As Holiday got close to the MIB, he was shocked to see that the man wore goggles, but appeared to have no eyes behind the goggles.
Holiday’s quickly thought out intention was to pretend to fall on the grass and reach out to the man for support – specifically to see if he was physical in form, or some kind of intangible specter. Holiday was prevented from doing so, however, when the sounds of whistling and unintelligible whispering filled the air, and the MIB vanished – as in dematerialized, literally. As Holiday – now petrified out of his wits – shakily scanned the half a mile of open road that dominated the landscape, it became clear to him that there was simply no way the man could have made good a stealthy escape in conventional fashion. Stunned to his core, Holiday tried to reconcile the whole thing as nothing but a bizarre hallucination – a theory that, he knew deep down, simply wasn’t viable. He tried to take his mind off the matter by saying his goodbyes to the Reverend Omand. It was all to no avail; the specter of the thing in black remained, like an albatross around Holiday’s neck.
There is a decidedly sinister sequel to this aspect of Ted Holiday’s quest for the truth of the Loch Ness Monster and his Man in Black experience, as Holiday himself noted: “When I returned to Loch Ness in 1974 to continue investigations, I was stopped after a few days with a heart attack. As a stretcher carried me up the side of the loch, I peered groggily over the side and noted with cynical approval that we had just passed over the exact spot [italics mine] where the man in black had stood the previous year. Synchronicity and the forces that control it never give up.” Ted Holiday died from a second heart attack in 1979. He wasn’t even sixty.
There is something else, too. Ted Holiday’s biker in black reminds me of the supernatural bikers in a British horror movie which was released in 1973 (the same year of the “Nessie exorcism” and of Holiday’s MIB encounter). The title of the movie: Psychomania. It’s interesting to note that one of the stars of the movie was George Sanders, who committed suicide not long after Psychomania was completed. Intriguingly, George Sanders was a former owner of Boleskine House – which, until it was destroyed by fire in December 2015, stood over Loch Ness. Its most famous owners were Aleister Crowley and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, both of whom were deeply interested in the occult.
All of which brings me back to Brent Swancer and his article. Ted Holiday said of the Man in Black that he (or it) provoked “…a strong sensation of malevolence, cold and passionless.” Brent Swancer’s notes that the Black Eyed Children “…are almost always described as exuding an intense wave of dread and panic.”
Then, there’s the matter of the eyes. We all know why the Black Eyed Children have the name that has become so infamous in paranormal circles. On the matter of Holiday’s MIB, he was sure that the man completely lacked eyes. But, I have to wonder, if the MIB was wearing tinted goggles, and if the man’s eyes were actually as black as those of the infamous and creepy kids, that might explain why, while he was wearing tinted goggles, it was near-impossible for Holiday to see his eyes. Granted, that’s simply a tenuous theory and absolutely nothing else, but it’s worth pondering on. A black-eyed adult, maybe?
There’s also the color of the clothing: Holiday’s figure was dressed totally in black. The BEK’s are very often seen wearing black hoodies. Finally, there is the matter of death. We have this from Brett: “Scattered amongst the many, many reports of encounters with Black Eyed Kids are those that seem to show a rather malevolent tendency for witnesses to meet with tragic misfortune and death, further casting a wicked shadow over them.”
And on the matter of “tragic misfortune and death”…
As we have seen, Ted Holiday couldn’t fail to note the eerie fact that the site of his 1974 heart-attack was “…the exact spot where the man in black had stood the previous year.” Plus, he died young from another heart-attack in ’79. And let’s not forget that George Sanders topped himself after making Psychomania – which is filled with supernatural bikers. Sanders was not alone in being an owner of Boleskine House who went on to kill himself. Crowley’s old abode was once owned by Major Edward Grant, a retired British Army officer. In 1960, Grant blew his head off, in his bedroom. His housekeeper, Anna MacLaren, told of seeing the major’s little dog, Pickiwig, racing around the house with a piece of the major’s skull in his mouth.
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A Strange, Primitive Atmosphere Has Been Discovered Around a Water-Rich Alien World
NASA/GSFC
A Strange, Primitive Atmosphere Has Been Discovered Around a Water-Rich Alien World
We didn't know planets like this were possible.
PETER DOCKRILL
Unexpected findings about the atmosphere of a distant Neptune-sized world have surprised scientists, acting as a reminder that as we discover more about planets beyond our Sun, the lessons we've learned from our own Solar System certainly don't always apply.
In this case, HAT-P-26b – located some 437 light-years away from Earth – is what's called a 'warm' or 'hot Neptune', meaning its mass is similar to Neptune, but that the planet closely orbits its host star. These kinds of worlds have been discovered before, but nothing quite like HAT-P-26b.
"Astronomers have just begun to investigate the atmospheres of these distant Neptune-mass planets, and almost right away, we found an example that goes against the trend in our Solar System," says one of the researchers, Hannah Wakeford from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre.
"This kind of unexpected result is why I really love exploring the atmospheres of alien planets."
What's unusual about HAT-P-26b is its unexpectedly primordial atmosphere, composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. For a planet that hangs so close to its star – orbiting it in just 4.23 days, in fact – that breaks a pattern astronomers are used to seeing in the atmospheric composition of other planets.
As it happens, that tight orbit is what made HAT-P-26b easy to study. One of the ways scientists can research the atmosphere of alien worlds is by observing planets as they transit (pass in front of) their host stars.
When planets do this, telescopes can analyse the starlight that gets filtered by the planet's atmosphere, which can tell us about the chemicals that make up that airspace.
The number of planets known around other stars has exploded in recent years, thanks in the main to the astonishingly successful Kepler spacecraft.
NASA Ames/W Stenzel, Princeton University/T Morton
Using data from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, Wakeford's team found that HAT-P-26b's atmosphere is largely clear of clouds but reveals a strong water signature – what the researchers say is the best measurement to date of water on an exoplanet of this size.
Crucially, that water signature enabled the team to estimate HAT-P-26b's metallicity: the extent to which the planet's atmosphere is dominated by elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
In the case of our own Solar System, metallicities are lower for bigger planets – evidenced by the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, with Jupiter having a metallicity up to 5 times that of the Sun, while Saturn contains about 10 times as much as the Sun.
What this means is that their atmospheres are mostly made up of hydrogen and helium. By contrast, Uranus and Neptune, which are smaller and orbit the Sun more distantly, contain greater metallicity – of around 100 times that of the Sun.
The pattern here is that, among our Solar System's outer planets at least, metallicities are lower for the bigger planets that lie closer to the Sun.
Scientists think that this is because, when these worlds formed from the protoplanetary dust that surrounded the Sun when the Solar System was young, Jupiter and Saturn were bombarded by less icy debris rich in heavy elements.
As a result, their subsequent atmospheres retain less metallicity today.
But in the case of HAT-P-26b, we've got a world that's not far out from its host star – and is in fact virtually clinging to it – and yet its atmosphere is almost entirely composed of hydrogen and helium, much like Jupiter and Saturn.
"[T]hat means that it probably formed much closer to its star, or later in the disc lifetime where it wasn't bombarded by icy debris and rich heavy elements whilst it was forming," Wakeford told Amina Khan at the Los Angeles Times, although in either case the researchers say it's a surprising result.
"We did not know that you could form these-sized planets closer to their star."
While it's definitely a quirk, it's an incredibly valuable one for astronomers, because it tells us that there are a lot more planetary possibilities than the template laid down in our own cosmic neighbourhood – and that means there's more surprising space science coming our way in the future.
"This analysis shows that there is a lot more diversity in the atmospheres of these exoplanets than we were expecting, which is providing insight into how planets can form and evolve differently than in our Solar System," one of the team, David K. Sing from the University of Exeter in the UK, explains in a press release.
"I would say that has been a theme in the studies of exoplanets: Researchers keep finding surprising diversity."
ALIEN SKY: Water has been discovered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet
“This new discovery about its atmosphere feels like a big breakthrough”
David Sing
The planet known as Hat-P-26b is roughly the same size as Neptune and was found closely orbiting its own star.
Using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers have found evidence of water and exotic clouds in the planet's air.
Finding water, which holds the key to life, is extremely rare on exoplanets due to them being so far away.
University of Exeter astrophysics professor David Sing said: "This exciting discovery shows there is a lot more diversity in the atmospheres of these exoplanets than we have previously thought.
"This 'warm Neptune' is a much smaller planet than those we have been able to characterise in depth.
"So this new discovery about its atmosphere feels like a big breakthrough in our pursuit to learn more about how solar systems are formed, and how it compares to our own."
But any space enthusiasts keen to make first contact with Warm Neptune could be in for a long wait, as it lies 430 light years away from Earth.
Space boffins have long believed that extraterrestrials could inhabit exoplanets,.
Around 437 light years away lies the mysterious exoplanet HAT-P-26b — which is a terrible name, but blessedly it’s also known as “Warm Neptune.” Scientists discovered the planet in 2010, but have just now uncovered information about its composition that could totally reshape how we think about the births and deaths of planets.
“Warm Neptune” is roughly the same mass as Neptune and Uranus, so scientists expected there to be many similarities between the planets. However, a new study conducted using NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer telescopes found an atmosphere made of unexpectedly light elements: mostly helium and hydrogen. The atmosphere also contains water signatures and scarcely any clouds.
The findings indicate that the planet’s formation probably happened differently than that of Neptune or Uranus, both of which have atmospheres that are rich in heavy elements. Scientists think that our “ice giants” formed near the edge of a giant ring of debris that whirled around the new sun. Being out on the fringe, Neptune and Uranus were hit with the icy, heavier parts of the debris — planets like Saturn and Jupiter got the warmer stuff — which then became part of their atmospheres.
An artist imagines the atmosphere of HAT-P-26b, or "Warm Neptune."
So if “Warm Neptune” doesn’t have those heavy elements, how did it form? The planet may have developed closer to its host star than Neptune and Uranus were to the sun. Alternatively, it could have formed later in the creation of its planetary system than our planets did in the development of the solar system. Or both possibilities could be true.
“This measurement is the first hint that giant planets may not all form the way the ones in our solar system did,” the lead author of the study, Hannah Wakeford, tells Inverse. She says that it’s not yet clear whether the anomaly is “Warm Neptune” or the planets in our solar system; extensive further research is needed.
“The big question we are trying to answer here is: How easy or hard is it to make a solar system like our own?” Wakeford explains. “This question has important implications for planet formation theories and how our planets evolved.”
The Curiosity Rover is on an important geological mission in the Bagnold Dunes, collecting samples and climbing the tallest mountain on Mars’ Mount Sharp. NASA has compiled a breathtaking 360-degree video of the rover’s latest views of active linear dunes near the base of the mountain on the red planet.
The dune campaign, which Curiosity has been on since late 2015, is helping scientists understand how wind affects the planet.
Mars isn’t nearly as windy as Earth, mostly because it lacks a dense atmosphere. But, heat causes winds to rise and it’s enough to pick up the sand and push it around. So far, the campaign has turned up a lot of interesting data including footage of “dust devils,” which are small tornado-like wisps.
This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows two scales of ripples, plus other textures, in an area where the mission examined a linear-shaped dune in the Bagnold dune field on lower Mount Sharp in March and April 2017.
NASA’s goal with this campaign is to learn how Mount Sharp influences the wind and if the wind separates mineral deposits on the surface. In its first phase of the campaign, Curiosity examined crescent-shaped dunes, which didn’t seem to be affected much by the mountain. But, in the second phase, looking at active linear dunes, there are noticeable differences in composition.
Based off the new footage, NASA believes Mount Sharp is significantly contributing to the movement of the linear dunes, unlike the crescent dunes. This could be because the linear dunes are about a mile uphill; closer to the action, so to speak.
“At these linear dunes, the wind regime is more complicated than at the crescent dunes we studied earlier,” Mathieu Lapotre of Caltech, leading the Curiosity team, said in a release.
The linear dunes also change shape more frequently, especially during the high-wind season, and ripples can be seen cascading across the sand. But, there is still more work to do before scientists can fully understand what we are working with on the Red Planet. The rover’s next step will be to measure the strength of the wind and collect and analyze samples of the sand for their mineral composition.
Curiosity’s continued success is helping NASA plan future landings, which will one day contain humans in hopes of inhabiting the planet. So, one step closer for Curiosity is indeed one step closer for mankind.
Alle ogen zijn gericht op TRAPPIST-1. Rond deze ultrakoele dwergster draaien zeven aardachtige planeten, waarvan zich er drie in de leefbare zone bevinden. Toch zou dit planetaire systeem niet stabiel zijn. Uit een nieuw onderzoek blijkt echter dat er niets aan de hand is.
“Als je een simulatie zou laten draaien, dan zouden de planeten binnen een miljoen jaar op elkaar botsen”, zegt postdoc Dan Tamayo van de universiteit van Toronto. “Dat klinkt als een lange periode, maar astronomisch gezien stelt het niets voor.” Daar heeft Tamayo een punt, want ons eigen zonnestelsel is al zo’n 4,5 miljard jaar oud. “Het zou echt toeval zijn als we dit systeem kort voor de ineenstorting hebben ontdekt. Er moet een reden zijn waarom de banen stabiel blijven.”
In harmonie En die reden hebben Tamayo en zijn collega’s gevonden, zo blijkt uit een paper in het wetenschappelijke vakblad Astrophysical Journal Letters. Ze ontdekten namelijk dat er sprake is van een resonante keten. Dat wil zeggen dat de omlooptijden van de exoplaneten op elkaar zijn afgestemd. Wanneer de ene planeet exact twee rondjes om de zon draait, doet de andere planeet er één. Zelfs al zouden de banen kruisen, dan nog zouden de planeten elkaar nooit tegenkomen.
Het is een bekend fenomeen, want we zien het ook in ons eigen zonnestelsel. De banen van Neptunus en Pluto zijn namelijk in resonantie. Neptunus doet 165 aardse jaren over een rondje om de zon, terwijl Pluto er ruim 248 jaar over doet. De omlooptijd van Neptunus is 2/3e van de omlooptijd van Pluto. Wanneer Neptunus drie rondjes heeft afgelegd om de zon, heeft Pluto twee volledige banen voltooid. Beide planeten staan dan weer op hetzelfde punt. Zou er geen sprake zijn van resonantie, dan zou de baan van Pluto waarschijnlijk niet lang stabiel zijn.
Zo klinkt TRAPPIST-1 “Er is sprake van een ritmisch en herhalend patroon, waardoor een systeem lange tijd stabiel blijft”, vertelt postdoc Matt Russo van het Canadese Institute For Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA). Hij heeft een interessante manier gevonden om de resonante keten van TRAPPIST-1 in beeld te brengen, namelijk op muzikale wijze. Wanneer een exoplaneet bij TRAPPIST-1 exact één keer om de dwergster draait, wordt er een keer op de piano gepingeld. Wanneer een planeet zijn nabije buur inhaalt, klinkt er een drumbeat. Het resultaat is een mooie melodie.
Zoals je hoort klinkt dit als een normaal liedje. Zoals planetenbanen in balans zijn, zo geldt dit ook voor muzieknoten. “De meeste planetaire systemen klinken als bands met slechte muzikanten,” zegt Russo. “Iedere muzikant speelt zijn melodie op een andere snelheid. Dit geldt niet voor TRAPPIST-1. De zeven exoplaneten van TRAPPIST-1 zijn perfect op elkaar ingespeeld.”
Einde van de buitenaardse wereld Het team testte de simulaties met een supercomputer. Het resonante systeem bleef lange tijd stabiel, namelijk honderd keer langer dan tijdens de simulatie in het originele onderzoeksartikel. En dat is goed nieuws voor de mensheid, want wie weet gaan we ons ooit vestigen op één van deze planeten op veertig lichtjaar van de aarde. We hoeven dan in ieder geval niet te vrezen dat het einde van de buitenaardse wereld nabij is.
Exo-Neptunus heeft een relatief primitieve atmosfeer
Exo-Neptunus heeft een relatief primitieve atmosfeer
Tim Kraaijvanger
Astronomen hebben de atmosfeer van exoplaneet HAT-P-26b geanalyseerd. Dit is een warme Neptunus-achtige planeet, die op een afstand van 437 lichtjaar om een oude ster draait. Uit de analyse blijkt dat deze exoplaneet een relatief primitieve atmosfeer heeft.
Dit betekent dat er nauwelijks zware elementen te vinden zijn in de atmosfeer van HAT-P-26b. In deze atmosfeer troffen onderzoekers voornamelijk alleen waterstof en helium aan. Verder concluderen de astronomen dat er sporen van water te vinden zijn op HAT-P-26b, al is deze buitenaardse wereld geen waterwereld. Ook zijn er vrijwel geen wolken gespot op deze zogenoemde exo-Neptunus.
Lage metalliciteit En dat is opvallend, want Neptunus en Uranus zijn ongeveer even zwaar als deze exoplaneet, maar deze planeten in ons zonnestelsel hebben wel atmosferen met twintig keer zoveel zwaardere metalen als HAT-P-26b. Qua metalliciteit (de hoeveelheid zware elementen in de atmosfeer) lijkt deze exoplaneet veel meer op Jupiter, die ongeveer twee tot vijf keer zoveel zware elementen heeft als de zon. Wetenschappers denken daarom dat HAT-P-26b op een andere manier is ontstaan dan de twee buitenste gasplaneten in ons zonnestelsel. Mogelijk vormde HAT-P-26b zich heel dicht bij de moederster of is deze exoplaneet relatief laat geboren. Misschien is het wel een combinatie van deze twee factoren.
Niet volgens het boekje “We zijn pas begonnen met het onderzoeken van atmosferen van verre Neptuniaanse planeten,” vertelt onderzoeker Hannah Wakeford van NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Toch vinden we nu al een voorbeeld van een exoplaneet waarbij de atmosfeer niet volgens het boekje is ontwikkeld. Dit voorbeeld is de reden waarom ik het leuk vind om de atmosferen van buitenaardse werelden te verkennen.”
Planeetovergang Wetenschappers hebben de atmosfeer van HAT-P-26b geanalyseerd tijdens een planeetovergang. Tijdens een planeetovergang schuift een planeet voor de moederster langs. Een klein deel van het sterrenlicht wordt geblokkeerd, terwijl een fractie van het sterrenlicht door de atmosfeer van de planeet reist. Bepaalde golflengten worden door de atmosfeer gefilterd. Wetenschappers kijken naar de vingerafdruk van het sterrenlicht en kunnen op die manier achterhalen wat de chemische samenstelling van een buitenaardse atmosfeer is.
Diversiteit “Er is sprake van veel diversiteit in de atmosferen van dit soort exoplaneten”, concludeert onderzoeker David K. Sing van de universiteit van Exeter. “Dat is een beetje de trend van de afgelopen jaren. Wetenschappers worden continu verrast door al die verschillen.”
Cassini maakt scherpste foto ooit van propellers in de A-ring van Saturnus
Cassini maakt scherpste foto ooit van propellers in de A-ring van Saturnus
Tim Kraaijvanger
De Cassini-ruimtesonde heeft een haarscherpe foto van propellers in het middelste gedeelte van de A-ring van Saturnus gemaakt. Dit zijn kleine verstoringen in de ringen van Saturnus.
De verstoringen ontstaan door piepkleine maantjes. Eén van de grootste en bekendste propellers is de Bleriot-propeller. Deze verstoring wordt veroorzaakt door een dwergmaantje met een diameter van ongeveer honderd meter. De propeller, die eruit ziet als een soort schroef met twee banen, is enkele kilometers groot.
Astronomen vermoeden dat alleen in de A-ring duizenden minimaantjes te vinden zijn die propellers maken. Op de nieuwe Cassini-foto zijn er ontelbaar veel te zien. Kijk maar eens links en rechts van het diagonale golfpatroon.
Ontelbaar veel propellers, zoals het duo aan de rechterkant.
De foto is gemaakt op 19 april. De resolutie bedraagt 385 meter per pixel. Al deze propellers zijn dus ook enkele kilometers lang. Wetenschappers gaan de foto gebruiken om te bepalen hoe groot deze minimaantjes zijn en om opnieuw een berekening te maken van de verspreiding van deze objecten rondom Saturnus.
Weer ontdekking gedaan op Mars. Is dit een dode alien?
Weer ontdekking gedaan op Mars. Is dit een dode alien?
UFO-jagers menen op een NASA-foto van Mars een ‘dode alien’ te hebben gevonden. Dat meldt het Russische persbureau Sputnik.
Door complottheoretici wordt druk gespeculeerd over de doodsoorzaak van de alien, schrijft de Russische internetkrant ng.ru.
De UFO-jagers zien op de foto een figuur, die mogelijk is geplet door een stuk rots. Daarbij zijn het hoofd, een arm en een been van het wezen intact gebleven.
Vulkanisme
De doodsoorzaak hebben ze nog niet kunnen achterhalen. Ze noemen onder meer vulkanisme op de rode planeet als mogelijke oorzaak.
De houding van de figuur doet hen denken aan die van de slachtoffers van de uitbarsting van de Vesuvius.
In 79 na Christus begroef die vulkaan het dorp Pompeii onder een laag lava en as. Alles in en rondom het dorp is perfect bewaard gebleven.
Verborgen
UFO-enthousiastelingen ontdekken vaker vreemde voorwerpen op Mars. Zij stellen dat de NASA dingen voor ons verborgen houdt.
Wetenschappers spreken in dergelijke gevallen echter van pareidolie, de aangeboren neiging van de hersenen om onduidelijke en willekeurige waarnemingen betekenis te geven.
Ons brein is getraind om snel verbanden te leggen tussen de verschillende stimuli die het ontvangt. Het is een nuttig overlevingsmechanisme.
Canadian witness says UFO followed car 20 feet overhead
Canadian witness says UFO followed car 20 feet overhead
A Canadian witness at Edson reported a glowing object following her vehicle just 20 feet overhead, according to testimony in Case 83272 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness first thought the bright light was a vehicle approaching from behind.
Pictured: Downtown Edson, AB, Canada.
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The witness was returning home from the hospital at 10 p.m. on April 19, 2017, when the incident occurred.
“It was about a 15-minute drive,but felt much longer that night,” the witness stated.“No vehicles in sight. Out of nowhere a bright, yellow-colored light appeared in my rearview mirror nearly blinding me.”
The driver eventually released the object was 20 feet over the vehicle as she approached Edson.
(Credit: Google)
The witness first thought the light might be a vehicle approaching from behind.
“I continued driving and slowed down a little, hoping it was passing me. That’s when it started to speed up and that’s when I realized it was above the car, maybe a 20-foot distance.”
The witness described the object.
“I noticed it was a bright, yellow-orange color and glowed. I could not make out the details as it was too bright. I sped up to get away from it, but it continued at the same speed overhead. For 15minutes, it remained this way. When I got closer to my destination, I went down a hill to get to my turn and slowed right down. The UFO then abruptly changed direction towards where I was headed to. Hovered above the property and then the UFO glowing light went dim and disappeared into the darkness of the night.”
Once at her destination, the object briefly hovered over the property before moving away.
Pictured: Edson, AB, Canada. (Credit: Google)
Edson is a town in west-central Alberta, Canada, population 8,414. MUFON Canada 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 At Space Station On Live NASA Cam, May 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO At Space Station On Live NASA Cam, May 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: May 2017
Location of sighting: Earths Orbit At ISS
There is no place other than space that aliens want to see humanity...at their finest, reaching for the stars. This UFO is seen on the other side of the solar panels in the far distance. It look like is about the size of city bus and is disk shaped. A great catch by Streetcap1 of Youtube.
Many say its impossible to catch a UFO at the space station, however those people never put more than 5 minutes into looking. If you search for about 1-2 hours. I guarantee you will see a UFO.
Scott C. Waring
Streetcap1 states:
This looks like a craft behind the ISS speeding off into the distance. NASA must have been on their coffee break. SC1.
The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova noted by Earth-bound chroniclers in 1054 A.D., is filled with mysterious filaments that are are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.
By combining observations from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, researchers found that the atmosphere of the distant “warm Neptune” exoplanet HAT-P-26b, illustrated here, is unexpectedly primitive, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. The astronomers also detected water and evidence of exotic clouds in the planet’s air.
Credit: NASA/GSFC
Astronomers have spotted water vapor and evidence of exotic clouds in the atmosphere of an alien planet known as HAT-P-26b.
The researchers also determined that HAT-P-26b's atmosphere is dominated by hydrogen and helium to a much greater degree than that of Neptune or Uranus, the alien world's closest counterparts in our own solar system in terms of mass.
"This exciting new discovery shows that there is a lot more diversity in the atmospheres of these exoplanets than we have previously thought," David Sing, an astrophysics professor at the University of Exeter in England, said in a statement. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
"This 'warm Neptune' is a much smaller planet than those we have been able to characterize in depth, so this new discovery about its atmosphere feels like a big breakthrough in our pursuit to learn more about how solar systems are formed, and how it compares to our own," added Sing, the co-leader of a new study about HAT-P-26b that was published online today (May 11) in the journal Science.
Water and alien clouds
HAT-P-26b lies about 430 light-years away from Earth. The alien planet circles very close to its host star, completing one orbit every 4.2 Earth days. This proximity suggests that HAT-P-26b is tidally locked, showing the same face to its star at all times, said Hannah Wakeford, co-leader of the new study and a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Sing, Wakeford and their colleagues analyzed observations made by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes when HAT-P-26b crossed its parent star's face from the telescopes' perspectives. The planet's atmosphere filtered out certain wavelengths of starlight during these "transits," allowing the study team to identify some of the molecules swirling in HAT-P-26b's air.
One such molecule is water.
"For this mass range, this is the strongest water-absorption feature that we have ever measured," Wakeford told Space.com.
The data also indicate that clouds scud across HAT-P-26b's skies, but relatively deep in the atmosphere; they do not block much of the water-absorption signal, Wakeford said. These clouds are probably made of disodium sulfide, not water vapor like those of Earth, she added.
"This would be a very alien sky that you would be looking at," Wakeford said. "These clouds would cause scattering in all of the colors, so you'd get a kind of scattery, washed-out, gray sky, which is interesting, if you were looking through these clouds."
Ultrabright light streaming from the nearby star would bombard an observer above the clouds, she added. "There's nothing there to really help stop that sunlight from reaching you."
Clues about planet formation
Using the transit data, the study team also calculated the "metallicity" of HAT-P-26b's atmosphere — how much of it is made up of elements other than hydrogen and helium. (To an astronomer, anything heavier than helium is a metal.)
In Earth's solar system, metallicity goes down as a planet's mass goes up. For example, Neptune and Uranus both have metallicities about 100 times greater than that of the sun (which is almost entirely hydrogen and helium), whereas the much larger Saturn and Jupiter are just 10 and five times more metallic than the sun, respectively.
But HAT-P-26b does not fit that pattern. Though the exoplanet is about as massive as Neptune, its metallicity is more in line with that of Jupiter, the researchers in the new study found.
This surprising bit of information holds clues about HAT-P-26b's formation and evolution, Wakeford said.
"It suggests that this smaller planet actually formed closer to its star, more like where Jupiter formed," she said. "And we didn't know before that you could form [such] planets in that region. We expected the smaller worlds to be formed further out, where they would accumulate clumps of icy debris and richer heavy elements during the formation in the [protoplanetary] disk." (In these scenarios, planets such as HAT-P-26b migrate inward, toward their stars, after they form.)
Over the last decade or so, NASA's Kepler space telescope and other planet-hunting instruments have revealed a staggering array of alien worlds and solar system architectures. The new study, and others like it, should help researchers better understand the reasons for this variety, Wakeford said.
"This is the first step toward looking at the diversity in the formation process as well," she said.
New Instrument May Aid Search for Extraterrestrial Life
New Instrument May Aid Search for Extraterrestrial Life
For 2 weeks on the Greenland ice cap, scientists tested an instrument that might help us find life on icy moons with oceans beneath their crusts.
A researcher looks over the Greenland ice cap, a “frozen ocean.” Eleven scientists just returned from a field campaign testing an instrument that can scrutinize holes in ice for signs of life. Someday, such an instrument might find its way to Europa or Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael J. Malaska
Ocean worlds are on planetary scientists’ minds. More and more, evidence rolls in about the potential habitability of ice-covered bodies like Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The findings point to heat-driven processes in their subsurface oceans that could support life. Scientists are now beginning to wonder: Could the search for life end on one of these icy satellites?
Assuming humanity does land a spacecraft on Europa or Enceladus, any evidence of life it might uncover would receive heavy scrutiny. In a recent report on a possible landing mission to Europa, scientists devoted multiple chapters to discussing the kinds of evidence they’d need—like finding amino acids and other organic molecules in patterns similar to those in organic matter on Earth.
But even before these signatures can be detected by a probe or scrutinized by researchers in a lab, scientists need an instrument that can take data directly from a hole drilled into an icy surface.
Now scientists at NASA have begun to test such an instrument, a culmination of 20 years of technological development, called the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering, or WATSON. The idea would be to include a WATSON-like instrument on a lander bound for Europa, Enceladus, or even Mars’s polar ice caps, said Rohit Bhartia, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., and a WATSON team member.
Bhartia and a group of scientists recently returned from a 2-week field campaign in southern Greenland, where they tested out WATSON in holes they drilled into the Greenland ice cap.
“What we were doing in Greenland has never been performed before,” Bhartia said. “The technology was simply not available.”
Frozen Ocean
Mike Malaska said that ice poking out of the landscape reminded him of waves or shark fins. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael J. Malaska
Each day of the trip, the team would greet the Greenland morning from their dormitories at the Kangerlussuaq Science Support Facility, which hosts teams of scientists conducting research. They’d load their equipment into a couple of trucks and drive about an hour onto the ice, where they’d spend several hours drilling, looking for new sites to drill, or analyzing boreholes with WATSON.
For Mike Malaska, another WATSON team member and planetary scientist at JPL, the trip was “epically awesome.” It was his first experience conducting field work on a large ice cap.
“It’s hard to put it into words, but you just felt the vastness and largeness of the landscape,” he said. The wind- and Sun-sculpted peaks of ice poked up like shark fins, making the icy scenery look like a “frozen ocean.”
Each fresh snowfall or cloudy sky changed the scenery to dramatic effect, Malaska said. “Every direction we looked it was just an incredible beautiful vastness that couldn’t be captured by a photo; it had to be experienced in person,” he said.
Science on Ice
The WATSON instrument analyzes a drill hole, using fluorescence/Raman spectroscopy to detect organic molecules. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Rohit Bhartia
The researchers set out to study the kinds of signatures life leaves in the ice, like organic molecules or even physical alterations, which will help future scientists evaluate potential evidence for life elsewhere in the solar system, Bhartia said.
Scientists know that microbes on Earth can live under, inside, and around glaciers, but they can’t do any analysis in the field because the technology doesn’t yet exist. Currently, researchers remove an ice core, package it, ship it thousands of kilometers, and study it at a lab bench. Not only can this contaminate the core, but it also leaves out important context about the environment in which the core was found, like how microbes got into the ice: Was it through a subglacial lake? An aboveground fracture?
Enter WATSON, an instrument that can analyze the environment surrounding a core. After the researchers drilled into the ice, they lowered WATSON—a long, silver tube attached to a tripod—into the hole to analyze its walls and hunt for signs of microbes. WATSON contains an instrument called a fluorescence/Raman spectrometer that can detect organic molecules in the ice. It does so by zapping the walls of the borehole with an ultraviolet laser that excites some molecules into a higher-energy state, Malaska said. The molecules then return to their original state, emitting the excess energy as photons. The device collects and measures the energies of those photons to determine what kinds of organic molecules are present on the inner surface of the borehole. It also detects molecules by looking at how much they scatter or change the light of the laser. Other components of WATSON create a visible map of that surface that scientists can overlay with the spectrometer data.
Scientists extracting a core from the ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael J. Malaska
Once it is fully operational, WATSON should be able to rapidly combine these data sets to identify regions of interest within the walls of the borehole. The combined data set will reveal the distribution of the molecules to help scientists conducting these field tests learn more about the many kinds of signatures that indicate the presence of microbial life, Malaska said.
Next Steps
The April campaign was only the first step in testing WATSON, a step Bhartia called “wildly successful.” WATSON functioned as intended—quite a feat, as it was designed, fabricated, tested, and deployed within less than a year, Bhartia said. WATSON generated heaps of data about the organic molecules within the test boreholes. The researchers also collected ice cores from the locations where they drilled, which they will analyze in the coming months at Montana State University in Bozeman. There, the researchers will use the core data to verify WATSON’s data.
The team is currently “feverishly analyzing” their data and preparing for more Greenland field campaigns in 2018 and again in 2019, Bhartia said. If all goes as planned, on those future trips, the researchers will have integrated WATSON with a drill to test the feasibility of the fully operational instrument.
Citation: Wendel, J. (2017), New instrument may aid search for extraterrestrial life, Eos, 98,https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO073189. Published on 10 May 2017.
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Evidence of ancient life in hot springs on Earth could point to fossil life on Mars
Evidence of ancient life in hot springs on Earth could point to fossil life on Mars
Fossils from 3.5 billion years ago change our ideas about early life on Earth, and how we might look for life on Mars.
Ridges in the Dresser Formation in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia that preserve ancient stromatolites and hot spring deposits.Kathleen Campbell, Author provided
Fossil evidence of early life has been found in old hot spring deposits in the Pilbara, Western Australia, that date back almost 3.48 billion years.
This extends the known evidence of life at land-based hot springs on Earth by about 3 billion years.
Not only is the find exciting for what it might say about the evolution of early life on Earth, but it also has implications for the search for life on Mars.
Our understanding of these deposits would not be possible without the foundations laid by earlier researchers.
Ancient stromatolites
In the late 1970s, fossilised stromatolites – rock structures built by communities of microorganisms – were discovered within these Pilbara deposits.
But extensive research over the past 20 years has led to a much better understanding of the environment that suggests it was actually part of an ancient volcano.
In modern volcanic settings, hot fluids circulate in the rocks underground and manifest as hot vents at the bottom of the salty ocean, such as the black or white smokers, or terrestrial hot springs on land where fresh rainwater is available.
What was unclear about the volcanic setting in the Pilbara was whether these hot circulating fluids were indeed discharging on land, producing hot springs – such as those we see in Rotorua, New Zealand – and could we link these hot springs to signs of life?
The smoking gun
Our recent findings from the Pilbara, published today in Nature Communications, provide a smoking gun to a terrestrial hot spring scenario in the form of a particular rock type called geyserite. This was found alongside a variety of textures that indicate life.
Geyserite only forms around the edges of terrestrial hot spring pools and geysers. These are found actively forming today in New Zealand, Yellowstone National Park and Iceland to name a few.
The biological signatures that we’ve found include stromatolites, but also some newly identified microbial textures. This includes a microbial texture (called palisade fabric) that represents microbes that grew upon the ancient sinter terraces – the rocks that form around hot spring pools.
We also found evidence of gas bubbles that must have been trapped in a sticky substance (microbial) in order to be able to preserve the bubble shape.
Spherical bubbles preserved in 3.48 billion year old rocks in the Dresser Formation in the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia provide evidence for early life having lived in ancient hot springs on land.UNSW, Author provided
Importantly, all of these textures are comparable to fossil textures found in modern hot spring settings such as Yellowstone National Park or Rotorua, New Zealand.
Ancient life on land
The Earth’s geological and fossil record is like a thousand-piece puzzle, but we only have a few pieces. Every missing piece we discover helps us to better shape our understanding of life.
But these new findings don’t just extend back the record of geyserite and life living in hot springs on land by 3 billion years, they also indicate that life was inhabiting the land much earlier than previously thought, by up to 580 million years.
Before these findings, the world’s oldest evidence for microbial life on land was from ancient, organic matter-rich soils from South Africa, aged between 2.7 billion and 2.9 billion years.
The new discovery has implications for the evolution, and perhaps even the origin, of life on Earth.
Scientists are currently considering two hypotheses regarding the origin of life: that it began in the ocean in hot vents, or alternatively that it began on land in a version of Charles Darwin’s “warm little pond” which was connected to a hot spring system.
The discovery of biological signatures and fossil preservation in such ancient hot springs provides at least a geological perspective of the types of environments available and inhabited by life very early on in Earth’s history.
This may lend weight to the hypothesis that life originated on land and then took a downhill adaptive evolutionary pathway to the salty ocean, whereas the opposite is typically proposed.
Life on Mars
These findings have major implications regarding the search for life elsewhere in the universe, or at least our solar system. Our neighbouring planet, Mars, has long been a target in the search for extraterrestrial life.
It is widely accepted that the red planet was likely similar to Earth once upon a time, in that it had liquid water flowing on its surface and active volcanoes.
Recent data from the spirit rover has even identified ancient hot springs, of a similar age to early Earth, in an area called Columbia Hills.
In fact Columbia Hills is one of the top three potential landing sites chosen for NASA’s upcoming Mars2020 rover that’s includes a primary objective to search for fossil life on Mars.
Our findings imply that if life ever developed on the red planet, and it is preserved in ancient hot springs on Earth, then there is a good chance it could be preserved in ancient hot springs on Mars too.
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The Upside In Transmitting Messages To Extraterrestrials
The Upside In Transmitting Messages To Extraterrestrials
Officially, humanity has not found any proof of space alien existence despite many years of searching in the cosmos. However, if Earthlings succeed in encountering alien species, will the aliens be hostile, indifferent, or a little nice?
Dough Vakoch of METI International, a group of scientists that has been sending radio signals out into the void in an attempt to communicate with alien life, says that it is challenging to second-guess alien motivations. SETI scientists have often assumed ETs that will make contact have survived long enough and overcome any warlike traits during the process of their evolution.
akoch explains that if space aliens have not learned to behave nicely with others, they will not have survived at least thousands of years necessary to be a stable interstellar civilization.
Stephen Hawking has warned about transmitting messages to aliens. He said that intelligent aliens might come to Earth to strip mine. However, Vakoch does not think Hawking’s theory is realistic as it makes no economic sense the idea of aliens traveling across the galaxy to look for something that can be found in their backyard. Second, according to Vakoch, a civilization that can traverse the distances between the stars may already know about our presence, so scientists do not expose our lives to any additional threats in transmitting intentional signals. Vakoch further explains that there is, in fact, an upside to sending such messages and that is to intrigue the aliens about humanity and make a reply.
The small town of Varginha, in the state of Minas Gerais, is not particularly pretty. It has no touristic attractions. Actually, Varginha could very well cross history without ever being noticed by the rest of Brazil – let alone the world. That changed on January 20, 1996, when the town became the stage of the most famous Brazil UFO incident.
Three adolescents claimed that they saw a weird being. The creature was short and had V-shaped feet, horns and red eyes. “It wasn’t a man or an animal. It was something different,” they said at the time. Overnight, the three young women put Varginha on the map.
Reports about creatures and UFOs, military operations, strange coincidences, and mysterious deaths followed January 20. In fact, many questions remain unanswered to this day.
Something weird did happen in 1996
Brazil UFO incident in Varginha began when two sisters and a friend saw a strange creature. That encounter unchained a series of events upon which the Brazilian media feasted, and hysteria spread throughout the residents of Varginha. It didn’t help that the Brazilian Army made a spectacular and costly operation to investigate the case.
Within 24 hours, more reports about UFO appeared. A couple of farmers said they saw something resembling a gray spaceship overflying their cattle. “The cows are running from it. The object was surrounded by fog, but had no lights on it and didn’t make any noise,” said one of the farmers.
Also, another strange creature was seen next to the city’s zoo. Then, animals started dying for no apparent reason.
All incidents, of course, remain unproven. According to Marco Petit, a Brazilian ufologist, that’s because of a government cover-up operation. In a book called “Varginha, toda a verdade revelada” (literally “Varginha, the entire truth revealed”), he says that the case is bigger and more important than people think.
“The military’s high command took part of the case. I present their names so people won’t say I’m kidding about ufology,” he told G1 in 2015. Petit points out that some reports stated that the military found a spaceship and captured part of its crew.
Rumor has it that the bodies of the extraterrestrials were examined by Doctor Badan Palhares, who was Brazil’s leading forensic expert at the time. Palhares, however, has always denied the claims, calling it “utter nonsense.”
The military’s official version
In October 2015, weekly magazine IstoÉ publish an article containing official documents of the Brazilian Army. According to the official reports of the time, the “creature” that the three young women saw was not an ET. It was, in fact, a man who suffered from mental illnesses and lived next to the vacant lot in which they had their “close encounter of the third kind.”
A Brazilian Roswell?
Although every single one of those claims remains unproven, the incident catapulted Varginha into a touristic spot for UFO believers. The Wall Street Journal said about the town: “a hot spot in the intergalactic search for intelligent life.”
Whether the Brazil UFO incident was true or false never mattered for the city. The city was smart in trying to capitalize on it. Until this day, local vendors sell dolls of the “Varginha ET,” as Brazilians call it. Restaurants and stores have alien-themed decorations.
In 2001, the Mayor’s Office inaugurated a 12-meter high glowing tower in the city’s central square (you can see it on the main photo of this article). Its shape? You guessed right, a spaceship.
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Golvende lava ontdekt in Io's grootste vulkaankrater
Golvende lava ontdekt in Io's grootste vulkaankrater
Tim Kraaijvanger
Astronomen hebben een gedetailleerde kaart gemaakt van het grootste lavameer op Io, een maan van Jupiter. De temperatuur van het gesmolten meer nam langzaam toe van het westen naar het oosten. Zij vermoeden dat golven hiervoor verantwoordelijk zijn.
PIZZAMAAN IO
Io wordt ook wel de ‘pizzamaan’ genoemd. Dit maantje van Jupiter heeft namelijk een pokdalig landschap. Io is het meest vulkanisch actieve hemellichaam in het zonnestelsel en is – na Venus en zon – de heetste plek in ons zonnestelsel. De maan Io is vulkanisch actief, omdat de maan intern wordt gekneed door Jupiter en de twee grote manen van Jupiter: Ganymedes en Europa. Regelmatig spuwen de vulkanen op Io zwavel de ruimte in. Dit levert hele mooie beelden op. Io zelf zien? Richt een beginnerstelescoop op Jupiter en de vier manen van Jupiter zijn duidelijk te zien: mits ze zich naast de gasplaneet bevinden (en niet erachter).
De bovenste laag van het 200 kilometer grote lavameer is gestold. De golven zorgen ervoor dat de gestolde bovenlaag wordt afgebroken en naar de bodem zakt. “Hierdoor komt de gloeiende magma daaronder bloot te liggen, waardoor het lavameer in infrarood licht helderder wordt,” legt onderzoeker Katherine de Kleer van UC Berkeley uit. Het paper van De Kleer en collega’s is online te lezen op de site van het wetenschappelijke vakblad Nature.
De temperatuurkaart laat een toename zien in temperatuur van 270 Kelvin (waar lava gestold is) tot 330 Kelvin (nieuwe magma). Overigens is dit niet extreem warm. 270 Kelvin komt overeen met een temperatuur van -3 graden Celsius, terwijl 330 Kelvin ongeveer 57 graden Celsius is. Op basis van modellen concluderen de onderzoekers dat twee trage golven iedere dag een afstand van ongeveer één kilometer afleggen. De vernieuwing van de toplaag van het lavameer gaat dus extreem langzaam. Ben je benieuwd welke routes deze golven afleggen? Bekijk de video hieronder.
Simulatie van hoe de golven door het lavameer bewegen.
Europa-overgang Fascinerender is de manier waarop wetenschappers tot deze conclusie zijn gekomen. Ze maakten daarbij slim gebruik van een andere maan van Jupiter: Europa. Op 8 maart vloog Europa voor Io langs. Hierdoor werd het licht van de vulkanische maan tijdelijk geblokkeerd. Omdat het oppervlak van Europa uit waterijs bestaat, wordt er weinig zonlicht gereflecteerd op infrarode golflengten. Hierdoor slaagden onderzoekers er in om de hitte van de vulkanen op het oppervlak van Io te meten.
Temperatuur en leeftijd van het oppervlak van het lavameer.
Tachtig metingen Het Large Binocular Telescope-observatorium werd ingezet om het lavameer Loki Patera in de gaten te houden. In ongeveer tien seconden bedekte Europa dit meer op Io. Toch was dit lang genoeg om circa tachtig temperatuurmetingen te verrichten, waardoor er nu een kaart is van de temperatuurverdeling in het meer.
Adam Savage famously loves space suits. In March, he told The Verge that he owns a number of different types that he’s commissioned or built over the years: “They all kind of satisfy the same thing in me, and it is to create an environment around your body where you are protected. The space suit is the most amazing, because you’re bringing your own mini-Earth with you.” Recently, Savage visited the set of Ridley Scott’s new Alien series movie Alien: Covenant, and nerded out when he got to try on one of the suits used in the film.
In a video posted to Savage’s YouTube Channel, Tested, Savage donned parts of the bright yellow EVA suit, marveling at how well he could move: “When NASA does this, it costs millions of dollars.” The suit’s designer, Michael Mooney, points out that the bearings and parts of the suit were 3D printed, not only for convenience, but because Scott liked the texture.
In the video, Savage also sits down with the film’s costume designer, Janty Yates, who explains that the production didn’t want to reuse the same types of space suits used in Scott’s film Prometheus, but also didn’t want to replicate those seen in Alien. They went back to the drawing board to create two new types of suits: the IVA, used inside the film’s spacecraft, and the EVA suit worn by Danny McBride, which was inspired by underwater suits.
While the IVA suits were reasonably simple to put together. Yates says they’ve gotten extremely good at designing helmets in recent years. The EVA suit was a “technological nightmare,” though, requiring the 3D-printed bearings at every point of articulation. “It’s a thing of extraordinary genius.”
Q: How much pressure does it take to burst someone's chest open?
A: Lots
Around the time ofStar Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson decided to spoil everyone’s fun by imposing actual physics on its far-away universe. Would BB-8 actually be able to roll on sand? Would TIE fighters actually make any sound in space? Are Roman Numerals actually a viable counting method in the 21st century? Stuff like that.
Now two Australian scientists have done the same thing with Alien: Covenant, out tomorrow, on Aussie-founded academic site The Conversation. Michael Milford (Associate professor, Queensland University of Technology) and Juxi Leitner (Research Fellow, Robotics & AI, QUT) ask questions like: Can glass withstand insane pressure? Would 20 crewmates want to kill each other after years on a ship? How much force would an alien need to break out of someone’s chest? Here’s what they reckoned.
1. Wouldn’t this glass panel break?
Maybe, maybe not.
Over at The Conversationthe science-men did some complex maths that they’re modestly downplaying as ‘back of the envelope calculations’. Ultimately they decided that the pressure exerted on the glass by the alien’s head in the above clip was 18,130 Pascals per square inch, which may or not make the glass break. They explain: “tough tempered glass is known to break at somewhere in the 10,000 to 24,000 PSI range, so it looks like it could be touch and go”.
2. Wouldn’t the crew hate each other?
Yes – unless they were hand-picked first
This question presupposes that the company that sent the Covenant spaceship didn’t handpick its crew – which they probably did – but the maths is still interesting, so let’s take a look.
If you’ve got a group of 20 randomly selected people, chances are there are going to be some major personality clashes, especially over a long trip through space. This is simply because of how probability works: imagine there’s a 5% chance that you really don’t get on with someone – if it’s just you and someone else, the scientists at The Conversation say the probability you get on with them is something like this: ‘chance you like them x chance they like you’. This would be (1 – 0.05) × (1 – 0.05), which is equal to 0.9025, or 90.25%. So 9 times out of 10, you and a random other person will get on great.
That chance rapidly decreases the more people you add to the equation. “Grab any random group of 20 people with those individual characteristics, and there’s only a tiny chance there won’t be some significant conflict potential there”. The figure they come up with is about 0.00000034%. “That’s why there’s so much psychological profiling for missions to Mars,” they say.
3. How does an alien break out of someone’s chest?
Method A: cutting
The ‘elegant’ method
If a newly ‘hatched’ alien only weighs 5kg, it’d have to be very strong to break through the chest of something with 16 times its own body mass. But imagine an alien’s incisors working like a saw to cut open a human chest, like sternum saws might do for open heart surgery. Leitner and Milford imagine that, in relation to its body mass, an alien is four times as strong as a human – so, they say, “if the ‘chestburster’ could apply its incredible power as efficiently to cutting its way out as a cardiac surgeon does with a saw, this approach is feasible.”
Method B: brute force
If at first you don’t succeed…
The human ribcage is very strong – a well-placed blow with a force of 3,300 Newtons will break a rib only one in four times. And that’s the force an Olympic boxer might have – not, perhaps, a newly born alien. So can an alien break out of a chest purely by bashing its way out? Leitner and Milford estimate the alien could only produce about 1,175 Newtons of force, so it would probably take a long time, and a lot of bashing to burst from someone’s chest like it does in the original Alien. Cutting > bashing, says science.
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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.
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