Five Unsolved Mysteries That Keep Scientists up at Night

 

pixabay

IN BRIEF

In physics, some of the easiest questions to ask are the most difficult to answer. From the mystery of dark matter to the inevitable end of the universe, there are many questions we just don't have answers for yet.

BIG QUESTIONS IN PHYSICS

Across all disciplines of science there exists an abundance of unanswered questions and mysteries that have endured for as long as humans have attempted to solve them. Perhaps one of the most query-filled fields is physics, which continues to confound even the most brilliant minds. While it’s unlikely that all these quandaries will be answered in our lifetime, some of them may well could be.

Why is there more matter than antimatter? 

In theory, the Big Bang should have created as much matter as antimatter in the universe. But it didn’t — at least not as far as physicists can see. Matter is everywhere, all around us — it makes up everything. But so far, we’ve only found small amounts of antimatter. Why is that? Shouldn’t a particle of matter have an antimatter counterpart? It must be that the laws of the universe and nature just don’t apply to antimatter the same way they do to matter. Scientists have to figure out why that is and what it means for the universe.

What is dark energy/dark matter/all this dark stuff?

For all we can see of our universe, there’s much more that we have yet to see — in part because it’s made up of invisible stuff called dark energy and dark matter. The thing is, we haven’t even actually visualized dark matter — only the effect it has on what we can see. Physicists are trying to gain a deeper understanding of the invisible force by studying the behavior of stars and galaxies which appear to react to the presence of it. It is, however, a challenge to study something we can’t see. We need technology to catch up and let us come face-to-face with these “dark” substances.

THE UNIVERSE’S UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

One of the simplest questions to ask may be one of the hardest to answer:

How big is the universe?

Asking how big, or how old, the universe is depends on what part of the universe you’re talking about: the observable universe, or the entirety of it. We know through studying light that the observable universe is around 13.8 billion years old — that’s 46 billion light years. Determining how big even the observable universe is presents challenges because it isn’t a static entity: the universe is still expanding.

Are there parallel universes? 

Even though we don’t quite have a handle on our own universe, it hasn’t stopped us from wondering if there are others out there — particularly so-called parallel universes. The idea is part of the multiverse theory, for which there are at least five accepted theories. Those who don’t think it’s possible point out that after the Big Bang, with all that matter taking up space in space, inflation would have slowed down. Because it slowed down, if there were multiverses they wouldn’t be expanding at the same rate as our universe is. That would throw a wrench in the idea of a truly parallel universe.

This is merely a fraction of the questions physicists are asking, and it all kind of comes down to answering one final question: what’s the ultimate fate of the universe? How will it end? Some theories posit that it will be a lot like how it began: a big bang. More specifically, a big crunch. One of the most prominent theories about the inevitable death of the universe is that eventually, as the universe expands, it will eventually reach a density that exceeds critical density — at which point it would collapse in on itself in an event referred to as the Big Crunch. Of course, that’s just one theory. Another posits that the end will be more of an endless void — but in either case, it won’t happen for billions, if not trillions, of years. As far as we know, anyway.

References: 

Livescience, CERN, National Georgraphic, Phys.org

{https://futurism.com/ }

15-05-2017 om 00:46 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Assert That We Will Make Contact With Aliens in the Next Decade

 

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IN BRIEF

Technical advances in space exploration and science are driving the increased likelihood of making contact with extraterrestrial life. Contact with alien life, especially if it happens soon, has the potential to transform humanity entirely.

TECHNICAL ADVANCES DRIVING CONTACT

Both the most cynical person on Earth and the world’s greatest optimist could easily look at everything around them and ask: could this truly be all there is in the universe? Whatever your reason for posing the question, you may have an answer sooner than you think — and that answer is likely to be “no.” Science writer and comedian Ben Miller posits in his book The Aliens Are Coming! The Extraordinary Science Behind Our Search for Life in the Universe that one of the most powerful forces shaping science today is the growing search for life in the universe fueled by the belief that we are not alone. He believes that because of our current technologies, we’ll know about life on the Earth-like planets closest to us within the next ten years.

It’s easy to see why he thinks so. Scientists have identified an exoplanet that they’ve described as the best candidate for life as we know it — perhaps an even more important a target for planet characterization within habitable zones in the future than either Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1, and these have also recently been discovered. Speaking of Proxima b, the James Webb Telescope is likely to give us the images that will clarify its potential for supporting life, as it will do for other exoplanets.

In recent months scientists have stated that the fast radio bursts we’ve intercepted from outer space may well be evidence of alien life. Now they’re working to discern whether alien technology could be their source. Scientists also now believe that life might exist on Europa, one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons. Recently, NASA’s plans to send a lander in search of biosignatures that might signal the presence of extraterrestrial life within its warm core have sprung into action; Europa may be home to a subterranean ocean, making it an ideal place to search for alien life.

Kepler-186f, pictured here in an artist's concept, is the first Earth-size planet to be discovered in a star's habitable zone.

ILLUSTRATION BY NASA AMES/JPL-CALTECH/T. PYLE

In 2016, researchers made improvements to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array that could make finding water on celestial bodies easier. These improvements were specifically directed toward the ongoing search for alien life, as was the partnership between Breakthrough Initiative to find alien life and the National Astronomical Observatories of China. China’s team uses the 488 meter (1,600 foot) FAST telescope, and now it is being used in partnership with the world’s other largest radio telescopes, including the Parkes Observatory in Australia and the Green Bank Telescope in the US, to seek out extraterrestrial life. In 2016 scientists also adopted more accurate methods for studying gravitational pull of distant stars, making it easier to gather data on the size and brightness of the star, the likelihood of water oceans, and possibility of life being present.

AN UTTERLY CHANGED HUMANITY

Why are we so enthralled with this search for other life in the universe? It’s far more than an AV geek, sci-fi con hangover, if that’s your suspicion. Contact could mean extraordinary things for humanity if it happens soon — some of the possibilities are daunting, but most of them are promising.

Stephen Hawking is one of the best-known and most reputable voices who cautions against making first contact with alien life. His argument is simply that we have no way of knowing what’s out there, and that, historically speaking, as more advanced civilizations have come into contact with less advanced cultures, the latter has typically been oppressed and aggressed against, the former seeing it as less valuable. However, it’s worth noting that when we speak historically we are, by necessity, limited to our own recorded human history. What we’re observing may not be a pattern common to all life; it may simply be a pattern common to human cultures.

In contrast, the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute is populated by people who feel we have little, if anything, to lose by seeking out other forms of life. SETI has now given birth to METI International (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), which is actively seeking out contact. Douglas Vakoch, a professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies and the president of METI International, strongly disagrees with Hawking. He thinks it is illogical to hide our existence as a species since we have already leaked transmissions from radio and television broadcasts in the form of electromagnetic radiation for almost 100 years. Vakoch concludes that any culture with the technological sophistication to master interstellar travel can already perceive our leaked signals, and are therefore already aware of us, waiting for us to make the first move.

METI, led by Vakoch, is now working to target star systems within 20 or 30 light-years with repeat messages as part of an effort to accumulate data in order to test the Fermi Paradox and the Zoo Hypothesis. Ideally, within a few decades, Vakoch and his team hope that they will generate a testable hypothesis with enough data and standard peer-review methods.

As for Miller, he’s not on Team Hawking, and thinks that the benefits of contact outweigh the risks. The potential to learn about advanced technology for space travel, repairing our planet’s environment, and many other applications is an obvious benefit to contact. For Neil deGrasse Tyson, the big benefit to contact is more profound: right now, our understanding of life is extremely limited, and that is because we only have our own, terrestrial sample of life to study. The notion that we have an understanding of the tremendous diversity of life is somewhat silly when you think of it in this context; our entire set of observations all share a single origin and an encoded existence that transmits heredity and mediates replication via nucleic acids.

Our current understanding of life is too much like the infamous legal definition of pornography — the classic “I know it when I see it” — which, for Tyson, lacks scientific rigor (and to clarify, he is not responsible for that icky analogy). But our explorations of the galaxy to find contact with other forms of life could give us other examples and samples, and a truer sense of what life truly is. This kind of knowledge has the potential to change everything else we think we know, most likely for the better.

References: National Geographic News, SETI

{ https://futurism.com/ }

15-05-2017 om 00:37 geschreven door peter  

The Most Interesting Science News Articles of the Week

Each week we uncover the most interesting and informative articles from around the world, here are 10 of the coolest stories in science this week.

Life in the Rocks

Microscopic images of geyserite taken from the Dresser Formation in Australia provide evidence for microbial life that lived 3.48 billion years ago. The ripply "palisade" texture could have been formed when long filaments of bacteria were entombed by the silica from the mineral-rich water from a hot spring.

Ancient rocks found in a remote stretch of Western Australia may contain the world's oldest known evidence of life on land, a new study finds.

The findings hint that early life may have gotten its start in hot springs on land, as opposed to deep inside ocean hydrothermal vents, as is commonly believed, Djokic told Live Science. [Read more about the oldest evidence.]

Sunbathing Toddlers

A group of great white sharks, babies and 1- and 2-year-olds, was spotted off the coast of Dana Point, California, on May 10, 2017.

A group of more than a dozen great white sharks were spotted swimming in the surf off a Southern California beach, but beachgoers shouldn't panic, say shark experts.

These are not bloodthirsty predators, but rather a group of "toddlers," said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. They are babies and 1- and 2-year-olds, probably 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2 meters) long, that are likely moving into the shallow waters because the area is safe and there's plenty of their favorite food, stingrays, Lowe said. [Read more about the swarming sharks.]

Early Printing Specimen

A librarian in England has stumbled upon a rare page from the early days of book printing.

The double-sided page has black-letter typeface and red paragraph marks that gave it away as an early western European printing, according to the university. [Read more about the ancient text.]

AI Struggles

When the IBM computer Deep Blue beat the world's greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov, in the last game of a six-game match on May 11, 1997, the world was astonished. This was the first time any human chess champion had been taken down by a machine.

Despite those incredible computations, however, machines still fall short in other areas. [Read more about artificial intelligence.]

Mystery Solved

Inside a 3,800-year-old pyramid at the site of Dahshur in Egypt, archaeologists have discovered a burial chamber that may have held the mummy of a princess named Hatshepset. A wooden box inscribed with hieroglyphs was also found within the chamber.

The wooden box is inscribed with "Hatshepset," which likely does not refer to the pharaoh Hatshepsut but rather someone else with a similar name, the researchers said. Last month, another inscription, written on an alabaster block, was also found in the pyramid. [Read more about the discovery.]

Poop Diet

Studies in mice have garnered attention for a remarkable result: When the feces of one mouse was transplanted to another mouse, the recipient mouse either gained or lost weight.

All of the patients in the study received stool from OpenBiome, a company that provides stool from healthy donors who have healthy BMIs, said Dr. Valery Muenyi, a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of Miami and the lead author of this study. [Read more about the strange procedure.]

Open and Shut

Like a crocodile's jaw opening and snapping shut, Earth's crust can rip apart and then violently close back up during an earthquake, a new study finds.

The study focused on a particular paradox associated with thrust faults, a crack in Earth’s crust, where geologic forces are slowly pushing a huge slab of continental crust up and over an oceanic layer. [Read more about the mega-quakes.]

Marijuana and Memory

Marijuana's main psychoactive compound, THC, may improve memory, according to a new study in mice.

Previous research in people — in teens and young adults — as well as in young animals has suggested that THC may actually impair cognition, but it was not clear how the compound might affect the aging brain in older individuals. [Read more about the mind-altering blend.]

What Lies Beneath

An estimated 7,000 bodies are thought to be buried under The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), according to radar scans of the campus grounds.

Exhuming and reburying 7,000 bodies could be very expensive — about $3,000 per corpse, or a total of about $21 million — and UMMC is currently investigating options that could relocate the bodies and create both a memorial center and a dedicated lab for analyzing the remains, UMMC representatives added. [Read more about the buried secrets.]

Ghostbusting Dinosaur

An ankylosaur discovered in Montana in 2016 looks eerily like Zuul, a fictional monster from the movie "Ghostbusters."

What's as long as a pickup truck, as heavy as a white rhinoceros and as weird-looking as Zuul, the monster from the 1984 "Ghostbusters" movie? A newfound species of ankylosaurus.

Like Zuul in "Ghostbusters," Z. crurivastator has a short, rounded snout, large horns and a gnarled appearance, the researchers said. They found the beast in 2016 in Montana's Judith River Formation, a site known for its vast array of dinosaur fossils. [Read more about the ghostly dino.]

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

15-05-2017 om 00:20 geschreven door peter  

A Robot Can Print This $32,000 House in as Little as 8 Hours

 

PassivDom

IN BRIEF

PassivDom uses a 3D printing robot that can print the walls, roof, and floor of a 380-square-foot model home in about eight hours. When complete, the homes are autonomous and mobile, meaning they don't need to connect to external electrical and plumbing systems.

Building a house by hand can be both time-consuming and expensive. Numerous homebuilders have chosen to automate part of the construction (i.e., by printing the home’s parts) instead.

A new Ukrainian homebuilding startup called PassivDom uses a 3D printing robot that can print parts for tiny houses. The machine can print the walls, roof, and floor of PassivDom’s 380-square-foot model in about eight hours. The windows, doors, plumbing, and electrical systems are then added by a human worker.

When complete, the homes are autonomous and mobile, meaning they don’t need to connect to external electrical and plumbing systems. Solar energy is stored in a battery connected to the houses, and water is collected and filtered from humidity in the air (or you can pour water into the system yourself). The houses also feature an independent sewage system.

PassivDom’s homes, which start at $31,900, are now available for preorder online in Ukraine and the US, and the first ones will be delivered later this year.

Check out the homes below.

PassivDom’s smallest model measures 380 square feet and costs $31,900, designer Maria Sorokina tells Business Insider.

Here’s what the house looks like when you walk in the front door. It’s a large open space with a small kitchen and floor-to-ceiling windows.

This model doesn’t include a separate bedroom, which means residents need a sleeper sofa. A small bathroom is located near the kitchen.

PassivDom offers three models of homes and can make custom models as well. The premium models come with furniture, but the one pictured below comes unfurnished.

The homes also offer the possibility of living off the grid.

“We should have opportunities to live in nature away from civilization, but have comfortable conditions of a traditional house,” Sorokina says. “This technology can allow us to live in the woods, on mountains, or on the shore — far away from people and infrastructure.”

To make a PassivDom home, the team maps out the plan for the 3D printer in its factories in Ukraine and California. Layer by layer, the seven-axel robot prints the roof, floor, and 20-centimeter-thick walls, which are made of carbon fibers, polyurethane, resins, basalt fibers, and fiberglass.

Doors, windows, appliances, an alarm system, solar panels, and the septic, electrical, healing, cooling systems are then added.

Depending on the model, the whole process can take under 24 hours. The design and production of larger houses with more specifications and finishes, like the one below, can take up to a month. If a house is premade, it can be shipped the next day.

The startup believes 3D printing is a cheaper, more efficient way to build homes that it can sell at a (relatively) affordable price. “Over 100 million people do not have a roof over their heads,” Sorokina says. “It is necessary to build more affordable houses.”

PassivDom is not the only company using 3D printing to build homes. The San Francisco-based housing startup Apis Cor, Dus Architects in Amsterdam, as well as Branch Technology from Chattanooga, Tennessee, say they can construct homes in mere days or weeks.

{ https://futurism.com/ }

15-05-2017 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

Revealed: Top Secret Base where Alien Bodies and UFOs are kept—Its NOT Area51

Area 51 is a top-secret airbase for the CIA and military to test super-secret aircraft years ahead of what the general public is aware of. But there aren’t any UFOS there claims Ufologist.  There is, however, an area just to the south and on the same Tonopah Test Range called S4. Based on insider information, this is where work on extraterrestrial recovered craft takes place.

 

Ever since the Roswell UFO incident—1947, people have gone crazy about the idea that the United State Government recovered alien bodies and a wrecked alien spaceship.

 

According to several UFOlogists, what crashed in Roswell was NOT a ‘Conventional weather balloon’ as we’ve been told, but a real alien spaceship which was ‘confiscated’ by the government.

 

The Roswell case has remained at the heart of the UFO scene ever since the US military announced—then denied—in a press release it had found the remains of a crashed flying saucer in the nearby desert, of Roswell in July 1947.  It is considered by many ufologists as the most important event in the history of UFOs. The Roswell case has caused rivers of ink to flow, as countless stories theories, lies and denials appeared over the years.

 

But where did they take the bodies and wreckage? Many people are convinced that Area51 is where alien technology and alien bodies were taken to.

 

However, several Ufologists—among them Jan Harzan, executive director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)—believes crashed FOs and alien bodies WERE NOT taken to Area 51, but to another secret facility located in the vicinity.

 

In an interview with Forbes, Mr. Harzan was asked if he thought Roswell was real or a hoax.

 

He said: “Real. Get a copy of the video presentation of ‘Recollections of Roswell’ filmed by MUFON member and well-known UFO researcher Stanton Friedman.

 

“It is interviews with some 30 survivors of Roswell, including first-hand witnesses, their spouses, and their children.

 

“What they tell you will send chills up your spine.

 

“If you don’t believe something extraordinary happened after watching this video, then nothing will convince you. I can tell you this: It was no weather balloon.”

 

So If Roswell was REAL, and a UFO—or several UFOs for that matter—crashed in the desert, where were the bodies and wreckage taken to? Mr. Hazan believes he know where.

 

 

“Area 51 is a top-secret airbase for the CIA and military to test super-secret aircraft years ahead of what the general public is aware of. As best we know, there are no UFOs or aliens at Area 51.

 

“There is, however, an area just to the south and on the same Tonopah Test Range called S4. Based on insider information, this is where work on extraterrestrial recovered craft takes place. So when the President, or other officials proudly proclaim that there are no UFOs or aliens at Area 51, they may be technically correct because they are at S4.” 

 

 

Interestingly, several whistleblowers—among them Bob Lazar—claim Area S4 is real.

 

Robert Scott “Bob” Lazar claims to have worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology at a site called S4, in the Emigrant Valley and Old Kelley Mine area near the Area 51 test facility.

 

Lazar alleges that the S4 facility is located near the Papoose Range within Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Test Range and is accessed via a dirt road. The details that Lazar provided regarding S4 are very non-specific, with Lazar having stated that he was transported in a blacked-out bus to the site which did not allow him to see the landscape.

 

Groom Lake (upper left) with Papoose Lake noticeable at the lower right

 

The name “S4 Area 51” appears in the controversial Majestic 12 (MJ-12) documents. According to Lazar’s claims, access to the area is highly restricted by the United States government to the public.

{ http://7tales.net/ }

14-05-2017 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

"Was meteoriet 30 seconden later ingeslagen, hadden dinosaurussen nu misschien nog geleefd" - HLN.be

Bron: BBC, The Times, DM

© thinkstock.

30 seconden: dat is wat het lot van de dinosaurussen 65 miljoenen jaar geleden wel eens bezegeld zou kunnen hebben. Een team van Amerikaanse en Engelse wetenschappers heeft berekend dat als de meteoriet - die toen een einde maakte aan drie kwart van het leven op aarde - seconden vroeger of later was ingeslagen, de wereld er nu wel eens heel anders had kunnen uitzien. Vermoedelijk zonder ons.

{ http://www.hln.be/ }

14-05-2017 om 23:46 geschreven door peter  

Uitstel voor eerste vlucht van ruimtecapsule die ooit mensen naar Mars moet vervoeren - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Archiefbeeld: Een draagraket van NASA 

© reuters.

De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA verschuift de eerste test met de nieuwe ruimtecapsule van november 2018 naar ten vroegste 2019. De Orion moet op een dag mensen naar en van Mars vervoeren.

{ http://www.hln.be/ }

14-05-2017 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

14-05-2017 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

UFO the ‘size of a BUS’ spotted at International Space Station

UFO hunters have spotted an “alien spaceship the size of a city bus” on the NASA feed from the International Space Station.

By Rachel O'Donoghue 

The eagle-eyed viewers saw the bizarre disc-like “craft” zooming off into space from the ISS.

UFO blogger Scott Waring hailed it as an excellent example of an alien spaceship.

He wrote: “It is seen on the other side of the solar panels in the far distance.

“It looks like it is the size of a city bus and is disc-shaped.”

{ http://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

14-05-2017 om 23:20 geschreven door peter  

Aliens Are Already Here, Canadian Scientist Says

YouTube

Stanton Friedman is convinced aliens are already here on Earth.

Stanton Friedman is convinced aliens are already here on Earth.

UFO sightings are reported in nearly every country in the world. However, there has never been any substantial evidence that aliens exist or are visiting earth.

On the other hand, someone is entirely confident that aliens have been visiting humanity. He is a Canadian researcher and nuclear physicist.

Stanton Friedman believes that aliens have been here on Earth many times, but they simply don’t have plans yet to reveal their existence.

The Canadian scientist stressed that they have sufficient proof to prove beyond doubt that aliens have visited the Earth, but the information was kept secret from the public to prevent chaos. Friedman explained that there would be mass panic and great concern if the information is made available in public.

However, Stanton pointed out that it is easy for aliens to make themselves seen and they will bound to do it.

The 82-year-old scientist has been leading the UFO movement and claiming he has worked several secret investigations.

His theory states that aliens choose to remain in shadows until they are ready to colonize earthlings and prevent humans to populate other planets. Friedman explains that this is because humans have proven to be evil.

Another reason that Friedman noted is on political grounds. He says that the Earth is a race among U.S., Russia, and China. Anyone of them can copy the technology of aliens and will automatically become the most powerful.

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

14-05-2017 om 23:04 geschreven door peter  

Rolling Stone Guitarist Spotted A UFO While In Brazil

Rolling Stone guitarist’s ex-wife Jo Wood revealed in a chat with Peter Andre that Ronnie Wood saw a UFO while on holiday in Brazil. The guitarist, 69, saw the spaceship hovered over the sea in shining strange lights, which freaked him out, according to his 62-year-old ex-wife Jo, who split from the rocker in 2008.

Jo said that they were in Recife in Brazil with their children. Ronnie was reportedly out wandering around when he started calling the attention of his ex-wife to come and see something weird above the sea.

Jo claimed that they spotted the giant UFO above the sea having strange shining lights that came down. The lights then suddenly went off and on many times until it was gone without a trace.

Jo shared the story to Peter Andre, 44, as part of This Morning new three-part series about paranormal and supernatural.  Peter also revealed he had an unusual experience in Nevada Desert. He said that he saw mysterious objects going from one point to another in split seconds, disappearing and reappearing, which blew his mind.

Earlier in the week, the Rolling Stone announced 13 shows in September and October throughout the course of their European tour.

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

14-05-2017 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

Official Government UFO Agencies

AZ MUFON Lecture by Alejandro

This presentation is from the December 2016 meeting of the Arizona chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

Governments around the world have felt compelled to act on credible UFO sightings. The United States, Great Britain and France have had official UFO investigation departments, and have released thousands of files. What many do not know is that France and several South American countries currently have active official government and/or military UFO research organizations. We will examine these organizations, past and present, and the amazing UFO cases that have prompted their creation.

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

14-05-2017 om 22:51 geschreven door peter  

Light Or Fire Beam Destroys Construction Site In Texas

Strange UFO Incident, 1966 Light Or Fire Beam Destroys Construction Site In Texas

In October or November of 1966, J. R. “Milo” Ponce, a deputy sheriff with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department, received a phone call at around midnight from the sheriff’s department dispatcher, George Rapp. The dispatcher stated that someone had called in to report a group of “disturbed” men standing alongside Farm to Market Highway 490, north of Edinburg, Texas, near Laguna Seca Road.

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

14-05-2017 om 22:49 geschreven door peter  

Strange UFO Incident, 1966 Light Or Fire Beam Destroys Construction Site In Texas

(Before It's News)

In October or November of 1966, J. R. “Milo” Ponce, a deputy sheriff with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department, received a phone call at around midnight from the sheriff’s department dispatcher, George Rapp. The dispatcher stated that someone had called in to report a group of “disturbed” men standing alongside Farm to Market Highway 490, north of Edinburg, Texas, near Laguna Seca Road.

Thanks http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net

Check out more contributions by Jeffery Pritchett ranging from UFO to Bigfoot to Paranormal to Prophecy

{ http://beforeitsnews.com/ }

14-05-2017 om 00:31 geschreven door peter  

Alien Craft Photos Over New Abbot Devon England

{ http://beforeitsnews.com/ }

14-05-2017 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

Detailed Alien Encounter On A Lake In New York State

(Before It's News)

JULY 24, 1991  ………..HUBBARDSVILLE NEW YORK

I’m talking to my friend and just enjoying the evening, we’re paddling, you know, we get to that, we get to the point where we have to make the curve and hit the last stretch. When we came around the curve, made that last stretch, I’m looking straight on to the source of the lights and the source of the lights was not on the bank or on the water’s edge, the source of the lights was set back into the woods. And at a 100 yards it was, it clearly looked odd to me. It was clearly something there, a piece of equipment, a machine, an object, something fairly large but it certainly wasn’t fishermen along the bank fishing. Okay, what is this? I don’t know but we’re going to find out because we’re drifting and slowly paddling closer to it. I would say probably at 75 yards out I can clearly tell this was a conical shaped object. Why was it conical because I could clearly see the side of it, the cut off top, the bottom, it was conical in a curve because on the right-hand side, my view looking straight ahead, on the right-hand side, it had three stationary lights lit up. I would call them bars or strips, bars, one two three clearly defining the curve of the object. They were amber in color, amber as in the same exact color that you find on your car in your driveway, your signal light. And they were just lit up. The machine was whitish, glowing. The forest floor all around it had an aura of a fog, a haze, something that you would see maybe as a special effect that would occur with the dry ice, the evaporation of the CO2 but yet there was no movement to it. There was just a white foggy aura over the earth. At 50 yards I can clearly see two entities… What it was, I don’t know, but it was two, not one, but two… two figurines that were hiding behind the machine. I’ll call it a machine. They were hiding because they were clearly looking out the side, peering out the side, taking a peek and watching us. They were watching us because at 50 yards I had started to communicate what my curiosity was. What is this? What am I looking at here? So I yelled out to them. ‘How’s it going tonight? How are you doing?’ Nothing. Dead silent. It was so dead silent that I didn’t hear a cricket. I didn’t hear a hear a frog. I didn’t hear anything.

The whole environment around us is dead silent. Calm, warm, muggy evening. The two figurines, as I yelled out to them, at that point in time, have ferried behind the machine and made a quick duck behind the machine to hide. Okay, I don’t know what this is going on? I don’t even know what I’m looking at? This is odd. It was odd. What is this machine? What was it doing there? What did I just witness? I just witnessed two figurines, pale, white, with dark black shiny eyes They were larger than mine is the most identifying feature I can make to what I just witnessed. My friend sitting in front of me is witnessing this exact same thing. From a hundred yards to the 50-yard event I had been communicating with my friend and all the way up asking, ‘What is this? What the hell is this?’ I badgered this poor guy so much that he snapped back, I mean, he said, ‘I don’t know what it is, shut up!’ He was nervous. What were we watching. As we got closer, now, I’m within thirty 30 yards. The current is taking me towards this beaver dam. I’m no longer paddling. There’s no need to paddle. My eyes are focused on something and I can’t make out what it is and I, once again, the land is aglow, the machine is sitting there. I would say it’s about eight to nine feet tall. It clearly stood on at least three legs that I could tell. It had an additional feature to it. It had light. I call it light. It had an object on top of it and on the left hand side, as I’m looking at it, would be on the top left, during my shout out to whatever it is, I’m shouting out to with no reply, at a certain point in time, I couldn’t tell you if it was 50 yards. I’ll say 50 yards. It was a little bit of a distance.”

THE STRANGE LIGHT

After the figurines had ducked back in to hide, this object, on top of the machine I’ll call it, it made a complete 180 and turned around, nice and slow, and shined right at us which appeared to me to be a typical spotlight, a floodlight of some sort. Only problem was, it was shining right at us. This round white light source but there is no light shining on our canoe, our bodies, on the water. I don’t know how but we were not lit up despite this light shining on us. This did raise a few hackles on our neck, I guess. This is not natural for this type of thing to happen. I’m curious but I’m also respectful not to, you know, butt in where I don’t belong. I’m assuming whatever’s going on maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe it’s none of my business. Am I seeing something beyond my comprehension, what’s on this earth? Is this entity not human? This machine is nothing like I’ve ever seen in my life. What is it? No clue. Yet it’s there. It is in front of me big as day. It’s silent. No communication. As we drift closer now, we can’t be more than 30 yards from this machine in the woods. The canoe makes its way through the current and finally lands on top of the washed-out beaver dam.

THE WAVING ENTITY ENCOUNTER

At that point in time, you know, we actually literally have to get out of the canoe, just kind of drag it over a little bit, so we could carry on. At that point in time, before we did this, now I’m standing there, you know, we’re just stuck there for a while, just looking at it and, standing right there, just came out of nowhere, standing right there, about 15 feet across for me, to where the water is, to where the bank is, is now standing there, one of those entities that we saw earlier, standing right there 15 feet from me. It looks like a figurine. No identifiable clothes. No identifiable anything. It looks like a figurine. I can only describe it as an artist’s model doll that they use, where they are posed to draw with, this smooth normal shape figurine. This is exactly what it looked like. At 15 feet I should have been able to make out great detail of clothes, of what it was, unfortunately, we’re in pitch-black darkness, the light source of the machine, the glowing light, is 30 yards back, the figurine is half that distance. It’s 15 feet right in front of me yet it’s facing me and what all I’m seeing is the dark side of it much like you would at a campfire sitting around with your friend; you two could all see each other’s faces, but if you were to get up and turn and face away from the fire to talk to an incoming incoming friend, they probably wouldn’t see your face or be able to make out who you were because you are now black. There’s no light shining on you. This unfortunately was the situation for me. It was right there 15 feet away yet I’m looking at just its outline against the light backdrop and it’s just this figurine shape; no identifiable clothes, no hats, no shorts, sleeve shirt, sleeves, no pants that I could tell. He’s smooth, very defined figurine. The figurine made an attempt to communicate with us at this time.

Okay, so, during this peculiarity, as I’ll call it, I’m a mechanic by trade, I’m the tradesman, worked on all types of equipment. I can’t tell you I’ve ever seen anything that quite looked like this object, this machine, nothing that I know of in the world. Never seen anything like it what it could possibly be used for? It was a conical shaped machine of some sort. Back to our friends, our figurine entities who were hiding and that from us, who showed apprehension, I would say, I would call it, didn’t reply to us like a human being would. Who wouldn’t shout, who wouldn’t shout back if you’re only 30 yards away as I’m yelling out to you. I’m just a fisherman in a canoe with a friend, fishing, you could be anybody in the woods at a campsite or whatever it is you’re doing. Perhaps you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. I couldn’t tell you if anything like that was going on. My story is, I think, it has much more going on than that, but at that point time we had reached that Beaver Dam. We were stuck there. We had to get out and leave. I’m looking at an angle. I’m standing here in a canoe and I’m looking back at an angle, this figurine is standing right there not 15 feet from me. So all that’s separating me is the water. To them, I’m on 15 feet of water to that bank. It’s looking right at me, of course, like I told you, it is pitch black out and so I could see its perfect figurine outline against the lit background of the machine that it’s, it’s behind it. Well, this is what the figurine did to me and my friend and I take this as a form of communication, I would say. You could see its arm, I’ll call it an arm. It’s appendage. You can clearly tell it had a flat sleek hand, probably had a thumb, you see the V here, it didn’t wave but it’s arm was perpendicular to its torso, very square, like perpendicular, just like this, and this is what it did, in this very slow motion form of a wave, I guess, and its wrist was very articulated, just like, you see what I’m doing with mine, just like this.

That was too much at that point time for my friend to handle. I think he got nervous. This was a very odd experience as you could tell by this story. At that point in time, he had already jumped out of the canoe, yanked it from out from underneath me, I was literally, almost fell into the water, I had the paddle to stop me from going face-first into the into the creek. I grabbed the canoe and yelled some choice words to stop and wait a damn minute and at that time, I had looked back at my figurine friend here, who was now no longer waving. He was just standing there in a very statuesque pose, doing nothing. I never felt I was in any kind of danger. I never felt that I was in trouble. My curiosity overcame all these things but yet something told me to get the hell out of Dodge with my friend and leave which is what we did.

KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS

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14-05-2017 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

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14-05-2017 om 00:11 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Unable to Explain Latest Mysterious Radio Burst

 Brett Tingley

The search for extraterrestrial life has lately been focused on fast radio bursts (FRBs), short but incredibly powerful spikes in radio signals coming from beyond our own galaxy. While some scientists have optimistically pointed to these as proof of advanced alien civilizations, there are plenty of naturally-occurring astrophysical phenomena which could just as easily create such spikes. 

These radio bursts clearly stand out against baseline background noise.

However, a recently-discovered FRB seems to defy the explanations astrophysicists typically assign to such anomalous signals. In a new pre-publication study on arXiv.org, an international body of astronomers searched for the usual follow-up signals across radio, optical, X-ray, gamma-ray, and neutrino emission bands. None were found.

The signal was picked up by radio telescopes at the Parkes Observatory in Australia.

The study’s main author, Emily Petroff from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, told Gizmodo that this latest radio burst is a complete anomaly. Astronomers all over the world ran various tests to determine what its origin might be, Petroff says, but none of those tests was conclusive:

We spent a lot of time with a lot of telescopes to find anything associated with it. We got new wavelength windows we’ve never gotten before. We looked for high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos…we ruled out some source classes but no detection is a little unhelpful. We’re still trying to figure out where this one came from. It’s not very often in science that you get to work on something that’s so brand new and so unknown that you get to answer the fundamental questions.

This particular radio burst, named FRB 150215, passed through an incredibly dense region of the Milky Way on its way to Earth, possibly beaming through a tiny gap between stars and other bodies along the way.

Such bursts typically only last a few milliseconds.

While some might say this is a sign that the signal was beamed intentionally towards us by an advanced race of aliens, Petroff has been insisting through her Twitter account that she does not believe the radio burst has an alien origin. In all likelihood, there is a perfectly natural explanation for the radio signal such as a gamma ray burst or exploding star, but our telescopes likely missed it just prior to detecting the burst. Still, discovering how to identify and trace the origins of these signals might some day lead to that one lucky discovery which changes everything – or crush our hopes and make us realize just how alone we are.

 TAGS: alien life, Astronomy, Extraterrestrial life, fast radio burst, FRB, space

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-05-2017 om 00:07 geschreven door peter  

Weird Clouds on Extrasolar "Warm Neptune"

Two space telescopes reveal the distant exoplanet HAT-P-26b has an atmosphere rich with hydrogen, helium and water vapor

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com 

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.

GETTY

The planet has been described as a "warm neptune"

WATER AND ALIEN CLOUDS

HAT-P-26b lies about 430 light-years away from Earth. The alien planetcircles 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.  

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

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Alien Planet Quiz: Are You an Exoplanet Expert?
• Gallery: The Infrared Universe Seen by Spitzer Telescope
• How To Discover An Alien Planet | Video

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

13-05-2017 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

So You Think You’ve Found an Alien. Now What?

 

Pixabay

IN BRIEF

As fascinated as we are with the possibility of alien life, humanity does not have a plan for how to respond to aliens if they contact us. But however we respond, first contact is sure to change our world forever.

A CELESTIAL SEARCH

From the pointy ears of Vulcans to the sharp fangs of the Xenomorph, humans have long envisioned what alien species must be like. Will they be humanoid, or completely unfamiliar? Friendly, or violent?

We have no evidence of what extraterrestrials are like — or if they exist to begin with — but that hasn’t stopped us from looking for them. For years, organizations like SETI and NASA have been scouring the galaxy and our solar system for signs of alien life — and have actually found a few. Some scientists say fast radio bursts could be explained by otherworldly intelligence, and NASA just announced that they have detected molecules that could suggest life on one of Saturn’s moons.

Despite our many creative tests, we have yet to discover conclusive proof of life originating from another world. And perhaps this is for the best, as, for the moment, Earth has not come to a consensus on how to react to alien lifeforms — or if we should even interact with them at all.

While humanity has not developed a protocol for alien encounters, we do have a a scale, called the “Rio Scale,” for determining how important your evidence of aliens is. It was developed by researchers at SETI and evaluates your discovery based on four criteria. It calculates your score (available here for the next time you spot a UFO), which can range from zero (you think you see stars forming your initials in a NASA picture of a distant galaxy, but no one else gets how important that is) to 10 (you have an alien in the trunk of your car, and are now Googling labs to take it to).

But the question remains, what do we do when we finally reach that 10 — or even a 5? Do we send flowers? Try to initiate trade? Put on a tough front and warn off the potentially dangerous aliens?

The Green Bank Telescope is the world’s largest, fully-steerable telescope. The GBT’s dish is 100-meters by 110-meters in size, covering 2.3 acres of space. The telescope is currently being used in a new SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) attempt to look for possible alien radio signals from Tabby’s Star.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

FIRST CONTACT

While we haven’t officially arrived at an answer to these questions, enthusiasts haven’t let that stop them. Several groups have already sent messages to the stars, hoping to get an extraterrestrial response. NASA included a map to Earth in the Pioneer spacecraft. Carl Sagan helped broadcast a message in “alienese” from the Arecibo Observatory. We have also sent mathematical principles to potentially-habitable star systems so aliens will know that we’re smart.

But many experts think that these attempts, and others like them, have more potential to harm the human race than to help it. Stephen Hawking voiced his concerns about responding to potential alien signals in the video “Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places.” He pointed out that other civilizations could be “vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.” After all, he argues, being friendly did not protect the Native Americans from European settlers.

Other experts, like Douglas Vakoch, argue that any alien advanced enough to be a threat to our world would have surely picked up on all the signals we’ve already vented into the universe. We haven’t been at all concerned about hiding our tracks to this point, so what good would ghosting extraterrestrials do us now?

How or whether we respond to alien life when we find it, one thing is certain — it will change our world forever. Sagan believed that the discovery could lead to a more humble and unified humanity. He reflected in Pale Blue Dot, “To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

The famous “Golden Record” carried aboard both Voyager 1 and 2 contains images, sounds and greetings from Earth. (NASA)

References: Universe Today, SETI

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13-05-2017 om 19:02 geschreven door peter