Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
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
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
23-10-2017
Bizarre Blue 'Flashes and Glows' May Reveal Thunderstorm Secrets
Bizarre Blue 'Flashes and Glows' May Reveal Thunderstorm Secrets
By Samantha Mathewson, Space.com Contributor
Bright, blue flashes stretch from the tops of powerful thunderstorms toward the edge of space, providing a fascinating celestial show for astronauts on the International Space Station, and now, scientists are learning more about these showstopping displays.
In 2015, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured a video of the strange blue flashes dancing above the clouds as the space station passed over the Bay of Bengal.
These features are called blue jets — a type of transient luminous event (TLE) resulting from activity in and below powerful thunderstorms on Earth. One of the photographs captured by Mogensen showed a pulsating blue jet that stretched 25 miles (40 kilometers) above sea level, according to a statement from NASA. [Earth From Space: Amazing Astronaut Photos]
Using these observations, researchers from Denmark's National Space Institute studied the elusive features to learn more about how storms form and develop over time. Their findings showed that 245 pulsating blue discharges were observed during the 160 seconds of video footage, which is equal to roughly 90 blue-jet flashes per minute, the researchers said in a new study describing the findings.
The study also revealed evidence of red sprites, which glow in the upper atmosphere following large lightning flashes on Earth. Red sprites are difficult to detect because they last only a few milliseconds.
In fact, visual evidence of TLEs wasn't available until 1989. Some of the first observations of these events were of red sprites photographed by cameras on board the space shuttle, as well as from images taken during a NASA and University of Alaska airborne campaign.
Recently, however, astronauts aboard the space station have been able to capture various natural light shows on camera, including red sprites over two different storms within 3 minutes of each other — first over the American Midwest and then later near the coast of El Salvador. These red sprites, which were spotted in August 2015, stretched roughly 60 miles (100 km) above Earth, according to the statement.
Observations of strange atmospheric features like red sprites and blue jets help improve researchers' understanding of lightning and thunderstorms, which can lead to better storm models and weather forecasts. Furthermore, researchers also aim to learn more about why storms produce different TLEsin different circumstances.
"TLE studies have been, to an extent, fortunate observation," Tim Lang, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said in the statement. "We've gotten better at finding them, but it's mostly case-based analysis."
Researchers will soon have the opportunity to capture even better storm observations from space using NASA's Lightning Imaging Sensor, which was installed on the orbiting lab in February 2017, and the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, which is slated to launch to the space station later this year. These instruments will allow researchers to analyze storms from both below and above, and closely examine thunderstorms' impact on Earth's atmosphere.
Researchers from the University of Newcastle in Australia have found a way to print solar tiles. This method is cheaper and faster than traditional methods and could potentially be a game changer in the renewable energy industry.
SOLAR’S THE WAY TO GO
Solar panels have become increasingly inexpensive in the past months. However, while a number of large-scale energy producers are shifting towards solar power, there is still a lack of homes that have adopted the technology. In Australia, a place bathed in seemingly constant direct sunlight, price is still a major stumbling block for homeowners considering switching to solar. Things may be about to change, however, thanks to a new variety of solar tile developed by researchers from the University of Newcastle (UON).
Image Credit: University of Newcastle
Instead of the photovoltaics (PVs) that traditional panels use, UON’s Paul Dastoor and his team are testing printable solar tiles. “It’s completely different from a traditional solar cell. They tend to be large, heavy, encased in glass — tens of millimeters thick,” Dastoor told Mashable. “We’re printing them on plastic film that’s less than 0.1 of a millimeter thick.”
Currently, UON is one of only three sites that are testing printed solar. “We’ve put in the first 100 square metres of printed solar cells up on roofs, and now we’re testing that durability in real weather conditions,” Dastoor said. As soon as the performance and durability of these tiles are confirmed, it could easily go into market production.
CHEAP AND FAST
Dastoor and his team are excited about the potential these printed tiles have in influencing the wide-scale adoption of PVs, especially for homes. “The low-cost and speed at which this technology can be deployed is exciting, particularly in the current Australian energy context where we need to find solutions, and quickly, to reduce demand on base-load power,” he explained in UON feature article.
Just for reference, Tesla’s solar tiles — which Elon Musk promised to be cheaper than regular roofs — are priced at around US $235 per tile. Meanwhile, Dastoor’s printed solars can be sold at less than US$ 7.42 per tile, which is comparatively very cheap, “[W]e expect in a short period of time the energy we generate will be cheaper than that generated via coal-based fire stations,” Dastoor explained.
Of course, whether tiles are printed or created with traditional PVs, solar energy is currently a major leading renewable energy source. And, solar power is not only incredibly environmentally friendly — producing energy without harmful byproducts that contribute to climate change — it can also generate more energythan fossil fuels.
BRIGHT BURST After two neutron stars slammed together, scientists detected gravitational waves, a burst of gamma rays and a glow from ejected material, shown in this artist’s conception.
NSF, LIGO, A. SIMONNET/SONOMA STATE UNIV.
WASHINGTON — Two ultradense cores of dead stars have produced a long-awaited cosmic collision, showering scientists with riches.
The event was the first direct sighting of a smashup of neutron stars, which are formed when aging stars explode and leave behind a neutron-rich remnant. In the wake of the collision, the churning residue forged gold, silver, platinum and a smattering of other heavy elements such as uranium, researchers reported October 16 at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Such elements’ birthplaces were previously unknown, but their origins were revealed by the cataclysm’s afterglow.
“It really is the last missing piece” of the periodic table, says Anna Frebel, an astronomer at MIT who was not involved in the research. “This is heaven for anyone working in the field.” After the collision, about 10 times the Earth’s mass in gold was spewed out into space, some scientists calculated.
Using data gathered by about 70 different observatories, astronomers characterized the event in exquisite detail, releasing a slew of papers describing the results. A tremor of gravitational waves, spotted by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, on August 17, provided the first sign of the cataclysm.
Light types
ROBERT HURT/IPAC/CALTECH, MANSI KASLIWAL AND GREGG HALLINAN/CALTECH, PHIL EVANS/NASA AND THE GROWTH COLLABORATION
Telescopes picked up the afterglow of two converging neutron stars in a variety of wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet (left, image from NASA’s Swift satellite) to infrared (middle, image from the Gemini South telescope) to radio waves (right, image from the Very Large Array).
“Already it is transforming our understanding of the universe, with a fresh narrative of the physics of stars in their death throes,” said France Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation, which funds LIGO.
A sequence of various types of electromagnetic radiation followed that gravitational trill, like musical instruments taking turns in a symphony. A burst of gamma rays segued into a glow of visible and infrared light, first spotted about 12 hours after the smashup. More than a week later, as those wavelengths faded away, X-rays crescendoed, followed by radio waves.
Combining gravitational waves with light from a neutron star merger is a long-held dream of astrophysicists. “The picture that you can put together by having all of those sources is synergistic,” says LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker of MIT. “You can make inferences that otherwise would be impossible."
That detailed picture revealed the inner workings of neutron star collisions and the source of brief blasts of high-energy light called short gamma-ray bursts. Researchers also calculated how fast the universe is expanding and tested the properties of the odd material within neutron stars.
For astrophysicists, “this event is the Rosetta stone,” says LIGO member Richard O’Shaughnessy of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
LIGO’s two detectors, located in the United States, registered an unmistakable sign of the upheaval: A shimmying of space itself that continued for about 100 seconds before cutting off. It was the strongest and longest series of spacetime ripples LIGO had ever seen. At that point, scientists knew they had something big, says LIGO member Vicky Kalogera of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “The e-mails that were circulated said, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’”
That vibration was an indication of a cosmic crash: Whirling round each other as if on an ill-fated merry-go-round, two orbiting neutron stars spiraled closer and closer, until they converged. The neutron stars, whose masses were between 1.17 and 1.60 times that of the sun, probably collapsed into a black hole, although LIGO scientists were unable to determine the stars' fate for certain. LIGO has previously spotted mergers of swirling black holes with masses tens of times that of the sun (SN Online: 9/27/17); the smaller masses of the orbiting duo pointed the finger at neutron stars. And because black holes aren’t expected to emit light, the fireworks show that followed solidified the case for neutron stars.
LIGO’s sister experiment in Italy, Advanced Virgo, saw only a faint signal. That relatively weak detection helped narrow down where the convulsion occurred to “a part of the sky that was a blind spot of Virgo,” Kalogera says. That constrained the site to within a region of about 30 square degrees in the southern sky.
Just 1.7 seconds after the gravitational wave signal, NASA’s Fermi space telescope spotted a glimmer of gamma rays in the same neighborhood of the sky. Meanwhile, other telescopes swung into action, picking up a glow where none had been before. “We saw what looked like a new star,” says astronomer Edo Berger of Harvard University, who led a team that spotted the light with the DECam on the Blanco telescope in Chile. Berger’s was one of several teams that observed the blast’s light. That detection pinpointed the galaxy NGC 4993, 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra, as the collision site. “There was this moment of disbelief: Wow, we actually did it. We found it,” Berger says.
Brought to light
P.K. BLANCHARD, E. BERGER, PAN-STARRS, DECAM
After gravitational waves narrowed down the region of sky where two neutron stars collided, telescopes pinpointed a spot of light (right, indicated with red lines) where none had been before (left).
That afterglow also revealed an amazing story of stellar alchemy: With the stars’ death came the birth of elements. As the collision spurted neutron-rich material into space, a bevy of heavy elements formed, through a chain of reactions called the r-process (SN:5/14/16, p. 9). In this process, which requires an environment crammed with neutrons, atomic nuclei rapidly gobble up neutrons and decay radioactively, thereby transforming into new elements, before resuming their neutron gorgefest. The r-process is thought to produce about half of the elements heavier than iron.
Scientists detected the characteristic glow of this process, called a kilonova, in follow-up observations. “Until this event, we had never directly seen anywhere in nature these heavy elements being forged. Now we have,” says Brian Metzger, a theoretical astrophysicist at Columbia University. “It is a feeling like you’ve discovered some kind of secret of nature.”
Previously, astrophysicists disagreed about where the r-process occurs: Two top candidates were exploding stars called supernovas (SN: 2/18/17, p. 24) and neutron star mergers. Although scientists can’t yet say whether all r-process elements are produced in neutron star mergers, the amount such collisions should produce appears large enough to explain the abundances found in the universe.
Element factory
ROBERT HURT/IPAC/CALTECH
Light emitted after a neutron star collision showed signs of heavy elements present in the aftermath, confirming that certain elements (yellow) are produced in such mergers. Other elements are produced in different ways, including in exploding massive stars and dying low mass stars.
Additional riches were revealed by gamma rays. Scientists spotted a phenomenon called a short gamma-ray burst, a brief spurt of high-energy light, less than two seconds long. Such paroxysms are relatively common, appearing in the sky about 50 times a year. But finding their source is “a long-standing problem in astrophysics,” says theoretical astrophysicist Rosalba Perna of Stony Brook University in New York. The detection clinched it: Short gamma-ray bursts come from neutron star tête-à-têtes.
By studying how the neutron stars spiraled inward, astrophysicists also tested the “squishiness” of neutron star material for the first time. This extreme substance is so dense that a teaspoonful of it would have a mass of around a billion metric tons, and scientists don’t fully understand how it responds when squeezed, a property known as its “equation of state.” Measuring this property could give scientists a better understanding of the strange material. Although the results couldn’t pin down whether the neutron stars were squishy, some theories that predicted ultrasquishy neutron stars were ruled out.
Closing in
STEFANO VALENTI/UC DAVIS, DLT40 SURVEY
LIGO and Virgo used gravitational waves to narrow down the region (white outlines) where two neutron stars smacked into one another. NASA’s Fermi space telescope detected gamma rays from within the region outlined in yellow. Visible light from the crash allowed scientists to pinpoint the galaxy NGC 4993 (red dot).
The neutron stars’ union also gave researchers the opportunity to gauge the universe’s expansion rate, by measuring the distance of the collision using gravitational waves and comparing that to how much the wavelength of light from the galaxy was stretched by the expansion. Scientists have previously measured this property, known as the Hubble constant, through other means. But those measurements are in disagreement, leaving scientists scrambling to explain the discrepancy (SN: 8/6/16, p. 10).
Now, scientists have “a totally different, independent measurement,” says LIGO collaboration member Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago. The new measurement indicates that distantly separated galaxies are spreading apart at about 70 kilometers per second for each megaparsec between them. It falls squarely between the two previous estimates: 67 and 73 km/s per megaparsec. Though this collision can’t yet resolve the debate, future mergers could help improve the measurement.
“These are all just unbelievable, major advances,” Holz says. “It’s really been this insane thrill.”
The excitement has yet to die down. Take it from astronomer Ryan Foley of the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose team was the first to spot visible light from the merger: “This is certainly the biggest discovery of my career and probably will be the biggest discovery of my entire life.”
Researchers announced October 16 that Advanced LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and its sister experiment, Advanced Virgo, have detected gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars — a cosmic crash also observed by more than 70 observatories around the world.
Editor's note: This story will be updated throughout the day as more information becomes available.
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and The Virgo Collaboration, The 1M2H Collaboration, The Dark Energy Camera GW-EM Collaboration and the DES Collaboration, The DLT40 Collaboration, The Las Cumbres Observatory Collaboration, The VINROUGE Collaboration & The MASTER Collaboration. A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant. Nature. Published online October 16, 2017. doi: 10.1038/nature24471.
Astronomers use astronomical units – or AU – to describe solar system distances. Definition of AU here. Also, mean distances in AU to prominent solar system objects.
Artist’s concept of Earth and sun. One astronomical unit = the average distance between them. Image via NASA.
Astronomers like to list the distances to objects within our solar system (planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, spacecraft, etc.) in terms of an astronomical unit. How far is that? Follow the links below to learn more about this basic distance unit in our solar system.
For general reference, we can say that one astronomical unit (AU) represents the mean distance between the Earth and our sun. An AU is approximately 93 million miles (150 million km). It’s approximately 8 light-minutes.
More exactly, one astronomical unit (AU) = 92,955,807 miles (149,597,871 km).
Earth’s orbit around the sun isn’t a perfect circle. So Earth’s distance from the sun changes throughout the year. Astronomers give the Earth’s changing distance throughout the year relative to the astronomical unit, too. For instance, when the Earth is at perihelion – its nearest point to the sun for the year, in January – it’s about 0.983 AU from the sun. When our planet swings out to aphelion – its farthest point, in July – we’re about 1.017 AU away from the sun.
Distances from the sun of planets in our solar system, expressed in A.U. Graph via planetsforkids.org
Mean distance (semi-major axis) from sun to each planet, in AU.
Mercury: 0.387 AU Venus: 0.723 AU Earth: 1.000 AU Mars: 1.524 AU Jupiter: 5.203 AU Saturn: 9.582 AU Uranus: 19.201 AU Neptune: 30.047 AU
Largest circle with yellow arrow indicates one light year from our sun. Smallest yellow sphere is one light-week. Larger yellow sphere is one light-month. Read more about this image at Wikimedia Commons.
Bottom line: Astronomers like to list the distances to objects within our solar system (planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, spacecraft, etc.) in terms of the astronomical unit, or AU. One astronomical unit is the approximate mean distance between the Earth and sun. It’s about 93 million miles (150 million km), or 8 light-minutes.
It’s the best and most stable example to date of a near-Earth companion, or “quasi-satellite.” It’s a small asteroid called 2016 HO3. It travels along with Earth in orbit around the sun.
Planetary astronomers – those who work on objects within our own solar system – are meeting last week in Provo, Utah. One of the presentations – from Vishnu Reddy at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory – provided new data an objects discovered in 2016 that appeared to be moving with Earth around the sun. Was it a burned-out rocket booster, tumbling along a peculiar near-Earth orbit around the sun, and only occasionally getting close enough to be studied with even the largest telescopes? Reddy’s recent work says no. The object, called 2016 HO3, isn’t space junk, but instead an ordinary asteroid, albeit a tiny one, similar to many near-Earth objects now known to be zipping past Earth continually.
Except 2016 HO3 isn’t zipping past. It’s traveling with us.
2016 HO3 is a small near-Earth object (NEO) measuring no more than 100 meters (330 feet) across that, while orbiting the sun, also appears to circle around the Earth as a quasi-satellite. Only five quasi-satellites have been discovered so far, but 2016 HO3 is the most stable of them. The provenance of this object is unknown. On timescales of a few centuries, 2016 HO3 remains within 38 to 100 lunar-distances from us.
Observations also show that the HO3 rotates once every 28 minutes and is made of materials similar to asteroids. The astronomers know this because light reflected off the surface of 2016 HO3 is similar to that of other near-Earth objects and to meteorites on Earth’s surface. Reddy said:
In an effort to constrain its rotation period and surface composition, we observed 2016 HO3 on April 14 and 18 with the Large Binocular Telescope and the Discovery Channel Telescope. The derived rotation period and the spectrum of emitted light are not uncommon amongst small NEOs, suggesting that 2016 HO3 is a natural object of similar provenance to other small NEOs.
The LBTO blog post explained the object’s strange orbit:
One way to visualize HO3’s orbit is by picturing a hula hoop dancer — the sun in this analogy — twirling two hoops around the hips at the same time, ever so slightly out of sync. While it orbits the sun, the object makes yearly loops around the Earth.
As a result, the object appears to orbit the Earth, but it is not gravitationally bound to our planet.
Of the near-Earth objects we know of, these types of objects would be the easiest to reach, so they could potentially make suitable targets for exploration.
2016 HO3 is seen at the top left corner of this animation made of ten 2mn long exposures in I band using MODS1 on the left side of LBT – The telescope is tracking the moving asteroid, so background stars (and even a couple of galaxies) are trailed.
Doofpot rond aliens blijft niet lang meer dicht. Dit zei een lucht- en ruimtevaartingenieur hierover op tv
Doofpot rond aliens blijft niet lang meer dicht. Dit zei een lucht- en ruimtevaartingenieur hierover op tv
Begin deze maand was in het Vlaamse avondprogramma Gert Late Night aandacht voor het onderwerp buitenaards leven. Dat naar aanleiding van de populaire documentaire Unacknowledged, die sinds kort op Netflix is te zien.
Voor Karen van de Belgische meidengroep K3, die de film ook bekeek, is het nu zonneklaar dat aliens bestaan en de aarde hebben bezocht.
Ze riep in het programma iedereen op de documentaire te bekijken en vindt dat we hier niet meer lacherig om moeten doen.
Geen onderzoek
Dr.ir. Coen Vermeeren (Gert Late Night)
Lucht- en ruimtevaartingenieur Coen Vermeeren vertelde in Gert Late Night dat de wetenschap hier geen onderzoek naar mag doen.
Hij merkte op dat één van de belangrijkste UFO-waarnemingen in de recente geschiedenis in België is gedaan. Dat was de UFO-golf van 1989-1991.
“Ik heb zelf contact opgenomen met voormalig luchtmachtgeneraal Wilfried De Brouwer en hij zei dat het een zeer serieuze waarneming was en dat vele tienduizenden Belgen het hebben gezien,” zei Vermeeren.
Nooit achterhaald
“Er is zeer serieus onderzoek naar gedaan, ze zijn er met F-16’s achteraan gevlogen, hebben er radarbeelden van en ze hebben nooit achterhaald wat het is geweest,” voegde hij toe.
De Brouwer wilde dat universiteiten hier onderzoek naar zouden doen, maar dat gebeurde niet, aldus Vermeeren.
Volgens de lucht- en ruimtevaartingenieur gaat de documentaire alles veranderen en is het een gamechanger van de eerste orde.
Doofpot
“Maar er zijn heel veel belanghebbenden die dat gewoon niet willen,” lichtte hij toe.
Zo heeft de deep state waarover de laatste tijd veel wordt gesproken er geen belang bij dat mensen meer te weten komen over onze buren in het heelal.
Vermeeren denkt echter dat de doofpot niet lang meer dicht kan blijven.
Just what exactly is going on in the skies lately? Terrifying and unexplained explosion noises have been heard around the world in the past few months, sometimes within a few hours of one another and on opposite sides of the world. While this phenomenon is nothing new, it certainly seems to be happening with increasing frequency lately. In my home state of North Carolina, a powerful booming sound rattled windows and doors earlier this month shortly before a piece of rocket debris washed up on NC’s shores. A few weeks later on October 18th, a similar loud explosion was heard not far from the same area with enough pressure to cause glass doors to bow inwards. At this time there’s still no explanation for the sound.
Whether or not the boom and the debris are related remains unknown.
Much farther north, similar powerful booms were heard and felt in Alaska and British Columbia on that same day, October 18. Residents of Charlie Lake, B.C. said the boom was so loud and percussive that they thought something had exploded nearbyor fallen on their houses. Spokespersons with both the Canadian Armed Forces and the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission say they know of no activities which could explain the anomalous booms. However, some B.C. residents took to social media to say they saw a fireball streaking across the sky that night. Could a small meteorite have caused this explosion in the sky?
The Russian Progress capsule was carrying a secret scientific module which the Russian space agency refused to identify or explain.
Could all of these fireballs and mystery booms be merely natural phenomena, or is something darker happening here? Are we being kept in the dark about an impending meteorite bombardment, or perhaps could some sort of corporate aerospace black ops or classified military operation be underway? Whatever the cause, something strange is afoot overheard, that’s for sure.
Distance to Object(s): roughly 100 to 120 ft. above the ground
Shape of Object(s): Disc
Color of Object(s): The object was surrounded by pale green light, and an intense conical beam of emerald-green light was coming from the center of the under-part towards the ground.
Number of Witnesses:
Source: Joel Mesnard, FSR Vol. 19. No. 3
Summary/Description: Legionnaire N.G., was on sentry duty at a Foreign Legion camp at Bouamama during the Algerian War, when he saw an enormous, roundish object descending. It stopped when it was about 35-40 meters above the ground, and began to hover there, motionless and silent. He estimated it to be as much as 350 meters wide. The witness feels that something most unusual happened to him psychologically.
1958: Enormous UFO seen during Algerian War
Map Data
Full Report
Representation of the craft seen by the soldier.
TRANQUILIZING VISITATION AT BOUAMAMA
An Algerian report of 1958
Joel Mesnard
An extraordinary UFO sighting was reported one night in March, 1958, during the Algerian War, at a Foreign Legion camp at Bouamama in the Sud Constantinois. The sole witness. Legionnaire N.G., was on sentry duty outside the camp. The site where he was consisted of a fortified emplacement dug out of the ground, lightly armored and equipped with a telephone connected to the camp.
The night was cloudless and the moon was shining. All was silent on the desert landscape. No large-scale operations were being carried out in the area at the time so N.G., who had been in the Legion for three years, was not feeling especially anxious. He was sitting on the ground near ihe trench, and had his rifle. If anything unexpected happened he was supposed either to fire his rifle or call the camp by telephone.
Suddenly, at a few minutes after 0.30 hours, something did happen. What it was that happened, we cannot say for sure. The witness remembers seeing a positive, physical phenomenon of enormous size. But he feels that something most unusual happened to him psychologically. And he freely admits that there might well be a difference between what he sincerely remembers and what actually took place.
It began with a whistling noise, the sort of noise you hear if you blow into the neck of a bottle. This sound seemed to him to be coming down from the sky. He immediately looked up, and saw an enormous, roundish object descending. It stopped when it was about 35-40 meters (roughly 100 to 120 ft.) above the ground, and began to hover there, motionless and silent.
He estimated it to be as much as 350 meters wide (1,000 ft.). As seen by him slightly from below, during the arrival and take-off phases, it seemed to be elliptical in shape, quite independently of the perspective effect that makes a disc look elliptical when observed from a point outside the disc’s center-line. Its span might, he thought, have been in the neighborhood of 250 meters. He estimated the distance between himself and the nearest edge of the object at little more than 50 meters (150 ft.).
When I asked Monsieur N.G. to extend his arms towards the ends of the object as he recalled seeing it, he held them out at an angle of about 100 between them. This estimate would fit quite well with the estimates given above of its size and its distance from him.
The object was surrounded by pale green light, and an intense conical beam of emerald-green light was coming from the center of the under-part towards the ground.
Legionnaire N.G. did not fire his rifle, nor did he pick up the telephone. He just remembers staring at the object for 45 to 50 minutes. The pale green and emerald colors were the most beautiful, relaxing and fascinating colors he had ever seen. Legionnaire N.G. had forgotten all about the war. All nervous or psychological tension had gone from his mind. He was just feeling happy.
Then came the noise again, like somebody blowing into a bottle, and the object started rising gently, until it had reached a height of about I(K) or 120 meters. Then it flew offal tremendous speed towards the North-West, climbing as it went.
What the Legionnaire then felt was a sort of sadness at the disappearance of this beautiful sight. After a few minutes this feeling began to fade, yielding place to a return of his ordinary state of consciousness, until his full mental faculties were back. He quickly picked up the telephone and reported what he had seen. To his great amazement however the officer at the camp simply replied in the manner: “Alright. We’ll see about it tomorrow morning.”
Greatly disappointed at the officer’s reaction, N.G. continued his watch until he was relieved by another man in the early hours of the morning. He again reported his experience, and this time more attention was paid to him. Some of his superiors were inclined to believe his story, because N.G., then aged 28, was a well-respected soldier and was considered serious and reliable. The majority however thought it was just a case of psychological trouble caused by the tough conditions of war in the desert.
A careful investigation was carried out at the scene of the sighting. N.G. recalls with a smile that the officers even examined the sand with a magnifying lens. No footprints, no marks, no alien material was found in the area, and no smell either.
Probably more for medical than for “ufological” reasons, the witness was thoroughly questioned by officers. He stuck to his original story, and the affair was considered to be quite amazing. He was sent lo the Military Hospital at Val dc Grace in Paris. There he was kept for a week under dose scrutiny by neurologists and psychiatrists. An electroencephalogram revealed nothing unusual. The conclusion of all the doctors was that N.G. was in a slate of good physical and mental health. He had not been notably affected by the strains caused by wartime service in Algeria. He had no tendency towards drinking, and was considered to be competent for service in the Foreign Legion, which means an especially hard way of life. Indeed, no man with a tendency towards dreaming or science-fiction, or with an over-developed imagination or analytical, critical mind would he selected for service in the Legion.
Monsieur N.G., who is today a civilian, is obviously a man with a strong sense of the realities of everyday life, and seems lo be just the opposite of an over sensitive type or a poet.
What happened that night in Bouamama? It is just as difficult for us to believe in the physical features of the reported sighting as it is for us not to believe in the sincerity of the witness.
Monsieur N.G. obviously is not seeking publicity. He just recounts his experience, in a natural manner, to his own close relatives, and when I met him in May 1970, he looked slightly reluctant for the first few minutes, and then answered my questions without emphasis on any particular feature.
I have been unable so far to find any evidence from military sources regarding his alleged experience. The
Val de Grace Hospital in Paris does not keep documents about patients beyond a period of ten years.
The size of the reported object is so large that, if it actually was where the witness claims to have seen it, it must have been visible from the camp at an angle of about 60 . Yet nobody else reported seeing it. When 1 asked him about the possible reasons for his having been the only witness, N.G. replied that it is in no way astonishing, since most of the men in the camp were asleep in their barracks at the time. There was a legionnaire on sentry duty at the opposite end of the camp, and he could have seen the UFO at an angle of almost 40 ! And yet that sentry reported nothing. Monsieur N.G. does not think that the slope or the irregular pattern of the ground could have been sufficient to render the phenomenon invisible from the camp.
The witness seems to be conscious that something quite extraordinary happened to his mind, but he seems to believe quite positively in the geometrical features of his “sighting.” He says he has had no disease or illness of any kind since the night of the sighting, and no unusual physical or mental conditions. He has never had any other experiences involving flying saucers, cither before, or since, his experience at Bouamama. What happened to him there in 1958 has left him with the belief that “there is something,” and that “something is coming from another world to watch ours.” Regarding his amazingly peaceful state during the sighting, he uses words like: “It was like time running very slowly . . .” and “it was like being in another world.”
Since the experience he had felt a certain degree of interest in flying saucers, and recalls having read about UFOs in newspapers and magazines. In any case, the subject definitely docs not upset him and his experience, however extraordinary it may seem, has not notably changed his life.
The Bouamama case, devoid as it is of physical evidence but so puzzling in many respects, invites comparison with a number of other cases. What she wrote of the witness actually was leaves much to our imagination. It is just one more of those very special UFO sightings which lead us to think that Ufology may somehow be related to some obscure psychic phenomenon.
Take a Break And Travel Through Our Beautiful Solar System With New Google Maps
Google Maps
Take a Break And Travel Through Our Beautiful Solar System With New Google Maps
Let's blow this popsicle stand.
MICHELLE STARR
We can't all go to space, but we can now take a poke around our Solar System thanks to Google Maps.
The internet giant's mapping service has expanded its map of the nearby celestial bodies to include three new planets and a whole bunch of new moons to explore. And it's even more awesome than it sounds.
Previously, the service had only included Earth, of course, along with Mars, the Moon, and the International Space Station, with data collected from the NOAA, the ESO, JAXA, NASA, and in the case of the ISS, astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who captured data for Street View.
Now we have Venus, Mercury, Pluto and the moons Ceres, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Mimas, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Iapetus to explore, thanks to NASA data.
You won't be able to get as up close and personal with these planets as you can with Street View, since we don't have surface-level photographs, but you can spin them around, and have a good zoom in on things - like a nice virtual globe.
"Explore the icy plains of Enceladus, where Cassini discovered water beneath the moon's crust - suggesting signs of life," Google Street View product manager Stafford Marquardt wrote in a blog post.
"Peer beneath the thick clouds of Titan to see methane lakes. Inspect the massive crater of Mimas - while it might seem like a sci-fi look-a-like, it is a moon, not a space station."
Image data was collected together from several NASA and ESA missions, including Cassini, which collected a lot of information and photographs of Saturn and its moons. Pluto data was taken from New Horizons, so a lot of it is pretty blurry, but the detail on the Sleipnir Fossa and the Morgoth Macula is breathtaking.
Mercury was examined in detail by Messenger between 2011 and 2015, and Google credits mapping companies Orion Map Data and AfriGIS for Venus data.
Some of this data was compiled into maps by astronomical artist Björn Jónsson, whose website is really fun to poke around in.
There are a few planets missing. For all the Cassini data used, the new lineup has a rather glaring omission - Saturn, the ringed planet. Jupiter also has a probe, Juno, busily collecting data, so maybe we'll see the gas giants join the collection sometime.
We don't have probes checking out our ice giants, Neptune and Uranus, but NASA is hoping to get some out there eventually. Given how long the trip to those reaches of the solar system takes, though, they probably won't join the Google Maps fun for at least another decade.
In the meantime, though, there's plenty for you to explore. You can check it all out on Google Maps' handy space page.
Or you could go for space and time with the TARDIS, Google Maps style.
Looking For Signs of Extraterrestrial Life Just Got a Whole Lot Easier
"Venus-like” exoplanet GJ 1132b.
Image Credit: cfa.harvard.edu
Looking For Signs of Extraterrestrial Life Just Got a Whole Lot Easier
There's a new test for alien habitability.
MATT WILLIAMS, UNIVERSE TODAY
When it comes to searching for worlds that could support extra-terrestrial life, scientists currently rely on the "low-hanging fruit" approach.
Since we only know of one set of conditions under which life can thrive – i.e. what we have here on Earth – it makes sense to look for worlds that have these same conditions. These include being located within a star's habitable zone, having a stable atmosphere, and being able to maintain liquid water on the surface.
Until now, scientists have relied on methods that make it very difficult to detect water vapour in the atmosphere's of terrestrial planets. But thanks to a new study led by Yuka Fujii of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), that may be about to change.
Using a new three-dimensional model that takes into account global circulation patterns, this study also indicates that habitable exoplanets may be more common than we thought.
In addition to Fujii, who is also a member of the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the research team included Anthony D. Del Genio (GISS) and David S. Amundsen (GISS and Columbia University).
To put it simply, liquid water is essential to life as we know it. If a planet does not have a sufficiently warm atmosphere in order to maintain liquid water for a sufficient amount of time (on the order of billions of years), then it is unlikely that life will not be able to emerge and evolve.
If a planet is too distant from its star, its surface water will freeze; if it is too close, its surface water will evaporate and be lost to space.
While water has been detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets before, in all cases, the planets were massive gas giants that orbited very closely to their stars (AKA "Hot Jupiters"). As Fujii and his colleagues state in their study:
"Although H2O signatures have been detected in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters, detecting molecular signatures, including H2O, on temperate terrestrial planets is exceedingly challenging, because of the small planetary radius and the small scale height (due to the lower temperature and presumably larger mean molecular weight)."
When it comes to terrestrial (i.e. rocky) exoplanets, previous studies were forced to rely on one-dimensional models to calculate the presence of water.
This consisted of measuring hydrogen loss, where water vapour in the stratosphere is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen from exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
By measuring the rate at which hydrogen is lost to space, scientists would estimate the amount of liquid water still present on the surface.
However, as Fujii and his colleagues explain, such models rely on several assumptions that cannot be addressed, which include the global transport of heat and water vapour, as well as the effects of clouds.
Basically, previous models predicted that for water vapour to reach the stratosphere, long-term surface temperatures on these exoplanets would have to be more than 66°C (150°F) higher than what we experience here on Earth.
These temperatures could create powerful convective storms on the surface. However, these storms could not be the reason water reaches the stratosphere when it comes to slowly rotating planets entering a moist greenhouse state – where water vapour intensifies heat.
Planets that orbit closely to their parent stars are known to either have a slow rotation or to be tidally-locked with their planets, thus making convective storms unlikely.
This occurs quite often for terrestrial planets that are located around low-mass, ultra cool, M-type (red dwarf) stars. For these planets, their proximity to their host star means that it's gravitational influence will be strong enough to slow down or completely arrest their rotation.
When this occurs, thick clouds form on the dayside of the planet, protecting it from much of the star's light.
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The team found that, while this could keep the dayside cool and prevent water vapour from rising, the amount of near-Infrared radiation (NIR) could provide enough heat to cause a planet to enter a moist greenhouse state.
This is especially true of M-type and other cool dwarf stars, which are known to produce more in the way of NIR. As this radiation warms the clouds, water vapour will rise into the stratosphere.
To address this, Fujii and his team relied on three-dimensional general circulation models (GCMs) which incorporate atmospheric circulation and climate heterogeneity.
For the sake of their model, the team started with a planet that had an Earth-like atmosphere and was entirely covered by oceans. This allowed the team to clearly see how variations in distance from different types of stars would effect conditions on the planets surfaces.
These assumptions allowed the team to clearly see how changing the orbital distance and type of stellar radiation affected the amount of water vapour in the stratosphere. As Fujii explained in a NASA press release:
"Using a model that more realistically simulates atmospheric conditions, we discovered a new process that controls the habitability of exoplanets and will guide us in identifying candidates for further study… We found an important role for the type of radiation a star emits and the effect it has on the atmospheric circulation of an exoplanet in making the moist greenhouse state."
In the end, the team's new model demonstrated that since low-mass star emit the bulk of their light at NIR wavelengths, a moist greenhouse state will result for planets orbiting closely to them.
This would result in conditions on their surfaces that comparable to what Earth experiences in the tropics, where conditions are hot and moist, instead of hot and dry.
What's more, their model indicated that NIR-driven processes increased moisture in the stratosphere gradually, to the point that exoplanets orbiting closer to their stars could remain habitable.
This new approach to assessing potential habitability will allow astronomers to simulate circulation of planetary atmospheres and the special features of that circulation, which is something one-dimensional models cannot do.
In the future, the team plans to assess how variations in planetary characteristics -such as gravity, size, atmospheric composition, and surface pressure – could affect water vapour circulation and habitability.
This will, along with their 3-dimensional model that takes planetary circulation patterns into account, allow astronomers to determine the potential habitability of distant planets with greater accuracy. As Anthony Del Genio indicated:
"As long as we know the temperature of the star, we can estimate whether planets close to their stars have the potential to be in the moist greenhouse state. Current technology will be pushed to the limit to detect small amounts of water vapour in an exoplanet's atmosphere. If there is enough water to be detected, it probably means that planet is in the moist greenhouse state."
Beyond offering astronomers a more comprehensive method for determining exoplanet habitability, this study is also good news for exoplanet-hunters hoping to find habitable planets around M-type stars.
Low-mass, ultra-cool, M-type stars are the most common star in the Universe, accounting for roughly 75 percent of all stars in the Milky Way. Knowing that they could support habitable exoplanets greatly increases the odds of find one.
In addition, this study is VERY good news given the recent spate of research that has cast serious doubt on the ability of M-type stars to host habitable planets.
This research was conducted in response to the many terrestrial planets that have been discovered around nearby red dwarfs in recent years.
What they revealed was that, in general, red dwarf stars experience too much flare and could strip their respective planets of their atmospheres.
These include the 7-planet TRAPPIST-1 system (three of which are located in the star's habitable zone) and the closest exoplanet to the Solar System, Proxima b.
The sheer number of Earth-like planets discovered around M-type stars, coupled with this class of star's natural longevity, has led many in the astrophysical community to venture that red dwarf stars might be the most likely place to find habitable exoplanets.
With this latest study, which indicates that these planets could be habitable after all, it would seem that the ball is effectively back in their court!
Manen van Mars kunnen weleens elektrisch geladen zijn
Manen van Mars kunnen weleens elektrisch geladen zijn
Caroline Kraaijvanger
En daar kunnen astronauten wel eens serieus hinder van ondervinden.
Verschillende ruimtevaartorganisaties en -bedrijven dromen van een bemande missie naar Mars. Maar ook de manen van Mars – Phobos en Deimos – lijken heel geschikte bestemmingen, onder meer vanwege hun zwakke zwaartekracht (die het gemakkelijker maakt om te landen). In de toekomst kunnen astronauten voet op deze manen zetten en vanaf het oppervlak van Phobos en/of Deimos robotische missies op Mars aansturen (zie kader).
Op dit moment worden robotische missies op Mars – denk aan de Marsrovers Opportunity en Curiosity – vanaf de aarde aangestuurd. Dat werkt prima, maar men moet altijd rekening houden met een vertraging: signalen doen er zo’n 20 minuten over om van de aarde naar Mars te reizen en een reactie laat dus 40 minuten op zich wachten. Aansturing vanaf Phobos of Deimos is een stuk aantrekkelijker, omdat die vertraging dan wegvalt.
Zonnewind Maar het lijkt erop dat we tijdens die bemande missies naar Phobos of Deimos wel serieus rekening moeten houden met de zonnewind. Nieuw onderzoek wijst namelijk uit dat deze ervoor kan zorgen dat gebieden op de manen elektrisch geladen worden. “Wij ontdekten dat astronauten of rovers significante elektrische ladingen kunnen verzamelen wanneer ze zich verplaatsen op de nachtzijde van Phobos (de zijde van de maan die tijdens de Martiaanse dag op Mars gericht is, red.),” zo vertelt onderzoeker William Farrell. “Hoewel we niet verwachten dat deze ladingen groot genoeg zijn om een astronaut te verwonden, zijn ze mogelijk wel groot genoeg om gevoelige apparatuur aan te tasten, dus moeten we ruimtepakken en apparatuur ontwikkelen die deze dreiging beperkt.”
Elektronen en ionen Farrell en collega’s trekken die conclusie nadat ze de impact die de zonnewind op Phobos heeft, bestudeerden. Phobos heeft geen atmosfeer en wordt dus direct aan de zonnewind blootgesteld. Die zonnewind bestaat uit negatief geladen elektronen – die licht zijn – en positief geladen ionen – die zwaar zijn. Normaal gesproken vinden we in de zonnewind net zoveel van deze lichte elektronen als zware ionen en is de zonnewind elektrisch neutraal. Maar eenmaal bij Phobos aangekomen, verandert dat. Phobos absorbeert de zonnewind namelijk alleen aan de dagzijde en hierdoor ontstaat aan de nachtzijde een leemte. Omdat de elektronen lichter zijn dan de ionen haasten zij zich naar die nachtzijde om die leegte te vullen. En zo wordt de nachtzijde van de maan elektrisch geladen (zie ook het filmpje hieronder).
Frictie Wanneer astronauten over die nachtzijde wandelen, kan die elektrische lading middels frictie tussen Phobos’ oppervlak en de ruimtepakken van de astronauten worden overgedragen. En gaandeweg kan zo een flinke elektrische lading ontstaan. Want het stof en gesteente op het oppervlak van Phobos geleidt slecht, dus de lading die astronauten opdoen, kunnen ze niet zo gemakkelijk weer afgeven. In sommige materialen, zoals de ruimtepakken die de Apollo-astronauten droegen, kan de lading gaandeweg oplopen tot zo’n 10.000 volt. Op het moment dat een astronaut iets aanraakt wat wél goed geleidt, kan die lading plots vrijkomen.
Hoewel het onderzoek zich beperkt tot maan Phobos gelden de resultaten waarschijnlijk ook voor Deimos. Ook deze maan heeft geen atmosfeer en wordt dus direct aan de zonnewind blootgesteld.
Nieuw bewijs dat er in de atmosfeer van de maan spannende dingen gebeuren.
De ijswolk bevindt zich boven de zuidpool van Titan op een hoogte van zo’n 160 tot 210 kilometer. Daarmee bevindt de wolk zich ver boven de regenwolken van Titan. De ijswolk is bovendien omvangrijk en beslaat een gebied tussen 75 en 85 graden zuiderbreedte.
Tegelijkertijd gecondenseerd Onderzoek wijst uit dat de wolk bestaat uit een combinatie van waterstofcyanide en benzeen. “Deze wolk vertegenwoordigt een nieuwe chemische formule voor ijs in Titans atmosfeer,” vertelt onderzoeker Carrie Anderson. “Wat interessant is, is dat dit giftige ijs bestaat uit twee moleculen die tegelijkertijd uit een rijke mix aan gassen gecondenseerd zijn.”
WIST JE DAT?
…er aanwijzingen zijn dat op Titan heftige regenstormen voorkomen? Tijdens die buien komt er geen water, maar vloeibaar methaan uit de lucht zetten. Soms wel 30 centimeter per dag!
Herfst Onderzoekers ontdekten de wolk dankzij Cassini. De sonde spotte de wolk drie keer tussen juli en november 2015. In die periode liep de herfst op Titan op zijn einde (seizoenen op de maan duren zeven aardse jaren).
Noordpool Eerder ontdekten onderzoekers ook al een ijswolk op het noordelijk halfrond van Titan. Deze wolk hing echter veel lager (onder de 150 kilometer) en had een heel andere samenstelling: waterstofcyanide en het complexe cyanoacetyleen.
Eén van de laatste foto’s die ruimtesonde Cassini naar de aarde stuurde laat Titan zien.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
Titan is de grootste maan die Saturnus rijk is en de enige maan in ons zonnestelsel met een dichte atmosfeer en wolken. De atmosfeer van de maan bestaat voornamelijk uit stikstof en methaan. Onderzoek wijst uit dat in de atmosfeer van de maan allerlei chemische processen gaande zijn, waarbij soms ook heel complexe (organische) moleculen ontstaan.
'Mars heeft valleien te danken aan zomerse toptemperaturen'
'Mars heeft valleien te danken aan zomerse toptemperaturen'
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Onderzoek verklaart hoe op een jong Mars – waarop de gemiddelde temperatuur ver onder het vriespunt lag – toch water kon stromen.
Het is een mysterie. Op het oppervlak van Mars vinden we geologisch bewijs – bijvoorbeeld vier miljard jaar oude, door vloeistoffen uitgekerfde valleien – dat erop wijst dat de planeet ooit warm en nat was. Maar tegelijkertijd vertellen klimaatmodellen ons dat de gemiddelde temperatuur op het jonge Mars ver onder het vriespunt bleef. Hoe kunnen we die twee verhalen met elkaar verenigen? Hoe kan er ooit genoeg water over Mars hebben gestroomd om valleien uit te kerven, als de planeet ijzig koud was?
Antarctica In het blad Icarus komen onderzoekers met een mogelijke oplossing voor dat vraagstuk. Hun studie wijst erop dat Mars lang geleden inderdaad heel koud was, maar dat gedurende de zomer toch toptemperaturen werden behaald die ervoor zorgden dat de randen van gletsjers smeltten. Daarbij ontstonden kleine hoeveelheden smeltwater die – jaar na jaar – toch in staat waren om de valleien op de rode planeet vorm te geven. “We zien dit ook in de Droge Valleien van McMurdo op Antarctica, waar de seizoensgebonden verschillen in temperatuur voldoende zijn om meren te doen ontstaan en in stand te houden, ook al ligt de gemiddelde jaarlijkse temperatuur ver onder het vriespunt,” vertelt onderzoeker Ashley Palumbo.
Valleien op Mars. Afbeelding:µ
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Arizona State University.
Modellen De onderzoekers baseren hun conclusies onder meer op een geavanceerd klimaatmodel van het jonge Mars. Dit klimaatmodel gaat ervan uit dat de atmosfeer van Mars in een ver verleden – net zoals vandaag – voornamelijk uit koolstofdioxide bestond. Het model genereert een vrij koud en ijzig jong Mars, deels ook doordat de energieproductie van de zon in die tijd nog een stuk lager uitviel. De onderzoekers modelleerden Mars meerdere keren en pasten daarbij sommige variabelen aan: zo werd er geëxperimenteerd met een atmosfeer die verschillende diktes had (aangenomen wordt dat de atmosfeer van Mars in het verleden dikker was dan nu, maar hoe dik precies, blijft onduidelijk). Ook werd gespeeld met de mate van opwarming door toedoen van broeikasgassen en variaties in de baan en stand van de rotatie-as van Mars.
Zomerse temperaturen Uit het model rolde zo een aantal scenario’s waarbij ijs de gebieden nabij de locatie van valleien bedekte. En hoewel de gemiddelde jaarlijkse temperatuur in deze scenario’s ver onder het vriespunt bleef, bracht het model in de zuidelijk gelegen hooglanden wel zomerse toptemperaturen voort die boven het vriespunt uitkwamen. In die scenario’s was smeltwater dus verantwoordelijk voor de valleien.
Genoeg? Maar brachten al die scenario’s wel voldoende smeltwater voort om de valleien die we nu op Mars zien, uit te kerven? Een paar jaar geleden berekenden onderzoekers hoeveel water er minimaal nodig was om de grootste valleien uit te kerven. En die data gebruikten onderzoekers om te kijken welke gemodelleerde scenario’s konden verklaren wat we nu op Mars zien. Zo ontdekten ze dat het scenario waarin de baan van Mars zeer excentrisch was (afweek van een cirkelvorm) het beste paste. En zo’n zeer excentrische baan past keurig binnen het scala aan omloopbanen waarvan onderzoekers het aannemelijk achten dat Mars ze in het verleden kan hebben gevolgd.
“Deze studie voegt een plausibele hypothese toe die verklaart hoe vloeibaar water op het jonge Mars kan zijn ontstaan,” denkt onderzoeker Jim Head. Hij sluit echter niet uit dat het koude Mars ook op andere manieren nog aan vloeibaar water wist te komen. “We verkennen momenteel andere potentiële mechanismen die de planeet kunnen hebben verwarmd, waaronder vulkanisme en inslagen die ook kunnen hebben bijgedragen aan smelt op een koud en ijzig jong Mars.”
Wetenschappers hebben een gigantische grot op de maan ontdekt. De lavatunnel is namelijk zestig kilometer lang, honderd meter breed en ligt tientallen tot honderden meters onder het maanoppervlak.
Op het oppervlak is een gat met een doorsnee van vijftig meter zichtbaar. Dit gat – met de naam Marius Hills Skylight – is al langer bekend bij astronomen. Japanse astronomen hebben radargegevens geanalyseerd van het ruimtevaartuig SELENE. SELENE ontdekte een vreemd echo-patroon bij het maangat. De onderzoekers concluderen dat de echo het bewijs is van een lange lavatunnel.
Lavatunnels Lavatunnels ontstaan door vulkaanuitbarstingen. Lava baant zich via de tunnels een weg. Terwijl de lava door de tunnels stroomt, koelt de buitenste rand lava af en vormt een soort leiding in de tunnel. Wanneer de eruptie voorbij is en de lava niet langer door de tunnel stroomt, blijft een holle tunnel over.
Voorbeeld van een stad (Philadelphia) in een lavatunnel.
Stevig De lavatunnels op de maan zijn mogelijk bolvormig en stabiel tot een grootte van 5000 meter. “Dat zou op aarde niet kunnen, maar de zwaartekracht op de maan is veel lager en het gesteente daar hoeft niet dezelfde erosie te doorstaan,” vertelde onderzoeker David Blair in 2015. “In theorie zijn enorme lavatunnels op de maan – groot genoeg om een stad te herbergen – dus stevig.”
De ideale huisvesting Op de maan zijn ontzettend veel kuilen en lavatunnels. “Het is de perfecte plek om een maanbasis te bouwen, omdat de sommige kuilen deels overkapt zijn en wellicht toegang bieden tot ondergrondse grotten”, vertelt Robert Wagner van de staatsuniversiteit van Arizona. “Onder een afkapping of in een grot is er geen straling en worden astronauten niet bekogeld door micrometeorieten. Daarnaast is het er mogelijk niet stoffig en verschillen de temperaturen tussen dag en nacht minder dan boven het oppervlak.”
The search for alien life is set to be streamlined, helping astronomers narrow down potential candidates of alien worlds suspected to possibly support life, thanks to new research from Nasa. Scientists used a model that "realistically simulated atmospheric conditions" that would be required to support extraterrestrial life. The model aided the discovery of a completely new process that can boost the search for alien planets supporting life.
"Using a model that more realistically simulates atmospheric conditions, we discovered a new process that controls the habitability of exoplanets and that will guide us in identifying candidates for further study," Yuka Fujii of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who is also the lead author of the research paper, said in a statement.
What would an alien planet need to support life?
According to Nasa, liquid water is "necessary for life as we know it". To be considered habitable, an alien planet, for instance an exoplanet, would have to have a temperature that would allow liquid water to have existed on the planet's surface for roughly billions of years – enough time for life to have thrived.
However, the exoplanet's distance from its parent star can help determine if it could be habitable. For instance, if the exoplanet is too far away from its parent star, it would be too cold, freezing the planet's oceans. Alternatively, if the exoplanet is too close, the intense light from the parent star would eventually cause the oceans to evaporate and be lost to space.
"This happens when water vapour rises to a layer in the upper atmosphere called the stratosphere and gets broken into its elemental components (hydrogen and oxygen) by ultraviolet light from the star. The extremely light hydrogen atoms can then escape to space. Planets in the process of losing their oceans this way are said to have entered a "moist greenhouse" state because of their humid stratospheres," Nasa said.
"We found an important role for the type of radiation a star emits and the effect it has on the atmospheric circulation of an exoplanet in making the moist greenhouse state," said Fujii. In case of exoplanets orbiting close to their parent stars, the power of the star's gravity will slow the planet's rotation, which in turn could lead to the planet becoming tidally locked. This is essentially when one side of the exoplanet will always face the star, giving that region constant daylight and the other region will always be away from the star, in a state of eternal night.
Such a scenario could lead to the cloud on the planet's day-side to act as an umbrella, keeping the planet cool and preventing water vapour from rising. The scientists found the NIR (near-infrared radiation), which is a type of light invisible to the human eye, that comes from a star could "provide the heat needed to cause a planet to enter the moist greenhouse state".
An artist's illustration depicting a star's light illuminating the atmosphere of a planetNASA Goddard Space Flight Center
The new model showed that since these parent stars emit the bulk of their light at NIR wavelengths, this could result in a moist greenhouse state providing conditions similar or even warmer than those experienced in the Earth's tropics.
"For exoplanets closer to their stars, the team found that the NIR-driven process increased moisture in the stratosphere gradually. So, it's possible, contrary to old model predictions, that an exoplanet closer to its parent star could remain habitable," Nasa said.
"As long as we know the temperature of the star, we can estimate whether planets close to their stars have the potential to be in the moist greenhouse state," said Anthony Del Genio of GISS, a co-author of the paper. "Current technology will be pushed to the limit to detect small amounts of water vapour in an exoplanet's atmosphere. If there is enough water to be detected, it probably means that planet is in the moist greenhouse state."
The new study is based on scientists' assumptions of an Earth-like planet, but one covered in oceans. The assumptions allowed researchers to determine how variations in orbital distance and type of stellar radiation could affect the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere.
The team plans on modifying planetary characteristics such as size, gravity, atmospheric composition and surface pressure to see how they affect the circulation of water vapour and habitability, thereby helping narrow down the search for alien life.
No new large planet on the outskirts of our solar system has yet been discovered, although evidence is building, astronomers say. By the way, if Planet 9 does exist … it’s definitely not headed our way.
Artist’s concept of an unknown large planet, far from its sun, via NASA.
There’s been a fair amount of Planet 9 buzz this month, which seems to have kicked off with a feature story about this as-yet-undiscovered world at a NASA website on October 4. That story was duplicated multiple times online, and in the process it was altered in various good and bad ways, like the proverbial message in the telephone game. In at least one place, we saw a headline suggesting NASA admits the mysterious Planet 9 is real. NASA has done no such thing, of course, and such are the headlines that give us editors reputations as wanton purveyors of click bait. Then today (October 17, 2017), a University of Michigan doctoral student held a press conference to announce two pieces of evidence that may support the existence of a Planet 9. That news should stir the pot still more.
All this, and no large Planet 9 has been discovered.
Plus some of the buzz will likely become fuel for the Nibiru conspiracy theory, which (come to think of it) was supposed to culminate a month ago with a large planet colliding with Earth. And that’s enough said about that.
Astronomers announced in 2016 that a Planet 9 might exist. Their theory was based on the way some trans-Neptunian objects behave. These are rocky objects smaller than Pluto that orbit the sun at a greater average distance than Neptune. It seems the orbits of the most distant ones – those whose average distance from the sun is more than 250 times as far as Earth’s distance — point in the same direction.
Could a large Planet 9 be pulling on them?
Artist’s illustration of the orbits of 6 known trans-Neptunian objects, all aligned in one direction. This evidence led Caltech astronomers in 2016 to suggest a Planet 9 might exist. Image via Caltech.
The new research announced on October 17 works with the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects, too. It’s led by Juliette Becker, a graduate student in the Department of Astronomy at University of Michigan. Becker’s work consists of a large set of computer simulations, which, the researchers say, uncovered two findings about trans-Neptunian objects, also known as TNOs. Their statement explained:
First, the researchers established a version of Planet 9 that would most likely cause our solar system to look the way it currently does, by preventing the TNOs from being destroyed or thrown out of the solar system.
Second, the simulations predict that there is a process that they call resonance hopping by which a TNO jumps between stable orbits. This process can prevent the TNOs from being ejected from the solar system.
Juliette Becker led computer simulations supporting the theory that our solar system might contain a large, distant, undiscovered planet.
The researchers conducted various simulations, and, in each one, they tested different versions of Planet 9 to see whether that version of the planet, with its gravitational forces, resulted in the same version of the solar system we see today. Becker said:
From that set of simulations, we found out that there are preferred versions of Planet 9 that make the TNO stay stable for longer, so it basically increases the probability that our solar system exists the way it does.
The ultimate goal would be to directly see Planet 9 — to take a telescope, point it at the sky, and see reflected light from the sun bouncing off of Planet 9.
Since we haven’t yet been able to find it, despite many people looking, we’re stuck with these kinds of indirect methods.
Caltech professor Mike Brown and assistant professor Konstanin Batygin. Their 2016 paper in the Astrophysical Journal sparked the current Planet 9 investigation. Image via Lance Hayashida/Caltech/NASA.
In the meantime, going back to the buzz, NASA’s October 4 Planet 9 feature story (called The Super-Earth That Came Home for Dinner) features a quote from one of the hypothetical planet’s most dedicated trackers, Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, who said:
There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet 9. If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet 9 does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them.
… it is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet 9 than with one.
That’s all logical and good. So … are we on the verge of discovering another large planet on the outskirts of our solar system? Maybe. Astronomers discover new things, both in our solar system and beyond, all the time. As always, stay tuned, and try to read past the headlines.
Bottom line: Although no Planet 9 has yet been discovered by astronomers, there’s continuing evidence one might exist. If such a world does exist, it’s approximately 20 times farther from the sun than the outermost large planet currently known, Neptune. It’s not heading our way.
NASA aims to have humans on Mars by the 2030s. The people making the long space journey will experience health risks they’ve never faced before.
International Space Station astronauts have been helping to pave the wave for future manned Mars missions.
Image via NASA.
NASA has announced its aim to have humans on planet Mars by the 2030s. But long-distance space travel brings with it a unique set of health problems.
How will the people who make the trip cope with the mental and physical rigors of the journey? Marc Jurblum, a training psychiatrist at the University of Melbourne and member of the Australasian Society of Aerospace Medicine’s Space Life Sciences Committee, outlined six of the key health issues facing prospective space travelers.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly watches carrots float in front of him on April 19, 2015 in space. Kelly was one of the One-Year crew members on the International Space Station testing how the human body reacts to an extended presence in space as preparation for the long flights NASA plans to Mars and back in the future. Image via NASA/Futurity.org.
1. Space sickness
On Earth, tiny gyroscopes in your brain give you spatial awareness. They tell you when you tilt your head, accelerate, or change position. But it’s different in space. Jurblum said:
In Zero G, those don’t work as well and, as a result, astronauts suffer a lot of nausea. A lot of them spend days feeling incredibly unwell. It’s like being seasick.
There are many examples. In 1968, NASA launched Apollo 8. Astronaut Frank Borman suffered such a bad bout of space sickness on the way to the moon that Mission Control considered shortening the mission.
Fortunately, just like people going to sea eventually get their sea legs, astronauts develop ‘space legs’ within about two weeks. But once they return to Earth, the opposite is true — many of them have to work hard to get their ‘Earth legs’ back.
Expedition 48 crew members on board the International Space Station adjusting to cramped station life in orbit. Image via NASA.
2. Mental stress
Space travel is still inherently dangerous. Essentially you are floating through an airless vacuum in a sealed-up container, only staying alive because of the machinery recycling your air and water. There is little room to move and you’re in constant danger from radiation and micro-meteorites. Jurblum said:
We don’t know what months and months of living in an unchanging capsule habitat with only blackness outside the little window will do to people’s minds. Even if you turn the ship around, Earth will be a distant speck of light. There’s little more than hydrogen atoms for hundreds of thousands of kilometers around you.
Research groups are looking at how to maintain mental health in extreme environments, including using interventions such as meditation and the positive impact pictures of nature can have on space travelers. Virtual Reality might also help by giving the astronauts a rest from the monotony.
Then there’s the issue of emotions. On Earth, if people get upset with their boss or workmate they might take out their frustrations at home or the gym. In space, astronauts can’t afford to get angry with each other. They must be able to react really quickly, communicate, and work as a team.
In contrast, there’s a positive psychological phenomenon of space travel, known as the “overview effect.” Jurblum said:
Most astronauts who have gone into space have come back with a change of perspective. They become more environmentalist, spiritual, or religious.
NASA astronaut Ron Garan described it as
…the realization that we are all traveling together on the planet and that if we all looked at the world from that perspective we would see that nothing is impossible.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams is held down by a bungee harness as she exercises on the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. Image via NASA.
3. Weaker muscles
There is no gravity on the International Space Station (ISS), and Mars only has about a third of Earth’s gravity. This plays havoc with the human body, Jurblum said. Our muscles are so used to fighting gravity on Earth that its absence means they weaken and waste.
Astronauts must do two to three hours of exercise every day just to maintain muscle mass and cardiovascular fitness. The heart loses muscle which would be extremely dangerous if they didn’t maintain it through exercise.
Tight, elastic body suits or “penguin suits,” developed by the Soviet space program, attempt to mimic the effects of gravity on muscles by providing a deep compression force on the skin, muscle, and bone—meaning they have to work harder to perform normal movements. But they’re far from perfect, Jurblum says.
4. Eye problems
A common hazard on the ISS is the fine specks that float around the cabin, often lodging in the eyes of astronauts and causing abrasions. But the lack of gravity and the movement of fluids are what can cause the most serious issues for astronauts, said Jublum.
Most end up wearing glasses in space and when they come back, some even have permanent changes to their vision.
The deterioration results from the fluid shift to the head building up in the skull where it bulges into the back of the eyeball and changes the shape of the lens. Jurblum said:
This bulging seems to cause the irreversible vision problems we’re trying to understand and manage.
Astronaut Scott Kelly administers the flu vaccination to himself aboard the International Space Station. Image via NASA/Scott Kelly.
5. Coughs and colds
If you catch a cold on Earth, you stay home and it’s no big deal. Space is another story. You’re living a densely packed, confined space—breathing recirculated air, touching common surfaces over and over again, with a lot less opportunity to wash.
The human immune system doesn’t work as well in space, so mission members are isolated for a few weeks before lift-off to guard against illness. Jurblum said:
We’re not sure why, but it seems that bacteria are more dangerous in space. On top of that, if you sneeze in space, all the droplets come straight out and keep going. If someone has a flu, everyone is going to get it and there are limited medical facilities and a very long way to the nearest hospital.
CPR training for ESA astronauts during parabolic flights.
6. Medical emergencies
Luckily, there have not yet been any major medical emergencies in space, but astronauts have training to deal with them.
For instance, ISS astronauts have developed a way to perform CPR in zero gravity by bracing their legs on the ceiling while pushing down on the patient on the floor below.
While a rescue from the ISS can be performed within a day, the people who go to Mars will be an eight-month journey away, and they need to be prepared to manage on their own, Jurblum said:
How do you lift them on a stretcher, get them into an airlock, out of their suit, and onto a surgical table with a doctor, a botanist, and a couple of scientists to help do surgery? You may have an orthopedic surgeon on Earth sending you information on how to do it, but there is a 20-minute time delay.
Here on Earth, Mars Analogs simulate some of the conditions human beings could experience during a future mission to Mars, allowing researchers to work on solutions to situations like what to do if a team member breaks their leg while outside the base.
NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s – goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S. National Space Policy, also issued in 2010. Read more about NASA’s plans for a journey to Mars via NASA.
Bottom line: Six health challenges for the human journey to Mars.
A Blue Origin BE-4 engine during its first hotfire test.
Credit: Blue Origin
ATLANTA — Blue Origin announced Oct. 19 that it conducted the first successful test of its BE-4 engine, a major milestone for both the company's launch vehicle plans as well as for United Launch Alliance.
Blue Origin, in a tweet, said its first hotfire test of the BE-4 engine was a success. The company included a six-second video, taken from several angles, of the engine firing on a test stand, but provided no other information, including the date, duration or thrust level of the test. A Blue Origin spokesperson said the company was not releasing additional information about the test at this time.
"First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success," tweeted company founder Jeff Bezos. "Huge kudos to the whole @BlueOrigin team for this important step!"
The BE-4 is an engine that uses liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas propellants and is capable of generating 550,000 pounds-force of thrust. The engine was developed in-house at Blue Origin primarily with its own funding, with some support from ULA.
Blue Origin plans to use the BE-4 on its New Glenn vehicle that the company announced last year. The first stage of the rocket will use seven BE-4 engines, with the second stage using a single BE-4. That rocket will be able to place up to 45 tons into low Earth orbit and 13 tons into geostationary transfer orbit.
The BE-4 is also under consideration by ULA for its next-generation Vulcan rocket. ULA is considering both the BE-4 and the AR1, a liquid oxygen and kerosene engine under development by Aerojet Rocketdyne, but has indicated that its preference is for the BE-4.
In an April interview, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno said that it was waiting for the outcome of an initial series of hotfire tests before formally selecting the BE-4. "The economic factors are largely in place now and the thing that is outstanding is the technical risk," he said then. "That's why we keep talking about the engine firing."
ULA spokesperson Jessica Rye said the company congratulated Blue Origin on the successful test, but gave no indication of when ULA might make a decision on the engine for Vulcan.
"Congratulations to the entire Blue Origin team on the successful hotfire of a full-scale BE-4 engine," she said in an Oct. 19 email. "This is a tremendous accomplishment in the development of a new engine."
At the time of the April interview, Blue Origin was expected to begin BE-4 engine tests in the coming weeks. However, in May the company reported it lost a set of powerpack hardware, a key component of the engine, during a test. At the time the company said it would be back in testing "soon" but offered few updates prior to the announcement of this test.
An independent assessment, conducted by NASA personnel and briefed to congressional staffers in June, concluded that the BE-4 retained a development lead of as much as two years over the AR1 despite the mishap. That briefing took place around the same time Blue Origin announced it will construct a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, to build BE-4 engines for both its own vehicles and for ULA, if it does select the BE-4 for Vulcan.
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Global wave of animal mutilation defies any explanation
Global wave of animal mutilation defies any explanation
Just as there are reports of people disappearing – and being abducted by extraterrestrials – another phenomenon has caused a great debate among experts around the world: animal mutilations. The declassified records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that the FBI investigated MILES of cases of mutilation of cattle in the United States since at least the seventies, but with no result.
Just as there are reports of people disappearing – and being abducted by extraterrestrials – another phenomenon has caused a great debate among experts around the world: animal mutilations. The declassified records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that the FBI investigated MILES of cases of mutilation of cattle in the United States since at least the seventies, but with no result.
Early reports of mutilated cattle first appeared in the United States in the 1960s, when the states of Pennsylvania and Kansas were largely confined. The phenomenon was still largely unknown outside the livestock breeding communities until 1967 when Pueblo Cacique in Pueblo, Colorado published a story about a horse named Lady was mutilated under mysterious circumstances.
Shortly after, the press collected the story in general and was distributed throughout the country; this case was also the first characteristic of the speculation that the extraterrestrial beings and the unidentified flying objects were somehow related to the mutilation.
From the time the allegations of alleged animal mutilation began, the causes have been attributed in particular to natural decomposition, natural predators, cryptic predators, extraterrestrials, reserved government or armed forces and sects. Mutilations have been the subject of two independent federal investigations.
But in spite of this fact, the leading experts are also not sure and the more we look at this, the less it seems we understand. Skeptics argue that aliens are not involved, but that the defacement of livestock is in fact the product of natural disasters, sadistic jokes or other ‘sick’ jokes. But UFO investigators argue that the explanations of another world can not be nullified due to the fact that almost all attackers are carried out with surgical precision.
Mutilated cattle are found all over the world, but especially in US states. UU. Like South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas and Nevada, where farmers discovered the organs of their livestock: eyes, noses, hearts, livers, years and genitals. -removed with precision similar to a laser.
In addition, FBI documents clearly state that the best investigative minds in the United States can not answer the most frequent question of all: Who would be doing this?
An explanation of another world seems very likely according to many authors.
This is mainly because residents have reported seeing mysterious crafts as well as a strange light that has sinned in the sky circling the areas where later mutilated cattle appeared.
Chuck Zukowski, curator of UfoNut.com and a researcher who has been investigating cattle mutilations for decades, said in an interview with Sputink:
‘There are no signs of downing predators, there are no signs of the mass amount of hemorrhages and there are no signs of animal fighting, none! The animal has just been repositioned and, in some cases, a round depression is created while returning the animal. Mutilations have been going on for centuries: Native Americans also have stories of mutilated animals that occurred before Europeans migrated to North America, ‘Zukowski told Sputnik.
Although the exact nature of the mutilation varies from case to case, typical mutilation may involve some or all of the following characteristics:
Excision of the eyes, udders, and sexual organs.
Extraction of the anus to a depth of about 12 inches.
The cleavage of the tongue and lips.
The removal of one of the ears.
Removing the soft organs from the lower body.
The presence of incisions and cuts throughout the body that appear to have been made by a surgical instrument.
Inexplicable damage to the remaining organs, but no sign of damage in surrounding areas
Lack of signs of predation (scratches, teeth marks, traces of the predator) on or around the corpse.
Image captionA UK-commissioned report suggests AI could add £630bn to the economy within two decades
If my email inbox is anything to go by, a technology revolution is under way that is going to transform all of our lives very soon and it is called artificial intelligence.
A Welsh company is using AI to detect North Korean bio-weapons.
I could pop over to California to hear about "AI wearable solutions for aging population".
And Lloyd's of London has unveiled an artificial intelligence partnership with a firm that promises "in a decade a significant part of the insurance industry will be powered by AI".
These represent just three of the innumerable AI press releases aimed at me and other technology journalists over recent days.
Last week also saw the London premiere of AlphaGo, an excellent and surprisingly touching documentary about one of the great recent triumphs of artificial intelligence, Google DeepMind's victory over the champion Go player Lee Sedol.
Image copyrightMOXIE PICTURES Image captionGoogle DeepMind's defeat of a champion Go player has been made into a documentary
And then, over the weekend, as if to confirm this is a subject that should occupy politicians and policymakers as well as journalists, a major report on what the UK should be doing to nurture AI was published.
It was commissioned by the government and authored by two distinguished computer scientists, Prof Dame Wendy Hall and Dr Jerome Pesenti.
They say the UK is already well placed as a centre of artificial intelligence, and the government should act to cement its position.
Their recommendations include:
more investment in academic research
developing more skills throughout industry and the education sector
throwing open more datasets for AI scientists to work with
encouraging the uptake of AI techniques by all kinds of companies
All of these ideas seem eminently sensible and uncontroversial. But they are also predicated on a belief that this is urgent - that we are making very rapid progress, not just in developing artificial intelligence but in applying it in areas that will transform the economy.
It certainly appears to be the case that rapid advances in processing power, coupled with access to vast amounts of data and smart new algorithms are helping computers carry out all sorts of tasks once restricted to humans. But so far the impact on everything from jobs to the way industries such as healthcare and transport work appears minimal.
So, is there a danger that AI is being overhyped?
Let's dissect a few of the bold statements in that government AI report:
"We are at the threshold of an era when much of our productivity and prosperity will be derived from the systems and machines we create."
Well, it has always been the case that the machines we create - from the wheel, to the spinning jenny, to the dishwasher - drive increases in productivity and prosperity.
Are we clear that the AI revolution will deliver the kind of boost to living standards we saw in the 1950s and 1960s as mass production and the use of consumer goods took off?
"We are accustomed now to technology developing fast, but that pace will increase and AI will drive much of that acceleration."
First, you can question how fast technology has developed in recent years. Yes, we have computers that can differentiate between a cat and a dog and understand any language, but our physical infrastructure is not being rapidly transformed.
Indeed, when it comes to air travel or building new railways, you could argue that we are going backwards. Software is racing ahead, hardware not so much - just watch robots trying to play football if you are worried about them threatening to replace us.
So saying that the pace of change will increase, driven by AI, may be little more than a leap of faith.
"[Accenture] estimated that AI could add an additional $814bn (£630bn) to the UK economy by 2035, increasing the annual growth rate of GVA from 2.5 to 3.9%."
GVA - gross value added - is close to gross domestic product (GDP), the headline measure of a country's economic activity, including all the services and goods produced in a year.
Suggesting that its trend growth rate could rise to 3.9% - more than during boom decades the 1950s and 1960s - is, in the words of an economist of my acquaintance, "staggering". All the more so when you look at the UK's recent record, which has seen productivity growth flat-lining.
Now, big advances in technology can take time to show up in productivity growth - it took decades for factory owners to reorganise production around electric rather than steam power.
So, maybe we will see law firms become more efficient as AI lawyers assess contracts for risk, hospitals cut waiting lists as robot doctors examine scans, and cities cut congestion as autonomous cars and buses waft us from home to work.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES µImage captionCar manufacturers are investing deeply in self-drive AI systems
All of these advances are already technically possible - but you have to be quite an optimist to believe that the changes in our infrastructure, regulation and social attitudes needed to make them a reality will happen quickly.
Last week a House of Lords select committee on artificial intelligence heard evidence from three leading scientists, including Prof Hall.
They spoke of the UK's potential as a centre of AI excellence, and the urgent need for government to start thinking about both the benefits and the risks of the technology.
Then, the committee heard from three journalists - including me. And their lordships seemed rather startled to find that, by contrast with the scientists, we were pretty sceptical about the speed of this revolution.
We were not convinced that driverless cars would be on our roads very soon, but that meant we were also more optimistic that the threat to jobs from the robots had been exaggerated.
One of the peers mentioned that quote about futurology - that we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.
The scientists will no doubt be proved right about AI one day, but the cynical old journalist in me thinks we can afford to relax for a while yet.
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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 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
