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...
31-10-2017
VLIEGTUIG HEEFT AANVARING MET UFO OP 30.000 VOET ( VIDEO )
VLIEGTUIG HEEFT AANVARING MET UFO OP 30.000 VOET ( VIDEO )
Afgelopen vrijdagavond vliegt het basketbalteam van de Oklahoma City Thunder met een gecharterd vliegtuig van Delta Airlines naar Chicago.
Wat een routinevlucht had moeten worden, werd een toch opzienbarende gebeurtenis met een aanvaring met een onbekend object op 30.000 voet hoogte.
De Oklahoma City Thunder is een basketbalteam uit Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ze spelen in de NBA (Northwest Division, Western Conference). Het thuishonk van de Thunder is de Oklahoma City Arena.
Alles is goed totdat het toestel iets raakte op een hoogte van 30.000 voet (9,1 kilometer hoogte).
Het vliegtuig landde veilig in Chicago en er waren geen gewonden. Na de landing zag de neus van het toestel er zo uit.
Delta Airlines is met een officiële verklaring gekomen en zegt dat het vliegtuig tijdens de landing werd geraakt door een vogel.
Dit terwijl de spelers zeggen dat er een botsing plaatsvond op een hoogte van 30.000 voet. De spelers van Oklahoma City Thunder vliegen wekelijks en zij zijn echt wel in staat om te bepalen of een vliegtuig op kruishoogte vliegt of dat de landing is ingezet.
Het lijkt er dan ook op dat Delta Airlines de werkelijke reden voor die enorme deuk niet bekend wil maken, tenzij ook de vliegers geen idee hebben wat ze op die hoogte hebben geraakt.
Als het vliegtuig zich inderdaad op 30.000 voet bevond ten tijde van de aanvaring, dan was het zeker geen vogel. De schade lijkt ook te groot om veroorzaakt te kunnen worden door een vogel.
Volgens de onderstaande video uit Zuid Amerika gaat het wel degelijk af en toe mis.
Zo vertellen ze het verhaal van wat er gebeurde op 15 mei 2015 met een Boeing 777 van Aeromexico.
Dit toestel vertrok die dag om half acht ’s avonds voor een vlucht naar Madrid in Spanje. Ongeveer anderhalf uur na vertrek besloot de bemanning onverwacht een noodlanding te maken in Cancun omdat ze zeiden dat er storingen optraden in het elektrische systeem.
Na de landing in Cancun nam een passagier een foto van het toestel dat er toen zo uit zag:
Volgens de onderstaande video heeft dit vliegtuig een botsing gehad met een onbekend vliegend object; een UFO dus.
De officiële versie van het verhaal is dat ze al direct na vertrek een blikseminslag hadden waardoor de schade ontstond en er eveneens problemen waren met het elektrische systeem.
De botsing van de 777 met een onbekend object lijkt veel op die die een vliegtuig van Air China twee jaar geleden had en waar wij toen het volgende over schreven:
De vlucht was in de vroege ochtend van 4 juni vertrokken van Chengdu naar Guangzhou. Het vertrek van de Boeing 757 verliep zonder problemen. Twintig minuten na take-off, terwijl ze zich op een hoogte bevinden van 26.000 voet, krijgt de verkeersleiding een noodoproep van het toestel en wordt besloten een noodlanding te maken in Shunagliu.
Deze verliep zonder problemen en er werd de passagiers meegedeeld dat een en ander het gevolg was van een technisch mankement. Echter, direct na het incident had één van de passagiers de tegenwoordigheid van geest om enkele foto’s te maken.
De officiële verklaring kwam al vrij snel daarna: het was een vogel geweest. Als we dan kijken naar de grootte van de toegebrachte schade, dan moet het wel een enorme vogel zijn geweest. Een die bovendien iets van een soort verfstrepen heeft achtergelaten.
Een vogelaanvaring bij deze vlucht is uitgesloten omdat én het vliegtuig daarvoor te hoog vloog én omdat er geen sporen zijn gevonden op het vliegtuig zoals bloedspetters of veren.
Alleged UFO Encounter Captured By F-18 from Carrier Strike Group 11 Near San Diego
Alleged UFO Encounter Captured By F-18 from Carrier Strike Group 11 Near San Diego
On November 14, 2004, numerous aviators and seaman from the USS Nimitz carrier battle group were witness to events that demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of advanced airborne technologies far superior to anything America presently deploys.
The government has long covered up these kinds of UFO incidents, asking service personnel to not discuss the details but the case of the USS Nimitz and a UFO encounter its crew had on November 14, 2004 have since been independently confirmed by two former senior Pentagon officials, Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo, who have spoken directly to some of the pilots involved, read more here.
1. Fast Eagles (F-18 110/100) upon take off were vectored by Princetown and Banger to intercept unid contact. Princeton informed fast eagles that the contact was moving at 100 KTS - 25KFT ASL.
2. Fast Eagles (110/100) could not find unid airborne contact at location given by Princetown. While searching for unid air contact, Fast Eagles spotted large unid object in water at 1430L. Pilots saw steam/smoke/churning around object. Pilot describes object initially as resembling a downed airliner, also stated that it was much larger than a submarine.
3. While descending from 24K FT to gain better view of the unid contact in the water, Fast Eagle 110 sighted an airborne contact which appeared to be capsule shaped (wingless, mobile, white, oblong pill shaped, 25-30 Feet in length, no visible markings and no glass) 5NM west from position of unid in water.
4. Capsule (UFO) passed under Fast Eagle 110 then Fast Eagle 110 began turn to acquire capsule. While 110 descending and turning, capsule began climbing and turned inside of Fast Eagle’s turn radius.
5. Pilot estimated that capsule achieved 600-700 KTS. The 110 could not keep up with the rate of turn and the gain of altitude by the capsule. 110 lost visual ID of capsule in haze. Last visual contact had capsule at 14 KFT heading due east.
6. Fast Eagle 100 was flying high cover and saw the engagement by Fast Eagle 110 and confirms 110 visual ID. 100 lost contact in haze as well.
This infrared video was allegedly captured from one of the F-18’s (Fast Eagles 100/110) from the U.S. Navy USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group-1, involved in the UFO incident. This video was leaked online by an unknown source, but was confirmed to be real by someone with inside knowledge of the incident according to OpenMindsTV.
Huge Light Beam appears to shoot from UFO at high altitude above Melbourne, Australia
Huge Light Beam appears to shoot from UFO at high altitude above Melbourne, Australia
On October 30, 2017 UFOLou recorded an intense flash in the sky above Melbourne, Australia.
The flash is quite strange, only lasts a millisecond and looks like a distant laser, but not originating from the ground.
Although some people suggest that it is an atmospheric phenomenon like a fireball/meteor, you can see a rectangular-shaped object at the bottom of the flash. See image above.
The flash/laser/light beam starts at 2.35 minutes in the video.
A giant UFO resembling an enormous glowing ball lit up the night sky, sparking fears of an alien invasion or the end of days.
The huge mass of light illuminated the sky in northern Siberia, Russia, last night.
Within minutes, witnesses were speaking of "aliens arriving" and the "end of the world".
The extraordinary scenes were captured by photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard, which straddles the Arctic Circle.
He said: "I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening.
"The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction.
The ball of light sparked fears of an alien invasion(Image: Alexey Yakovlev/The Siberian Tim)
"My first thought was about the most powerful searchlight, but the speed of changing everything around changed the idea of what was happening.
"The ball began to turn into an arc and gradually dissipated."
He later returned home to find local children talking about the multi-coloured light show, citing "aliens" and a "portal to another dimension".
Some witnesses feared the world was ending(Image: The Siberian Times)
Some 520 miles further east, another photographer, Alexey Yakovlev, admitted feeling scared as he witnessed the UFO in Strezhevoi, in the north of Tomsk region, reported The Siberian Times .
"At first I thought, it was such a radiance of such an unusual form, round in shape.
"But gradually the ball began to expand, it became clear that this is not some radiance - and it became scary.
Witnesses reported seeing the ball change colour(Image: The Siberian Times)
"It's good that I was not alone - a group of people cannot hallucinate."
On social media, witness Vasily Zubkov said: "I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world."
Anastasia Boldyreva added: "Aliens arrived."
Children thought it was a portal to another dimension(Image: The Siberian Times)
"It's a gap in the space-time continuum," claimed Nurgazy Taabaldiev.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed there was an unusual object flying at high speed over northern Siberia.
But experts have suggested there were two reasons for the eerie spectacle in the Siberian night sky.
Some believe it was in fact the Northern Lights(Image: Sergey Anisimov)
The first was that a vivid display of the Northern Lights, also known as aurora borealis, was under way.
This would explain why photographers were out watching the sky when the UFO appeared.
The second theory is that Russian President Vladimir Putin was attempting to frighten the West with grandiose military exercises by his strategic nuclear forces.
Others thought Putin was responsible for the display(Image: The Siberian Times)
Missiles tests were under way from submarines and aircraft last night, and the exercises included the launch of a super-powerful Topol rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome, 550 miles north of Moscow.
From a mobile launcher, it was successfully aimed at the Kura testing range in Kamchatka on the country's Pacific coast.
It was the the trace of this rocket - capable of carrying nuclear missiles - that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky, say the Russian media.
The extraordinary scenes were captured in Siberia(Image: The Siberian Times)
Photographer Yakovlev accurately speculated: "It seems I accidentally shot the launch of a secret space rocket from Plesetsk."
The launch was then confirmed by the defence ministry in Moscow. Other missiles were launched from a submarine and aircraft.
A Giant Discovery That Overshadows the Pyramids of Giza: Long-Lost Pyramids Confirmed in Egypt
A Giant Discovery That Overshadows the Pyramids of Giza: Long-Lost Pyramids Confirmed in Egypt
The Long Lost Ancient Egyptian Pyramids that overshadow the Pyramids at the Giza Plateau seem to be a reality. These so-called lost Pyramids could change the entire history of Ancient Egypt.
The mysterious ‘pyramids’ discovered in 2012 by American researcher Angela Micol were dismissed at first by many as being only sandy mounds and not man-made structures in the desert. But 34 rare, antique maps might prove these structures, re-discovered in 2012 might be Pyramids larger than those found at the Giza Plateau. According to satellite imagery, one of the monuments is three times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
“It has emerged these formations are labeled as pyramids on several old and rare maps,” Micol told Discovery News.
These structures could outshadow the Pyramids of the Giza Plateau
According to Micol, the site where the monuments were found includes a 620 ft-wide triangular plateau which is believed to be nearly three times the size of the best-known Ancient Egyptian Pyramid.
This has not been the first time the archaeological community has dismissed huge discoveries. It seems that every once in a while, when a history changing discovery is made somewhere on the planet, it is quickly dismissed by scholars as being unimportant or fake. The best example of that are the Bosnian Pyramid located in Visoko.
Not long ago, the discovery of the giant Underground Ancient Egyptian labyrinth had similar problems with mainstream scholars and governments who decided to maintain the discovery a secret.
“The images speak for themselves,” Micol said when she first announced her findings. “It’s very obvious what the sites may contain, but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids.”
While authoritative scholars have remained skeptical about the finding and dismissed the ‘structures’ as “Google Earth Anomalies” evidence has surfaced which supports Micol’s findings.
“After the buzz simmered down, I was contacted by an Egyptian couple who claimed to have important historical references for both sites,” Micol said.
The couple where Medhat Kamal El-Kady, former ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, and his wife Haidy Farouk Abdel-Hamid, a lawyer, former counselor at the Egyptian presidency and adviser of border issues and international issues of sovereignty who happened to be collectors of ancient maps, old documents, books and other rare historical documents.
According to Micol, three maps dating from 1753 to the late 1880s show the existence of the pyramids
The story gets extremely interesting here. According to Medhat Kamal El-Kady and Haidy Farouk Abdel-Hamid the formations discovered by Micol near Abu Sdihum are labeled as being Pyramids in several ancient maps of the region.
“For this case only, we have more than 34 maps and 12 old documents, mostly by scientists and senior officials of irrigation,” El-Kady and Farouk told Discovery News.
According to the couple, there are at least three maps that verify Micol’s findings:
A rare map made by Napoleon Bonaparte’s Engineers.
And a map by Major Brown, which dates back to the 1880’s.
Interestingly, there are several ancient documents that prove the mounds discovered by Micol are in fact ancient pyramids, which were buried in an attempt to hide their existence forever.
Even though the site hasn’t been investigated properly by archaeologists who remain extremely skeptical about the finding, according to Mohamed Aly Soliman, one of the individuals who visited the site near Abu Sidhum stated that these mounds were built with different layers that do not belong the surrounding landscape, meaning that these were artificial structures made by ancient Egyptians and not natural formations as many have dismissed.
“Those mounds are definitely hiding an ancient site below them,” Mohamed Aly Soliman, who led the preliminary expedition near Abu Sidhum, told Discovery News.
“First of all, the land around them is just a normal flat land. It is just desert — sand and stones,” he said. “The mounds are different: You will find pottery everywhere, seashells and transported layers. These are different layers, not belonging to the place, and were used by the Egyptians to hide and protect their buried sites,” he said.
“Describing himself as “one of the many Egyptians obsessed with the pharaohs’ civilization,” Aly has a background as a private investigator and has been studying to identify archaeological sites in Egypt.
“If we look back in history we will find that pharaohs were using seashells in building their tombs and pyramids for ventilation purpose,” Aly said.
According to legends, the area near the pyramids is said to harbor ancient secrets and contain ‘great magic’.
If the discovery proves to be a genuine Pyramid, it would be the largest ever discovered in Egypt, making it an unprecedented discovery in the history of mankind.
‘The images speak for themselves. It’s very obvious what the sites may contain, but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids,’ said Micol
FACEBOOKER RECORDS A CRYSTAL CLEAR VIDEO OF MULTIPLE UFOS WHILE DRIVING THROUGH THE DESERT IN ARIZONA
FACEBOOKER RECORDS A CRYSTAL CLEAR VIDEO OF MULTIPLE UFOS WHILE DRIVING THROUGH THE DESERT IN ARIZONA
Yesterday, a gentleman named Mauricio Morales posted some remarkable pictures on the internet that ended up going fairly viral across social media.They were snaps of Unidentified Flying Objects(UFOs, which does not mean they are extraterrestrial in origin).
That being said, don’ t be fooled, there is a tremendous amount of evidence pointing toward the fact that some of these UFOs, whose presence were officially acknowledged within the mainstream using declassified documents and hundreds of high ranking military / political whistleblowers, are indeed extraterrestrial in origin.
There is ample evidence suggesting that many are‘ ours’ as well.
We’ ve written about this quite extensively, and if you want to learn more about that and sift through all of the evidence we’ ve accumulated over the past 8 years, please visit the exopolitics section of our website here.Another great place to start is with UFO researcher Richard Dolan.
Here’ s Morales’ statement on what he experienced from his Facebook post:
“As I was driving back to Phoenix this evening, I was a few miles past Parker, AZ when I saw a shooting star with a green hue in the corner of my eye.I kept driving for a few miles and noticed a small orange light far in the distance to my right.At firstI thought that maybe a meteor had hit nearby and set a fire in the desert or possibly a distant antenna light.
I didn’ t quite think much of it and continued to drive for another three miles.I noticed that the light was gone.I drove another half of a mile and I saw the light appear again.This is when I realized that whatever this was, wasn’ t normal.
I was about a quarter of a mile from the crossing between Highway 72 and Highway 95 between Parker and Quartzsite, Arizona.
I immediately pulled over and attached my camera to my tripod.To my SW direction, there were six orange-red lights floating around in the horizon.Some of them would die out and then brighten back up, others just seemed to float and hover away slowly.They seemed to travel in a parallel pattern with a very bright fiery glisten.I took photos and videos and in less than 15 minutes, the mysterious objects vanished without a trace.
All of the photographs are timestamped and are not edited whatsoever.The video is slightly cropped for better viewing.
Whatever this was, I have never seen anything like this in my life before.Super cool experience.
*UPDATE * 4 / 11 / 17 11: 22 pm I have noticed that my camera’s clock is set 8 minutes ahead.Which means that the time stamps are all 8 minutes ahead.I also saw a video of the same exact thing but from the opposite end in El Centro, CA.That means that whatever this was, it was visible for at least 100 miles.
ABC15 is reporting that the photos were part of the meteor.They were not.The meteor struck about 10 minutes before I pulled over on HWY 95 and got footage of these lights.The difference in lighting you see in the photos is because I was using different settings to get a more visible photo of what they were.”
Some Recent Video Footage
Below is some footage from Dr.Steven Greer, founder of The Disclosure Project and the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence(CSETI).Known to some as the“ Father of the Disclosure Movement, ”he was instrumental in bringing forth hundreds of military whistleblowers of all ranks, with verified backgrounds, to share their experiences and testify on the UFO / extraterrestrial phenomenon.
He has ha d high – level meetings within the Pentagon about this issue, and that was confirmed( in his documentary Sirius Disclosure) by Apollo 14 astronaut and the 6 thman to walk on the Moon, Dr.Edgar Mitchell.
“Yes there has been a crashed craft, and bodies recovered….We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time….I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
–Doctor Edgar Mitchell, 6 the man to walk on the moon(source)
“Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, Et’s, etc…They are visiting Earth now; this is not a matter of conjecture or wishful thinking. – Theodor C. Loder III, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire (source)
When it comes to real footage of UFOs (unidentified flying objects), a film from the 1991 NASA STS-48 Discovery Space Shuttle mission definitely ranks as some of the best. This footage is real and well-documented and has been the subject of a rigorous scientific investigation by multiple researchers and institutions. (1)(2)(3)
Why Are So Many People Interested In UFOs?
The top google searchers every single year always show UFOs and extraterrestrials as a hot topic.Every year, the masses seem to become more and more curious, which is also evident from the fact that the most viewed file in the FBI vault deals with a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft and bodies.You can access that file and read more about it here.
Perhaps it’ s the secrecy around this subject that is really grinding people’ s gears and sparking their curiosity.It’ s human nature to explore the unknown, and when information is kept from us, there will inevitably be backlash.
“This thing has gotten so highly – classified… it is just impossible to get anything on it.I have no idea who controls the flow of need – to – know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ ve never tried to make it to be my business since.I have been interested in this subjectfor a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified.”–Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee(source)
“Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs.But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960(source)
Or perhaps, it’ s just like NASA astronaut and Princeton physics professor Dr.Brian O’ leary said, “there is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time.”(source)
We are definitely living in one of the most interesting times in human history.The birth of the industrial, scientific and technological / information revolutions brought with them a host of problems.One of these problems, as President Eisenhower, JFK and dozens of other presidents and politicians warned us about in the past, is the fact that a powerful group of people and the corporations they run, headed by the big banks, have taken control over almost every aspect of our lives.Today, many people are waking up to this reality in various ways.
One way is,for example, through healthcare and seeing through the manipulation of science by big drug companies.Another is big food, becoming aware of all of the pesticides and harmful ingredients that are added to it.Another realm is politics and false flag terrorism, and seeing through the fact that many soldiers are sent to die for corporate interests and an agenda set out by the financial elite.However, more people are starting to understand our reality and thus making more conscious choices, voting with their dollars.
More and more souls on the plant today desire peace, and that is made clear by all of the humanitarian and activist movements that’ ve been unearthed.Not many souls on the planet want to see others suffer, and we have the potential to create a human experience where everybody has their needs met.This is possible, but there are systems put in place to make you think this is not possible because our economy would be completely destroyed.True, it would be, but that would be a necessary step in the re – design of the human experience.
There are those who capitalize off of our enslavement, our 9 – 5 work schedules, our attention being put towards our own lives, sports and entertainment.We’ ve strayed from our natural path of curiosity and exploration because we’ re told from a young age that“ this is who we are” and that“ this is how it is.”
This type of thinking is changing, the anti – war movement is stronger than ever, and it’ s clear that if our planet and our countries were really a democracy, things would be a lot different.We are one human race and there are no need for borders.
Based on all of my research, experiences and gut feelings, this massive shift in consciousness that’ s occurring in the human population is a primary reason why“ they” are coming around more often…
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
30-10-2017
Wetenschappers gaan onder Antarctisch ijs duiken en wij kunnen meekijken!
Wetenschappers gaan onder Antarctisch ijs duiken en wij kunnen meekijken!
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Duikers springen binnenkort in het koude water om een kijkje te nemen onder de Ross-ijsplaat.
Het doel van de expeditie? Uitzoeken welk effect de opwarming van de aarde op deze bijzondere omgeving – en al het leven dat daarin te vinden is – heeft. Maar de onderzoekers hebben nog een doel: het publiek een kijkje gunnen in het leven van een poolonderzoeker. En daarom wordt er tijdens de expeditie – en dus ook onder water – continu gefilmd. Daarbij wordt onder meer gebruik gemaakt van een 360 graden-camera. Aan de hand van die beelden zal in een later stadium een VR-ervaring gemaakt worden. “Stel je voor dat je je VR-bril opzet en vervolgens onder het twee tot vijf meter dikke ijs op Antarctica duikt en het rijke, kleurrijke en absoluut unieke leven op de zeebodem kunt zien!” stelt onderzoeker Alf Norkko.
Koud De expeditie duurt zes weken. En dat betekent voor de onderzoekers en duikers: zes weken afzien. De temperaturen kunnen enorm zakken: tot wel vijftig graden onder het vriespunt. En de onderzoekers en duikers moeten het ondertussen uit zien te houden in tenten op de ijsplaat.
Afbeelding: Vera Schoultz.
Duiken Ook de temperatuur van het water onder de ijsplaat is weinig aanlokkelijk: deze ligt rond de -1,8 graden Celsius. De duikers die zich in het water gaan wagen, zullen steeds in tweetallen in het water springen en hooguit 40 minuten duiken. Het is een hele uitdaging, niet alleen vanwege de temperatuur, maar ook vanwege de uitrusting die ze met zich meevoeren. Die weegt zo’n 100 kilo.
Volgende generatie Hoewel het een hele klus zal worden, zijn onderzoekers ervan overtuigd dat het allemaal de moeite waard is. “We willen het publiek – en dan met name de jongere generatie – raken,” stelt Norkko. “Zij zijn degenen die het stokje na ons over moeten gaan nemen.”
De onderzoekers zijn inmiddels op Antarctica gearriveerd en zullen op twee plaatsen onder de Ross-ijsplaat gaan duiken. Hun expeditie is via de Facebookpagina Science Under the Ice op de voet te volgen.
Iedereen heeft het erover: kunstmatige intelligentie. Maar wat is het precies? En moeten we er naar uitzien of voor vrezen?
Bij kunstmatige intelligentie denken veel mensen al snel aan robots die al dan niet het slechtste met de mensheid voor hebben. Maar kunstmatige intelligentie is veel breder dan dat en het is zelfs zo breed dat er niet echt een eenduidige definitie voor bestaat. Dat komt mede doordat ‘intelligentie’ zelf zo lastig te vangen is in een definitie. Jan Broersen, universitair hoofddocent en onderzoeker aan de Universiteit Utrecht, vat het samen als “het via computationele middelen proberen nabootsen van onze intelligentie.” Hij voegt nog toe dat hij denkt dat de eerste onderzoekers van kunstmatige intelligentie het nog breder zagen: “Volgens mij hadden zij in hun hoofd dat artificiële intelligentie het nabootsen van de mens in álle aspecten is.”
Van de slimme thermostaat tot Netflix Tegenwoordig vinden we al op veel plekken vormen van kunstmatige intelligentie: in de slimme thermostaat zit het, maar ook bij Netflix voor de aanbevelingen die ze elke gebruiker doen en wat te denken van Alpha Go? Een belangrijke toepassing op dit moment is volgens Broersen het beoordelen van informatie. “Facebook gebruikt het bijvoorbeeld om nepnieuws te onderscheiden van echt nieuws, wat volgens mij ontzettend lastig is.”
Wat is KI? Russell en Norvig splitsen in hun boek Artificial Intelligence: a modern approach de kunstmatige intelligentie op in vier subdomeinen: systemen die denken als een mens, systemen die zich gedragen als een mens, systemen die rationeel denken en systemen die zich rationeel gedragen. Op het gebied van systemen die denken of zich gedragen als een mens is er nog een lange weg te gaan, we weten immers niet eens hoe mensen precies denken, dus laat staan dat we dat in een computer kunnen inbouwen. Een computer die rationeel kan handelen en/of denken is daarentegen een stuk makkelijker te maken: voor rationeel ‘denken’ moet een computer in staat zijn om geldige afleidingen te maken uit kennis die de computer al bezit. Om een simpel voorbeeld te geven, als de computer weet dat A gelijk is aan B en ook dat B gelijk is aan C, dan moet de computer kunnen deduceren dat A gelijk is aan C. Rationeel handelen is handelen op zo’n manier dat het de beste uitkomst tot gevolg heeft. Dat zorgt echter voor een moeilijkheid omdat het soms niet mogelijk is om door rationeel denken tot de juiste handeling te komen: als je je hand op een hete ondergrond legt is de rationele handeling om hem direct terug te trekken, maar die handeling komt niet voort uit rationele gedachten, maar uit een reflex.
“MENS ZIJN IS MEER DAN ALLEEN INTELLIGENTIE EN IK WEET NIET OF WE DAT ZULLEN KUNNEN BENADEREN”
Strong vs Weak Daarnaast wordt kunstmatige intelligentie ook verdeeld in strong AI (sterke KI) en weak AI (zwakke KI). Een strong AI is een systeem dat ‘echt’ kan denken en een bewustzijn heeft, een weak AI is een systeem dat alleen kan handelen alsof het denkt en een bewustzijn heeft. Het probleem is dat deze termen niet heel duidelijk gedefinieerd zijn. Om op Alpha Go terug te komen, op het gebied van het spelen van Go is het een strong AI, maar gezien in een bredere context is het een weak AI omdat het niet verder komt dan het spelen van het spel. Dit is ook het onderscheid dat door veel mensen gemaakt wordt wanneer ze zeggen dat een kunstmatige intelligentie nooit kan bestaan: daarmee bedoelen ze niet dat Alpha Go geen kunstmatige intelligentie is, maar dat een strong AI met dezelfde capaciteiten als een mens niet mogelijk is. Jan Broersen vraagt zich ook af of we ooit tot strong AI zullen komen: “Mens zijn is meer dan alleen intelligentie. Ik weet niet of we dat zullen kunnen benaderen. De wetenschappers die begonnen met het onderzoek in artificiële intelligentie hadden de verwachting dat dat haalbaar moest zijn, alleen veel wetenschappers kijken daar tegenwoordig anders tegenaan.”
KI IN OORLOGSSITUATIES
Het lijkt een kwestie van tijd voor ontwikkelingen binnen de robotica en kunstmatige intelligentie leiden tot zogenoemde ‘killer robots’: autonome wapens die zelf kunnen beslissen of ze iemand doden of niet. Hoe gaan we daar grip op houden? We vroegen het robotica-deskundige Koen Hindriks recent. Lees hier wat hij daarover te vertellen had.
Morele vraagstukken Of het ooit zover komt dat een strong AI gemaakt wordt is een vraag waar nu geen antwoord op te geven is. Maar dat is ook niet van belang, belangrijker zijn de morele vraagstukken die gepaard gaan met de ontwikkeling van kunstmatige intelligentie. Want ook toepassingen die bedoeld zijn om de mens te helpen in plaats van te doden, hebben aspecten waar goed over nagedacht moet worden. Volgens Broersen is het gevaar van kunstmatige intelligentie niet zozeer dat zij kwaadaardig tegenover de mens zullen zijn, maar eerder dat mensen ze voor ‘kwaadaardige’ doeleinden zullen gebruiken. Op dit moment is het vooral oplichting dat hij ziet als gevaar: “Met nieuwe technologie zie je dat in eerste instantie de snelle jongens erop springen. Iedereen kan AI-technieken downloaden van het internet. Vervolgens trainen ze deze AI’s op wat financiële data en zeggen ze dat ze op basis van ‘advanced AI’ aanbevelingen kunnen doen voor de aankoop van aandelen en dergelijke. Veel mensen zullen daarin trappen, want AI is een buzz-woord en niet iedereen weet goed wat het inhoudt.” Op het moment dat AI wat verder is en er autonome systemen komen, komt er een ander belangrijk vraagstuk naar voren: wie is verantwoordelijke als er iets gebeurd door toedoen van een kunstmatige intelligentie? “Voor de wet kunnen we dit allemaal dicht timmeren. In het Europees Parlement zijn er al gesprekken over een wet die zegt dat een AI aansprakelijk kan worden gehouden. Maar moreel gezien ligt die vraag toch een stuk complexer.”
Over een jaar of twintig is de zelfrijdende auto – bomvol met KI – een feit, zo denkt Broersen.
Autonome systemen Een systeem dat autonoom kan handelen moet altijd een manier hebben waarop het goede van slechte opties kan onderscheiden. Neem bijvoorbeeld een routeplanner: autonoom stippelt deze een route uit van punt A naar B. Het doel dat het hierbij heeft, is het minimaliseren van de tijd die het kost om van A naar B te komen. Alle verschillende routes die er mogelijk zijn hebben een bepaalde waarde: de tijd in minuten die de route afleggen kost. Deze waarde in minuten geeft aan welke optie beter is dan een andere optie. De routeplanner ‘kiest’ dan vervolgens de route met het laagste aantal minuten waarmee het zijn doel voltooit. De regels waar een routeplanner aan moet voldoen zijn redelijk eenvoudig te programmeren, maar dat wordt lastiger wanneer de systemen complexer worden. “Als er veel verschillende situaties zijn waar een artificiële intelligentie voor kan komen te staan, dan is het onmogelijk om voor al die verschillende situaties de regels in te bouwen in het systeem. Voor zulk soort situaties wordt er vaak gebruik gemaakt van een subsymbolisch systeem, zoals bijvoorbeeld een neuraal netwerk.” Subsymbolisch betekent dat er niet langer regels zijn die in woorden uit zijn te drukken, maar dat de AI van veel verschillende situaties geleerd heeft wat de regels zouden moeten zijn.
“HET IS ZEER WAARSCHIJNLIJK DAT KI EEN KEER DE VERKEERDE BESLISSING NEEMT. EN WIE IS ER DAN VERANTWOORDELIJK?”
Stel je de volgende situatie voor: een zelfrijdende auto nadert een zebrapad waar een voetganger wil oversteken. Op het moment dat de auto wil gaan remmen om de voetganger over te laten steken, merkt de auto dat de remmen niet meer werken. Na een snelle berekening komt de auto tot de conclusie dat er twee opties zijn: of de voetganger die inmiddels aan het oversteken is, doodrijden of de auto tegen de muur sturen waarbij de bestuurder omkomt. Als deze situatie tijdens de training niet aan bod is gekomen, dan zal de auto uit de situaties die wel aan bod zijn gekomen moeten afleiden wat het moet doen. Er is sprake van abstracte regels die niet in woorden zijn uit te drukken, maar die het systeem moet halen uit de voorbeelden die het wel kent. Omdat het onmogelijk is om tijdens het leren alle mogelijke situaties aan bod te laten komen, zal het systeem op basis van wat het geleerd heeft, moeten handelen. Maar omdat er enorm veel situaties mogelijk zijn, is er zeer waarschijnlijk wel een specifieke situatie waarin de AI het verkeerde besluit neemt. “De vraag is dan wie verantwoordelijk is. Wettelijk gezien kan dat allemaal dicht getimmerd worden, maar moreel gezien is het een stuk moeilijker. Dit is ook mijn onderzoeksgebied, want waar ligt die verantwoordelijkheid nou precies? De één vindt bij de AI en de ander bij degene die de AI heeft ingezet, de maker. Het antwoord is niet eenvoudig.” Volgens Broersen zie je dat de discussie al langzaam op gang komt, maar zal hij pas echt gevoerd worden wanneer er ongelukken gebeuren met kunstmatige intelligentie, en die zijn onvermijdelijk als AI overal om ons heen is.
Gedragspatronen Broersen denkt overigens dat het niet lang meer gaat duren voor KI overal is. Hij verwacht dat over een jaar of twintig de zelfrijdende auto een feit is. Maar KI zal op veel meer plekken te vinden zijn dan alleen in de zelfrijdende auto. “Ik denk dat het overal aanwezig zal zijn en dan vooral in de informatievoorziening en -vergaring. We dragen nu allemaal al een apparaat bij ons waar we alles mee doen en de bedrijven daarachter zullen in toenemende mate artificiële intelligentie gaan gebruiken om onze gedragspatronen te analyseren. Die informatie zullen ze gebruiken om ons te beïnvloeden en te voorspellen wat we willen, want dat is waar AI heel goed in is.”
Zelf is Broersen heel nieuwsgierig of kunstmatige intelligentie ooit in staat zal zijn om muziek te maken die mensen raakt: “Ik denk dat je voor muziek gevoel voor schoonheid en emotie nodig hebt. Als een computer in staat is om muziek te maken die mij raakt, dan zal ik misschien overstag moeten gaan en zeggen dat AI misschien toch in staat is om ons in alle opzichten te evenaren.” Of dat ooit zo zal zijn is iets wat we moeten afwachten, maar dat de ontwikkelingen snel gaan, daarover bestaat geen discussie.
Thomas van Zwol (1991) heeft de bachelor Kunstmatige Intelligentie aan de Universiteit Utrecht afgerond en is nu bezig zijn opleiding Journalistiek af te maken. Binnen de KI heeft hij zich gespecialiseerd in agents en machine learning. Door zijn wetenschappelijke achtergrond is hij als journalist goed in staat om onderzoeken te begrijpen om de informatie vervolgens op zo’n manier op te schrijven dat het voor veel mensen toegankelijk is.
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Jan Broersen, universitair hoofddocent en onderzoeker aan de Universiteit Utrecht Russell, S. J., Norvig, P., & Canny, J. (2003). Artificial intelligence: A modern approach Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: HypnoArt / Pixabay
Onderzoekers zien kometen buiten ons zonnestelsel sterven
Onderzoekers zien kometen buiten ons zonnestelsel sterven
Caroline Kraaijvanger
De kometen vonden de dood rond een ster op zo’n 800 lichtjaar afstand van de aarde.
Een amateur-astronoom ontdekte de stervende kometen toen hij de enorme dataset die ruimtetelescoop Kepler heeft verzameld, uitploos. Deze ruimtetelescoop is sinds 2009 actief en tuurt langdurig naar sterren in de hoop hun helderheid regelmatig af te zien nemen. Zo’n afname in de helderheid kan namelijk wijzen op de aanwezigheid van een planeet die terwijl hij zijn baantjes rond de ster trekt op gezette tijden een deel van het licht van die ster tegenhoudt. Op die manier heeft Kepler al meer dan 2400 exoplaneten ontdekt.
Kepler heeft in de acht jaar dat deze actief is, enorm veel data gegenereerd. Computers spitten die informatie met behulp van speciale algoritmes door, op zoek naar interessante lichtcurves. Maar een computer kan natuurlijk wel eens iets over het hoofd zien. En daarom werd Planet Hunters in het leven geroepen. Een project waarbij het publiek de data van Kepler door kan spitten op zoek naar iets bijzonders. “Het is voor mij een soort schatzoeken,” stelt Jacobs, die overdag jobcoach is, maar ‘s avonds en in de weekenden op planeten jaagt. De ontdekking van de zes exokometen toont maar weer eens aan hoe belangrijk de Planet Hunters zijn. “Ik denk dat het terecht is om te concluderen dat geen enkel algoritme ze had kunnen vinden,” aldus onderzoeker Saul Rappaport.
Eenmalige dipjes Amateur-astronoom Thomas Jacobs – een lid van Planet Hunters (zie kader) – spitte op een avond de Kepler-data door, op zoek naar iets bijzonders. Hij zocht specifiek naar enkele overgangen: eenmalige dipjes in de helderheid van sterren die onmogelijk door planeten veroorzaakt konden worden. En in maart van dit jaar had hij beet: hij ontdekte drie eenmalige en bijzondere dipjes in de helderheid van de ster KIC 3542116. Onmiddellijk trok hij bij een aantal astronomen aan de bel. En daarop ontdekten zij nog eens drie van die eenmalige overgangen rond dezelfde ster.
Verklaring “We waren er een maand mee bezig,” vertelt onderzoeker Saul Rappaport. “Omdat we niet wisten wat het was: planeetovergangen zien er niet zo uit.” Als een planeet voor een ster langsbeweegt, zien we de helderheid geleidelijk aan afnemen en vervolgens weer – met dezelfde snelheid – geleidelijk aan toenemen. Maar de afname in helderheid die Jacobs en de astronomen spotten, verliepen heel anders. Er was sprake van een scherpe afname, gevolgd door een geleidelijke toename in helderheid.
Komeet Het deed Rappaport in eerste instantie denken aan de lichtcurve die we zien als rond zo’n ster een planeet uit elkaar aan het vallen is. Achter zo’n planeet bevindt zich dan puin dat zelfs als de planeetovergang al bijna ten einde is, nog een beetje licht tegen kan houden. Maar ook in zo’n scenario zou je regelmatige afnames in de helderheid van de ster verwachten, omdat zo’n planeet met een vaste snelheid rond de ster reist. Die regelmaat was echter ver te zoeken in de overgangen die rond KIC 3542116 waren waargenomen. “Wij dachten: het enige hemellichaam dat hetzelfde (zo’n dip in de helderheid, red.) kan veroorzaken en dat maar één keer kan doen, is een hemellichaam dat aan het einde vernietigd wordt.” En dan is er eigenlijk maar één optie. “Het enige object dat in het verhaal past en zo’n kleine massa heeft dat deze vernietigd kan worden, is een komeet.”
“HET IS TAMELIJK INDRUKWEKKEND OM IN STAAT TE ZIJN OM IETS WAT ZO KLEIN IS EN ZO VER WEG IS, TE ZIEN”
Stofstaart In totaal hebben de onderzoekers dus zes exokometen ontdekt. Of beter gezegd: de sporen van zes exokometen ontdekt. Want berekeningen wijzen uit dat elke komeet die rond KIC 3542116 werd gespot ongeveer een tiende van 1 procent van het licht van de ster tegenhield. Een komeetkern kan nooit zo lang, zo’n grote hoeveelheid sterlicht blokken. Daarom worden de afnames in de helderheid van de ster toegeschreven aan de stofstaart die achterbleef nadat de kometen uiteen waren gevallen.
Uniek Het onderzoek is bijzonder. Nog niet eerder zijn er afgaand op overgangen zulke kleine objecten ontdekt. “Het is tamelijk indrukwekkend om in staat te zijn om iets wat zo klein is en zo ver weg is, te zien,” stelt Rappaport.
Daarnaast kan het onderzoek wel eens leiden tot nieuwe inzichten. We hebben hier immers zes kometen die in de afgelopen vier jaar zo dicht bij hun ster in de buurt kwamen, dat ze het niet na konden vertellen. “Waarom zijn er zoveel kometen in de binnenste regio’s van deze zonnestelsels?” vraagt onderzoeker Andrew Vanderburg zich hardop af. “Is dit een tijdperk van extreme bombardementen in deze zonnestelsels?” Het zou kunnen. Ook ons eigen zonnestelsel maakte zo’n enorm bombardement mee en aangenomen wordt dat het van cruciaal belang was voor het ontstaan van leven op aarde: kometen zouden hier water hebben afgeleverd.
“Misschien kan het bestuderen van exokometen en uitzoeken waarom ze rond dit type ster te vinden zijn ons meer inzicht geven in hoe dergelijke bombardementen in andere zonnestelsels ontstaan.”
Stoffig fonteintje op Rosetta's komeet werd van binnenuit aangedreven
Stoffig fonteintje op Rosetta's komeet werd van binnenuit aangedreven
Caroline Kraaijvanger
“Er spelen duidelijk processen in kometen die we nog niet helemaal begrijpen.”
Een paar maanden voor de missie van Rosetta ten einde kwam, spotte de sonde iets bijzonders op de komeet waar deze omheen cirkelde. Op het oppervlak van 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was een stofpluim te zien. “We zagen een heldere stofpluim die als een fontein van het oppervlak werd weggeduwd,” vertelt onderzoeker Jessica Agarwal. “Het duurde ongeveer een uur en daarbij kwam ongeveer 18 kilogram stof per seconde vrij.”
Afbeelding: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.
Rosetta fotografeerde de stofpluim niet alleen, maar was ook in staat om het materiaal dat de ‘fontein’ opwierp, te bestuderen. “Rosetta vloog toevallig door de pluim heen,” stelt Agarwal. In eerste instantie dachten de onderzoekers dat de oorsprong van de ‘fontein’ op het oppervlak van de komeet lag. Denk aan oppervlakte-ijs dat door toedoen van het zonlicht verdampt en stof met zich meevoert. Maar de metingen van Rosetta vertellen een heel ander verhaal. Deze fontein bracht zoveel stof in de ruimte: er moest iets anders aan de hand zijn. “Er moet vanonder het oppervlak energie zijn vrijgekomen om deze stofpluim aan te drijven. Er spelen duidelijk processen in kometen die we nog niet helemaal begrijpen.”
Onduidelijk blijft dan ook waar de energie die deze fontein een uur lang bezighield, vandaan kwam. Onderzoekers kunnen daar op dit moment alleen maar over speculeren. Zo zou het kunnen dat onder het oppervlak van de komeet holtes te vinden zijn die gevuld zijn met gas dat onder zeer hoge druk staat. Wanneer het zonlicht het bovenliggende oppervlak verwarmt, kunnen scheuren ontstaan, waardoor dat gas ontsnapt. Of gas werkelijk de drijvende kracht achter dit fonteintje is, wordt hopelijk snel duidelijk. Op dit moment combineren onderzoekers metingen van Rosetta met computersimulaties en laboratoriumexperimenten om de kwestie tot op de bodem uit te zoeken.
Vreemd genoeg gedraagt het röntgenpoollicht op de zuidpool van Jupiter zich anders dan het röntgenpoollicht op de noordpool van de planeet. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek van ESA’s XMM-Newton en NASA’s Chandra-röntgenobservatorium.
De emissies op de zuidpool pulseren iedere elf minuten. En dat terwijl de emissies op de noordpool veel onregelmatiger pulseren. Op aarde gedraagt röntgenpoollicht zich op beide polen ongeveer gelijk. Op andere grote planeten – zoals op Saturnus – is er geen röntgenpoollicht te zien. Er is wel poollicht, maar niet in dit spectrum.
Het is niet bekend waarom de geladen deeltjes op de noordpool op een andere snelheid langs de magnetische veldlijnen stuiteren. “We hadden dit zeker niet verwacht, omdat we dachten dat de activiteit gestuurd zou worden door het magnetische veld van de planeet”, zegt hoofdonderzoeker William Dunn van het Harvard-Smithsonian Centrum voor Astrofysica.
Het is van belang dat wetenschappers begrijpen waarom het röntgenpoollicht op de noordpool zich anders gedraagt dan op de zuidpool. “Dan leren we ook meer over andere hemellichamen, zoals bruine dwergen, exoplaneten en misschien zelfs neutronensterren”, zegt Dunn. Zo draait het ruimtevaartuig Juno momenteel op de reuzenplaneet. Deze ruimtesonde heeft geen röntgeninstrument, maar dat is geen ramp. Nu vergelijken wetenschappers observaties in andere spectra met de röntgenobservaties door andere sondes, zoals XMM-Newton en Chandra. Zo kunnen modellen fijngeslepen worden.
Everything in the universe someday comes to an end. Even stars. Though some might last for trillions of years, steadily sipping away at their hydrogen reserves and converting them to helium, they eventually run out of fuel. And when they do, the results can be pretty spectacular.
Our own sun will make a mess of the solar system when it enters the last stages of its life in 4 billion years or so. It will swell, turn red (consuming Earth in the process) and cast off its outer layers, giving one last gasp as a planetary nebula before it settles down into post-fusion retirement as a white dwarf. [Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions]
The most spectacular deaths, though, are reserved for the most massive stars. Once an object builds up to at least eight times the mass of the sun, interesting games can be played inside the core, with … explosive results.
Walking the nuclear line
Any star, no matter how massive, walks a thin tightrope. On one side is the crushing gravity of the star's own weight, which provides the pressures and temperatures necessary to achieve nuclear fusion in the core and turn hydrogen into helium. But that fusion process releases energy, which puts the star in a more expansive mood than gravity does alone.
To understand how this works, let’s work through a thought experiment. Imagine that the gravity were to increase a tiny bit, then the increased pressure would raise the intensity level of the fusion reactions, which, in turn, would release more energy and thus prevent further collapse of the star. And on the opposite end, if the fusion party were to get just a little bit wilder, it would cause to star to overinflate, lessening the grip of gravity and easing the pressure in the core, cooling things off.
This balancing act enables a star to last millions, billions and even trillions of years.
Until it doesn't.
The game can be played as long as there's fuel to keep the lights on. As long as there's a sufficient supply of hydrogen near the core, the star can keep cranking out the helium and keep resisting the inevitable crush of gravity.
A crushing force
I'm not just using a flair of language when I describe the crush of gravity as inevitable. Gravity never stops, never sleeps, never halts. It can be resisted for a long time, but not forever.
As a star ages, it builds up a core of inert helium. Once the hydrogen supply exhausts itself, there's nothing to stop the infalling weight of the surrounding material. That is, until the core reaches a scorching temperature of 100 million kelvins (180 million degrees Fahrenheit), at which point helium itself begins to fuse.
Hooray, the party's back on! Well, for a while, at least. Helium fusion isn't as efficient as good ol' hydrogen, so the reactions happen at an even faster pace to compete with gravity.
While the "main sequence" of a star's life may last hundreds of millions of years as it happily burns hydrogen, the helium phase barely lasts a single million.
The product of helium fusion is carbon and oxygen, and the same game gets played again, but at even higher temperatures and shorter timescales. Once the helium is sucked dry, the core collapses and intensifies to 1 billion K (1.8 billion degrees F), allowing those new elements to get their turn.
Out of control
Then, silicon fuses at around 3 billion K (5.4 billion degrees F) in the core, generating iron. Surrounded by plasmatic onion-like layers of oxygen, neon, carbon, helium and hydrogen, the situation at the center starts to get dicey.
The problem is that, due to its internal nuclear configuration, fusing iron consumes energy rather than releases it. Gravity keeps pressing in, shoving iron atoms together, but there's no longer anything to oppose its push.
In less than a day, after millions of years of peaceful nuclear regime changes, the star forms a solid core of iron, and everything goes haywire.
n a matter of minutes, the intense gravitational pressure slams electrons into the iron nuclei, transforming protons into neutrons. The small, dense neutron core finally has the courage to resist gravity, not by releasing energy but through an effect called degeneracy pressure. You can only pack so many neutrons into a box; eventually, they won’t squeeze any tighter without overwhelming force, and in the first stages of a supernova explosion, even gravity can't muster enough pull.
So now you have, say, a couple dozen suns' worth of material collapsing inward onto an implacable core. Collapse. Bounce. Boom.
The inside-out inferno
Except there's a stall. The shock front, ready to blast out from the core and shred the star to stellar pieces, loses energy and slows down. There's a bounce but no boom.
To be perfectly honest, we're not exactly sure what happens next. Our earliest simulations of this process failed to make stars actually blow up. Since they do blow up in reality, we know we're missing something.
For a while, astrophysicists assumed neutrinos might come to the rescue. These ghostly particles hardly ever interact with normal matter, but they're manufactured in such ridiculously quantities during the "bounce" phase that they can reinvigorate the shock front, filling its sails so it can finish the job.
But more sophisticated simulations in the past decade have revealed that not even neutrinos can do the trick. There's plenty of energy to power a supernova blast, but it's not in the right place at the right time.
The initial moments of a supernova are a very difficult time to understand, with plasma physics, nuclear reactions, radiation, neutrinos, radiation — a whole textbook's worth of processes happening all at once. Only further observations and better simulations can fully unlock the final moments of a star's life. Until then, we can only sit back and enjoy the show.
A Special Comet Makes Grand Return to NASA Spacecraft's Field of View
A Special Comet Makes Grand Return to NASA Spacecraft's Field of View
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
A special comet just made its grand return to the view of one of NASA's sun-gazing spacecraft. Comet 96P/Machholz was caught on camera by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is co-managed by the European Space Agency.
A picture from Oct. 25 shows Comet 96P in the bottom-right corner of the image, exactly as predicted. The comet made its way up the right-hand side of the spacecraft's field of view before disappearing out of sight on Monday (Oct. 30). A composite image of the comet's travels released Friday (Oct. 27) showcases that flyby.
This composite image shows the approach of Comet 96P/Machholz around the sun between Oct. 25 and 27 as seen by the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in space. The comet is making its fifth trip around the sun in 2017 that SOHO has witnessed.
Credit: Composite image provided by Barbara Thompson (NASA)
"In years past, comet 96P has produced some beautiful images from SOHO's imagers," reads a statement on SOHO's page. "Its passage in 2002 was perhaps the most stunning so far, with a bonus coronal mass ejection, or CME, erupting just a few hours after the comet passed the sun." (A CME is a burst of charged particles from the sun that is often associated with solar flares.)
"It's worth noting that there was no link between the two — we sometimes see as many as six more CMEs in a day, so it's no surprise to see a comet at the same time," the SOHO statement added. "But nonetheless, it makes for a beautiful display! This time around it won't look quite so spectacular, but with an estimated peak magnitude of +2, it will still be very bright."
Comet 96P was discovered by amateur astronomer Don Machholz in 1986, and it orbits the sun every 5.24 years. Its closest approach to the sun is about three times closer than the distance between the sun and Mercury, at 11 million miles (18 million kilometers) or just over one-tenth the distance between the Earth and the sun.
SOHO itself is a prolific comet gazer, even though its primary mission is to observe the sun's behavior and make better predictions about when solar activity will affect Earth. Since its launch in December 1995, it has spotted well over 3,000 comets.
Comet 96P/Machholz is shown (lower right) in the view of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on Oct. 25, 2017. The spacecraft uses a device to block out the light of the sun, which gives it a better view of solar activity (and, coincidentally, sun-grazing comets).
Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO
During this flyby, for the first time, 96P will be seen by both SOHO and another spacecraft at the very same time. NASA's STEREO-A (Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead) spacecraft will observe the comet from nearly the opposite side of Earth's orbit. The comet should appear in the spacecraft's field of view between Saturday (Oct. 28) and Monday.
About 10 of these new worlds may be Earth-size and habitable.
The Kepler space telescope that discovered the new planets has so far found more than 4,000 worlds.
The results suggest there may be billions of Earthlike planets in the Milky Way galaxy.
NASA scientists on Monday announced the discovery of 219 new objects beyond our solar system that are almost certainly planets.
What's more, 10 of these worlds may be rocky, about the size of Earth, and habitable.
The data comes from the space agency's long-running Kepler exoplanet-hunting mission. From March 2009 through May 2013, Kepler stared down about 145,000 sunlike stars in a tiny section of the night sky near the constellation Cygnus.
Most of those stars are hundreds or thousands of light-years away, so there's little chance humans will ever visit them — at least anytime soon. However, the data could tell astronomers how common Earthlike planets are and what the chances of finding intelligent extraterrestrial life might be.
"We have taken our telescope, and we have counted up how many planets are similar to the Earth in this part of the sky," Susan Thompson, a Kepler research scientist at the SETI Institute, said during a press conference at NASA Ames Research Center on Monday.
"We said, 'How many planets there are similar to Earth?' With the data I have, I can now make that count," she said. "We're going to determine how common other planets are. Are there other places we could live in the galaxy that we don't yet call home?"
Added to Kepler's previous discoveries, the 10 new Earthlike planet candidates make 49 total, Thompson said. If any of them have stable atmospheres, there's even a chance they could harbor alien life.
Scientists wouldn't say too much about the 10 new planets, only that they appear to be roughly Earth-size and orbit in their stars' "habitable zone" — where water is likely to be stable and liquid, not frozen or boiled away. That doesn't guarantee these planets are habitable, though. Beyond harboring a stable atmosphere, things like plate tectonics and not being tidally lockedmay also be essential.
However, Kepler researchers suspect that almost countless Earthlike planets are waiting to be found, because the telescope can "see" only exoplanets that pass in front of their stars.
The transit method of detecting planets that Kepler scientists use involves looking for dips in a star's brightness, caused by a planet blocking a fraction of the starlight (similar to how the moon eclipses the sun).
Because most planets orbit in the same disk or plane, and because that plane is rarely aligned with Earth, Kepler can see only a fraction of distant solar systems — those angled even slightly are invisible to the transit method.
Despite those challenges, Kepler has revealed the existence of 4,034 planet candidates, with 2,335 of those confirmed as exoplanets — and these are just the planets found in 0.25% of the night sky.
"In fact, you'd need 400 Keplers to cover the whole sky," Mario Perez, a Kepler program scientist at NASA, said during the briefing.
The biggest number of planets appears to be a new class of planets, called "mini-Neptunes," Benjamin Fulton, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the California Institute of Technology, said during the briefing.
The size of such worlds is between Earth's and that of the gas giants of our solar system, and they are most likely the most numerous kind in the universe. "Super-Earths," which are rocky planets that can be up to 10 times as massive as our own, are also very common.
While just 49 of Kepler's thousands of planet candidates are Earth-size and in a habitable zone, the discovery has rocked the scientific world: This could mean billions of such worlds exist in the Milky Way galaxy alone.
"This number could have been very, very small," Courtney Dressing, an astronomer at Caltech, said during the briefing. "I, for one, am ecstatic."
Kepler finished collecting its first mission's data in May 2013, when two hardware failures limited the telescope's ability to aim at one area of the night sky and stare at sunlike stars.
It has taken scientists years to analyze that information because it's often difficult to parse, interpret, and verify. Thompson said this new Kepler data analysis would be the last for this leg of the telescope's first observations.
However, Kepler's work may be far from over. Scientists came up with a backup plan, called the K2 mission.
K2, which kicked off in May 2014, takes advantage of Kepler's restricted aim to study a variety of objects in space, including supernovas, baby stars, comets, and even asteroids.
But a special focus of K2 involves studying smaller, cooler stars called red dwarfs, which are increasingly exciting to astronomers. In February, for example, a different one revealed the existence of seven rocky, Earth-size planets circling a red dwarf star.
An illustration of what it might look like on the surface of TRAPPIST-1f, a rocky planet 39 light-years away from Earth.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Such red dwarf stars are the most common in the universe and can have more angry outbursts of solar flares and coronal mass ejections than sunlike stars.
Kepler will wrap up its work sometime in the next year or two. When it runs out of fuel to do its work, a new and more powerful NASA space telescope, called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), should be ready to pick up the work of locating Earthlike planets.
In a first for the whole of mankind, stunning images have been released of what is believed to be the first “alien” comet humans have ever seen in our solar system.
An international team of researchers, led by scientists from Queen’s University Belfast, are using powerful telescopes to study the chemical make-up of the small rocky object, which was first identified through a telescope in Hawaii last week.
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, from the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s, described the discovery as sending a “shiver down your spine.” Commenting on the project, he said:
"By Wednesday this week it became almost certain this object was alien to our solar system.
“We immediately started studying it that night with the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands, then on Thursday night with the Very Large Telescope in Chile," he added.
The first bits of data on the fast-moving object, catchily named A/2017 U1, show it is already on its way back out into the stars after flying close the sun last month.
It is also believed it has been drifting through the galaxy for millions or even billions of years, before entering our solar system by chance. It’s thought it was thrown out of another star system during a planet’s formation.
Meabh Hyland, a PhD student from the Astrophysics Research Center at Queen's, said: “It's wonderful and exciting to see this object passing through our planetary system.”
It is hoped more is discovered about the properties and nature of the object as scientists examine it over the next couple of weeks.
UFO hunters claim they've found an 'alien mothership' on Mars
UFO hunters claim they've found an 'alien mothership' on Mars
Conspiracy theorists have long pointed to extra terrestrial life existing millions of miles from Earth, but now some believe they've found conclusive evidence a little closer to home.
Images found in footage of Mars, taken from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, appear to show a gigantic 2.1 kilometre long vessel which theorists are claiming is an 'alien mothership'.
UFO hunters believe they have found an 'alien mothership'.
Source: YouTube
UFO hunters firmly believe the discovery is evidence of an alien civilisation on the rocky planet.
“I have processed, colorised and rebuilt the object and in my opinion it is a craft of some kind, possibly tens of thousands of years old," the video's description reads.
The conspiracy theorists have identified certain features of the ship.
Source: YouTube
"It's also over a mile long, so this must have been a mothership, either a Martian one or possibly an off planet alien species, but why did it crash?”
An organisation created by the former insiders aims to carry out top-level research into the search for answers to the UFO mystery.
The Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU) formally launched this month.
In a statement, the group said it "hopes to bring the discipline and rigour of scientific analysis to the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), also known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
It added: "A group of scientists, former military and law enforcement officials and other professionals, many of whom have decades of experience looking into UAPs, believe there are many unanswered questions, and that a serious examination is warranted."
Rich Hoffman, SCU board member, said: “SCU is composed of serious, dedicated, researchers who do not merely gloss over this subject, but rather they dive into it, investigate it broadly, remain objective and apply the scientific method and its principles to the study.
“We seek to have formal peer reviewed works being printed in journals, not tabloids.”
Mr Hoffman is an IT professional and a senior engineer at US Army Materiel Command, at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, who has been researching UAPs since 1964.
The Army Materiel Command is involved in research and development of weapons systems for the US Army.
Fellow board member Robert Powell said: “It is important that there exists a scientific organisation that examines the UFO phenomenon in a scientific and open minded manner.
"There is too much silliness associated with this topic when the core reality of the phenomenon has potentially real implications for society.
"An organisation that can be trusted to provide the media with an impartial and scientific view of the phenomenon is needed.”
Mr Powell is retired from a career as a research and development lab and engineering manager. For several years he served as the director of research and chair of the scientific board for an international volunteer UFO research organisation.
He added: “Ultimately we want to determine whether intelligent life exists elsewhere and whether it has visited our planet.
"We want scientists and investigators involved with our organisation in as many varied fields as possible to affiliate with us in a common objective to scientifically study the UFO phenomenon.”
The SCU was first brought together as an impromptu group of researchers organised to examine a mysterious video captured by Homeland Security over Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
The group spent months looking into the technical aspects of the video and researching its provenance.
The SCO statement added: "In the end, it remains a controversial case, and one which the group could not solve.
Getty*SCU
UFO TRUTH: Former government insiders want a scientific analysis of the phenomena.
SCU is composed of serious, dedicated, researchers who do not merely gloss over this subject, but rather they dive into it, investigate it broadly, remain objective and apply the scientific method and its principles to the study.
Rich Hoffman
"They continue to examine this case, and felt it would be helpful to bring in more professionals to put the same level of scrutiny to bear on other UFO cases, and to facilitate peer review of research papers on the topic."
Mr Hoffman added: "Our hope is that other scientists and professionals who also have a desire that may be developing, or has laid dormant, will connect with us, become an affiliate, and lend us their intellect and their interest in finding the best approach to the scientific study of this phenomenon.
“Our desire is to build a worldwide coalition that will give us the answers we have long been seeking. What is the nature of the phenomena we call UFOs?”
Earlier this month former Blink 182 front man Tom DeLonge launched a similar UFO organisation.
His Academy to the Stars is made up of former US Government and military officials.
There already exists the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), based in the US, which is the world's largest organisation dedicated to UFO and alien investigation.
An there is also the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), which was created by Dr J Allen Hynek, the former consultant to the US Air Force’s official UFO studies from 1947 to 1969.
The SCU statement added: "The SCU has already made inroads with Academy to the Stars and others around the world in an effort to coalesce serious research of UAPs."
Alejandro Rojas, CSU spokesman, said: "Although we do not have a rock star in our group, the SCU is made-up of rock stars in the UFO research field.”
Mr Hoffman added: “Our team of scientists and professionals is growing.
“We believe that the minds we bring together can help us solve the mystery.
"We have already put to use the team approach to study the Aguadilla, Puerto Rico case and are applying this in our study of a luminous phenomenon in Cloverdale, Alabama.
"It is through the reach-back to qualified scientists and professionals that we aim to do a better job of actually studying this phenomenon scientifically.
The SCU mission abstract is to: "Conduct, promote and encourage rigorous scientific examination of UAP and UFO sightings."
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
The Most Amazing Space Stories of the Week!
The Most Amazing Space Stories of the Week!
By SPACE.com Staff
Photo Credit: CTV
The Week's Top Space Stories
The Pope speaks to astronauts on the International Space Station, a sun-like star might have devoured more than a dozen Earth-sized planets, the notes of a teenage astronomer were uncovered from over a century ago, and Stephen Hawking's doctoral thesis crashes a website in some of this week's top stories at Space.com.
Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
1. Cold new visitor enters the solar system
An object from deep space has entered Earth's solar system for perhaps the first time, according to observations made using a telescope in Hawaii. While researchers are unsure of its composition, they predict it is made of ice because it likely formed far from a star.
NASA's astrophysics program reduced budget reserves for one mission and delayed another project after the space agency was forced to find almost $30 million in cost savings. One program affected was The agency's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission was affected by the change, but most affected was their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite exoplanet mission.
Pope Francis asked profound questions of humanity's place in the cosmos to the crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) on Oct. 26. From the Vatican, the religious leader said the ISS is a great example of unity, as it is "greater than the sum of its parts.
Several events across the world will be celebrating the moon's importance in astronomy this weekend! International Observe the Moon Night will take place on Oct. 28, and several institutions will highlight everything lunar, from tides to eclipses. [International Observe the Moon Night 2017 Is Saturday! How to Celebrate]
Photo Credit: SOHO/ESA & NASA
5. After five years, comet makes solar return
The comet 96P/Machholz will fly through the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s field of view until Oct. 30 as it slings around the sun. This is the fifth time the space rock has photobombed the spacecraft’s sight since the probe launched in 1995.
A device that helped sailors navigate over open ocean, but sank with its ship 500 years ago, was recently found to be the earliest known instrument of its kind. Known as a marine astrolabe, the tool once assisted the Portuguese ship known as the Esmeralda.[Full Story: It's Official: Earliest Known Marine Astrolabe Found in Shipwreck]
Photo Credit: Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute
7. Teenage astronomer recorded powerful solar flare
Spanish astronomers recently came across the drawing and notes made by a young amateur skywatcher who documented a rare white-light flare blasting off from the sun. This makes Juan Valderrama y Aguila the third person in history known to have recorded the powerful phenomena.
After a feed mechanism malfunctioned in December 2016, the rock-drilling instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has begun working again. The Oct. 17 activity means an essential component to the mission — studying powder from inside Martian rocks — can be carried out.
Stephen Hawking's 1966 doctoral thesis became freely available to the public on Oct. 23, subsequently crashing the download website. The University of Cambridge released the cosmologist's work, and 75 year-old Hawking supports the "unhindered access" to his research and to other works.
A distant sun-like star known as Kronos might have consumed 15 Earth-mass rocky planets, according to new research. Kronos is part of a binary star system, and was named after a mythological figure who ate his own children.
The past few decades have ushered in an amazing era in the science of cosmology. A diverse array of high-precision measurements has allowed us to reconstruct our universe’s history in remarkable detail.
This line of research has, frankly, been more successful than I think we had any right to have hoped. We know more about the origin and history of our universe today than almost anyone a few decades ago would have guessed that we would learn in such a short time.
But despite these very considerable successes, there remains much more to be learned. And in some ways, the discoveries made in recent decades have raised as many new questions as they have answered.
One of the most vexing gets at the heart of what our universe is actually made of. Cosmological observations have determined the average density of matter in our universe to very high precision. But this density turns out to be much greater than can be accounted for with ordinary atoms.
After decades of measurements and debate, we are now confident that the overwhelming majority of our universe’s matter – about 84 percent – is not made up of atoms, or of any other known substance. Although we can feel the gravitational pull of this other matter, and clearly tell that it’s there, we simply do not know what it is. This mysterious stuff is invisible, or at least nearly so. For lack of a better name, we call it “dark matter.” But naming something is very different from understanding it.
Astronomers map dark matter indirectly, via its gravitational pull on other objects. Image via NASA, ESA, and D. Coe
For almost as long as we’ve known that dark matter exists, physicists and astronomers have been devising ways to try to learn what it’s made of. They’ve built ultra-sensitive detectors, deployed indeep underground mines, in an effort to measure the gentle impacts of individual dark matter particles colliding with atoms.
They’ve built exotic telescopes – sensitive not to optical light but to less familiar gamma rays, cosmic rays and neutrinos – to search for the high-energy radiation that is thought to be generated through the interactions of dark matter particles.
And we have searched for signs of dark matter using incredible machines which accelerate beams of particles – typically protons or electrons – up to the highest speeds possible, and then smash them into one another in an effort to convert their energy into matter. The idea is these collisions could create new and exotic substances, perhaps including the kinds of particles that make up the dark matter of our universe.
As recently as a decade ago, most cosmologists – including myself – were reasonably confident that we would soon begin to solve the puzzle of dark matter. After all, there was an ambitious experimental program on the horizon, which we anticipated would enable us to identify the nature of this substance and to begin to measure its properties. This program included the world’s most powerful particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider – as well as an array of other new experiments and powerful telescopes.
Experiments at CERN are trying to zero in on dark matter – but so far no dice.
But things did not play out the way that we expected them to. Although these experiments and observations have been carried out as well as or better than we could have hoped, the discoveries did not come.
Over the past 15 years, for example, experiments designed to detect individual particles of dark matter have become a million times more sensitive, and yet no signs of these elusive particles have appeared. And although the Large Hadron Collider has by all technical standards performed beautifully, with the exception of the Higgs boson, no new particles or other phenomena have been discovered.
At Fermilab, the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search uses towers of disks made from silicon and germanium to search for particle interactions from dark matter.
The stubborn elusiveness of dark matter has left many scientists both surprised and confused. We had what seemed like very good reasons to expect particles of dark matter to be discovered by now. And yet the hunt continues, and the mystery deepens.
In many ways, we have only more open questions now than we did a decade or two ago. And at times, it can seem that the more precisely we measure our universe, the less we understand it. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, theoretical particle physicists were often very successful at predicting the kinds of particles that would be discovered as accelerators became increasingly powerful. It was a truly impressive run.
But our prescience seems to have come to an end – the long-predicted particles associated with our favorite and most well-motivated theories have stubbornly refused to appear. Perhaps the discoveries of such particles are right around the corner, and our confidence will soon be restored. But right now, there seems to be little support for such optimism.
In response, droves of physicists are going back to their chalkboards, revisiting and revising their assumptions. With bruised egos and a bit more humility, we are desperately attempting to find a new way to make sense of our world.
Dan Hooper, Associate Scientist in Theoretical Astrophysics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago
This is a pretty big deal: A newly discovered object currently heading out of our solar system is looking very much like it’s our first true interstellar visitor: an asteroid from another star.
Yes. Seriously.
It’s called A/2017 U1, and it’s probably less than about 400 meters wide. It was discovered just last week, on October 19, in observations made by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). This telescope sweeps the skies, looking for moving objects. Right away it looked like this was an unusual object: It was moving too fast.
Teh path of A/2017 U1 took it from interstellar space to deep inside the solar system on a hyperbolic orbit. A typical highly elliptical comet orbit is shown for comparison.
If an object in the solar system is in a stable, bound orbit around the Sun, its speed depends pretty much on two things: Its distance from the Sun and the shape of its orbit. At the distance of the Earth from the Sun, for example, an object can be moving at anything up to a little over 40 kilometers per second. The Earth orbits in roughly a circle at just under 30 km/sec. An object on an elliptical orbit that stretches as far out as Earth’s orbit will be moving more slowly than that at aphelion (the point in its orbit when its most distant from the Sun).
But if an object is at the same distance as the Earth from the Sun and moving faster than about 42 km/sec, the object is no longer bound to the Sun. This means the object is moving faster than escape velocity (the shape of the orbit is a hyperbola), and will never return. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
A/2017 U1 passed the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury in early September, curving sharply due to the Sun’s gravity, and is now on its way out. It’s already farther away from the Sun than Earth is, moving at a very brisk 44km/sec. That’s too fast. It’s not going to come back; it’s heading out into interstellar space*.
How did it get this much speed? Sometimes, objects like comets can get an extra kick by passing by a big planet like Jupiter. But A/2017 U1’s orbit doesn’t bring it near any big planets. In fact, the orbit is tilted to the plane of the solar system by 122°, nearly perpendicular to it. That means it had this huge speed already on its way in.
And that means it must have come from interstellar space. From another star. †
In fact, tracing the orbit backwards, it looks like it came somewhere from the constellation of Lyra, and was already cruising through interstellar space at a speed of over 25 km/sec! At that speed so far out it can’t possibly have an origin inside our solar system, so this is truly an alien object.
Holy wow. I mean, holy wow.
At first it was thought this might be a comet, but very deep images of it show no activity from it at all, no escaping gas or dust. That makes it extremely unlikely to have any ice on its surface, things like frozen water, carbon dioxide, or carbon monoxide, which are usually seen in comets. Instead, it must be rocky or metallic, like an asteroid. At the moment it’s not clear what it’s made of, but a lot of telescopes are being aimed at it; hopefully soon a spectrum may reveal its composition. That’ll be very interesting indeed.
The interstellar asteroid A/2017 U1, images using a 40 cm telescope when the object was about 60 million km from Earth and at a magnitude of 22 (that’s very faint).
Why is it moving so fast? For quite some time now astronomers have understood that early in the life of the solar system, the big planets have moved around. Jupiter and Saturn were farther out from the Sun and migrated inwards. This can disrupt the orbits of smaller objects like comets and asteroids, flinging them about hither and yon. Eventually this cleared a lot of debris from the young solar system, dropping these rocks into the Sun or ejecting them out into interstellar space.
If it happened here, it happened out there, too. The galaxy is probably littered with rogue objects between the stars, the ejecta from birth pangs of alien solar systems. We’ve seen evidence of rogue planets, ejected in a similar way. It’s certain that there is far more smaller debris out there. Finding one of these asteroids passing through our own solar system was just a matter of time.
I’ll note that the direction it’s coming from, Lyra, is in the galactic plane: Where most of the stars in the galaxy are concentrated. That’s consistent; if it’s coming from another star far, far away then somewhere along the Milky Way’s disk is the most likely point of origin.
This is a phenomenal discovery! Stars are very far away; the nearest is over 40 trillion kilometers — a 50,000 year journey at A/2017 U1’s speed. And it certainly came from much farther away yet. It may have been traveling for millions or even billions of years before approaching our system.
Shapes of various orbits. A mild ellipse (red) has an eccentricity of less than 1, a parabola 1 (green), and a hyperbola greater than 1 (blue).
Bill Gray of the Pluto Project has been keeping track of the orbital path of this asteroid. I asked him where it appears to be heading, and he told me it’s in the direction of Pegasus (toward a point in the sky with coordinates of RA=23h 51m and Dec=+24° 49', if you’re curious). There aren’t any obvious stars at that spot except for HD 223531, which is 400 light years away. A/2017 U1 won’t really get all that close to it, and won’t pass it for another million years or more anyway (and by the that time the star will have moved substantially, too).
… still, I can’t help but wonder. I put absolutely no weight on this speculation, and would even bet heavily against it, but it’s an obvious thought and I feel I have to at least mention it.
Space is vast. Even in our solar system, the outer planets are billions of kilometers away, with smaller icy objects extending for a trillion or two past that. No doubt, there is debris from other stars passing us at all kinds of distances. Most would never get within a light year, 10 trillion km.
From that distance, the inner solar system is a ridiculously small target. Mercury’s orbit is only about 115 million km across. For something coming from interstellar space, getting that close to the Sun is threading the eye of a very, very narrow needle.
Yet A/2017 U1 did just that. It passed the Sun at a distance of about 45 million kilometers. That’s… weird.
Part of this is what we call a selection effect: An object like this passing out by the orbit of Jupiter would be very faint, so it’s harder to discover. We only see the ones that happen to pass close to Earth. So even before this, I would’ve wagered the first one we discover would be passing through the inner solar system as opposed to farther out.
But still, getting that close to the Sun seems unusual.
Let me be clear: I am NOT saying this is an alien spaceship. But if I were an alien race interested in exploring other systems, this is pretty much the sort of path I’d put my probe on. I’d aim it to pass deep within the alien solar system, check out the habitable planets, and use the star’s gravity to bend the orbit to aim it at the next target.
Again, I’m quite sure this is a natural object and not an alien spaceship. Even so, it’s certainly not a mundane one: It’s a freaking asteroid ejected from another star that’s been wandering the galaxy for eons and passed a few million kilometers from the Sun and Earth and is on its way back out into the void!
Either way, I wish Arthur C. Clarke had lived to see this. He’d have loved it.
* The shape of an orbit is described by its eccentricity, which you can think of as how far it deviates from a circle. An eccentricity of 0 is a perfect circle, and ellipses have eccentricities up to 1. A parabola has an eccentricity of exactly 1, and anything greater than 1 is a hyperbola. A/2017 U1 has an eccentricity of about 1.2. At first there weren’t enough observations to be sure about that, but now there are so many that the uncertainty in the eccentricity is less than 0.003. It’s hyperbolic for sure. Staggering.
†There’s another possibility: If there’s another planet in our solar system orbiting far, far beyond Neptune, and the asteroid started somewhere nearby (that is, as part of our solar system since the start) and passed close to this planet, it could get a kick in velocity and get flung down towards us at higher speed. However, a lot of things have to line up for this to happen so the odds on this are incredibly low, so low I’d put them at essentially 0. But I’d be remiss not to at least mention it. [UPDATE (Oct. 29, 2017): Bill Gray (mentioned in the article) sent me a note; he points out that even if such an encounter happened, it's essentially impossible for it to give a kick to the asteroid large enough to get it moving at 25 km/sec, the excess speed U1 was moving when it was still far from the Sun. I agree, so ignore this footnote!]
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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.
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Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
In response, droves of physicists are going back to their chalkboards, revisiting and revising their assumptions. With bruised egos and a bit more humility, we are desperately attempting to find a new way to make sense of our world.
