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...
20-11-2017
The first ‘Global’ ‘Flat Earth Conference’ just took place and hundreds of people attended
The first ‘Global’ ‘Flat Earth Conference’ just took place and hundreds of people attended
Hundreds of people attended the First International Flat Earth Conference held in the United States, and hundreds of people gathered there presenting their ideas as to why our planet is ‘FLAT.’
The first ‘Global’ ‘Flat Earth Conference’ just took place, and hundreds of people attended
Hundreds of Americans gathered for the First International Flat Earth Conference in November 2017, in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States.
The United States is one of the countries with the largest number of supporters of Flat Earth movement, despite the fact that it is also one of the few nations that have been able to send astronauts into space to corroborate the spherical shape of the earth.
How contradictory, right?
Approximately 400 people are thought to have attended the conference, flying from around the world to take part. Tickets to attend ranged from $109 up to $249.
The attendees rejected that planet earth has a spherical shape, and assure that “it is the biggest fallacy created by Satan.”
Gravitation on Flat planet Earth.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Another one the many who attended the conference said that ‘she checked for herself that the Earth was flat after using a ruler and measuring the horizon.’
The First International Conference of the Flat Earth was composed of several presentations and exhibitions of products related to the theory that the earth is not really a spherical planet.
“It is horizontally infinite and at least 9,000 kilometers deep,” said John Davis, another theorist of this idea.
For his part, James McIntyre, members of the Flat Earth Society, has the idea that “the earth is, more or less, a disk of 24,900 miles in diameter,” and adds that “obviously not perfectly flat, due to geological phenomena such as valleys and mountains.”
McIntyre also said that the photos from space showing the circumference of the earth “are false,” and that “the world’s space agencies are involved in an international conspiracy to deceive the public in pursuit of vast profits.”
In a BBC video interview, one of the attendees said he just came to the conference to meet other like-minded people.
Some of the reasons why the attendees to the conference think the Earth is flat include:
– The Sun and the Moon move through the sky in a focused way, that is why they illuminate only certain parts of the flat earth.
– The earth gives the sensation that it is round because it is arranged in such a way that it simulates a group of concentric radii. Furthermore, the horizon always appears perfectly flat – except in NASA and other space agency images, which are obviously faked (as part of the global conspiracy)
– When a plane flies, it flies completely horizontally, If the Earth was ’round’ planes would keep flying into space.
-Oh, here’s one of my favorite ones (lol) If our Earth was really spherical, helicopters would be able to hover in place and wait for their destinations to come to them. Savy?
The Flat Earth Conference also included a speech from prominent flat-Earther and YouTuber Mark Sargent who said: “I think we’re almost at the critical mass point. Science is gonna have to address this, plain and simple. They cannot dodge us forever.”
The auroras over Earth’s north and south poles typically mirror each other. But X-ray observations show that Jupiter’s auroras pulsate on different timescales.
Jupiter is our solar system’s largest planet, and its auroras are by far the strongest in our sun’s family. In a way similar to earthly auroras, Jupiter’s northern and southern lights stem from activity on the sun. A couple of months ago, a study using data from the Juno spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the planet, said that Jupiter’s auroras may be accelerated by waves in the giant planet’s magnetic field (a process researchers described as “akin to surfers being driven shoreward ahead of breaking ocean waves”). On November 6, 2017, NASA described another recent study in which X-rays astronomers tracked the behavior of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, which seem to pulsate, or change in X-rays brightness, independently.
NASA said:
The X-ray emission at Jupiter’s south pole consistently pulsed every 11 minutes, but the X-rays seen from the north pole were erratic, increasing and decreasing in brightness — seemingly independent of the emission from the south pole.
That’s surprising because Earth’s auroras generally mirror each other. William Dunn of the University College London led the research, which was published October 30 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy.
According to a statement from the research team, the study relied on data using the Chandra X-ray and XMM-Newton observatories:
… from March 2007 and May and June 2016, a team of researchers produced maps of Jupiter’s X-ray emissions and identified an X-ray hot spot at each pole. Each hot spot can cover an area equal to about half the surface of the Earth.
The team found that the hot spots had very different characteristics.
This makes Jupiter particularly puzzling. X-ray auroras have never been detected from our solar system’s other gas giants, including Saturn.
The X-ray team plans to combine new and incoming data from Chandra and XMM-Newton with data from the Juno mission, which is currently in orbit around the planet. If scientists can connect the X-ray activity with physical changes observed simultaneously with Juno, they think they might be able to determine the process that generates the Jovian auroras and by association X-ray auroras at other planets.
Bottom line: The auroras over Earth’s north and south poles typically mirror each other. But X-ray observations show that Jupiter’s auroras pulsate on different timescales.
In July of 1943 the US Navy, along with Dr. Franklin Reno conducted a test on the Navy Destroyer, USS Eldridge called the Philadelphia Experiment.
The experiment, based on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity was an attempt to make the ship virtually invisible to any enemy radar and immune to magnetic mines.
IN JULY 1943 A BIZARRE CHAIN OF EVENTS TOOK PLACE...
The ship was set up with two generators, magnetic coils and amplifiers allowing it to create a synchronized electromagnetic field that in theory would divert radio and light waves around the ship making the Navy Destroyer invisible to the enemy. Had the test been successful it would have created the ultimate weapon, in the middle of wartime.
However, the botched experiment turned out to be more catastrophic than anyone could have imagined.
On July 22nd, when the experiment had begun, and the generators were switched on an unexpected and bizarre chain of events took place. Witnesses claim the water surrounding the ship began to bubble and produced a hazy green fog that engulfed the entire ship, within seconds the ship not only disappeared from radar but also from plain sight.
The Eldridge has spotted 600 km away at a Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia for a few short minutes before returning to its original coordinates in Philadelphia. While the test did render the ship invisible to radar, it left the crew with devastating side effects.
BODIES OF THE CREW MEMBERS EMBEDDED INTO THE METAL
Witnesses claim that the experiment left bodies of the crew members embedded into the metal of the railings and decks on the ship, some men caught fire and some simply vanished. The remaining members of the crew were left physically and mentally ill, disoriented and seeming to fade in and out of reality.
After the team of US and German scientists saw the horrific consequences of their experiment, all further research into radar invisibility was canceled. The surviving members of the crew were discharged and labeled mentally unfit for duty, and some even believe the Navy used brainwashing to keep the men quiet about their experience.
US NAVY STILL DENIES THE TOP-SECRET FAILED OPERATION
To this day the US Navy still denies the experiments ever took place and destroyed all records of the Eldridge even being in Philadelphia at the time. However, witnesses and a few surviving crew members stick strongly behind their version of the horrific events.
Thankfully people do not have to venture out into the cold void of outer space to find a solar phenomenon as they are right here on Earth in the form of Sundogs.
Sundogs occur when the light of the sun gets refracted by any ice crystals that are in the atmosphere, and it results in beautiful solar halos and orbs that glow and move gently over the sky and look like there are three suns. Residents of Murmansk Oblast in Russia were treated to a wondrous sight on 18 November 2017 when the phenomenon was captured on film during sunset.
Winter is typically the best time to see sundogs as this is when the ice crystals are more commonly seen. Aristotle once said that he had seen two mock suns, which were the sundogs, rising with the sun, and they had followed it throughout the day until the sunset in the sky. He went on to say that mock suns are always found to the sides of the sun, and they are never seen below and above and are usually more commonly seen at sunset or sunrise but not very often in the middle of the day.
Russia is not the only region where sundogs have been recently spotted in November. On 13 November residents of Mobile and Baldwin counties in Alabama were also treated to the rare spectacle. In this case, a double sundog and halo were seen after the sunlight refracted through the cirrus clouds which were high in the sky and made a prism. Halos are said to be similar to the sundogs, and the weather service said that it is a light ring that forms the sun or the moon when it reflects light from the ice crystals.
Sundogs were also seen in the sky above the south of Mississippi on 14 November, and a meteorologist said that the best time to see the phenomenon is when the angle of the sun is low. He went on to say that in each of the sundogs the colors are red closer to the sun and change through to blue on the outer side of the sundog. It was also pointed out that sundogs do not just occur in sunlight, they can also happen under moonlight, but that is called a moon dog.
HERCACLEION LOST CITY UNDERWATER FOUND AFTER 1200 YEARS
HERCACLEION LOST CITY UNDERWATER FOUND AFTER 1200 YEARS
Abu Qir is located in the northeast of Alexandria, where archaeologists explore the two ancient cities of Heraklion and Canopus since 1992.
In addition to being a prominent religious center, Heraklion was a major trading point on the Mediterranean Sea in the 6th century. When archeologists began to dive into this site, they discovered the ruins of the Temple of Heraklion, which was dedicated to Amun and Harqal-Khonsu. They also found huge statues of the gods, Ptolemaic kings, their wives, their nests and jewels, and numerous broken wooden ships.
FATIMA: UFO INVESTIGATOR SPILLS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
FATIMA: UFO INVESTIGATOR SPILLS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
UFO Investigator, La Marzulli explains what really happened during the famous Fatima incident.
The miracle of the sun is a phenomenon that was observed by at least 30,000 people on 13 October 1917 in the Cova da Iria near Fátima in Portugal and is partially classified as a miracle.
Three Secrets of Fatima Documentary
FÁTIMA 1917 Real Facts and Photos
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal.
FATIMA: "THE HIDDEN THIRD SECRET IS FINALLY REVEALED!"
NOW WE HAVE THE HIDDEN PART OF THE THIRD SECRET IN FULL FROM SR. LUCIA! Her personal biography had the hidden secret and now the world will finally know!
Ever since Man first walked on the moon after that 'giant leap' in 1969, conspiracy theorists have sought to debunk what is one of humanity's greatest achievements.
Now, one keen-eyed stargazer is convinced he has seen something strange in a photograph which suggests the sixth and final moon landing, at least, never happened - a figure on the lunar surface who is not wearing a spacesuit.
A video uploaded to YouTube by a user named Streetcap1 focuses on an image which purports to show a 'stagehand' reflected in the visor of an astronaut after Apollo 17 landed on the moon in December 1972.
On that mission, Eugene Cernan and Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt spent about 22 hours on the surface in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead.
A video uploaded to YouTube by a user named Streetcap1 focuses on an image which purports to show a 'stagehand' reflected in the visor of an astronaut after Apollo 17 landed on the moon in December 1972
On that mission (pictured), Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 22 hours on the surface in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead
The team carried out a series of experiments including seismic profiling, atmospheric composition analysis and lunar sampling.
Or did they?
The video clip - which has garnered more than 53,000 views - contains a commentary by Streetcap1, who says of the visor reflection: 'I thought it looked a bit strange, so I took a picture of it using my software.
'What we appear to have here is a figure of a human not wearing a spacesuit. There was some dispute back in 2009 of the legitimacy of these photos.'
He describes the strange figure as having 'long hair' and 'wearing some sort of waistcoat'.
And concludes: 'Did we make it to the moon? Where's this guy's spacesuit?'
The team (above, Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt on the mission) carried out a series of experiments including seismic profiling, atmospheric composition analysis and lunar sampling
The Apollo 17 crew returned with 110kg of rock and soil samples, more than was returned from any of the other lunar landing sites
The three crewmen arrive aboard the prime recovery ship, U.S.S. Ticonderoga, to conclude the final lunar landing mission in the Apollo programme. Above, Cernan (waving), Schmitt (next to him) and Evans at the back
Fact or faked? YouTubers react to the 'stagehand' moon photo
LANDINGS FAKED...
Leo Dei:I thought 'another astronaut' then checked the astronaut in the reflection has NO life support backpack, while the astronaut in the foreground HAS a life support backpack. Good catch, Streetcap1! You continue to impress.
Adrian Lee: Someone definitely there. Looks like they're wearing high-top sneakers and a jacket with a hood.
Mathias Weiss: First I thought this is a camera of some sort, because of the form of the casted shadow. But when I looked into it, the Apollo 17 mission took a camera with a small tripod with them, which is not comparable to this figure.
LANDINGS REAL...
Unum: Hey, geniuses - the guy in the reflection is the other astronaut taking the photo.
Brian Chandler: It looks to be photoshopped. Notice the circular line around the person, whether adding or removing not my call to make, original negative needs to be analyzed!
willows26: I vote astronaut... the shadow on the ground looks more like an astronaut in a bulky suit. I don't know why some people would much rather buy into the 'studio' conspiracy; Russia would have been all over this had there been an inkling of fraud at the time and I don't recall hearing a thing from them.
Apollo mission conspiracy theories answered
Why are no stars visible in the Apollo photos?
The Apollo landings took place during lunar mornings so the stars were not bright enough to be captured on camera.
Who filmed Neil Armstrong take the first steps?
A video camera was fixed on an extending arm to swing out and capture the historic moment.
Why did the heavy Landing Modules make no impression on the surface, while the astronauts' footprints did?
The layer of lunar dust on the rocky moon is thin, so was blown away from the landing area by the descent engines. This dust resettled by the time the astronauts left the module.
Why does the flag wave?
It was rigged with a rod and wires so that it would look as if it was unfurled and blowing in Apollo photographs.
Why didn't the Lunar module show a flame when it took off from the Moon?
The fuel used does not produce a flame in a vacuum.
Reflectie op ruimtehelm onthult ‘toneelknecht’. Bewijst deze Apollo-foto dat de maanlanding nep was?
Reflectie op ruimtehelm onthult ‘toneelknecht’. Bewijst deze Apollo-foto dat de maanlanding nep was?
Uit een foto blijkt dat de zesde en laatste maanlanding mogelijk nooit heeft plaatsgevonden. Op de foto lijkt namelijk een figuur op het maanoppervlak te zien te zijn die geen ruimtepak draagt, schrijft de Daily Mail.
In een filmpje, dat door YouTube-gebruiker Streetcap1 is gepubliceerd, wordt de foto nader geanalyseerd.
Op de ruimtehelm van een astronaut van Apollo 17, die in december 1972 op de maan landde, zou de reflectie van een ‘toneelknecht’ te zien zijn.
Recordhoeveelheid
Tijdens de missie verbleven Eugene Cernan en Harrison Schmitt 22 uur bij de maankrater Littrow in het Taurusgebergte, terwijl collega Ronald Evans in de ruimte bleef.
De NASA wilde het maximale wetenschappelijke resultaat uit dit laatste bezoek aan de maan halen en er werd dan ook een recordhoeveelheid aan maansteen mee teruggenomen.
Ook de duur van de maanwandelingen was langer dan bij ieder van de voorgaande missies.
Discussie
Of is het allemaal niet gebeurd? “Ik vond het er nogal vreemd uitzien, dus ik maakte een foto van de helm met behulp van mijn software,” zei Streetcap1.
“Het gaat hier mogelijk om een persoon die geen ruimtepak draagt,” voegde hij toe. “Er was in 2009 al discussie over de echtheid van deze foto’s.”
Lang haar
De figuur heeft volgens hem ‘lang haar’ en draagt een soort ‘vest’. “Zijn we naar de maan geweest? Waar is het ruimtepak van deze gast?”
Bekijk het filmpje, dat op het moment van schrijven zo’n 200.000 keer is bekeken, hieronder:
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:News from the FRIENDS of facebook ( ENG )
Glowing Sphere appears out of nowhere flying towards huge glowing Sphere over Manitoba, Canada
Glowing Sphere appears out of nowhere flying towards huge glowing Sphere over Manitoba, Canada
A huge sphere in the sky accompanied by a second smaller sphere has been captured on video by dwayne hegelheimer over Manitoba, Canada on November 19, 2017.
While filming the two spheres the smaller ball of light suddenly vanishes but after a while it returns again out of nowhere flying towards the bigger ball of light which seems to hang motionless in the sky.
It remains unclear what these spheres may have been.
The moment the smaller sphere appears again flying towards the huge sphere can be seen from the 2.05 mark in the video.
Les futurs télescopes spatiaux qui nous rapprocheront des étoiles : TESS (août 2017), James Webb (octobre 2018, 100 x Hubble), WFIRST (mid 2020s) et surtout ATLAST (Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope, "enfin", en anglais ; 2000 x Hubble ; 2025-2035). Pour ce dernier on note la taille de son miroir primaire comparée à celui de Hubble et de JW. Il sera stationné au Point de Lagrange L2 entre Terre et Soleil et devrait, entre autres missions, détecter la présence de vie sur des exoplanètes lointaines. Sacrée panoplie ! Si seulement nous avions eu ça en 1947 !
This artist's impression shows Oumuamua, an interstellar asteroid
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Our solar system recently had a very strange visitor. For the first time ever, scientists last month spotted an interstellar object invading our part of space. Astronomers have revealed more details about the now-confirmed interstellar interloper and it's just plain weird.
The Pan-Starrs 1 telescope in Hawaii first spotted the object on Oct. 19 when it was already heading back to interstellar space. Astronomers rushed to make observations. An artist's impression shows a very elongated shape, different from any known asteroids. Scientists estimate it's about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in length.
"For decades we've theorized that such interstellar objects are out there, and now -- for the first time -- we have direct evidence they exist," NASA's Thomas Zurbuchen said Monday in a news release. By studying space objects like this one, researchers hope to find clues to the formation of other solar systems.
Originally named A/2017 U1, it now has the official moniker "Oumuamua," which refers to its distant origin as a messenger from the past.
"Oumuamua may well have been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with the Solar System," says the European Southern Observatory, which used its Very Large Telescope in Chile to observe the object.
The Gemini Observatory, a collaboration between telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, also got in on the action, resulting in a color composite image of Oumuamua.
University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech says the rapidly rotating asteroid has a "complex, convoluted shape," is dark red in color and is "completely inert, without the faintest hint of dust around it."
The International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for cataloging the names of space objects, also gave the asteroid its very first "I" for "interstellar" designation, which shifts its formal name from A/2017 U1 (with the "A" standing for "asteroid") to "1I/2017 U1."
Scientists expect our solar system regularly receives interstellar visitors like this one, but they are faint and extremely hard to find. That makes Oumuamua all the more special.
Update, Nov. 20 at 11:05 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to include a quote from NASA.
Scientists have sent a message to a star system 70 trillion miles away, inviting any alien civilization living there to swipe right and send us a message back. Some people (basically anyone who’s seen Independence Day) are concerned that such a transmission may trigger an unpredictable response instead.
The project is known as METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and it actively seeks to send greetings to any alien civilizations out there, as opposed to SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) which passively looks for signs of life beyond our solar system. It’s a controversial program, to say the least. Physicist Stephen Hawking, one of its most vociferous opponents, has famously warned against such an endeavor: “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”
In an interview with Newsweek, the president of METI, Douglas Vakoch, tried to assuage the concerns raised about the program. “Any civilization that could travel to Earth to do us harm could already pick up our leakage television and radio signals,” he said. “So there’s no increased risk of alerting them of our existence.”
Dan Werthimer, a SETI researcher at Berkeley, told New Scientist: “It’s like shouting in a forest before you know if there are tigers, lions, and bears or other dangerous animals there.”
The system that’s the target of the message is a red dwarf designated GJ273, also known as Luyten’s Star in the Canis Minor constellation, with an exoplanet GJ273b that could possibly support life. It’s 12.4 light years away, and in the message researchers said they’d be looking for a response 25 years in the future.
Then there’s the question of exactly how we communicate with aliens. The Voyager missions famously carried a golden record that was filled with the sounds of Earth, as well as an interstellar map that might lead aliens back to our planet.
“Extraterrestrials won’t speak English or Spanish or Swahili,” said Vakoch. “Our message is written in the language of math and science. Over the centuries, scientists and mathematicians have repeatedly taken a vote on the most essential concepts needed to explain the nature of the universe.”
The message was beamed three times to the system, on October 16, 17, and 18. Each transmission took 11 minutes. The invite also includes a cosmic clock, indicating how much time has passed between transmissions. It’s hoped that the aliens can decipher the message and send back a reply. Another message is planned to the same star, which will include the date we’re expecting a reply.
So, set your calendars for June 21, 2043. It could be a big day for humanity.
In the summer of 1957, the Earth stood witness as a meteorite cratered in rural Pennsylvania, bringing with it a people-eating plague never seen: an alien amoeba with the taste for human flesh. While we had Steve McQueen around for the first invasion, humanity is now defended against microbial marauders from outer space by NASA and its international counterparts.
Biological contamination goes both ways, mind you. Just as important as keeping extraterrestrial organisms from reaching the surface (aka "backward contamination") is ensuring that our planetary probes carry as few microbial hitchhikers from Earth as possible ("forward contamination"). To that end, in 1958, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a decree urging "that scientists plan lunar and planetary studies with great care and deep concern so that initial operations do not compromise and make impossible forever after critical scientific experiments."
The following year, the newly formed Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) argued "that all practical steps should be taken to ensure that Mars be not biologically contaminated" until an exhaustive search for life on the planet had been undertaken. These recommendations became law in 1967 when the US, the USSR and the UK all signed onto the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.
"Part of our thinking about planetary protection is that we want to make sure that we safeguard to any future human exploration," Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz, an astronomer at Adler Planetarium and the Astrobiology Chair at the Library of Congress, told Engadget. "When we bring spacecraft to other worlds (or eventually human beings), we want to make sure that we understand that environment. That means being relatively cautious about contaminating it."
However, not every extraterrestrial target of human interest requires the same degree of caution. Places like the Sun or Mercury, which are almost assuredly devoid of biological organisms, don't require the same level of protection as, say, Mars or the Moon, which are just heavily irradiated and desperately cold. In fact, COSPAR has developed a 5-category systemwhich space agencies must abide by when they're developing their planetary probes:
Category Icovers places with little chance of finding even basic forms of life, like Mercury.
Category IIincludes places that might be explored for the origins of life but where the chances of contamination by Earthly microbes is remote. Think Venus or the Moon.
Category III regulates flyby and orbiter missions where the chances of contamination are moderate, like Mars or Europa. This is why Cassini was thrown into Saturn: we couldn't have it falling into Enceladus or Titan.
Category IV regulates lander or probe missions to the same places as category III, though it is further divided into a series of subclasses based on specific regions of the planet's surface and what the lander is actually looking for.
Category Vis what happens if there's a good chance we'll pick up a Blob in space. It demands "absolute prohibition of destructive impact upon return, containment of all returned hardware which directly contacted the target body, and containment of any unsterilized sample returned to Earth."
"I think they're good for us as a working framework," Walkowicz said. "They certainly have served us well in the history of exploration and our solar system thus far."
It's extremely important that space agencies understand the categorical protection requirements of their mission, explains Dr. John Rummel, Senior Scientist at the SETI Institute and former NASA Planetary Protection Officer. "If you tell someone at the last minute they going to do something they had never been planning on, well, they may have to re-engineer entire spacecraft," he told Engadget. "If, on the other hand, they anticipate these requirements from the beginning... then it's not that big of a deal."
This planetary protection scheme is designed to minimize the damage from both forward and backward contamination. "We really want to safeguard our own planet's biosphere we have all these wonderful living things here," Walkowicz said. "We want to make sure that we can explore and bring back the samples and use the benefits of our Earthly labs without endangering the world."
Dr. Rummel, however, is not particularly concerned. "In my opinion, there is a reasonable possibility that nothing we could do with a sample return done robotically would bring back anything that's alive," he said.
Rummel argues that any microorganisms hitching a ride from Mars aboard a material sample would be woefully ill-equipped to handle the rigors of interplanetary flight. "We don't know what those organisms require so the chance that we get lucky and bring them back alive is small."
That said, Rummel acknowledges the value in assuming the worst. "The National Research Council and Space Studies Board have always maintained that we will contain [returned samples] as if they're the most hazardous thing on Earth until we prove that it's safe," he continued. "There's no upside in cutting corners."
First utilized for the Viking missions, "it's a very handy technology," Walkowicz explained. "It's very effective on surfaces, but also between surfaces or even within materials, which is why it has widespread adoption."
There are limitations to this method, however. It cannot sterilize an entire spacecraft, for example, as everything from electronic components to structural adhesives and landing parachutes would be destroyed by the heat. As such, NASA has been researching alternative methods to augment the DHMR process, many of which hail from existing medical technologies.
Of particular interest for Mars exploration is supercritical carbon dioxide cleaning. Carbon dioxide is held under extremely low temperature and at extremely high pressure so it exhibits qualities of both a gas and a liquid. When mixed with peracetic acid (PAA), it can be used to sterilize materials. What's more, Walkowicz said, given the planet's high CO2 content "maybe there would be a way to develop technology that could use Mars's atmosphere in some way to create a local bioburden reducing technology... and do that in situ."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is also developing a technique dubbed vapor phase hydrogen peroxide (VHP) sterilization, which is generated from a solution of liquid H2O2 and water. When concentrated between 140 ppm and 1400 ppm, it acts as an antimicrobial agent. However, "the limitation there is that it's never been used at a systemic level -- like the whole spacecraft level -- so you could do it on smaller components but not necessarily the entire craft," Walkowicz said. There's also the danger of it becoming too concentrated. If VHP levels reach 75 ppm, it becomes toxic to humans.
There is also work being done with ethylene oxide as a sterilizer, though Walkowicz points out that ethylene oxide is "kind of explosive." Ionizing radiation techniques are also being explored. The parachute for the Beagle 2 mission, for example, could not withstand DHMR, so NASA scientists subjected it to radioactive sterilization instead. Beyond that, the NASA Mars Exploration Program has examined leveraging electron beam sterilization, which is already utilized in food processing, as a means of cleaning spacecraft.
Of course, there is also the chance that we're overthinking this whole issue, at least as it applies to Mars exploration. Rummel hypothesizes that there was a natural interchange of biology between Mars and Earth some 4 billion years ago that potentially renders our efforts moot:
Imagine that life originated on Mars. Life was knocked off of Mars by a large impact event which made Mars rocks eventually come to Earth. The Earth, without any life, is seeded by Mars rocks and then all of a sudden you have all these Mars organisms living on the Earth... the natural response of Earth and Mars together would be the evolution of animals, plants and whatnot. So we could all be Martians and that is as bad as it gets, I think.
Whether we need the protection or not, there are a number of ways that future interplanetary explorers might avoid the biological pitfalls of Mars. "We tend to think of it as being robotic exploration or human exploration," Walkowicz said. "In reality we see humans and robots cooperate all the time in exploration on Earth" such as the Fukushima power plant cleanup or subsea exploration in Antarctica.
"We often send robotic probes and I think that that's something that we're likely to see in some of those early explorations of Mars that involves a human component," she continued. Essentially, astronauts would either remain in orbit or sequestered in a planet-side bunker and remotely control robotic rovers who would do the legwork on our behalf. "The other possibility is, instead of worrying about cleaning your spacecraft off afterwards, you construct it as cleanly as you possibly can" from the start.
In the end, Walkowicz argues, planetary protection requirements should not be viewed as a hindrance to space exploration, but rather, an asset. "If we want to answer some of those difficult questions about the origin of life, if we really want to understand Mars or Europa or any of these worlds as astrobiological resources, we have to fold planetary protection into our thinking," she said. "It enables the science that we want to be able to do."
Or, as Rummel points out, "To paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'" Well, that and the space plague.
Images: United Nations (Outer Space Treaty signing); NASA (clean room and Carl Sagan with Voyager 1)
Imagine if E.T., Yoda, and the Na’vi were more than just fictional beings—and what if we could talk to them from Earth? It might be possible one day, thanks to astronomers who sent a message to a star system that may have the ability to support life. The message, which included music and math, was sent in October, but it was announced to the public on Thursday, according to Scientific American.
Although we could hear back in 25 years, it’s unlikely we will, Douglas Vakoch, president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) International, told New Scientist.
But, what if we did?
A person dressed as an alien attends the Mars Encounter exhibit at the Chabot Space and Science Center August 26, 2003 in Oakland, California. Hundreds of astronomy enthusiasts visited the Chabot Space Center in hopes of viewing the red planet Mars through high-powered telescopes. Mars will be 34,646,418 miles from earth at 5:51 AM EST, the closest the two planets have been in 56,619 years.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
If we hear back, there’s limited guidance in place on how to communicate with the extraterrestrial beings, according to Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer for the SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute.
“There are some protocols, but I think that’s an unfortunate name, and it makes them sound more important than they are,” Shostak told Live Science.
The guidelines—which date back to the 1980s—were designed with governments and scientists in mind. Shostak and his colleagues updated the protocol in the 1990s, in hopes to advise researchers what to do if a detection is made.
"They say, 'If you pick up a signal, check it out ... tell everybody ... and don't broadcast any replies without international consultation,' whatever that means," he told Live Science. “But that's all that the protocols say, and they have no force of law. The United Nations took a copy of the early protocols and put them in a file drawer somewhere, and that's as official as they ever got."
But, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking doesn’t think we should answer, as it may lead to some serious consequences.
“Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well,” Hawking said in his 2016 documentary series, “Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places,” Space.com reports.
However, Shostak argues that there’s a problem with the Columbus analogy.
“The analogy isn’t terribly apt. These folks weren’t doing exploration for its own sake. They found something new by accident,” Shostak said, according to NBC. “A better analogy might be the discovery of Antarctica or the source of the Nile. These really were exploration efforts.”
A car topped with a model spacecraft, and encouraging people to welcome extraterrestrial beings, is parked on property near Jamul, CA, October 15, 2000, purchased by the Unarius Academy of Science to serve as a future landing site for 'space brothers' from other planets. According to the academy, a spaceship carrying 1,000 alien scientists from the planet Myton will arrive on Earth in the year 2001, landing on a raised landform that was once part of an Atlantean continent in the Caribbean Sea. If humans are spritually ready, a total of 33 flying saucers from different planets will land in a towering stack near Jamul, CA to create an international university and introduce new technologies to save planet Earth from self-destruction.
DAVID MCNEW/NEWSMAKERS
Still, this doesn't answer the question of what would actually happen and we likely won't have an answer until the day it does. But when it occurs, it's sure to be an eye-opening moment.
"We’ll immediately know something very important. We’ll know that we are neither unique nor special," Shostak concludes in his NBC article. "But if you ask what the legacy of such a discovery will be hundreds or thousands of years from now, there’s simply no way to arrive at an answer that’s either useful or accurate."
In September 1977, NASA launched Voyager I from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The craft carried a golden record that contained a message to aliens from the people of Earth. Here’s what it said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This video was originally posted on February 17, 2016.
Many of the commenters of the video are convinced that the footage is a genuine sighting of a UFO.
Josh Hammond wrote: “That is some awesome footage not only seeing a UFO but seeing how it affects change the area around it, great video man.”
Another person, foxleyleon, wrote: “I've also personally witnessed a ufo literally erasing a CHEM CLOUD. Rather nice of them.”
However, there were some viewers who were not so convinced of its authenticity.
YOUTUBE
The clouds then scatter
One commenter was brutally honest in his assessment, writing: “Fakery at its best.”
Mr Sudan President was also critical, stating: “It’s fake…”
A similar looking craft was also recently spotted over the Great Barrier Reef.
JENNY MORRISON
A similar UFO was recently seen over the Great Barrier Reef
An Australian woman, Jenny Morrison, took some pictures of the sunset over the Great Barrier Reef and when she later reviewed the photographs, she noticed a bright orb-like craft moving slowly across the screen in the series of photographs of the view above Fitzroy Island.
The mystery then deepens when in the latter pics, the green dot disappears from the images.
Experts are convinced it is a genuine UFO sighting, with the Daily Star reporting one expert said: “This is utterly bizarre and cannot be explained.
Earthbound Antimatter Mystery Deepens After Scientists Rule Out Pulsar Source
Earthbound Antimatter Mystery Deepens After Scientists Rule Out Pulsar Source
By Harrison Tasoff, Space.com Staff Writer
The HAWC gamma-ray observatory detects cosmic rays from its altitude of 13,500 feet in Mexico's Pico de Orizaba National Park. The Sierra Negra volcano looms large in the background.
Credit: HAWC
More antimatter particles stream toward Earth than scientists can explain — and new research from a mountaintop observatory in central Mexico deepens the mystery by crossing off one possible source.
The Earth is constantly showered by high-energy particles from a variety of cosmic sources. Physicist Victor Hess used a balloon to provide the first evidence of the extraterrestrial nature of cosmic rays in 1912. Since then, scientists have identified and accounted for a variety of different types, but the origin of some of these particles continues to elude experts.
The recent finding, detailed in the journal Science today (Nov. 17), concerns positrons, the antimatter complements of electrons. High-energy particles, usually protons, traveling across the galaxy can create pairs of positrons and electrons when they interact with dust and gas in space, study co-author Hao Zhou, at Los Alamos National Lab, told Space.com. In 2008, the space-based PAMELA detector measured unexpectedly high numbers of earthbound positrons. This was about 10 times what they were expecting to see, according to Zhou. [Supernova Face-Off May Solve 40-Year-Old Antimatter Mystery]
After years of work, camps coalesced around two distinct explanations, according to a statementby Michigan Technological University, which was involved in the new study. One hypothesis suggests the particles come from nearby pulsars, rapidly spinning cores of burnt-out stars, which can whip particles like electrons and positrons to incredible speeds. The other group posits a more exotic origin for the excess positrons, perhaps involving dark matter, an unknown yet pervasive entity that accounts for 80 percent of the universe's mass.
Particles like positrons that carry an electric charge are difficult to detect on Earth since they can be deflected by the planet's magnetic field. But scientists have a workaround. The particles also interact with the cosmic microwave background — an ever-present stream of low-energy photons left over from the birth of the universe. "The high-energy electron, or positron, [will] kick the low-energy photon ... so this the photon becomes a high-energy gamma-ray," Zhou said. "These gamma-rays, which have no electric charge, can pass right through the magnetic field and make it all the way to Earth's surface.
Zhou's team made detailed measurements of the gamma-rays coming from the direction of two nearby pulsars — Geminga and its companion PSR B0656+14 — that are the right age and distance from Earth to account for the excess positrons. To do this, the scientists used the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory, located about 4 hours east of Mexico City. HAWC comprises more than 300 tanks of extra-pure water. When gamma-rays plow into the atmosphere, they create a cascade of high-energy particles. As this shower of particles passes through HAWC's tanks, it emits flashes of blue light, which scientists can use to determine the energy and origin of the original cosmic ray.
The data from HAWC revealed that particles are streaming away from the pulsars too slowly to account for the excess positrons, according to a statement by the University of Maryland, whose researchers also contributed to the work. In order to have arrived here by now, the particles would have needed to leave before the pulsars had formed, Zhou said.
Zhou's colleagues are quick to point out an important caveat. "Our measurement doesn't decide the question in favor of dark matter, but any new theory that attempts to explain the excess using pulsars will need to match the new data," University of Maryland physicist Jordan Goodman, the lead investigator and U.S. spokesman for the HAWC collaboration, said in the statement from Maryland.
By observing the rotations of galaxies, scientists determined that the universe contains more mass than the objects we can observe. They call this mysterious extra mass dark matter. Aside from seeing dark matter's gravitational influence from afar, no one has directly detected it otherwise. However, a popular model of the substance involves weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPS, which interact with regular matter solely through gravity. If these proposed particles were to decay, or be annihilated somehow, they could conceivably generate pairs of electrons and positrons, Zhou said.
There are other astrophysical processes to consider as well. Supernova remnants and microquasars — extremely bright objects formed as matter spirals toward a black hole — can produce positrons, Zhou said. And there's the possibility that the initial model of particle interactions with the cosmic microwave background is inaccurate. "In order to confirm a detection of dark mater, I guess, there's still a long way to go," Zhou said. "We have to rule out all these astrophysical processes."
Zhou's team plans to take advantage of HAWC's incredibly wide field of view to narrow down these alternatives in future studies.
After a tense and occasionally contentious review, the U.S. National Science Foundation has agreed not to close the Arecibo Observatory, which hosts the world’s second-largest radio telescope. Instead, the science agency will keep the Puerto Rican facility open—but will seek funding partnerships with other organizations.
“This plan will allow important research to continue while accommodating the agency's budgetary constraints and its core mission to support cutting-edge science and education,” the NSF says in their announcement. That decision comes with a big sigh of relief, says observatory director Francisco Córdova, even though it’s not yet clear who will manage the observatory and where the additional funding will come from.
“That adds a level of complexity and stress going forward,” he says. “But today we’re better off than we were yesterday.”
LISTENING FOR ALIENS
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why unexplained radio signals from outer space shouldn't automatically be attributed to extraterrestrial life.
The decision is good news for scientists and for Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria. Not only does the facility act as a tourist draw and employer for local residents, it also provided shelter and supplies for surrounding communities in the wake of the storm.
Though the observatory sustained damage from the hurricane and is still without power, its deep well provided water for local communities, and its helipad served as a base for supply distribution. Observatory staffers helped clear roads and allowed residents to communicate with others via short-wave radio.
SCIENCE HEAVYWEIGHT
Nestled into a sinkhole in the Puerto Rican jungle, the Arecibo Observatory has achieved iconic status since its construction in the 1960s. Through its many roles in science discoveries and popular culture, it has become arguably the world’s most recognizable astronomical facility: James Bond destroyed the place in GoldenEye, and Ellie Arroway visited it in Contact.
It sent that message with its radar transmitter, which today is used to study asteroids that might one day collide with Earth. The telescope is also a crucial part of today’s searches for more gravitational waves using rapidly spinning stellar corpses called pulsars.
“It remains the most sensitive telescope in the world for pulsar timing and provides a critical resource for training students throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico,” says Maura McLaughlin, chair of the NANOGravcollaboration, which seeks out these ripples in space-time.
Yet, buckling under the weight of budget woes, the NSF decided a few years ago to start the process of divesting from the facility and closing it down. That meant considering, among other options, total demolition of the facility. But before the science agency could even do something as minor as simply withdrawing the $8.2 million it provides each year for the observatory to function, it needed to solicit input from scientists and the community about its proposal, which it did starting in early 2016.
It also needed to assess the environmental consequences of its proposition, and somehow work around the fact that the observatory had been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, as well as Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office.
To say people were fretting about the impeding decision is no overstatement.
“I AM LITERALLY CRYING AT WORK! TEARS OF JOY!!! THE OBSERVATORY SURVIVES!!!,” tweeted planetary scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin, who works at the observatory and has been instrumental in helping train the next generation of Puerto Rican scientists.
“It’s a very big deal, it’s a very important step for us,” Córdova says. “It stops all those rumors and uncertainties about demolition or mothballing and all sorts of negative things.”
Now, the observatory’s staff can begin planning for its next chapter. That means waiting to find out who will manage the facility, a decision that is expected to come in the next several weeks and that will be implemented in March of next year, when the current management contract expires.
It also means finding out who the new funding partners will be, since NSF will slowly reduce the amount of money it annually gives the facility from roughly $8 million to about $2 million, according to Nature. As well, the observatory needs to make some repairs to storm-damaged equipment, notably a line feed used for ionospheric observations.
But overall, the facility weathered the tempest quite well and is already back doing science observations with the help of diesel-powered generators—an achievement Córdova ascribes to the dedication of the staff.
“They deserve all the credit,” he says. “The fact that we’re continuing operating even under these circumstances is truly a testament to the dedication and resilience of the Arecibo staff.”
An artist's impression of a planet orbiting a red dwarf star
University of Warwick
Aliens living around Luyten’s star will hear from humans in about 12 years’ time – if they exist.
Scientists have beamed a message toward the GJ 273 system, 12 light years away, where one of the two planets orbiting the red dwarf sun is thought to be within its habitable zone.
That means it may be capable of hosting life and, if it does, we might hear back in 2042.
The message is part of the 2018 Sonar festival in Spain, and includes 33 short pieces of music.
Festival director Richard Robles said: “Sonar Calling GJ273b arises from the innate human need to communicate and connect.
“It also attempts to find an answer to a question asked by civilisations throughout history: are we alone in the universe?
“Given the largely negative impact of humanity on our planet, perhaps this is the best time to reach out to hopefully superior extraterrestrial intelligence to solicit help and advice.”
Scientists see two stars collide in space, setting off bizarre events
Douglas Vakoch, president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) which sent the communication, told Space.com: “To me, the big success of the project will come if, 25 years from now, there’s someone who remembers to look [for a response].
“If we could accomplish that, that would be a radical shift of perspective.”
METI exists to “understand and communicate the societal implications and relevance of searching for life beyond Earth, even before detection of extraterrestrial life,” its website said.
Mr Vakoch dismissed suggestions that sending messages to potential alien races could be dangerous for humanity if one turns out to be aggressive.
He said: “It’s really hard to imagine a scenario in which a civilization around Luyten’s star could have the capacity to come to Earth and threaten us, and yet they’re not able to pick up our leakage radiation.”
Radio waves from Earth’s media networks have been travelling through space for decades.
But the fear of hypothetically hostile species from other stars is real for many scientists, including Stephen Hawking.
He has said that if we were to receive an extraterrestrial communication we should be “wary” of sending a reply.
Potential rival species could be vastly more powerful than humanity and contact could be like the meeting of Christopher Columbus and the Native Americans, the physicist has said – which “didn’t turn out so well”.
Even if it were benign, an interstellar civilisation could be so state-of-the-art it ”may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria”, he added last year.
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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.
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Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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