Professoren vinden 1.600 jaar oud manuscript met geheime leer van Jezus - HLN.be

Koen Van De Sype 

In de teksten onthult Jezus aan Johannes een reeks geheimen over het rijk van zijn vader in de hemel en hoe hij daar kan binnenkomen, maar ook enkele toekomstige gebeurtenissen, waaronder de marteldood van Johannes zelf. Hij geeft ook raad over hoe hij bovennatuurlijke uitdagingen het hoofd kan bieden. Doel was dat hij die leer dan verder zou doorgeven na de dood van Jezus. “Het is een aanvulling op de figuur en het leven van Jezus die we kennen uit de Bijbel”, aldus professor Geoffrey Smith.

Lees ook

Onderzoekers hebben ontdekt hoe oud vermeende graf van Jezus is en het blijkt effectief uit tijd van Romeinen te stammen

Bisschop

De geschriften werden in de vierde eeuw niet opgenomen in het boek dat later de Bijbel zou worden. Athanasius, de bisschop van Alexandrië, somde toen in zijn ‘Paasbrief van 367’ de 27 boeken op van het Nieuwe Testament en voegde toe: “Niemand mag er nog iets aan toevoegen of uit weglaten”. Daardoor werden ze als verboden en ketters beschouwd.

De professoren vermoeden dat het handschrift een model was dat een leraar gebruikte om zijn leerlingen te leren lezen en schrijven. “Bijna alle woorden zijn verdeeld in lettergrepen, wat bijzonder ongewoon is voor oude manuscripten, tenzij is een onderwijscontext”, aldus prof Brent Landau.

Volgens Smith en Landau gaat het om documenten uit de vijfde of zesde eeuw, maar zouden ze zelf ook afstammen van nog veel oudere teksten. Ze werden opgesteld in het Grieks en waren tot nu toe alleen bekend van latere Koptische vertalingen.

Uitzonderlijk

De vondst is uitzonderlijk, want tot nu toe werd maar een klein aantal originele Griekse exemplaren gevonden van de Nag Hammadigeschriften. Dat is een verzameling teksten uit de begintijd van het christendom, waarvan in 1945 een Koptische vertaling werd gevonden in Boven-Egypte.

“Zeggen dat we opgewonden waren toen we beseften wat we gevonden hadden, is te zacht uitgedrukt”, lacht Smith. “We hadden nooit durven denken dat er nog Griekse fragmenten van de Eerste Apocalyps van Johannes uit de oudheid bewaard gebleven zouden zijn. Maar daar waren ze.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

01-12-2017 om 19:13 geschreven door peter  

01-12-2017 om 18:55 geschreven door peter  

01-12-2017 om 18:55 geschreven door peter  

01-12-2017 om 18:50 geschreven door peter  

01-12-2017 om 18:44 geschreven door peter  

698 AARDBEVINGEN IN CALIFORNÏE IN 30 DAGEN TIJD

Dit jaar zijn mensen op diverse plaatsen ter wereld opgeschrikt door series aardbevingen waarvan wetenschappers zeggen dat ze de voorbode zijn van nog veel grotere. 

Zo was er dit jaar een record aantal aardbevingen rondom Yellowstone en nu weer Californië, terwijl Nieuw Zeeland groot gevaar loopt te worden verwoest door een megabeving. 

Er doet zich een trend voor, wereldwijd, die eenieder aan het denken zou moeten zetten. Die is dat er steeds meer tekenen zijn die erop wijzen dat er grote krachten op de aarde worden uitgeoefend.

Zoals gewoonlijk worden er geen verbanden gelegd en kijkt men naar iedere gebeurtenis afzonderlijk en vraagt zich af hoe dit kan. Zoals nu weer in de Amerikaanse staat Californië.

Volgens de meest recente cijfers hebben zich daar in 30 dagen tijd maar liefst 698 aardbevingen voorgedaan. Wetenschappers zeggen altijd dat wanneer seismische activiteit in een bepaald gebied uit de hand begint te lopen er een groeiende kans is dat er zich een zware aardbeving zal voor doen. De mainstream media staan de laatste tijd bol van de series kleine aardbevingen die voorkomen in Californië en toen er zich eerder deze maand een 4.6 beving voor deed in Monterey County werd dit dan ook onmiddellijk wereldnieuws.

Het hele jaar door doen zich in dat gebied al kleinere aardbevingen voor, zoals we bijvoorbeeld schreven in juni dit jaar:

Feit is ook dat ook Californië is getroffen door een serie aardbevingen. Het gebied in de buurt van de stad Truckee, enkele honderden kilometers ten noordoosten van San Francisco, werd getroffen door een serie van 16 aardbevingen, waarbij inwoners zich angstig afvroegen of de tijd voor The Big One was gekomen. De zwaarste van de serie was 3.9 op de schaal van Richter en ook hier allerlei geruststellende woorden.

Wanneer je kijkt naar de recente serie aardbevingen en je kijkt op de volgende afbeelding naar hoe de zogenaamde St. Andreas breuklijn loopt, dan besef hoe kwetsbaar Californië is voor The Big One, de allesvernietigende aardbeving, waarvan wetenschappers denken dat deze nu snel naderbij komt.

En hoewel het voorspellen van aardbevingen altijd riskant is, denken wetenschappers nu toch dat de kans op deze Big One toeneemt. De laatste keer dat dit gebied werd getroffen door een zware aardbeving was in 1857 door een beving met een kracht van 7,9 op de schaal van Richter.

Van Californië gaan we naar de andere van de wereld en wel Nieuw Zeeland waar een jaar geleden het volgende gebeurde:

Op 13 november 2016 vond op 15 km afstand van Culverden op het Zuidereiland van Nieuw-Zeeland een aardbeving met een kracht van 7,8 op de schaal van Richter plaats. Na de aardbeving werd voor de hele oostkust van Nieuw-Zeeland een tsunamiwaarschuwing afgegeven. 

Deze aardbeving heeft een breuklijn waarvan men dacht dat deze "slapend" was, wakker gemaakt. Er wordt nu rond deze breuklijn nieuwe activiteit waargenomen en dit betekent dat Nieuw Zeeland de kans loopt verwoest te worden door een enorme beving van rond 9.0 op de schaal van Richter.

Het probleem ontstaat door de bewegingen van twee tektonische platen, de Australische en de Pacific. De eerste beweegt naar het noorden, de tweede naar het westen en dit kan een enorme aardbeving veroorzaken op de bodem van de oceaan met bijbehorende tsunami. Een beving vergelijkbaar met die in Japan, waar 11.000 mensen om het leven kwamen en waarvan de wereld nog steeds te maken heeft met de gevolgen, de ramp met de kerncentrales in Fukushima.

Zoals wij iedere keer schrijven zijn het geen geïsoleerde voorvallen. De heftige aardveranderingen worden veroorzaakt doordat er voor ons onbekende krachten inwerken op de aarde. Krachten die zorgen voor weer extremen, record aantal aardbevingen en vulkanen die overal ter wereld ongekend actief worden.

Wanneer er voor één keer een avondvullend televisieprogramma gemaakt zou worden met alle heftige aardverandering in één jaar tijd op een rij, dan zou niemand meer een oog dicht doen en ervan overtuigd zijn dat er een externe kracht aan het werk is. Maar, dat gebeurt niet en dus wordt er bericht over iedere gebeurtenis afzonderlijk en slaapt iedereen verder.

Hoe heftig die aardbeving vorig jaar was in Nieuw Zeeland kan je zien op de volgende afbeelding van een spoorlijn.

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

01-12-2017 om 18:38 geschreven door peter  

Insider Exposes The Reality Of The Alien Presence!

Shocking Secrets 

In this historic and powerful Dark Journalist episode Host Daniel Liszt welcomes Watergate Lawyer and Author Douglas Caddy. Caddy is well-known for being the Attorney of the Watergate burglars who mysteriously broke into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) looking for secrets that have never been revealed.

CIA Insider Reveals Assassination

Caddy was close personal friends with ultra CIA insider and Super Spy agent E. Howard Hunt, who used Caddy to represent his many non-intel projects, but later lured him in to represent the Watergate burglars while keeping his own role hidden.

In their final meeting Hunt shared never before heard details of the JFK Assassination with Caddy, including the fact that the Watergate burglary was instigated as a mission to obtain vital documents regarding hidden evidence in the DNC that revealed details of a massive conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

In a bombshell twist, Hunt then revealed that JFK was killed for his attempts to expose the reality of the Alien Presence and share it with our Russian Cold War adversaries.

Sharing The UFO File

Since the original UFO flap of 1947, the US had created a secret group sometimes referred to as 'Majestic Twelve' or ‘MJ12' to study the phenomena and to reverse-engineer technology that was recovered.

This secret MJ12 group began to grow beyond it’s mandate and eventually slipped away from presidential supervision and formed a Breakaway group operating inside the National Security State via elements in the CIA.

When Kennedy discovered this covert group operating outside the purview of the President he instituted a number of initiatives to regain control over the advanced research and technology achieved with knowledge of the Alien Presence.

One of these initiatives was to share our knowledge of the UFO Phenomena with our Russian Cold War enemies in the Soviet Union, and institute a joint Space Program/Moon Mission to avert a new arms race in space.

JFK Memos

Documented official memos from JFK, including National Security Action Memorandum 271, direct NASA to institute a new policy of cooperation in space exploration with the Russians, another memo, recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows JFK told the CIA to hand over all data concerning UFOs with an emphasis on “High Threat” cases.

These memos were dated November 12th, 1963, only ten days before JFK was killed in Dallas, Texas and are further evidence that he was assassinated because of his exposing of the UFO secret.

The UFO cabal were not going to let him show the world what the National Security State decided was their own private discovery. They were willing to remove a sitting President to maintain their UFO Technology Secrecy!

  

01-12-2017 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

Air Force & UFOs

Host: George Knapp
Guests: Robert Salas,  Robert Bartholomew

In the first half, George Knapp welcomed Air Force insider and former FAA employee, Robert Salas, who offered ample refutation to the Air Force statement: “No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security.” He cited details of his March, 1967 experience with a UFO at Malmstrom AFB in Montana. During the episode, the base’s nuclear missiles were disabled, and the missile’s frightened guards reported seeing strange lights in the sky, which were silently flying at high speeds, and making unusual turns. He learned that a similar occurrence had taken place a week earlier at another base, where 10 missiles were shutdown as UFOs were seen.

01-12-2017 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

Most remarkable UFO sightings in November 2017

November 2017; lights in the sky – Novogradovka in Odessa Oblast, Ukraine

17th November 2017; lights in the sky – Australia

29th November 2017; three UFOs – Del Mar in California

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

01-12-2017 om 17:55 geschreven door peter  

Amazing UFO footage filmed over Del Mar, California 29-Nov-2017

Check out this interesting footage of a three unknown object making maneuvers over Del Mar in California. This happened on 29th November 2017.

Witness report:

 Could be balloons, but with strong prejudice. Was very strange. At first I thought it looked like black balloons, and they did kind of move like that in the way that they ascended through the sky together. But there was also something weird about it… All three of them moved indipendintly backward, forward, and around each other. It felt strange.

All balloons I’ve seen in the sky seem to have a direct path and don’t wobble around like these did—but who knows. Just thought it was strange and wanted to send to you for your expertise.

Author (source: MUFON)

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

01-12-2017 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

UFO filmed over Mount Adams, Washington (ECETI ranch)

Witnesses from UFO hotspot ECETI Ranch are describing this object as a massive UFO landed at Mount Adams. This was filmed recently in November 2017.

What do you think about this footage?

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

01-12-2017 om 17:38 geschreven door peter  

Blowing in the stellar wind: Scientists reduce the chances of life on exoplanets in so-called habitable zones

 by John Greenwald

Image of starlight on exoplanet, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Is there life beyond Earth in the cosmos? Astronomers looking for signs have found that our Milky Way galaxy teems with exoplanets, some with conditions that could be right for extraterrestrial life. Such worlds orbit stars in so-called "habitable zones," regions where planets could hold liquid water that is necessary for life as we know it.

Impact of stellar wind

In two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the scientists develop models showing that the stellar wind—the constant outpouring of charged particles that sweep out into space—could severely deplete the atmosphere of such planets over hundreds of millions of years, rendering them unable to host surface-based life as we know it.

"Traditional definition and climate models of the habitable zone consider only the surface temperature," Dong said. "But the stellar wind can significantly contribute to the long-term erosion and atmospheric loss of many exoplanets, so the climate models tell only part of the story."

To broaden the picture, the first paper looks at the timescale of atmospheric retention on Proxima Centauri b (PCb), which orbits the nearest star to our solar system, some 4 light years away. The second paper questions how long oceans could survive on "water worlds"—planets thought to have seas that could be hundreds of miles deep.

Two-fold effect

The research simulates the photo-chemical impact of starlight and the electromagnetic erosion of stellar wind on the atmosphere of the exoplanets. These effects are two-fold: The photons in starlight ionize the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere into charged particles, allowing pressure and electromagnetic forces from the stellar wind to sweep them into space. This process could cause severe atmospheric losses that would prevent the water that evaporates from exoplanets from raining back onto them, leaving the surface of the planet to dry up.

On Proxima Centauri b, the model indicates that high stellar wind pressure would cause the atmosphere to escape and prevent atmosphere from lasting long enough to give rise to surface-based life as we know it. "The evolution of life takes billions of years," Dong noted. "Our results indicate that PCb and similar exoplanets are generally not capable of supporting an atmosphere over sufficiently long timescales when the stellar wind pressure is high."

"It is only if the pressure is sufficiently low," he said, "and if the exoplanet has a reasonably strong magnetic shield like that of the Earth's magnetosphere, that the exoplanet can retain an atmosphere and has the potential for habitability."

Evolution of habitable zone

Complicating matters is the fact that the habitable zone circling red stars could evolve over time. So high stellar wind pressure early on could increase the rate of atmospheric escape. Thus, the atmosphere could have eroded too soon, even if the exoplanet was protected by a strong magnetic field like the magnetosphere surrounding Earth, Dong said. "In addition, such close-in planets could also be tidally locked like our moon, with one side always exposed to the star. The resultant weak global magnetic field and the constant bombardment of stellar wind would serve to intensify losses of atmosphere on the star-facing side."

Turning to water worlds, the researchers explored three different conditions for the stellar wind. These ranged from:

• Winds that strike the Earth's magnetosphere today.
• Ancient stellar winds flowing from young, Sun-like stars that were just a toddler-like 0.6 billion years old compared with the 4.6 billion year age of the Sun.
• The impact on exoplanets of a massive stellar storm like the Carrington event, which knocked out telegraph service and produced auroras around the world in 1859.

The simulations illustrated that ancient stellar wind could cause the rate of atmospheric escape to be far greater than losses produced by the current solar wind that reaches the magnetosphere of Earth. Moreover, the rate of loss for Carrington-type events, which are thought to occur frequently in young Sun-like stars, was found to be greater still.

"Our analysis suggests that such space weather events may prove to be a key driver of atmospheric losses for exoplanets orbiting an active young Sun-like star," the authors write.

High probability of dried-up oceans

Given the increased activity of red stars and the close-in location of planets in habitable zones, these results indicate the high probability of dried-up surfaces on planets that orbit red stars that might once have held oceans that could give birth to life. The findings could also modify the famed Drake equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in the Milky Way, by lowering the estimate for the average number of planets per star that can support life.

Authors of the PCb paper note that predicting the habitability of planets located light years from Earth is of course filled with uncertainties. Future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope, which NASA will launch in 2019 to peer into the early history of the universe, will therefore "be essential for getting more information on stellar winds and exoplanet atmospheres," the authors say, "thereby paving the way for more accurate estimations of stellar-wind induced atmospheric losses."

Scientists spot potentially habitable worlds with regularity. Recently, a newly discovered Earth-sized planet orbiting Ross 128, a red dwarf star that is smaller and cooler than the sun located some 11 light years from Earth, was cited as a water candidate. Scientists noted that the star appears to be quiescent and well-behaved, not throwing off flares and eruptions that could undo conditions favorable to life.

Collaborating with Dong on the PCb paper were physicists from Harvard University, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Massachusetts.

 Explore further: The atmospheres of water worlds

More information: Chuanfei Dong et al. Is Proxima Centauri b Habitable? A Study of Atmospheric Loss, The Astrophysical Journal (2017). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa6438 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.04089

Chuanfei Dong et al. The Dehydration of Water Worlds via Atmospheric Losses, The Astrophysical Journal (2017). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa8a60 https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01219 

{ https://phys.org/ }

01-12-2017 om 01:53 geschreven door peter  

Blowing in the stellar wind: Scientists reduce the chances of life on exoplanets in so-called habitable zones

 by John Greenwald

Image of starlight on exoplanet, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Is there life beyond Earth in the cosmos? Astronomers looking for signs have found that our Milky Way galaxy teems with exoplanets, some with conditions that could be right for extraterrestrial life. Such worlds orbit stars in so-called "habitable zones," regions where planets could hold liquid water that is necessary for life as we know it.

Impact of stellar wind

In two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the scientists develop models showing that the stellar wind—the constant outpouring of charged particles that sweep out into space—could severely deplete the atmosphere of such planets over hundreds of millions of years, rendering them unable to host surface-based life as we know it.

"Traditional definition and climate models of the habitable zone consider only the surface temperature," Dong said. "But the stellar wind can significantly contribute to the long-term erosion and atmospheric loss of many exoplanets, so the climate models tell only part of the story."

To broaden the picture, the first paper looks at the timescale of atmospheric retention on Proxima Centauri b (PCb), which orbits the nearest star to our solar system, some 4 light years away. The second paper questions how long oceans could survive on "water worlds"—planets thought to have seas that could be hundreds of miles deep.

Two-fold effect

The research simulates the photo-chemical impact of starlight and the electromagnetic erosion of stellar wind on the atmosphere of the exoplanets. These effects are two-fold: The photons in starlight ionize the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere into charged particles, allowing pressure and electromagnetic forces from the stellar wind to sweep them into space. This process could cause severe atmospheric losses that would prevent the water that evaporates from exoplanets from raining back onto them, leaving the surface of the planet to dry up.

On Proxima Centauri b, the model indicates that high stellar wind pressure would cause the atmosphere to escape and prevent atmosphere from lasting long enough to give rise to surface-based life as we know it. "The evolution of life takes billions of years," Dong noted. "Our results indicate that PCb and similar exoplanets are generally not capable of supporting an atmosphere over sufficiently long timescales when the stellar wind pressure is high."

"It is only if the pressure is sufficiently low," he said, "and if the exoplanet has a reasonably strong magnetic shield like that of the Earth's magnetosphere, that the exoplanet can retain an atmosphere and has the potential for habitability."

Evolution of habitable zone

Complicating matters is the fact that the habitable zone circling red stars could evolve over time. So high stellar wind pressure early on could increase the rate of atmospheric escape. Thus, the atmosphere could have eroded too soon, even if the exoplanet was protected by a strong magnetic field like the magnetosphere surrounding Earth, Dong said. "In addition, such close-in planets could also be tidally locked like our moon, with one side always exposed to the star. The resultant weak global magnetic field and the constant bombardment of stellar wind would serve to intensify losses of atmosphere on the star-facing side."

Turning to water worlds, the researchers explored three different conditions for the stellar wind. These ranged from:

• Winds that strike the Earth's magnetosphere today.
• Ancient stellar winds flowing from young, Sun-like stars that were just a toddler-like 0.6 billion years old compared with the 4.6 billion year age of the Sun.
• The impact on exoplanets of a massive stellar storm like the Carrington event, which knocked out telegraph service and produced auroras around the world in 1859.

The simulations illustrated that ancient stellar wind could cause the rate of atmospheric escape to be far greater than losses produced by the current solar wind that reaches the magnetosphere of Earth. Moreover, the rate of loss for Carrington-type events, which are thought to occur frequently in young Sun-like stars, was found to be greater still.

"Our analysis suggests that such space weather events may prove to be a key driver of atmospheric losses for exoplanets orbiting an active young Sun-like star," the authors write.

High probability of dried-up oceans

Given the increased activity of red stars and the close-in location of planets in habitable zones, these results indicate the high probability of dried-up surfaces on planets that orbit red stars that might once have held oceans that could give birth to life. The findings could also modify the famed Drake equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in the Milky Way, by lowering the estimate for the average number of planets per star that can support life.

Authors of the PCb paper note that predicting the habitability of planets located light years from Earth is of course filled with uncertainties. Future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope, which NASA will launch in 2019 to peer into the early history of the universe, will therefore "be essential for getting more information on stellar winds and exoplanet atmospheres," the authors say, "thereby paving the way for more accurate estimations of stellar-wind induced atmospheric losses."

Scientists spot potentially habitable worlds with regularity. Recently, a newly discovered Earth-sized planet orbiting Ross 128, a red dwarf star that is smaller and cooler than the sun located some 11 light years from Earth, was cited as a water candidate. Scientists noted that the star appears to be quiescent and well-behaved, not throwing off flares and eruptions that could undo conditions favorable to life.

Collaborating with Dong on the PCb paper were physicists from Harvard University, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Massachusetts.

 Explore further: The atmospheres of water worlds

More information: Chuanfei Dong et al. Is Proxima Centauri b Habitable? A Study of Atmospheric Loss, The Astrophysical Journal (2017). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa6438 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.04089

Chuanfei Dong et al. The Dehydration of Water Worlds via Atmospheric Losses, The Astrophysical Journal (2017). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa8a60 https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01219 

{ https://phys.org/ }

01-12-2017 om 01:52 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.princeton.edu/ }

01-12-2017 om 01:41 geschreven door peter  

SCIENCE

Image Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Astronomers spot a planet so hostile they had a hard time believing it

Mike Wehner @MikeWehner

When news of a newly-studied exoplanet with an atmosphere begins to make headlines it’s typically because the far-off world is potentially Earth-like, teasing the possibility of extraterrestrial life or even a potential future home for mankind. WASP-18b is not one of those kinds of exoplanets. In fact, it’s so incredibly hostile to what we know about life that researchers had a difficult time explaining its existence at all.

WASP-18b is an absolutely huge planet, with a mass on the order of 10 times that of Jupiter, and it’s also incredibly hot. The planet orbits its star at a very short distance, which isn’t entirely uncommon for exoplanets, but what makes the alien world so strange is that it has a thick atmosphere that left scientists scratching their heads.

After observing the planet several times, that data revealed that WASP-18b’s atmosphere is packed with poisonous carbon monoxide. That’s not just a rarity among known planets; it’s essentially unheard of. “The composition of WASP-18b defies all expectations,” Kyle Sheppard of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, lead author of the study explains. “We don’t know of any other extrasolar planet where carbon monoxide so completely dominates the upper atmosphere.”

The research, which was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, also reveals that the planet’s puzzling atmosphere is devoid of any water, and thereby oxygen. The combination of no water, no oxygen, incredible heat, and plenty of carbon monoxide means that WASP-18b isn’t the kind of place you’d want to spend a day, or even a few seconds.

The deadly conditions also suggests there’s really no conceivable way life as we know it could form or exist there. That’s just fine anyway, since the world is some 325 light-years away, so visiting it is out of the question.

That said, the discovery is important for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it totally rewrites what scientists thought they knew about how atmospheres form around planets. This particular example is obviously hostile to life, but might raise the possibility of certain exoplanets forming much friendlier atmospheres in ways we had not yet considered. Further research into WASP-18b is planned for later, and scientists hope to use the new James Webb Space Telescope to get an even better look at it.

{ http://bgr.com/ }

01-12-2017 om 01:29 geschreven door peter  

“Where is everybody?”

That’s the question Enrico Fermi asked his co-workers at the at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1950 as they pondered lunch and why, if there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy older than our Sun with a high probability of having planets similar to Earth, we’ve never had any contact (that they knew of) with other civilizations – advanced or lesser. The question lives on today as the famous Fermi Paradox.

“Redo the numbers, Enrico. They just found 72 more galaxies!”

If they were alive today, that might his friends’ response to the news that astronomers taking the deepest view of the universe ever have discovered at least 72 more galaxies. Even using conservative estimates, that’s a few trillion more stars and, if they average 8 planets like ours, many trillions more planets, of which a tiny but now larger percentage could hold life.

“Where is everybody?”

It’s not a puzzle … it’s a paradox.

Let’s take the easy answer first. In a press release this week, ESO astronomers announced that they pointed the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile at a small spot in space known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). Located in the constellation Fornax, it was first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope from September 24, 2003, to January 16, 2004. That data allowed astronomers to look back 13 billion years and, combined with later observations using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), estimate that the small region contained about 10,000 galaxies.

Then came MUSE. It was installed on the VTL in 2014 and astronomers used it for about two years (137 hours of telescope time) to further study the HUDF and detect galaxies 100 times dimmer than before that emit Lyman-alpha radiation, an indication that they are extremely distant, young, low-mass galaxies. Seventy-two of these galaxies were counted, with some estimated to have existed just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

As always with discoveries like these, if there’s one Lyman-alpha emitting galaxy (or in this case, 72), there’s bound to be more, so analysis of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer will continue, along with planned observations using the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (after delays, it’s expected to be launched in June 2019) and the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) which is still in the conceptual stage.

Back to Fermi’s Paradox. Does it increase the probability of other life forms in the universe? Yes. Does the fact that these newly-found galaxies are close to 13 billion years old mean the life forms will be older and more advanced than us? Older — definitely. More advanced – who knows? If they are, Enrico once again gets the last words:

“Where is everybody?”

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-12-2017 om 01:12 geschreven door peter  

ARE WE ALONE? Could NASA be 'forced in COURT to admit aliens exist and it was covered up?'

NASA could be forced by a court to reveal to the world that officials have been hiding the truth about aliens, it has been sensationally claimed.

01-12-2017 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

Researchers confirm age of Jesus Christ’s tomb

Archaeologists have finally discovered the age of the tomb of Jesus Christ.

According to various beliefs, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is believed to contain the final resting place of Jesus Christ.

The tomb has been desecrated over the years by violent attacks, natural disasters, and of course centuries of wear and tear. This has led to a number of reconstructions over the centuries, reason why modern scholars have had a tough time proving or disproving this is the tomb of Jesus Christ.

Now, to solve the mystery from a scientific point of view, researchers analyzed the original limestone surface of the tomb and a marble slab hoping to establish a time frame when the tomb was created.

As noted by the National Geographic, researchers believe the tomb dates back to around 345 CE.

“Obviously that date is spot-on for whatever Constantine did,” archaeologist Martin Biddle, who published a study on the tomb in 1999, told National Geographic. “That’s very remarkable.”

Led by experts from the National Technical University of Athens and to calculate the age of the materials of the tomb, a technique called “optically stimulated luminescence” (OSL) was used, which revealed when the material was exposed to light for the last time.

Image Credit: Oded Balilty, AP for National Geographic

While the study has failed to establish whether or not Jesus was actually buried there, the date obtained by experts is consistent with historical accounts that the tomb was found by the Romans and enshrined around 326 CE.

Curiously, this fits the time of  Emperor Constantine, Rome’s first Christian emperor.

According to legend, Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine (reigned ca. 306-337), discovered the tomb of Jesus around the year 327.

Constantine legalized Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and supposedly became Christian little before dying.

The Romans would have protected the tomb by building a sanctuary on it, as well as a church.

The church was destroyed, renovated and rebuilt several times in the past 1,700 years.

Before this new research, the oldest piece of architectural evidence at the site was traced back to the time of the Crusades, which means it was only around 1,000 years old.

Despite the fact that there are many who doubt that Jesus Christ existed, there is enough historical evidence to support the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a real man and not a mythological figure.

Source: Exclusive: Age of Jesus Christ’s Purported Tomb Revealed

Featured image credit: Oded Balilty, AP for National Geographic

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

01-12-2017 om 00:11 geschreven door peter  

Rising seas risk washing tens of thousands archaeological sites clean off the map in the US alone

BY ALEXANDRU MICU

Thousands of historic and archeological sites along the southern US coast risk being engulfed by sea-level rise by the end of the century, scientists report.

The sites at risk from rising sea-levels.
Image credits David G. Anderson et al., 2017, PLOS ONE.

Climate change isn’t putting just our future at risk — it’s also engendering out past, according to new research. More than 13,000 archaeological sites, historic buildings, and cultural landscapes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the southeastern United States are at risk from sea-level rise and could be submerged by 2100.

No ark for this flood

The team, led by David Anderson from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville drew on data from the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) to estimate the risk posed by sea-level rise on archaeological sites. DINAA is a platform that aggregates archeological and historical datasets compiled over the past century and from numerous sources. Its aim is to provide researchers and the public with a comprehensive view of when and where humans settled.

Based on position and elevation data, the team warns that over 13,000 sites in the southeast alone may find themselves topped with water for a mere 1 meter (3.28 ft) rise. This includes over 1,000 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places as having important cultural properties. But things could get much, much worse.

“These numbers increase substantially with each additional 1 m rise in sea level, with >32,000 archaeological sites and >2400 NRHP properties lost should a 5 m rise occur,” the authors warn.

“Many more unrecorded archaeological and historic sites will also be lost as large areas of the landscape are flooded. The displacement of millions of people due to rising seas will cause additional impacts where these populations resettle.”

Large linked data sets such as the DINAA, which can predict the potential impacts of phenomena across wide areas, are essential when developing procedures for sampling, triage, and mitigation efforts, the team explains. Therefore, they hold the key to planning and adaptation in the face of climate change, extreme weather events, and the displaced populations these will bring about — factors that could shape our civilization profoundly in the years to come.

“Sea level rise will thus result in the loss of much of the record of human habitation of the coastal margin in the Southeast,” the paper reads, “and the numbers indicate the magnitude of the impact on the archaeological record globally.”

The paper “Sea-level rise and archaeological site destruction: An example from the southeastern United States using DINAA (Digital Index of North American Archaeology)” has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

30-11-2017 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

A Key Evolutionary Step May Mean Intelligent Alien Life Doesn’t Exist in the Universe

by Alexandra Ossola

Confocal microscopy of fibroblast cells

 Getty Images

Shortly after Earth’s formation, the planet was barren of life. Then, proteins combined in just the right way, and life appeared. For billions of years, it was simple and uninteresting, oceans full of simple, single-celled organisms floating for millennia after millennia. Suddenly, life got a lot more interesting. Organisms became more complex, with more than one cell. And they got much bigger — 10,000 times bigger by volume, Nick Lane, professor of evolutionary chemistry at University College London, wrote in his 2015 book The Vital Question.

The importance of this step — of this sudden increase in size and complexity — cannot be overstated. Without it, complex life (like humans, for example) would not exist.

How exactly this step happened is one of the big questions in evolutionary biology. There are a number of theories about how, exactly, life got so much more complicated. One of the prevailing theories, from Lane himself, focuses on energy. Here’s the thinking: Cells need more energy to build more complex structures. To do that, according to Lane’s theory, single-celled organisms merged with bacteria we now know as mitochondria, which have an electrical charge and bring power to the cell. It’s possible, though unlikely, for the two bacteria to fit together, and even less probably that the two were able to survive and live symbiotically. This occurrence that made possible all other forms of complex life is rare, to be sure.

But in Lane’s opinion, it only happened once.

“It comes down to one merger between two cells that made one cell, then everything comes from that. You, me, the redwood tree or the hummingbird, a fungus, a piece of algae growing in a pond, every form of life we can see with our naked eyes and many that we can’t come from that single cell,” Nick said in an episode of the science podcast Radiolab on his work.

The debate around how life got much more complicated is important to understand the history of life on Earth, but it also could inform our search for life on other planets. If complex life is exceedingly rare, does that make it less likely for us to find intelligent life in the universe? Should we instead be looking for something much smaller and simpler? If the universe outside of Earth only populated by single-celled organisms? Because these specific conditions are so unlikely, might complex life only exist on our own planet?

Futurism got in touch with a few experts to ask if they agree with Lane’s theory, if they believe intelligent extraterrestrial life is possible, and to get their perspectives on whether we should somehow alter our search.

Mohamed Noor, a professor of biology at Duke University:

To the best of my knowledge, Lane’s version of what happened is likely true: Acquiring mitochondria happened [only] once, long ago in the ancestor of plants, fungi, and animals. It greatly facilitated the evolution of multicellular organisms.

However, it’s impossible to know how to assess the need for something like that in the context of life that is totally unrelated to life on Earth. All life on Earth has a single common ancestor. This ancestor (and all life we on Earth) was presumably carbon/water-based, replicated using nucleic acids, and lived in conditions that existed on ancient or modern Earth. If life arose on a much colder world, for example, many other [environmental] parameters may be totally different as well.

In such a case, life there may use liquid ammonia rather than water as a solvent. It may not use nucleic acids for heredity. But some aspects may be general to life —carbon may intrinsically make sense for life, given its abundance and ability to make long chains. A “cell membrane” of some sort to insulate that life from its environment also seems probable. Finally, there are other things we never think about. How “fast” does this life metabolize and interact? Are there generations occurring in the blink of an eye? Or single interactions over millennia, moving so slowly we wouldn’t even notice?

Honestly, I feel like we cannot have any estimate of the probability of life of any kind (intelligent or not) until we move from a sample size of 1 (related to life on Earth) to a sample size of at least 2 [that is, until we discover at least one more example of life in the universe].

Back to your question, any “life” needs a source of power, but mitochondria need not be the only solution to that problem, especially if life is starting with a completely different basis. Still, my best guess is that microbial-sized life is way more likely to exist than something as large as us on other worlds. If our desire is to “find life,” I speculate that we’re much better off closely examining acquired samples from Europa or other worlds than waiting to receive a radio signal.

Pierre Pontarotti, the director of research at the Mathematics Institute of Marseille, wrote:

The symbiosis between bacteria and eukaryotes has occurred many times during the evolution of life on Earth. For example, cyanobacteria [merged] with the ancestors of plant cells — the cyanobacteria became the chloroplast. Therefore, if organisms like bacteria and eukaryotes are present on another planet, the symbiosis should happen.

We, of course, have no information about the kind of life that exists on other planets. But because galaxies and planets have evolved many times during the history of the universe, why shouldn’t life do so as well?

John Rummel, senior scientist with the SETI Institute:

Given the many advantages offered by the symbiosis of the pre-eukaryote and the pre-mitochondrial bacterium, it is entirely possible that once was enough — given that free oxygen could have been present to fuel the combination. “Once” here may not refer to a single endosymbiotic event, of course.

We don’t know exactly where, and at what scale, eating pre-mitochondria became popular on Earth… The right biochemistry is the key to that being an advantageous thing to do, of course, so whether it is widespread in the cosmos is more a biochemical question than a natural-science one. [It has to be] just so… Without mitochondrial advantages, it might be a struggle to develop complex, anoxic biochemistries that could support the evolution of intelligence on a physically challenging world, but not impossible.

{ https://futurism.com/ }

30-11-2017 om 23:32 geschreven door peter