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 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
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...
It’s not surprising that a new study linking extreme winter weather in the U.S. East with a warmer Arctic has drawn fire from global warming skeptics. Should you believe the study or the skeptics?
A new study – published March 13, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications – again links warming Arctic temperatures to colder weather. Although this correlation is far-from-settled science, these particular researchers did find that severe winter weather in the eastern U.S. is two to four times more likely when the Arctic is abnormally warm than when the Arctic is abnormally cold. Likewise, according to this study, northern latitudes of Europe and Asia may have colder winters when the Arctic is warm. This research has drawn fire from global warming deniers and prompted contrarian viewpoints in some publications. How can we know who or what to believe?
Here’s what we can know, with some confidence. Measurements show that the Arctic has been abnormally warm, and sea ice in the Arctic has been low. Measurements have their uncertainties also, but many measurements – for example, sea ice measurements from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado – show these trends in the Arctic. It appears that the Arctic is not only warming, but warming at a rate two to three times faster than the observed rate of warming for the rest of the globe. This phenomenon is known among climate scientists as Arctic amplification.
So … what’s happening here? It seems counterintuitive that a warmer Arctic would cause colder winters.
Should we believe this new study?
View larger. | Geographic locations of cities analyzed in the new study. The authors said: “We chose a geographically diverse set of 12 cities to analyze Arctic variability and severe winter weather, though we chose more cities in the northeastern and mid-western U.S. where severe winter weather is more common than in other regions of the U.S.”
In deciding whether you believe it, it’s important to realize that measurements are in a different category in science from analysis. The March 13 study – authored by Judah Cohen of MIT, Karl Pfeiffer of Atmospheric & Environmental Research, Inc. and Jennifer Francis of Rutgers – used the tools of science to analyze existing data. These authors described their study as an:
… extensive, quantitative analysis of the link between Arctic variability and severe winter weather across the mid-latitudes. In this study we find a robust relationship between Arctic temperatures and severe winter weather in the United States. When the Arctic is warm, both cold temperatures and heavy snowfall are more frequent compared to when the Arctic is cold.
Jennifer Francis commented in a statement from Rutgers on March 13:
Basically, this confirms the story I’ve been telling for a couple of years now. Warm temperatures in the Arctic cause the jet stream to take these wild swings, and when it swings farther south, that causes cold air to reach farther south.
These researchers found that when Arctic warming occurred near Earth’s surface, the correlation with severe winter weather was weak. But when the warming over the Arctic extended high into the atmosphere, into the stratosphere, disruptions of the stratospheric polar vortex were likely.
View larger. | These authors assert in their study that: “As the Arctic warms, the continents become colder.”
Global warming skeptics pounced on this study. For example, Steven Milloy – who is, among other things, the publisher of the website JunkScience.com, a former columnist for Fox News and a co-creator and manager of the Free Enterprise Action Fund – posted the following tweet, which lifts language directly from Cohen et al.’s Nature paper:
He’s pointing to the part of Cohen, Pfeiffer and Francis’ own study where they themselves point out some of this study’s unknowns and challenges, and, by extension, some of the unknowns and challenges inherent in modern climate science. Do these acknowledged unknowns and challenges undercut this study – or almost all climate studies – as Milloy suggests?
Let’s look at the answer in a wider context. Does asking scientific questions in any field suggest that area of science is not worth pursuing?
Of course not.
If it did, science as a whole would have come to a dead standstill long ago, and our lives would be far less easy and comfortable than they are today. Think of electricity. Do you suppose Thomas Edison had questions, as he figured it out? Do you think he might have had challenges?
The fact is, scientists are supposed to question themselves and each other. They’re supposed to work through challenges. It’s what they’re trained to do. It’s how science gets done. It might be helpful here to mention that all science is a process, as all scientists and many non-scientists know. Scientists question, and try to answer their own questions or learn how other scientists have answered them, and this constant questioning-and-answering pushes their investigations of nature forward … or, I should say, our investigations of nature, since science is a cultural activity, paid for in large part by our tax dollars.
Do global warming skeptics like Steven Milloy understand that questioning is part of the process of science? I have no idea. It’s possible he doesn’t; he’s trained as a lawyer, not a scientist.
Should we believe that Arctic warming is correlated with colder winters as this study suggests? Belief or disbelief doesn’t enter into it, for scientists, and it shouldn’t for you either. The results are just out there, for you and me to read about, be informed about and think about, and for future scientific studies to either confirm or refute.
This study is one small clue in the investigation of climate change, which has already been going on for decades. Will this one little clue be swept away by better ones? Maybe. Time will tell.
Until then, claims that the study has been undercut because scientists are questioning themselves and each other … well, those claims just show some writers’ ignorance of – unawareness of, unconsciousness of, unfamiliarity with, inexperience with, lack of information about – the way science works.
It may be willful ignorance, or not.
See how Step #5 (Make a Conclusion) has an arrow leading back to Step #1 (Ask a Question)? Scientists are continually questioning because science isn’t a body of facts; it’s a way of investigating nature.
By the way, someone is bound to ask in the comments who supported the study by Cohen, Pfeiffer and Francis. That is a valid and excellent question. For virtually any published science study, you can find a section at the very bottom called Acknowledgements. These authors’ acknowledgements are as follows:
We are grateful to Barbara Mayes-Boustead and Steve Hallberg for generously sharing with us the AWSSI [Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index] data. J.C. is supported by the National Science Foundation grants AGS-1303647 and PLR-1504361. J.F. is supported by NASA grant NNX14AH896 and NSF/ARCSS grant 1304097.
In his criticism of the study, Steven Milloy didn’t have as established a mechanism for mentioning who currently funds him, but he’s well-known for having been a paid advocate for Philip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. Read more about who funds Steven Milloy.
Wondering who funds EarthSky? Our small organization receives revenues from three sources: ads on this website, donations and sales in our store.
Bottom line: A warm Arctic means colder, snowier winters in the northeastern U.S., according to a new study. You don’t have to believe it; just think about it.
The Juno spacecraft has found that the giant planet Jupiter is full of big surprises; its interior composition and structure seem to be quite different, and its winds even more active, than originally thought. Now, giant cyclones at the planet’s poles have been seen in greater detail than ever before. They are not only stunning, but unique from atmospheric storms of any other planet in our solar system, even other gas and ice giants. Also, other new data from Juno builds on previous findings, including showing that the planet’s strong winds penetrate deep into the atmosphere and last longer than any similar ones on our planet.
The new findings are published (here and here) in the March 8, 2018, edition of the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
In a statement from NASA, Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, said:
These astonishing science results are yet another example of Jupiter’s curve balls, and a testimony to the value of exploring the unknown from a new perspective with next-generation instruments. Juno’s unique orbit and evolutionary high-precision radio science and infrared technologies enabled these paradigm-shifting discoveries.
Juno is only about one-third the way through its primary mission, and already we are seeing the beginnings of a new Jupiter.
Since astronomers first started using telescopes, it could be seen that Jupiter seemed to be an active world, with its well-known colorful atmospheric belts, and of course the Great Red Spot. Thanks to probes like Voyager, Galileo and now Juno, we can see these phenomena in much greater detail than ever before. The atmospheric belts are incredibly turbulent, with jet streams and storms far more powerful than any on Earth.
Jupiter’s atmospheric marvels are not limited to its equatorial regions, however; Juno has provided unprecedented views of the planet’s poles, where massive cyclones churn with unearthly ferocity. Infrared images created from data taken by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument look almost surreal, like cosmic artwork.
The clusters of cyclones around the poles look kind of like a space pizza – a dazzling, yet unearthly sight. Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, and lead author of oneof the new papers, said:
Prior to Juno we did not know what the weather was like near Jupiter’s poles. Now, we have been able to observe the polar weather up-close every two months.
Each one of the northern cyclones is almost as wide as the distance between Naples, Italy, and New York City – and the southern ones are even larger than that. They have very violent winds, reaching, in some cases, speeds as great as 220 mph (350 kph). Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, they are very close together and enduring.
There is nothing else like it that we know of in the solar system.
Jupiter’s south pole has cyclones, too. This computer-generated image of cyclones at Jupiter’s south pole was created using data from the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument on Juno.
Interestingly, the cyclones remain close to each other but never seem to merge together.
Not only are Jupiter’s storms unearthly, so are its auroras, which are much more powerful than any here, and “defy earthly laws of physics.”
Juno had also already shown that the planet’s equatorial belts extend much farther down into the atmosphere than thought, and new gravity measurements have also now shown a north-south asymmetry. Luciano Iess, Juno co-investigator from Sapienza University of Rome, said:
Juno’s measurement of Jupiter’s gravity field indicates a surprising north-south asymmetry, similar to the asymmetry observed in its zones and belts.
The stronger the asymmetry, the deeper the jet streams are. The Jovian weather layer, from the very top to a depth of 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers), is now estimated to contain about one percent of Jupiter’s mass (about 3 Earth masses). Earth’s atmosphere is less than one millionth the mass of the planet itself, by comparison.
Another, more distant view of Jupiter’s south pole.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt.
Juno has also sent back incredible views of Jupiter’s colorful belts in the equatorial regions.
Image via NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Color-enhanced image showing intricate details in Jupiter’s cloud patterns.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Juno also found that Jupiter rotates almost as a solid body, beneath the active weather layer.
This is really an amazing result, and future measurements by Juno will help us understand how the transition works between the weather layer and the rigid body below.
Juno’s discovery has implications for other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Our results imply that the outer differentially-rotating region should be at least three times deeper in Saturn and shallower in massive giant planets and brown dwarf stars.
Juno has conducted 10 science passes over Jupiter so far; the next one will be on April 1.
Bottom line: Thanks to Juno, we now know that Jupiter’s interior composition and structure appear different, and its winds more active, than originally thought. Also, Juno has now seen giant cyclones at Jupiter’s poles in greater detail than ever before.
DNA Tests Reveal Surprising Details About Tiny ‘Atacama Alien’
DNA Tests Reveal Surprising Details About Tiny ‘Atacama Alien’
The most comprehensive study to date performed on the so-called Atacama Alien has revealed, according to the first study, that 8 percent of the DNA was unmatched to human DNA. The second set of DNA tests matched 98 percent of the DNA.
Remeber the alien-like creature discovered in the Atacama desert of chile a while ago? Well, new DNA results have revealed a number of peculiar characteristics about the mysterious creature.
A complete genomic study of a skeleton discovered more than a decade ago in the Atacama desert (Chile), and ‘falsely’ taken as an alien, has revealed unpublished bone molecular rarities.
The findings of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine eliminate any remaining dilemmas on the planetary origin of the specimen, assuring that it is human, and not an alien. The analysis also answers questions about the mysterious skeletal remains that have long been a genetic enigma.
Now, after five years of genomic analysis, Garry Nolan, professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford, and Atul Butte, director of the Institute of Computational Health Sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, in the United States, have identified the mutations responsible for the anomalous sample.
The researchers found mutations in not one, but several genes known to control bone development. In addition, some of these molecular oddities have never been described before.
The mysterious-looking skeleton, nicknamed Ata, was discovered more than a decade ago in an abandoned town in the Atacama desert in Chile.
After changing owners and finally finding a permanent home in Spain, the mummified specimen began to attract public attention.
Just six inches tall (about 15 centimeters), about the length of a dollar bill, with an elongated, angular skull and sunken, tilted eye sockets, the possibility of Ata coming from another world began to circulate on the Internet as people started speaking about aliens with extremely tiny bodies.
“I had heard about this specimen through a friend of mine, and I managed to get an image of it,” says Nolan. You can not look at this specimen and not think it’s interesting; It is quite dramatic. Then I said to my friend: “Look, whatever it is, if it has DNA, I can do the analysis.”
With the help of Ralph Lachman, a professor of Radiology at Stanford and an expert in a type of pediatric bone disease, Nolan made things clear.
His analysis pointed to a decisive conclusion: this was the skeleton of a human woman, probably a fetus, who had suffered serious genetic mutations.
In addition, Nolan saw that Ata, although most likely a fetus, had the bone composition of a 6-year-old girl, an indication that she had a rare bone aging disorder.
To understand the genetic basis of Ata, Nolan turned to Butte for help with genomic evaluation.
He accepted the challenge and performed such a thorough evaluation that he almost reached the level of patient care.
Butte noted that some people might wonder about the point of these in-depth analyzes.
“We thought it would be an interesting exercise to apply the tools we have today to really see what we could find,” he says. The phenotype, the symptoms and the size of this girl were extremely unusual, and the analysis of this kind of truly disconcerting and ancient samples better teaches us how to analyze the DNA of children nowadays under current conditions.“
To understand the genetic factors involved, Butte and Nolan extracted a small sample of DNA from Ata’s ribs and sequenced the entire genome.
The skeleton is approximately 40 years old, so its DNA is modern and relatively intact. In addition, the data collected from the complete genome sequencing showed that Ata’s molecular composition was aligned with that of a human genome.
Human but…
Nolan detected that 8 percent of the DNA was unmatched by human DNA, but that was due to a degraded sample, not to extraterrestrial biology. Later, a more sophisticated analysis could match up to 98 percent of the DNA.
The genomic results confirmed Ata’s Chilean lineage and presented a series of mutations in seven genes that, separately or in combinations, contribute to various bone deformities, facial malformations or skeletal dysplasia, more commonly known as dwarfism.
Some of these mutations, although found in genes that are known to cause disease, have never before been associated with bone growth or developmental disorders.
“Knowing these new mutational variants could be useful,” says Nolan, “because they add to the reservoir of known mutations that must be sought in humans with this type of bone or physical disorders.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
An Alien star ‘collided’ with the Solar System 70,000 years ago and its effects still endure
An Alien star ‘collided’ with the Solar System 70,000 years ago and its effects still endure
About 70,000 years ago, a small reddish star approached our solar system and gravitationally disturbed comets and asteroids. Astronomers have verified that the movement of some of these objects is still marked by that stellar encounter.
About 70,000 years ago, the Scholz star grazed our solar system and, although it barely possessed 9% of its mass, it caused changes in the orbits of dozens of comets.
In 2015, when astronomers discovered that event, they assumed that it didn’t leave behind many consequences.
Image Credit: Credit: NASA, Michael Osadciw/University of Rochester, Illustration-T.Reyes
However, researchers from the universities of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and Complutense (Madrid, Spain) have shown that the event did leave behind a number of important consequences.
“In principle, one would expect those positions to be evenly distributed in the sky, particularly if these objects come from the Oort cloud,” says the study’s lead authorCarlos de la Fuente Marcos from the Complutense University of Madrid.
“However, what we find is very different: a statistically significant accumulation of radiants.”
When analyzing the positions of some 340 objects from the outer Solar System, scientists discovered that several dozens of them were not where they expected them to be located.
In addition, they perceived that several comets followed trajectories that locate their origins in different places. In the absence of further research, these facts disseminated by the Royal British Astronomical Society raise new questions about our Solar System, such as how much material was previously in another part of the galaxy.
Among scholars of the controversial and hypothetical Planet X, also called Nibiru, some argue that because of the large size and appearance -4 times the size of Jupiter and reddish in color- that has been attributed to it, Nibiru is not a planet but rather a star, more precisely a red dwarf.
Currently, the star of Scholz is a small red dwarf, dark in the constellation of Monoceros, about 20 light-years away and moving in the opposite direction from our solar system, never to return.
However, at the closest point in its passage through the solar system, the Scholz star would have been a star of magnitude 10, about 50 times weaker than it can normally be seen with the naked eye at night.
Within any million year period, there could be as many as 600 stars passing within 16.3 light years of our Sun, writes Science Alert.
However, it is magnetically active and can record bursts that make it briefly thousands of times brighter.
So, it is possible that the Scholz star was visible to the naked eye by our ancestors only 70,000 years ago.
Snow with an orange-tint has been seen in countries around the globe including Russia, Ukraine and Romania.
The rare occurrence, which only happens once every 5 years, is due to snow and rain mixing with dust that has accumulated in the air from Sahara Desert storms, the BBC reports.
“Looking at satellite imagery from NASA, it shows a lot of sand and dust in the atmosphere drifting across the Mediterranean,” Steven Keates, a weather forecaster at the UK’s Met Office, told The Independent. “When it rains or snows, it drags down whatever is up there, if there is sand in the atmosphere.”
What turned snow orange in Sochi, Russia? Believe it or not, according to the Athens Observatory, winds transported sand and dust from the Sahara some 1500 miles (2400 km) from north Africa to southern Russia. More could be on the way Monday.
Although it’s happened before, there’s more sand now, which has caused people to complain of sand getting in their mouths. In Greece, the desert dust has blanketed the entire country. Greece has the highest concentration of dust in more than a decade, according to The Athens Observatory meteorological service, CNN reports.
In February 2007, orange snow which was apparently oily and smelled, was reported in various regions across Siberia.
Although some suggested the snow was discolored due to dust picked up from a desert storm, environmental groups believed otherwise, considering high levels of iron, acids and nitrates were in the snow, according to The Guardian. An exact cause for the mysterious event was never determined.
Artist impression of what an artificial meteor shower would look like.
Credit: ALE.
The latest venture in the burgeoning field of private aerospace might be fake meteor showers. A Japanese company wants to revamp the whole fireworks experience by offering on-demand shooting stars that light up the sky at a precise location and timing. Some people, however, are concerned that the firey debris might spell trouble for satellites in the same orbit, which happens to be preferred by intelligence agencies.
Artificial shooting stars
Astro Live Experiences, or ALE, plans on firing its first shooting star show in the summer of 2019. If all goes well, a buyer — which can be anyone from a city looking to offer its citizens something different to a wealthy rancher who wants to surprise his daughter — will be treated to a meteor shower lasting a couple of seconds. At the right moment, a spacecraft would eject 15 to 20 small metallic pebbles on command, each less than half an inch wide. The pebbles are made from the same heat shield material that lines the bottom of space capsules, which chars rather than burns upon atmospheric re-entry.
The company is the brainchild of University of Tokyo astronomer Lena Okajima. Initially, it was supposed to be an unconventional opening light show for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but the researchers found they could turn the project into a demand service around the world. While some private ventures, such as SpaceX or Blue Origin, are in the business of sending astronauts, cargo, and even tourists into space, ALE is in the business of entertainment.
In December, ALE plans on launching two microsatellites below an altitude of 220 miles. Each $3-million microsatellite weighs 150 pounds (68kg) and carries 300 to 400 shooting star particles, along with enough propellant for 27 months of operation in orbit. When the fuel runs out, the microsatellite will be burned in Earth’s atmosphere. The ultimate plan is to set up a constellation of six such satellites capable of serving light shows round the clock, almost anywhere on Earth.
But not everyone is following ALE with 4th of July enthusiasm.
“I salute them for cleverness and for their technical expertise, but from an orbital debris standpoint, it’s not a great idea,” University of Michigan astronomer Patrick Seitzer told BuzzFeed News. “I’m concerned space will be getting crowded in low-earth orbit in the next 10 years.”
In their defense, ALE claims it has run simulations releasing particles for every hour a year against the US Strategic Command’s satellite trajectory catalog, finding there was no risk of collision. What’s more, the particles are supposed to fire for only 4-5 seconds before rapidly falling to 37 miles above Earth, which is too low for low-Earth-orbit satellites and too high for experimental balloons.
There are currently only 40 or so official satellites traveling in low orbit below 220 miles above Earth’s surface. There are, however, some orbiting bodies that aren’t listed in the catalog, such as spy satellites. But in the future, this sparse orbit is expected to get crowded — and fast. For instance, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to put 7,500 new broadband internet satellites in orbits about 210 miles high, just below ALE’s satellites.
The first ALE launch has already been approved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. If all goes well, the world should get a test of the first artificial meteor shower in 2019.
Two 'UFOs' caught on video flying past military helicopter on rescue mission
Two 'UFOs' caught on video flying past military helicopter on rescue mission
The footage of the strange silver disc-shaped objects has been revealed by British UFO expert Jason Gleave.
By John Jeffay
A pair of “ UFOs ” zoom past a military helicopter as it hovers over a sinking ship off the French coast.
The silver disc-shaped objects were caught on camera by a local news crew who were filming the Spanish vessel after it smashed into rocks.7
The footage has been revealed for the first time by British UFO expert Jason Gleave.
Twelve people were rescued from the 100m cargo ship The Luno after it hit the sea wall at Anglet, off the south-western coast of France in February 2014, and broke in two.
The ship was carrying fertiliser when its engine failed in the choppy Atlantic ocean.
Startling new footage has now been revealed showing how the UFOs flew in formation close by to the chopper as if keeping a watch on the rescue operation.
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studied the film using the latest computer technology, believes the objects are not drones or seagulls.
The former RAF man, from Liverpool, said: "Upon analysing the footage the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.
"Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.
"The sighting was captured by a local television news company who had been covering the dramatic events.
"Upon closer analysis of the video frames the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.
"It is difficult to get an accurate distance for the two objects from the stationary helicopter. This was a truly fascinating piece of video footage which I do believe the analysed frames do not give it full credit."
The startling footage from February 2014 has only just come to light after Jason featured it in his new book UFO PHOTO, published by Flying Disk Press run by Philip Mantle, of Pontefract, West Yorkshire.
Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence's 'UFO desk' for three years, has backed Jason's research by writing the introduction to the book.
He said: "Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase “high strangeness events” to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis.
"Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction."
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Al lange tijd vragen wetenschappers zich af of er leven is of ooit is geweest op Mars. The Cydonia Institute heeft nu afbeeldingen gevonden van vermeende kunstmatige structuren op het Marsoppervlak.
In de kloof Candor Chasma op de rode planeet troffen de onderzoekers een driehoekige piramidevormige formatie aan, die sterk lijkt op de zogeheten Reuleaux-piramide.
De formatie is duidelijk te zien op vijf foto’s die zijn gemaakt door de Mars Global Surveyor en de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Intelligentie
Volgens de geologen en aardwetenschappers zijn er twee mogelijke verklaringen. De formatie kan zijn ontstaan als gevolg van natuurlijke mechanismen of zijn achtergelaten door een intelligentie.
(MRO/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Het ontwerp van de driehoekige piramide is uitzonderlijk als je kijkt naar de geometrie en symmetrie, aldus de onderzoekers.
Ze merken op dat soortgelijke monumenten op aarde worden gebouwd door moderne ingenieurs en worden gevonden in landen als China.
Meer foto’s
Ondanks natuurlijke afzettingen en erosie zijn de zijden van de formatie erg symmetrisch. De onderzoekers achten de kans dan ook klein dat de piramide is ontstaan door natuurlijke processen.
De kans is groot, zo stellen ze, dat de formatie een kunstmatige oorsprong heeft. “We raden de NASA en de Universiteit van Arizona aan er meer foto’s van te maken met de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,” zeggen ze.
Belangrijke kandidaat
Als ook die foto’s wijzen in de richting van een kunstmatige oorsprong, zou de formatie een belangrijke kandidaat moeten zijn voor het onderzoek naar potentiële archeologische voorwerpen op Mars, besluit het team.
ONVERKLAARBARE VREEMDE VERSCHIJNSELEN IN DE LUCHT NEMEN TOE
ONVERKLAARBARE VREEMDE VERSCHIJNSELEN IN DE LUCHT NEMEN TOE
Gedurende de eerste maanden van dit jaar hebben zich al een aantal vreemde verschijnselen voorgedaan in de lucht, een fenomeen dat wereldwijd voor komt.
Het lijkt dat dat geen incidenten waren, want nog steeds komen er meldingen en beelden van bizarre dingen in de lucht die eigenlijk niet kunnen tenzij er wat afwijkends aan de hand is.
Van alle vreemde dingen die zich voor doen, zijn misschien een aantal wel te verklaren als natuurlijk fenomeen, maar het begint een beetje een optelsom te worden van teveel vreemde dingen in een relatief korte periode.
Nu een derde locatie waar zich iets vergelijkbaars voor doet en dat is in de Amerikaanse staat Californië. Het ziet er als volg uitt en is absoluut niet de zon. De opname is gemaakt op 23 maart tijdens zonsondergang. De richting waarin deze opname is gemaakt is echter het oosten, terwijl de zon ondergaat in het westen.
Wanneer je deze waarneming vergelijkt met die uit Ecuador en Thailand, dan zijn er veel overeenkomsten.
Dan naar Kelowna, een stad in de Canadese provincie Brits-Colombia waar zich een wel heel vreemd verschijnsel voordeed.
De volgende foto's zijn afgelopen dinsdag gemaakt door Terri Knox en gepubliceerd door het lokale televisiestation Global News.
De beste verklaring waar de meteoroloog van Global News mee kon komen, is dat het wel veroorzaakt zou worden door de lichtval achter de bergen in de verte.
De volgende foto's laten ook een soort vreemde scheiding zien tussen schaduw en licht. De eerste is genomen in Florida en de tweede in Kansas.
Bij deze foto zijn in de verste verte geen bergen te zien die een dergelijk fenomeen zouden kunnen veroorzaken zoals volgens de meteoroloog en toch, ook hier een vreemde scheiding tussen licht en donker.
Joeri Gagarin, bijgenaamd de “Columbus van de Cosmos” of de “eerste popster van het Oostblok”, was de eerste mens in de ruimte in 1961. Bijna zeven jaar later kwam hij om tijdens een ongeluk met een gevechtsvliegtuig. Morgen is hij exact vijftig jaar dood. Wat er precies is gebeurd, is nog steeds een mysterie. Sinds zijn mysterieuze dood duiken er voortdurend theorieën op.
Joeri Aleksejevitsj Gagarin, een op 9 maart 1934 geboren boerenzoon, raakte geselecteerd voor de eerste Sovjet-kosmonautenklas en speelde het klaar om op 12 april 1961 met zijn Vostok-1 de allereerste mens in de ruimte te worden. Berichten dat zijn missie van 108 minuten bij de terugkeer bijna fataal afliep, kwamen pas later bovendrijven en werden zelfs nog in 2007 in het vluchtleidingscentrum Tsoup nabij Moskou ontkend.
Hoe dan ook, Gagarin werd een uithangbord van de Sovjet-Unie en mocht wereldwijd zijn triomf vieren. Vreemd genoeg viste hij nadien steeds naast het net om opnieuw de ruimte in te gaan, al zijn er bronnen die zeggen dat sommigen hun held liever niet bij een eventueel ongeluk wilden zien omkomen. Bovendien bleek Gagarin, net als sommigen van zijn collega’s, niet vies te zijn van alcohol en andere dames dan zijn vrouw.
Tragische trainingstocht
Een ongeval kwam er toch, op 27 maart 1968. Maar niet in de ruimte. Tijdens een trainingstocht nabij Moskou met een Mig-15 gevechtstoestel kwam Gagarin op 34-jarige leeftijd om het leven, net als zijn co-piloot. “Mijn missie zit erop. Ik keer terug” waren de laatste woorden van Gagarin vlak voor zijn dood.
Op last van het Centraal Comité van de Communistische partij werd de volgende dag een staatscommissie opgericht om het ongeluk te onderzoeken. Korte tijd later werd geheimhouding over de conclusies bevolen om te vermijden dat er geen twijfel zou ontstaan omtrent de professionele bekwaamheid van de held van de natie. Bovendien werd de commissie ontbonden. Het enige officiële document is het door het Politbureau ondertekende overlijdensbericht waarin staat dat beide piloten “tengevolge van een catastrofe tijdens een oefenvlucht zijn omgekomen”. Er werd met geen enkel woord over een oorzaak gerept.
Mysterieuze oorzaak
Er ontstond een waaier van verklaringen en speculaties, de ene al wat spectaculairder dan de andere, zoals terrorisme. Meer bepaald zou secretaris-generaal Leonid Brezjnev van de Sovjet-Russische communistische partij, vanwege de populariteit van Gagarin, hebben bevolen de kosmonaut te doden. Of dat de Held van Sovjet-Unie slachtoffer was geworden van de wraak van buitenaardse wezens.
Meer plausibel: botsing met een vogel - maar door ornithologen ontkracht - of met een weerballon. Mogelijk was de cabine van de Mig niet helemaal afgesloten waardoor beide inzittenden naar buiten zijn geslingerd. Of zou het toestel in de wervelstroom van een ander zijn geraakt. Volgens een andere theorie was Gagarin ladderzat in de Mig gestapt. De vreemdste theorieën duiken op, maar tot nog toe weet niemand precies hoe Joeri Gagarin om het leven kwam.
The recent “disclosures” of the Pentagon’s UFO research project and the accompanying videos of allegedly anomalous aerial objects caused quite a stir in the ufology world. While these releases were a rare opportunity for mainstream news outlets to discuss the UFO phenomenon in a legitimate light, many veteran researchers urged caution. In the weeks that followed, many inconsistencies and reasonable explanations for the program surfaced which cast some doubt on the claims made by Tom DeLonge’s new “To the Stars Academy” research group. In particular, many critics noted that the ties between former Nevada Senator Harry Reid who secured the funding and Las Vegas-based UFO enthusiast and aerospace magnate Robert Bigelow were suspicious, reeing not of the alien or otherworldly, but of the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” political favor variety.
An angle which was of course amplified in certain political circles.
To help clear the air and discuss what he knows about these government UFO research programs (or at least is able to discuss publicly), Reid recently sat down with New York Magazine’s Eric Benson for an interview about these programs. Reid began the interview stating that “if we’re here to talk about little green men or stuff that you want to look at that was found in New Mexico or something, I’m not interested. If you’re here to talk about science, I’m happy to do that.” Reid then goes on to fill in some backstory about how he was put in touch with Bigelow through Nevada journalist and Coast to CoastAMhost George Knapp shortly after Bigelow inherited a small fortune following his father’s death.
Robert Bigelow
Knapp and Bigelow were both keenly interested in UFO phenomena, Reid says, and began sending him information about some of the more high-profile UFO incidents and alleged crashes like Roswell. While Reid remains skeptical about most of these claims, he says the sheer abundance of UFO reports drew him in. “Mainly what interested me is so many people had seen these strange things in the air,” Reid says, “that was interesting to me.” It was this interest – and allegations that America’s rivals were putting resources into investigating anomalous aerial phenomena – that Reid says led to securing funding for the now-infamous Pentagon UFO research program led by Luis Elizondo:
What we decided to do — it would be black money, we wouldn’t have a big debate on the Senate floor over it. They would put in their defense appropriation bill, 11 million bucks. The purpose of it was to study aerial phenomena. The money was given, a directive was given to the Pentagon, to put this out to bid, which they did.
Reid says the majority of the money went to Bigelow, who created a centralized storage facility for official documentation and reports of sightings, alleged alien artifacts, and other pieces of the UFO puzzle. Reid notes that one reason the UFO phenomenon hasn’t been seriously discussed in the military or government is because many career g-men are “afraid somebody will think they’re some kind of a wacko.”
Could Bigelow Aerospace be any less discreet with their logo design?
Reid ends the interview by attacking his interview and the press at large, arguing that the media either doesn’t want to or doesn’t have the resources to comb through the thousands of reports and documents the government (and Bigelow) have amassed on UFO phenomena. Uh, where do I sign up?
Snow is white. Any other color is not right. Grey means cars have been through it. Yellow means dogs have been through it. Black means you slipped, fell and are lying face down in it. What does orange snow mean? That’s the question being asked across Eastern Europe as Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine are digging out from under a blanket of bright orange snow that stretches to the Black Sea. This has ski resort owners seeing red because skiers don’t want to spend their green stuff to slalom on orange stuff that reminds some of the landscape of the Red Planet. Is this a sign of the O-pocalypse? (More pictures here and here.)
The “nothing to worry about” crowd (i.e. the government and weather reporters) are telling people wondering if this orange snow is safe to touch, shovel, lick, make into an orange snowman or treat like ordinary white stuff that the color comes from the sands of the Sahara Desert – specifically, a Saharan sandstorm kicked up by a recent cyclone in northern Africa. For backup, they used NASA satellite images showing sand in the upper levels of the atmosphere. And it’s true … this is a condition that has happened before under similar circumstances. For example, orange snow blanketed Saratov in far western Russian in 2015 and was also blamed on Saharan sand.
Normal snowman
But never in Romania. Why is this orange snow falling in eastern Europe? Is some world power testing a new form of weather control weapon? That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Doctors in Romania are warning residents — particularly the elderly or those with respiratory conditions, asthma or allergies — to stay indoors for a few days until the snow melts. The danger doesn’t end there as the melted snow fills bodies of water used for drinking or food. While the first suspect might be Russia, one of the heaviest concentrations or the orange snow fell in Sochi, the beautiful Russian city which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. Was this an experiment gone wrong? Or is some other country to blame?
The mysterious Siberian orange snow of 2007 was also blamed on sand – this time from Kazakhstan — even though many residents and government inspectors admitted it smelled bad, felt oily and had a high lead content – not exactly sno-cone worthy. While industrial pollution was suspected, residents were told that it would be “difficult” to identify the guilty party. Again, that orange snow was deemed “safe” but farmers were still advised not to let their animals walk in it or drink it.
Orange snow from a carton is OK
Pictures from various resorts show people skiing in the orange snow. Have we really become so conditioned to accept unusual weather that we no longer care to wait for answers? Will resort owners start advertising odd-colored snow as a new feature?
When it comes to the chance of getting a straight answer from the powers that be about this mysterious snow, is orange the new bleak?
Not so mysterious, the snow was orange colored by and from the sands of the Sahara. This was carried away by the wind and in the air layers and came with the snow down. We have already experienced more frequently in Belgium that everything outside with a layer of and from the Sahara in mind was ...
In this video we look at an 'uptick" of unusual sky phenomenon appearing high in the skies above planet earth in the past couple of days.
Something is drastically changed in our skies, for example the strange sunset split over Kelowna, Canada photographed by Terri Knox makes you wonder what is going on.
Credit image left: Terry Knox - Global News.
Terry Knox who sent the images to Global News said that the images have been not edited and locals were ’spellbound’ by the sight.
According to Global BC senior meteorologist Kristi Gordon the split was most likely due to a terrain feature blocking part of the sun’s rays but Blandy Castillo who lives in Kelowna said that it never happened before, and the mountains are there every day, it was something with either the sun or the atmosphere.
Credit image left: Terry Knox - Global News.
Indeed it is the question whether mountains or terrain features are responsible for blocking parts of the sun since similar images have been captured lately in other parts of the world showing a sunset split without mountains or terrain features.
While it can of course be a natural phenomenon, we may also wonder whether something invisible blocks the sun's rays or not.
Exoplanet Search Turns Up 15 New Alien Worlds, and One May Have Water
Exoplanet Search Turns Up 15 New Alien Worlds, and One May Have Water
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Contributor
Researchers have discovered 15 new planets around cool stars known as red dwarfs, and one of those planets might be able to host liquid water on its surface.
In a new study, the researchers combined space telescope data with follow-up ground investigation to observe several red dwarfs, which are dim stars that weigh 7.5 to 50 percent the mass of the sun. The team spotted three exoplanets, each slightly larger than Earth, around red dwarf star K2-155, located 200 light-years away. The outermost planet of the system was a particularly interesting finding, as it had a radius about 1.6 times that of Earth and may be within this star's habitable zone, the researchers said. A star's habitable zone is the region where orbiting planets could be the right temperature to retain liquid water.
The team used observations from the NASA Kepler spacecraft's second mission, K2, and ground-based telescopes such as the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) in Spain to gather data on the 15 exoplanets, according to a recent statement about the research. To determine if K2-155's outermost planet, K2-155d, could have water on its surface, the team modeled what's known about this world in a three-dimensional climate simulation.
They found that this exoplanet may have liquid water. But despite the exciting possibilities, the researchers remain cautious until further analysis can confirm the initial findings, according to the statement.
"Red dwarf systems, especially coolest red dwarfs, are just beginning to be investigated, so they are very exciting targets for future exoplanet research," said Teruyuki Hirano, a researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and lead author of the new work.
In April 2018, the NASA mission Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)is scheduled to launch; that spacecraft may provide greater precision for researchers in search of distant planets with conditions that could support life. "TESS is expected to find many candidate planets around bright stars closer to Earth," Hirano said. "This will greatly facilitate follow-up observations, including investigation of planetary atmospheres and determining the precise orbit of the planets."
A communications scholar offers an argument that science isn’t broken or in crisis and that it’s media’s job to educate people about how science works.
What’s the media’s role in helping to fix a perception that science is broken, if such a perception exists?
Have you heard people say that NASA lies, or that scientists are just chasing grants, or even that science itself is brokenor in crisis? We at EarthSky often hear these comments, and, while they don’t surprise us anymore, we do ponder the general public’s perception of science, especially given the public debate in the U.S. over climate change and other science-related issues, and especially in a media climate that allows fake news. This month (March 12, 2018), in the peer-reviewedProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson documented three alternative news narratives about science and its challenges in media today.
She argued that science isn’t broken or in crisis. And she said it’s the job of the media to educate people about how science works.
First, what is the public’s perception of science? Has that perception deteriorated? This short article at the Pew Research Center – from April, 2017 – suggests it hasn’t and that, in fact:
… public confidence in science has remained stable for decades.
However, Pew said, a segment of the U.S. population (6 percent) has “hardly any confidence” in the scientific community. Pew is basing its conclusion on data collected by NORC, an independent research organization at the University of Chicago, whose General Social Survey (GSS) has been running each year since 1972. Pew said GSS results released a year ago – on March 29, 2017 – show:
… that 40 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community, while half (50 percent) have only some confidence and 6 percent have hardly any confidence.
Despite these survey results, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and others worry about a public perception of science as broken. Jamieson is a communications professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. This academic center runs FactCheck.org, which examines the factual accuracy of U.S. political campaign advertisements. She and Joe Hilgard of Illinois State University contributed a chapter to The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication, published in 2017. Their chapter was titled Science as “Broken” Versus Science as “Self-Correcting.”
In her March 12 essay, Jamieson outlined three narratives used by the media in science stories. She included the quest discovery narrative, the counterfeit discovery narrative and the systemic problem narrative (the overall idea that science is broken).
In typical quest discovery stories about science, you’ll find words like advance, path-breaking, breakthrough, or discovery.
Jamieson pointed out that this narrative is employed particularly when presenting science that’s useful to humankind. And many science stories do lean that way. Of the 60 studies that received the most media coverage from May 2016 to April 2017, she wrote, nearly half were related to human health and well-being, according to the tracking firm Altmetric.
On the other hand, Jamieson said, the media also frequently employs a counterfeit discovery narrative. We’ve all read this story. It’s the tale of a deceptive scientist and a dishonorable quest, the story of someone who has “gulled custodians of knowledge” such as science journal editors and peer reviewers. Jamieson provided an interesting sequence of headlines related to Haruko Obokata, who reported having developed a method of developing pluripotent stem cells. The sequence started with:
Indictments of null hypothesis testing and P values [both commonly used in psychology] were rationalized away as well. Such inaction warranted “broken, uncorrecting” and perhaps even “crisis” characterizations, and the inference that such terms were more realistic than histrionic.
In other words, some sciences – such as psychology – may have their own unique and troublesome issues.
The psychology example feeds into Jamieson’s argument that the third narrative – science is broken – is an overgeneralization. Yet, in media today, many stories do suggest science as a whole (or in some large part) is broken. You can find stories like that here and here and here and here. Jamieson also pointed to some science writers today, who tend to concentrate on what she calls a problem-focused news narrative in science, with headlines and storylines to match. She said:
In such accounts, scientists are portrayed as publicizing problems, not proffering solutions.
Jamieson doesn’t think science is broken. She stated in her essay:
… generalizations about a crisis in science aren’t justified by the available evidence.
But she thinks the issue is important, because news media portrayals of science affect how we all think about it. That’s why she concluded that:
… those who communicate science, including journalists, scholars, and scientists themselves, should more accurately convey its investigatory nature, the self-correction process, and corrective measures without legitimizing a faulty narrative.
By the way, Jamieson identified ways that science narratives can be improved in the media. Among her suggestions:Science journalism is many things. Is part of its job to educate people about science? Artist’s illustration via Nature.
Include information that reflects the practices and protections of science, such as the trial-and-error process, and the ways that science detects and protects itself from deception;
Reserve “dire characterizations of the state of science” for cases in which “integrity-threatening problems are being ignored”;
Treat self-correction as a central part of the scientific process, not an afterthought – before regarding a rise in retractions as a “crisis in science,” consider the argument that they are a “signal that science is working”;
Focus on problems without shortchanging solutions: “To perform their accountability function well, reporters should not only alert the public to problems in consequential science but also scrutinize how and how well they are being addressed.”
Her essay concluded:
By responsibly publicizing both breaches of integrity and attempts to forestall them, news can perform its accountability function without undermining public trust in the most reliable form of knowledge generation humans have devised.
Bottom line: Kathleen Jamieson analyzed narratives used in media to portray science. She argued that science isn’t broken or in crisis and that it’s the job of the media to educate people about how science works.
TRAPPIST-1 is an ultra-cool red dwarf star that is slightly larger, but much more massive, than the planet Jupiter, located about 40 light-years from the sun in the constellation Aquarius.
Among planetary systems, TRAPPIST-1 is of particular interest because seven planets have been detected orbiting this star, a larger number of planets than have been than detected in any other exoplanetary system. In addition, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are Earth-sized and terrestrial, making them an ideal focus of study for planet formation and potential habitability.
Arizona State University (ASU) scientists Cayman Unterborn, Steven Desch and Alejandro Lorenzo of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, with Natalie Hinkel of Vanderbilt University, have been studying these planets for habitability, specifically related to water composition. Their findings were published March 19, 2018, in Nature Astronomy.
The calculations equal water
The TRAPPIST-1 planets are curiously light. From their measured mass and volume, all of this system’s planets are less dense than rock. On many other, similarly low-density worlds, it is thought that this less-dense component consists of atmospheric gases. Geoscientist Unterborn explained:
But the TRAPPIST-1 planets are too small in mass to hold onto enough gas to make up the density deficit. Even if they were able to hold onto the gas, the amount needed to make up the density deficit would make the planet much puffier than we see.
So scientists studying this planetary system have determined that the low-density component must be something else that is abundant: water. This has been predicted before, and possibly even seen on larger planets like GJ1214b, so the interdisciplinary ASU-Vanderbilt team, comprised of geoscientists and astrophysicists, set out to determine just how much water could be present on these Earth-sized planets and how and where the planets may have formed.
But how much is there?
To determine the composition of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, the team used a unique software package, developed by Unterborn and Lorenzo, that uses state-of-the-art mineral physics calculators. The software, called ExoPlex, allowed the team to combine all of the available information about the TRAPPIST-1 system, including the chemical makeup of the star, rather than being limited to just the mass and radius of individual planets.
Much of the data used by the team to determine composition was collected from a dataset called the Hypatia Catalog, developed by contributing author Hinkel. This catalog merges data on the stellar abundances of stars near to our sun, from over 150 literature sources, into a massive repository.
What they found through their analyses was that the relatively “dry” inner planets (“b” and “c”) were consistent with having less than 15 percent water by mass (for comparison, Earth is 0.02 percent water by mass). The outer planets (“f” and “g”) were consistent with having more than 50 percent water by mass. This equates to the water of hundreds of Earth-oceans. The masses of the TRAPPIST-1 planets continue to be refined, so these proportions must be considered estimates for now, but the general trends seem clear. Steven Desch, ASU astrophysicist and contributing author, said:
What we are seeing for the first time are Earth-sized planets that have a lot of water or ice on them.
But the researchers also found that the ice-rich TRAPPIST-1 planets are much closer to their host star than the ice line. The “ice line” in any solar system, including TRAPPIST-1’s, is the distance from the star beyond which water exists as ice and can be accreted into a planet; inside the ice line water exists as vapor and will not be accreted. Through their analyses, the team determined that the TRAPPIST-1 planets must have formed much farther from their star, beyond the ice line, and migrated in to their current orbits close to the host star.
There are many clues that planets in this system and others have undergone substantial inward migration, but this study is the first to use composition to bolster the case for migration. What’s more, knowing which planets formed inside and outside of the ice line allowed the team to quantify for the first time how much migration took place.
Because stars like TRAPPIST-1 are brightest right after they form and gradually dim thereafter, the ice line tends to move in over time, like the boundary between dry ground and snow-covered ground around a dying campfire on a snowy night. The exact distances the planets migrated inward depends on when they formed. Desch said:
The earlier the planets formed, the farther away from the star they needed to have formed to have so much ice.
But for reasonable assumptions about how long planets take to form, the TRAPPIST-1 planets must have migrated inward from at least twice as far away as they are now.
This graph shows the minimum starting distances of the ice-rich TRAPPIST-1 planets (especially f and g) from their star (horizontal axis) as a function of how quickly they formed after their host star was born (vertical axis). The blue line represents a model where water condenses to ice at 170 K[-153 Fahrenheit, -103 Celsius], as in our solar system’s planet-forming disk. The red line applies to water condensing to ice at 212 K [-78 F, -61 C], appropriate to the TRAPPIST-1 disk. If planets formed quickly, they must have formed farther away (and migrated in a greater distance) to contain significant ice. Because TRAPPIST-1 dims over time, if the planets formed later, they could have formed closer to the host star and still be ice-rich.
Too much of a good thing
Interestingly, while we think of water as vital for life, the TRAPPIST-1 planets may have too much water to support life. Hinkel explained:
We typically think having liquid water on a planet as a way to start life, since life, as we know it on Earth, is composed mostly of water and requires it to live. However, a planet that is a water world, or one that doesn’t have any surface above the water, does not have the important geochemical or elemental cycles that are absolutely necessary for life.
Ultimately, this means that while M-dwarf stars, like TRAPPIST-1, are the most common stars in the universe (and while it’s likely that there are planets orbiting these stars), the huge amount of water they are likely to have makes them unfavorable for life to exist, especially enough life to create a detectable signal in the atmosphere that can be observed. Hinkel said:
It’s a classic scenario of “too much of a good thing.”
So, while we’re unlikely to find evidence of life on the TRAPPIST-1 planets, through this research we may gain a better understanding of how icy planets form and what kinds of stars and planets we should be looking for in our continued search for life.
Bottom line: All 7 of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are Earth-sized and terrestrial, making them an ideal focus of study for planet formation and potential habitability.
The Magellanic Stream – 300,000 light-years long – arches around our Milky Way. It’s too faint and tenuous to study directly, so astronomers probed it by looking to distant quasars.
The Magellanic Stream is a faint and diffuse cloud of gas, long associated with the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way. These astronomers used distant quasars, here labeled A, B and C, to understand the source of the gas cloud.
Astronomers said on March 23, 2018, that they’ve now confirmed the source of a huge cloud of gas arching around our Milky Way galaxy. The gas cloud is known as the Magellanic Stream. It’s galaxy-sized, 300,000 light-years long, in contrast to our Milky Way’s 100,000 light-year diameter. The cloud appears to be shunted away from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of the many dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way. But which of the Clouds is the source of the stream of gas? Now, by scrutinizing the chemical makeup of the gas, astronomers say they’re confident one branch of the cloud, sometimes called the Leading Arm, is coming from the Small Magellanic Cloud.
The gravity of the Large Magellanic Cloud has apparently tugged the gas stream from its smaller companion. The new study is published in the peer-reviewedAstrophysical Journal.
The gas in the Magellanic Stream is difficult to study directly because it’s so faint and tenuous. Astronomers seeking the source of the gas don’t look at the gas directly.
Instead, they aim toward distant quasars located behind the Magellanic Stream. As the quasars’ light pierces the gas, trace amounts of various elements in the gas absorb specific wavelengths of the quasar-light. The team used spectroscopic analysis of the quasars’ light to reveal chemical abundances in the gas cloud. The measurements came from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope as well as spectrographs on the Green Bank Telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia.
Astronomers first sighted the Magellanic Stream in 1965. They first linked it to the Magellanic Clouds in 1974. This arching stream of gas, now known to connect the Magellanic Clouds to the Milky Way, is thought to be younger than our galaxy, only 1 or 2 billion years old.
The astronomers on the new study credit Blair Savage, an emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for laying the groundwork that led to the current understanding of the Magellanic Stream. Savage worked for decades to understand the gas complexes around the Milky Way, including the Magellanic Stream. Six of the astronomers on the current paper – now at various institutions including the Space Telescope Science Institute and University of Wisconsin-Madison – were originally recruited by Savage to tackle the problem during their training at UW-Madison.
The authors of the new study said knowledge about the Magellanic Stream will help astronomers refine their models of how the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds orbit our Milky Way. Elena D’Onghia of University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the new study’s authors, commented in a statement:
We still don’t know how the Milky Way has formed. We have this huge amount of gas sitting around the Milky Way, and we still don’t know its origin. Knowing where it comes from helps us understand how galaxies form, including our Milky Way.
From the Southern Hemisphere, the Magellanic Clouds appear in the sky as fuzzy offshoots of the starlit trail of the Milky Way. The gas cloud cannot be perceived with the unaided eye, despite the fact that it contains the mass of several hundred million suns.
Astronomers say this gas that might someday rain down on our galaxy and spark new star formation.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (at bottom) are seen in this 8-minute time exposure, above the Southern African Large Telescope.
Bottom line: Astronomers have been working for decades to gain insights into the vast gas cloud, called the Magellanic Stream, that arches around our Milky Way galaxy. They now say the Small Magellanic Cloud is the source of the Leading Arm of the Stream.
Both Aerospace Corporation and ESA have updated their predictions for the fall of Tiangong-1. View China’s 1st space station online, before it falls, March 28 starting at 12 UTC.
Tiangong-1 potential reentry area. Map showing the area between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south latitude (in green), over which Tiangong-1 could reenter.
Have you been hearing specific reentry locations for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, aka Heavenly Palace 1? I heard Michigan at one point, then Wisconsin. Don’t believe these specific predictions. Experts are still saying reentry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (see map below). At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
It is possible to narrow down the time of reentry, however. The most recent calculation by Aerospace Corporation (March 22, 2018) is now calling for it to happen around April 1, 2018 plus or minus three days. The European Space Agency (ESA), in its March 23 update, is giving the dates as March 30 to April 3, and still calls these dates highly variable. And, of course, they are subject to change.
You can get a last glimpse of Tiangong-1 – during one of its very last passages across our skies – via the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatories. Currently, this live coverage is scheduled for March 28, 2018, starting at 12 UTC (7 a.m. CDT on March 28; translate to your time zone). Virtual Telescope’s page says the time of the event is also subject to change, if the Tiangong-1 situation changes quickly. Click here to view online and for updates.
Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011, and, originally, a controlled reentry was planned. Firing the craft’s engines would have enabled controllers to allow the craft to burn up (mostly) over a large, unpopulated region of the South Pacific ocean. Any surviving pieces would have fallen into the ocean. But, in March 2016, the Tiangong-1 space station ceased functioning. Ground teams lost control of the craft, and it can no longer be commanded to fire its engines. It is, therefore, expected to make an uncontrolled reentry … soon.
The spacecraft’s main body is approximately 34 feet (10.4 meters) long.
ESA has said that Tiangong-1 will “substantially burn up” in Earth’s atmosphere. Will pieces crash to Earth? Possibly. Will they crash in populated areas? It’s not possible to say, but the chances are small that any human being will be harmed, according to a statement from Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace said:
There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over.
Aerospace also warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board.
As of today’s date (March 24, 2018), the spacecraft is at about 134 miles (215 km) altitude. That’s down from 155 miles (258 km) the last time I checked, on March 7. Its orbit is clearly decaying as you can see if you follow the spacecraft’s descent here. The end will come more or less suddenly, due in part to changing conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is why it’s so inherently unpredictable.
Tiangong-1 is not designed to withstand reentry, as some spacecraft are. But it will mostly burn up when it falls, due to the extreme heat and friction generated by its high-speed passage through Earth’s atmosphere.
Tiangong 1 predicted reentry, as of March 6, 2018, via ESA.
Tiangong-1’s major goal was to test and master technologies related to orbital rendezvous and docking. One uncrewed and two crewed missions – executed by the Shenzhou (Divine Craft) spacecraft – took place during its operational lifetime. ESA explained:
Following launch in 2011, the Tiangong-1 orbit began steadily decaying due to the faint, yet not-zero, atmospheric drag present even at 300 or 400 km altitude [~200 to 250 miles altitude]. This affects all satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, for example.
Bottom line: China’s first space station will soon undergo an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. As of March 22, Aerospace Corporation was predicting April 1 ± 3 days. As of March 23, ESA was predicting March 30 to April 3. At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
Astronomers found indicator of extraterrestrial life
Astronomers found indicator of extraterrestrial life
First-time discovery of chemical compound Freon-40 in space
Using data captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the ROSINA instrument on ESA’s Rosetta mission, an international team of astronomers has found faint traces of the chemical compound Freon-40 (CH3Cl), an organohalogen, around both an infant star and a comet in our solar system.
This is the first detection ever of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space.
This result has now been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Freon-40 is formed by organic processes on Earth, so it has been considered as a marker of extraterrestrial life.
But since this is the first ever detection of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space, it may not be as good marker of life as had been hoped. This discovery of Freon-40 in places that must predate the origin of life can thus be seen as a disappointment.
However, organohalogens may be significant components of the material from which planets form. This result underscores the challenge of finding molecules that could indicate the presence of life beyond Earth.
Exoplanet research has gone beyond the point of finding planets – more than 3,000 exoplanets are now known – to looking for chemical markers that might indicate the potential presence of life. A vital step is determining which molecules could indicate life, but establishing reliable markers remains a tricky process.
Freon-40 is also known as methyl chloride and chloromethane, and was detected around both the infant star system IRAS 16293-2422, about 400 light-years away, and the famous comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G).
Organohalogens consist of halogens such as chlorine and fluorine, bonded with carbon and sometimes other elements. On Earth, methyl chloride is created by biological processes – in organisms ranging from humans to fungi – as well as by industrial processes such as the production of dyes and medical drugs.
‘Finding Freon-40 near these young, Sun-like stars was surprising’, said Edith Fayolle, a researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the new paper.
‘We did not predict its formation and were surprised to find it in such significant concentrations. It has now become clear that these molecules form readily in stellar nurseries, providing insights into the chemical evolution of planetary systems.’
The discovery of organohalogens in the interstellar medium also tells the researchers something about the starting conditions for organic chemistry on planets. Such chemistry is an important step toward the origins of life.
Organohalogens, the findings suggest, are likely to be a constituent of the so-called ‘primordial soup’ – both on the young Earth and on nascent rocky exoplanets.
Thus, rather than indicating the presence of existing life, organohalogens may be an important element in the little-understood chemistry involved in the origin of life.
Co-author Jes Joergensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen adds: ‘This result shows the power of ALMA to detect molecules of astrobiological interest toward young stars on scales where planets may be forming.
Using ALMA, we have previously found precursors to sugars and amino acids around different stars. The additional discovery of Freon-40 around Comet 67P/C-G strengthens the links between the pre-biological chemistry of distant protostars and our own Solar System.’
Holger Mueller, a spectroscopist at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Physics I and a co-author of the study, says: ‘The identification of molecules in space usually relies on laboratory studies of these molecules.’ He maintains the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy, CDMS, an important repository of data to identify interstellar molecules. He helped to identify the compound’s spectral fingerprints, and thus to verify their occurrences in outer space.
News source:University of Cologne. The content is edited for length and style purposes. Figure legend:This Knowridge.com image is credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team (top image); European Space Agency/Rosetta/Navcam/Science Photo Library (bottom image).
Unknown satellites in the solar system. Are they extraterrestrial? Videos.
Unknown satellites in the solar system. Are they extraterrestrial? Videos.
In our solar system there are many objects such as asteroids, comets or planets that astronomers have documented and described in detail. Of course, there are also satellites and satellites made by humans or larger space debris, such as burned rocket launchers.
In space, however, there are objects that astronomers can not identify, and some even consider them non-Earth satellites. What are they actually?
1. We do not know the celestial body Astronomers in space are constantly searching for unknown asteroids that could also endanger our planet Earth. That is why, in 1999, in the American state of New Mexico, the Linear Satellite project was created, where scientists searched by means of an automatic telescope to search for unknown or unidentified asteroids.
Over the course of this project, they discovered an unknown body with a diameter of 30 to 50 meters, which runs around the Sun on a nearly circular path with a circulation period of 1.09 years. This object, which was named 1999 CG9, is about 158 million kilometers from the Sun, about 9 million kilometers away from our planet Earth. The greatest mystery for astronomers is its atypical orbit, which is almost circular. All other celestial bodies move along the elliptical path.
Brain Marsden of the Harward Smithsonian Center is convinced that due to the size of the object, it can not be the burning degree of a carrier rocket. Therefore, he believes that this object could come from a moon that has a small gravitational force when it was thrown into space in the event of a larger meteorite.
However, a detailed analysis of the composition of the 1999 CG9 satellite would be required to confirm this assumption. Some scientists, however, are skeptical about this, because it would be a really good piece of the Moon that was thrown into the universe, and its circular path, which scientists have not explained yet.
2. Unknown Celestial Body
Even in November 1991, however, astronomers from the Kitt Peak Observatory in the US discovered a body that behaved similarly to the 1999 CG9 object. The Sky & Telescope magazine, which has been named the 1991 VG even referred to as a “true UFO,” because its orbit almost exactly copies the orbit of our blue planet, and it also features light effects.
The biggest mystery for astronomers is the fact that the 1991 VG does not reflect the radar waves at all, which is quite a matter of fact for other cosmic bodies. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of scientists consider the possibility that the natural body would behave as absolutely excluded.
Some scientists think it could be the remains of an earlier probe or rocket, but later it was found that such a orbit does not correspond to the calculated orbit of missiles and satellites so far. At the beginning of December 1991, this body traveled only 450,000 kilometers from the Earth
There is the possibility that this mysterious object is in fact some non-Earth probe or satellite, as was said by Australian astronomer Duncan Steel of the University of Adelaide. Later, however, he took his words back and said he was not convinced that this body was of extraterrestrial origin.
In the summer of 2017, the 1991 VG spacecraft can be seen from the southern hemisphere, and astronomers believe they can identify the satellite that is copying the Earth’s orbit. It will be just one of the burnt levels of the carrier rocket than most scientists think, or it may be a non-Earth probe, which does not exclude British astronomer Duncan Forgan. Let’s surprise you.
NOSTRADAMUS IS QUOTED AS SAYING MANKIND WOULD DISCOVER A MACHINE IN SPACE THAT WAS SENT TO US BY THE WATCHERS! IN 2018-2019!
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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