Life may be hiding in Venus’ clouds, one team of researchers believes

BY ALEXANDRU MICU 

An international team of researchers thinks Venus might hide life — floating around merrily in its atmosphere. To find out, they plan to send a half blimp, half plane robot to the scorching planet.

Venus transiting in front of the Sun.

Image credits NASA / JPL.

Here on good ole’ Earth, microorganisms — mostly in the shape of bacteria — can and often do get swept up into the atmosphere. They don’t even mind it that much; using specially-equipped ballons, researchers have detected these critters alive and well at altitudes as high as 41 kilometers (25 miles) above sea level. We also know of several different strains that can survive in ridiculously harsh environments, from the hot springs of Yellowstone and deep ocean hydrothermal vents to acid lakes or radioactive sludge.

These tidbits might seem unrelated at first, but a research team led by planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center believes that when you put the two together, they suggest life might exist on Earth’s closest neighbor — scorching Venus.

Lovely goddess, dreadful planet

So first thing first — does life have a realistic chance of sprouting up on Venus, given the planet’s notoriously hostile conditions? According to the team, yes. They note that some climate models of the planet’s history suggest that Venus had what we’d consider a habitable climate, with liquid water and stable surface temperatures, for about 2 billion years. That would be “plenty of time” for life to evolve on its own on Venus, according to Limaye — adding that it’s “much longer than is believed to have occurred on Mars”.

The second question is whether any indigenous life form could have survived the wanton climate change that turned Venus into the hellscape it currently is. According to paper co-author Rakesh Mogul, a professor of biological chemistry at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, life on Earth has already shown that biological systems can thrive in “very acidic conditions, can feed on carbon dioxide, and produce sulfuric acid”. That is actually a very important piece of the puzzle since Venus’ atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, water droplets, and sulfuric acid.

Perhaps the most convincing argument in favor of life on Venus is the fact that a series of space probes launched to the planet between 1962 and 1978 showed that temperature and pressure levels in the lower and middle layers of its atmosphere (40 to 60 kilometers / 25 to 27 miles) could harbor microbial life as we know it. The surface, however, basking in a somewhat excessive average temperature of 450 degrees Celsius (860 degrees Fahrenheit), looks decidedly uninhabitable.

The idea to check for life in Venus’ atmosphere caught root by chance at a teachers’ workshop; it started with co-author Grzegorz Słowik from the University of Zielona Góra, Poland, who mentioned to Limaye that there are bacteria on Earth whose light-absorbing properties match those of unidentified particles that form dark patches in the iconic clouds of Venus.

“Venus shows some episodic dark, sulfuric rich patches, with contrasts up to 30-40 percent in the ultraviolet, and muted in longer wavelengths. These patches persist for days, changing their shape and contrasts continuously and appear to be scale dependent,” says Limaye.

Spectroscopic observations showed that the dark patches are composed of concentrated sulfuric acid and other unknown light-absorbing particles. The dimensions of the particles in these patches match some bacteria on Earth; however, none of the instruments we’ve so far sent to Venus could distinguish between organic and inorganic compounds, so beyond these observations, the particles remained a mystery.

Enter the VAMP

The VAMP.

Image credits Northrop Grumman Corp.

It would be quite easy to test for microorganisms in Venus’ atmosphere if we could get another robot to the planet. And, as luck would have it, one such craft is already in the works: Northrop Grumman’s Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform, VAMP for short. This part plane, part blimp vessel was designed to roam the Venusian atmosphere and gather data that would help scientists understand what went wrong in Venus’ past to send it down such a different path from Earth — Venus is often called our planet’s twin, due to striking similarities in mass, gravity, chemistry, and general evolution (with the key difference that Venus is a boiling acid bubble).

The VAMP is already designed to stay aloft in Venus’ cloud layer for up to a year at a time to gather data. It will carry instruments used for this task — Limaye says a Raman Lidar, meteorological and chemical sensors, and spectrometers are likely — but it could be easily adapted to also carry a microscope to let it test for living microorganisms.

“To really know, we need to go there and sample the clouds,” says Mogul. “Venus could be an exciting new chapter in astrobiology exploration.”

The team is also harboring hopes that NASA might secure some extra shuttle space in Russia’s upcoming Roscosmos Venera-D mission, now slated for the late 2020s, for the task. Current plans for Venera-D include an orbiter, a lander, and a NASA-contributed surface station and maneuverable aerial platform. We’ll have to wait and see if the current political climate and Russia’s unenviable position in the global diplomatic pecking order will get in the way of exciting science. It might.

Whether the team manages to pack and ship their microscope aboard the Venera-D or VAMP remains to be seen. No matter how it goes, however, the team has a chance of being the first to discover alien life — in one of the places we’d have considered most inhospitable.

Let’s hope that the goddess of love will surprise us where the god of war has shown himself stubbornly — if character-fittingly — devoid of life.

The paper “Venus’ Spectral Signatures and the Potential for Life in the Clouds” has been published in the journal Astrobiology.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 20:30 geschreven door peter  

UFO Beam appears in strange orange sky over Stockholm, Sweden

Soheila Nickros was looking outside 3 am yesterday, Mach 31, 2018, when she saw a very strange sky that appears to be orange/reddish but even more strange was an object with a beam of light that seemly stands motionless in the sky.

Soheila already surprised by the strange colored sky wonders whether the object is a UFO or not.

Besides the strange colored sky that is currently being observed around the world, especially in the US, is it possible that the UFO Beam is a reflection of a street light or a camera reflection?

But comparing the UFO Beam with the outlines of the street light it is not the same, maybe a lens flare but since the camera moves a slightly, the lens flare must follow the motion of the camera, in this case the UFO beam still stays at the same spot.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 20:14 geschreven door peter  

Legion Media

Top 10 places in Russia to see a UFO

BORIS EGOROV

Did you know the country has its own Area 51? Even Mulder and Scully would have a hard time solving some of these mysteries.

1. Molyobka Triangle

Const st

The Molyobka anomaly zone - aka Molybka Triangle - in Russia’s Perm Region has a long extraterrestrial history. As far back as the early 19th century local peasants saw flying objects in the sky here. During the Soviet period the Molybka Triangle became one of the first areas in the country where UFOs were seen. Eyewitnesses spoke of mysterious flying objects of different sizes and forms, red and blue glowing balls, and huge black humanoid figures. Some even said that they had telepathic contact with these visitors.

2. Don Stonehenge

Veter TV

Ancient stones in the steppe, 120 km from Rostov-on-Don, are so reminiscent of the famous British landmark that they were named Don Stonehenge. Locals are sure the formation is some kind of spaceport for extraterrestrial ships. People claim UFOs regularly appear here in the night - but never during the day.

3. Alat village

Vzglyad

Apparently the inhabitants of Alat village in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan are used to UFOs. They say a yellow spot always appears in the sky after sunset. Colorful rays come out of it, hang around for a while, and then disappear in different directions. Unfortunately, there are no photos of this mystery. Cameras can’t catch it, they say.     

4. Kyshtym

Legion Media

In 1996, the small Ural’s city of Kyshtym made the headlines when the body of a small unknown creature was found. Alyoshenka - or the Kyshtym Dwarf - as it was called couldn’t be attributed to a known species. Unfortunately, local police transferred the mysterious body to some unknown ufologists, and nobody has seen it since.

5. Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal

Legion Media

The breathtaking beauty of Lake Baikal hasn’t escaped extraterrestrial guests - so they say. In 1971, near Olkhon Island, a huge pyramid was seen silently moving over the water’s surface. The same pyramid was seen again in 1984, 1990, and 1998.  

6. Dalnegorsk, Height 611

Legion Media

On January 29, 1986 dozens of inhabitants of the Far Eastern town of Dalnegorsk breathlessly watched a UFO in the form of a red-orange ball crash into the local limestone hill known as Height 611, before burning up. People managed to find some tiny remains of the material the object was made of. According to scientists who studied the evidence, the technique used to alloy the metals is not known to humanity.

7. Sasovo village

Legion Media

The appearance of a UFO in Sasovo village in the Ryazan Region on Cosmonautics Day (April 12, 1991) didn’t go unnoticed. A huge explosion shook houses and broke windows - people thought it was a nuclear blast. Yet the reasons behind the event are not known. Some said they saw big white balls cross the sky soon after. The blast happened again a year later, but it was much weaker.

8. Medveditsky Ridge

Legion Media

UFO hunters say aliens often land their spaceships on Medveditsky Ridge in the Volgograd Region. Areas of scorched earth can sometimes be found, while grass nearby remains totally untouched. Broken down lawn mower or aliens?

9. Sverdlovsk Triangle

Roundme

Located near Yekaterinburg, the Sverdlovsk Triangle is the place where most UFO sightings occurred in the USSR during the 1980s and 1990s. Ufologists say the area spanned the prefered flight paths of aliens. Nowadays, it seems the extraterrestrial highway isn’t so busy, but locals sometimes claim they see spaceships flying past from time to time.

10. Okunevo village

Legion Media

Residents of the Siberian village Okunevo say that spaceships land on the lake located near their settlement before diving into its depths. The water then apparently emits a green light. Some people believe the ancient Khanumam temple is located on the lake’s bottom.

Find out how Dubai citizens once mistook a Russian rocket for a UFO.

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

02-04-2018 om 18:37 geschreven door peter  

A UFO researcher spots two mysterious unidentified objects on the lunar surface

People around the world have been reporting sightings of UFOs and existence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, Moon and in the universe. In rather mysterious photographs scanned and analyzed by George Graham, a Scottish UFOlogist pointed out few photos calling them aliens on the moon. From among the plethora of videos posted on his YouTube channel StreetCap1, there are two distinct videos which show anomalies. According to George, the images were taken by Chinese lunar probe Chang’e 3 where a humanoid structure and a hidden alien spaceship can be seen.

In the first video, the UFOlogist explains a bizarre image that shows a humanoid creature. Although this can be a case of pareidolia where human brain creates an image between unrelated patterns to create a recognizable image. He states that the humanoid creature, probably an alien is wearing a helmet and a visor which can be clearly recognized. Also, the body parts are in the right proportion with the distance between shoulders to the head similar to any humans which are quite shocking.

In another video, he shows a UFO being hidden by a rock. The photo was captured by Chang’e 3 which shows a flying saucer-like creation hidden behind a rock which can be clearly seen. George’s channel on YouTube has plenty of videos referencing to aliens on the lunar surface with more than 70,000 subscribers and more than 44 million hits on his channel.

In another instance, people living in the SW part of Bristol, United Kingdom got to see an unidentified object with the moon as the background which has sparked speculations among people who believe in UFOs and aliens. According to a witness present at the moment, the incident took place on March 30 in Bristol street when suddenly, a strange glow hue was seen across the moon which took a flight at high-speed along with few other smaller objects accompanying it.

On January 31, 2018, when the first Super Blood Moon took place, it was live broadcasted by various news channels and websites for the viewers across the globe. During the feed, a bright flashing dot can be seen flying from the left side of the moon from flying at a high-speed from top to the bottom of the screen. What’s more bizarre was a seemingly beaming flash accompanying the bright dot and it flashed at regular interval. This spark debates and discussions between alien buffs and Ufologists regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life which NASA is trying to hide. A similar object was seen during the last moon on November 14 when a David McCarty, a YouTuber spotted the object flying at a great speed across the moon.

UFOlogists have spotted bizarre objects of the moon such as two missiles in the military formation on the moon or when a video of a circular UFO passing over the Moon was discovered. Conspiracy theorists believe that moon is not our satellite but a base created by aliens to keep a watch on humans and spy on us etc. A study conducted by NASA and published in 1962 states that the density of moon is lower in the inner surface as opposed to its outer surface which is dense. According to a theory, since the inside of the moon is hollow, aliens use it as a base keeping an eye on the activities done by people on Earth.

{ https://tecake.in/}

02-04-2018 om 18:10 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers ontdekken verste ster ooit op 9 miljard lichtjaar afstand van de Aarde - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

Individuele sterren zijn vanaf een afstand van ongeveer 100 miljoen lichtjaar niet meer van elkaar te onderscheiden. Het licht is daarvoor niet fel genoeg. Dat het nu wel kan, komt door de hulp van sterrenstelsels die tussen de ster en de aarde staan. Zij werkten als een soort loep en ‘vergrootten’ de ster meer dan tweeduizend keer. Dat licht werd opgevangen door de Amerikaans-Europese ruimtetelescoop Hubble.

De ster heeft de wetenschappelijke naam MACS J1149 LS1 gekregen, maar de ontdekkers noemen hem liever Icarus. Het is een zogeheten blauwe superreus. Zulke sterren zijn veel groter, zwaarder en heter dan onze zon, en ze kunnen een miljoen keer zo fel schijnen. De ontdekking staat in het wetenschapsblad Nature Astronomy.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

02-04-2018 om 18:02 geschreven door peter  

The African Continent Is Splitting Into Two

According to experts, the African continent may have just started spitting apart.

A massive crack in Kenya, which caused the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse, is a dire warning of a worrying fact. Geologists claim that it is a manifestation of a phenomenon that is occurring slowly: Africa is splitting in two.

The massive rupture, stretching several kilometers found by experts in Kenya suggests that the African continent could soon split into two, changing Earth’s geology again.

Terrifying.

As noted by researchers, the massive crack which is still growing, caused parts of the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse and was accompanied by seismic activity.

This process began to become evident in the year 2005 when, after the eruption of the Dabbahu volcano, in Ethiopia, a colossal crack of sixty meters in length was opened in the area of the horn of Africa.

The Topography of the Rift Valley. James Wood and Alex Guth, Michigan Technological University.

Basemap: Space Shuttle radar topography image by NASA

And scientists even know who is responsible behind all of this: The Great Rift Valley, a large geological fracture whose total extension is 4830 kilometers in a north-south direction.

It began to form in southeastern Africa about 30 million years ago and continues to grow today, both in width and in length, the expansion that will eventually become an ocean basin.

BBC

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A crack that opened up in Kenya’s Rift Valley, damaging a section of the Narok-Nairobi highway, is still growing...

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In an article for the Conversation, Lucia Perez Diaz, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Fault Dynamics Research Group, London‘s Royal Holloway, explains how this could happen.

Our planet’s lithosphere, formed by the Earth’s crust and upper parts of the mantle, is in fact composed of a number of tectonic plates. The tectonic plates aren’t static, and move relative to each other at different speeds, causing them to ‘glide’ over a viscous asthenosphere.

A number of different forces move the plates around but also causes them to break apart, forming a ‘rift’ and leading to the creation of new plate boundaries.

The constant tremors of earth and emersions of lava contribute to this growth and, to continue at this rate, the bottom of the valley will be flooded by the marine waters within 10 million years.

With this, Africa will have broken into two different continents that will proceed to separate further to form a new ocean.

The  continent will become smaller and on the other hand, there will be a large island in the Indian Ocean made up of parts of Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, including the Horn of Africa, and could look something like this:

Source: Large crack in East African Rift is evidence of continent splitting in two

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 17:44 geschreven door peter  

Tabby’s Star Mystery: ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Dims Again

Just when we thought the mystery behind Tabby’s star was finally solved, the ‘alien megastructure star’ has given experts a run for their money.

A team of astrophysicists studying the star called KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby’s star, has reported that the star recently dimmed again, and did so quite dramatically. As noted by experts, the star’s brightness dropped abruptly, recording the biggest change in KIC 8462852 since 2013.

Just a few days later, the light returned to normal.

The light curve recorded for Tabby’s Star.

Credit: Where’s the Flux?

This star, better known as “the Tabby star” in honor of its discoverer Tabetha Boyajian, faded at least 5% last month, reported this week Boyajian, an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University (USA), who has been studying the star KIC 8462852 for years now.

As noted by Universe Today, on March 19^th, Tabetha and her team started reporting how the brightness of Tabby’s star started fading again.

Using data obtained by the Las Cumbras Observatory‘s Teide, McDonald and Haleakala Observatories (in Spain, Texas, and Hawaii, respectively), Tabetha and her colleagues began posting regular updates on its light curve. As they wrote on their blog at the time:

“On Friday (2018 March 16) we noted the last data taken were significantly down compared to normal. Due to poor weather conditions at all 3 sites, we weren’t able to observe the star again until last night…  This is the deepest dip we have observed since the Kepler Mission in 2013!  WOW!!”

Six days later, astronomers provided an update saying how the star was returning rapidly to its normal brightness.

They wrote: “The profile of the new dip having a slow decline with a more rapid increase is again reminiscent of that of a backward-comet.”

Confirmations of the star returning rapidly to normality were obtained on March 23^rd, after observations by the Catalonia Institute for Space Studies‘ (IEEC) Montsec Astronomical Observatory.

Then, on March 26^th, an update indicated how the star’s flux had dropped by a total of 5%, a discovery later confirmed by John Hall – an astronomer with the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

As noted by experts, this constituted the greatest dip since the 22% reported in 2015.

Its mysterious dimming patterns are considered atypical since it is a star that slightly exceeds the size of the Sun and should have a more or less constant brightness.

In Kepler’s observations of 2011, it decreased by up to 22%.

Throughout 2017 there were also important changes in its attenuation.

Among the theories about this strange dimming pattern, one suggests the existence of an alien megastructure orbiting the star.

However, a recent investigation led by Tabetha points out that the luminosity changes in KIC 8462852, which is more than 1,000 light years from Earth, would be due to dust particles blocking some wavelengths of light, and not as a result of blocking a giant object.

However, not everyone is convinced by the ‘dust’ explanations, and UFO hunters will certainly see the new dimming pattern as a hope that a mighty alien structure may still exist orbiting Tabby’s star.

Source: Where’s The Flux

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 17:29 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Warn—Our Universe Could Be Destroyed Abruptly

According to a new study, the universe we reside in could be abruptly destroyed in a cataclysmic collision with a bubble of ‘negative energy’ say, Harvard scientists, warning that this process may have even already begun without us even noticing.

Scientists explain how a fundamental particle that gives mass to all mater held within the universe could one day cause its destruction.

Astrophysicists warn that our universe may be abruptly destroyed, as it started in a bubble of negative energy, thought to have been created by the Higgins Boson, aka the God Particle. The famous Higgs boson particle, discovered in 2012 after more than fifty years of scientific persecution, has the power to end the existence of the Universe in which we live.

Not only that, but the process could have already started without us even noticing it.

In fact, there is a possibility that this particle has collapsed on itself in a far corner of the cosmos, producing an expanding vacuum energy bubble that would end up swallowing us all.

This authentic cosmic apocalypse is described in a recently published article in Physical Review.

The end of space and time is not a concept alien to Physics.

The observable universe.

The Standard Model, in effect, the theory that describes all known forces and particles, predicts that, just as the Universe had a beginning, it will also have an ending.

As the dark energy continues to accelerate the expansion of the Universe, the matter in it will become increasingly dispersed and move further and further away, until the last star is extinguished and the entire cosmos is nothing more than an unfathomable, cold and black abyss bigger and scarier than ever, where nothing shines anymore.

The most accurate calculated estimate for the cosmic doomsday, based on the logical development of the four fundamental interactions of Nature, tells us that the end of the Universe will occur in around 10×139 years.

The new model of the “killer Higgs” developed by a team of researchers at Harvard University is much more unpredictable and dramatic.

In it, the Universe would end with a bang, and it would do so in a much shorter period of time.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI), via http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0805c/.

“We wanted to correct all previous approaches and obtain a date as accurate as possible,” says Anders Andreassen, Harvard University and lead author of the study.

To achieve this, he and his colleagues used everything we know about the masses and interactions between particles, including the mass of the Higgs boson, the carrier of the force that confers its mass to all other particles, and which turned out to be 125 gigaelectronvolts.

And it is here, say researchers, in the mass of the Higgs boson, where the problem resides in.

The reason is that the mass recorded for the boson might not be the lowest possible for that particle, but simply a temporary value, which remains stable at present but could change one day.

The most careful calculations, in effect, suggest that our Universe could actually be a “false vacuum”, very different from the “true vacuum” that we would have in the lowest possible energy configuration.

To understand this concept, you can think of the Higgs as a ball that is trapped in the bottom of a shallow valley that represents its mass.

But on the other side of the hill, there is another much deeper valley that corresponds to a mass with less potential.

As the Higgs can not roll up the hill, it is “stuck” in its current configuration.

The image covers about 1/20th of the sky, a slice of the Universe 6 billion light-years wide, 4.5 billion light-years high, and 500 million light-years thick. Color indicates the distance from Earth, ranging from yellow on the near side of the slice to purple on the far side. 

Image credit: Daniel Eisenstein and the SDSS-III collaboration.

However, all subatomic particles, the Higgs boson among them, have the possibility of behaving like waves, and therefore do not have well-defined positions.

And there is always the possibility that the Higgs creates a “tunnel” through the hill and reaches the lower valley, which would result in a mass lower than what scientists have observed.

It would be precisely here where things would start to get really ugly, say experts.

In fact, due to the fact that the Higgs field provides mass to all other particles, a change in their properties would wreak havoc on the “building blocks” of our universe.

Chemistry, and therefore life, depends on these values, so that our current way of being would be completely nullified by this reorganization.

Since the universe we can observe from Earth is only a small portion of the total, the likelihood of extremely improbable things happening in places we cannot see increases considerably. And in such a large and hidden Universe, there exists the possibility of this “Higgs collapse” having happened in a place beyond our visibility, producing a bubble of negative energy that expands rapidly and in whose interior is a universe of crazed properties, according to our point of view.

This bubble can travel across the universe.

And one day, that bubble could reach us and also swallow our region of the cosmos.

According to Einstein’s theory of Relativity, information can not move faster than light, so it would be impossible for us to realize its arrival.

In the words of Andreassen “we would not even see it coming”.

As the physicist writes in his article, “it is very worrying to imagine this bubble, with its wall of negative energy, throwing itself at us at the speed of light”. For the researcher, instead of a slow stretch towards nothingness, our Universe could be on its way to an abrupt collision with one of these destructive bubbles.

The full findings were published in the journal Physical Review D.

Reference: New Scientist

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 16:45 geschreven door peter  

Chinese Space Station RE-ENTRY confirmed - "Heavenly Palace" makes big splash!

China Space Station disintegrates when entering the Pacific Ocean as we can see in these incredible images that look like fireworks.

See Article https://world.onlinegratis.tv/astrono...

TIANGONG-1 FIRST REENTRY VIDEO | china chinese Space Station falling April 1st || LIVE 2018 || Tiang

It's almost crash time for China's falling space station Tiangong-1. As school bus-sized space station began what should be its last day in orbit today (April 1), experts weighed in on the possibilities of space debris – and whether this situation should have happened in the first place

China says space station burns up over South Pacific

Farewell, Tiangong-1: Chinese Space Station Meets Fiery Doom Over South PacifiC

An artist's concept of China's Tiangong-1 space station prototype burning up in Earth's atmosphere during its fiery fall back to Earth overnight on April 1-2, 2018.Tiangong-1 is no more.China's prototype space station, whose name translates as "Heavenly Palace 1," met a fiery end in Earth's atmosphere today (April 1), breaking apart and burning up in the skies over the southern Pacific Ocean at about 8:16 p.m.EDT (0016 April 2 GMT), according to the U.S.Strategic Command's Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC)."The JFSCC used the Space Surveillance Network sensors and their orbital analysis system to confirm Tiangong-1's re-entry," U.S.Air Force officials wrote in a statement.[Tiangong-1: China's Falling Space Station in Pictures] Some pieces of the school-bus-size Tiangong-1 almost certainly survived the fall, but the odds that they caused any damage or injury are extremely small: You had a less than 1-in-1-trillion chance of getting hit by a flaming chunk of the heavenly palace, according to experts with the Aerospace Corporation.By the way, if you do manage to find such a chunk of Tiangong-1, don't pick it up or breathe in any fumes emanating from it.The space junk may be contaminated with hydrazine, a toxic rocket fuel, experts have said.Tiangong-1 was about 34 feet long by 11 feet wide (10.4by 3.4meters), and it weighed more than 9 tons (8 metric tons).

The space lab consisted of two main parts: an "experimental module" that housed visiting astronauts and a "resource module" that accommodated Tiangong-1's solar-energy and propulsion systems.The craft launched without anyone aboard on Sept.29, 2011, to an orbit about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above Earth.That's slightly lower than the orbit of the much larger International Space Station, whose average altitude is 250 miles (400 km).Tiangong-1's main mission was to help China master the technologies required to assemble and operate a bona-fide space station in Earth orbit, a goal the nation aims to achieve by the early 2020s, the country has said.On Nov.2, 2011, the robotic Shenzhou-8 spacecraft visited Tiangong-1, executing China's first-ever orbital docking.Another big milestone came in June 2012, when a crew of three spaceflyers linked their Shenzhou-9 vehicle to the heavenly palace and came aboard for a spell.Three more "taikonauts," or Chinese astronauts, visited in June 2013, traveling on the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft.Each of these crewed missions lasted about two weeks.Tiangong-1's design lifetime was just two years, and the space lab's work was mostly done after Shenzhou-10 departed.The empty space lab continued to do some Earth-observation work, however, and researchers and engineers kept in touch with it until March 2016, when data transmission between Tiangong-1 and its handlers stopped, for reasons that China never explicitly specified.At that point, an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry was apparently inevitable.This is the view of outside researchers.But Chinese space official

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02-04-2018 om 14:43 geschreven door peter  

NASA-Funded Study Says There Could Be Alien Life On Venus

As noted by a recent report, extraterrestrial could inhabit our solar system, and they could be living within the acid clouds of Venus, notes a NASA-funded study, recently published in the Journal Astrobiology.

The study backed by NASA indicates that Aliens (although not fully developed aliens, but bacteria) could call the hazardous clouds on Venus their home.

Scientists believe the sulfur dioxide-rich upper atmosphere of Venus may be where tiny Venusian aliens are hiding.

The surface of Venus.

Image Credit: NASA

Exerpts came to this conlcusion after using space probes to detect dark areas around the rust-colored body, which resemble the light-absorbing properties of bacteria here on Earth.

As noted by experts, these mysterious dark spots on Venus could be blooms of alien bacterial, similar to those found on Earth in lakes and ponds.

Because the clouds of Venus are composed of sulfuric acid, they reflect around 75 percent of the sunlight that hits them, causing them to appear nearly entirely opaque.

Venus has been dubbed as Earth’s Evil twin by a number of astrophysics and astronomers because of the hazardous, and inhospitable conditions reigning on its surface, where it rains Acid, and the temperature is around 462 degrees Celsius.

PLANET-C.

The research, suggesting tiny Venusian alien may inhabit the clouds of Venus, was recently published in the Journal Astrobiology, and it infers how alien microbes may survive by being blown around by extreme winds in the cooler cloud tops of Venus.

“On Earth, we know that life can thrive in very acidic conditions, can feed on carbon dioxide, and produce sulfuric acid,” says Rakesh Mogul, a professor of biological chemistry at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a co-author on the new paper.

The researcher explains that the cloudy, highly reflective and acidic atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and water droplets containing sulfuric acid.

However, this isn’t the first time someone has suggested there may be life on Venus.

In fact, the habitability of Venus’ clouds was first raised in 1967 by noted biophysicist Harold Morowitz and famed astronomer Carl Sagan. Following this theory, the idea that Venus’ clouds may bear alien life was expanded by planetary scientists David Grinspoon, Mark Bullock and their colleagues.

“Venus shows some episodic dark, sulfuric rich patches, with contrasts up to 30–40 percent in the ultraviolet and muted in longer wavelengths. These patches persist for days, changing their shape and contrasts continuously and appear to be scale dependent,” says Limaye.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock

Source: University Of Wisconsin-Madison

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 14:22 geschreven door peter  

Metallic UFO Near Space Station On Live Camera! April 2, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.

 

Date of sighting: April 2, 2018

Location of sighting: Space Station, ISS

NASA Video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/113923005

 

I was recording the glitch, which is a 10-30 second cycle that varies in time, but was made by NASA to deliberately cause frustration to the public so the viewers would give up watching the space station. However, as I was recording, I was surprised to see a UFO come from behind the station. I forgot to turn on my mic, so I had to remake the video again. This looks like a round disk. The disk flips at one point in the video, which was cool to see. This does look like an alien craft to me. 

Scott C. Waring

 

Also, please click here to check out my video I made today about HTMLcoin.  If you bought the coin two weeks ago at 5sat, then you  made a 20% profit this week. SCW

 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-04-2018 om 13:59 geschreven door peter  

Multiple UFOs seen from the ISS live stream March 31st 2018

The stills in this video were taken from a brief 30 minute recording from the ISS live stream. The objects show for a split second, appearing as a small flash of light but when zoomed in more details become visible.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

02-04-2018 om 00:16 geschreven door peter  

Countdown: Burning space station to hit Earth in ‘next 12 hours’

A Chinese space station that is spiraling out of control is predicted to hit Earth in only half a day. It is also understood that Scientists tracking the space station are unsure of the landing spot once it hits Earth. This is in contradiction to previous analysis that claimed to understand of the landing spot of the out of control space station.

Burning Space Station Predicted to Hit Earth in Twelve Hours

The space station is known as Tiangong-1 and was put into orbit in 2011. Tiangong-1 was the first space station to be put into space by the Chinese. Tiangong-1 was originally put into space as a guide mission in preparation for Tiangong-2, which was to be a laboratory space for the Chinese. Problems with Tiangong-1 had delayed those plans since 2016 when Tiangong-1 started losing altitude due to malfunctions within the space station in 2016.

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Tony Rice

✔@rtphokie

The deorbit of #Tiangong1 is expected to look something like this. First, the solar panels will rip off, then the body will break apart. Most will burn up in the atmosphere but some debris could make it to the ground. We'll know better about when and where tomorrow.

1:56 AM - Apr 1, 2018

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• 163 people are talking about this

In November, European scientists believed that Spain, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria, and Greece were among countries that represented possible crash sites for Tiangong-1. This is assuming the space station does land indeed, as scientists have stated that it could burn up in the atmosphere before crashing into the Earth. However, updates on April first have confirmed less certainty concerning the site of the crash. The area of the crash is now predicted to encompass a much larger zone. Included in possible crash sites for Tiangong-1 are now the continents of Africa, Australia, South America, and the whole Indian subcontinent.

Space engineering entities for the Chinese seem certain that Tangong-1 will not cause severe damage. It is expected that the space station will disintegrate at an altitude of 80km. Aerospace Corporation has set up a tracking center for Tiangong-1. This tracking center currently reveals that Tiangong-1 has a current orbit above the South Atlantic Ocean. Authorities for the United States Air Force are making claims that a portion of Tiangong-1 will re-enter the Earth within the next twelve hours.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

02-04-2018 om 00:10 geschreven door peter  

CLOUDS OF VENUS COULD HOST EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE FORMS

BY MELISSA MATTHEWS 

In the quest to answer whether we’re alone, scientists have found that the clouds of venus may help solve the mystery of whether life outside of Earth exists.

Published March 30 in the journal Astrobiology, a new paper says the clouds of Venus may host extraterrestrial microbial life. As the authors state in the paper, whether Venus’ clouds could support life has been discussed for decades, spurred by research indicating that its chemical and physical properties, moderate temperatures and pressure could make it possible for life to exist.

The team was intrigued by dark patches found on the planet's clouds that are made of sulfuric acid and light-absorbing particles similar to those found on Earth. In fact, they theorized the patches could be similar to algae blooms found in our lakes, noting that particles in the patches have similar dimensions to bacteria here on Earth.

The team believes this could make Venus vital in the search for other life forms, however, the planets’ clouds would need to be sampled and tested first.

{ http://www.newsweek.com/ }

01-04-2018 om 23:52 geschreven door peter  

Het Afrikaanse continent splitst zich stilaan in tweeën - HLN.be

Bron: AD.nl

Vorige week stortte in het zuidwesten van Kenia een deel van de drukke Mai Mahiu Road deels in nadat er een vulkanische breuklijn ontstond. Door de scheur zijn delen van de weg verzakt en ontstond een groot gat dat het water opslokte. Dat leidde vervolgens tot nog meer barsten. Op sommige plaatsen is de breuk inmiddels meer dan 50 meter diep en 20 meter breed.

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The Star, Kenya

✔@TheStarKenya

Large crack in East African Rift is evidence of continent splitting in two http://ow.ly/RXUR30jfM4N 

7:38 AM - Apr 1, 2018

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Wetenschapper Lucia Perez Diaz, verbonden aan de Royal Holloway universiteit van London, ziet hierin het bewijs dat het oostelijk deel van Afrika een nieuw continent zal vormen. Kenia, Tanzania, Somalië en een deel van Ethiopië zullen uiteindelijk worden afgescheiden, schrijft The Mirror naar aanleiding van haar publicatie in het blad Conversation.

In het artikel beschrijft ze hoe dit geologisch proces zich voltrekt diep in de aarde. Afrika bestaat nu nog uit één tektonische plaat: de zogeheten Afrikaanse plaat. Alleen, die wordt in het oosten geleidelijk uit elkaar gespleten, ter hoogte van Somalië.

BBC

✔@BBC

It's still growing

1:28 PM - Mar 31, 2018

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Riftvorming 

Daardoor zullen er op termijn twee platen ontstaan: de Somalische plaat (de oostelijke plaat) én de Nubische plaat (de westelijke plaat). Het uit elkaar schuiven van (nieuwe) tektonische platen wordt ook wel ‘riftvorming’ genoemd. Doordat breuken in ondergrondse platen in tegenovergestelde hellingsrichting bewegen, ontstaat een soort van vallei tussen twee hooglandgebieden of bergketens.

Die ‘vallei’, ook wel een slenk genoemd, wordt verder uitgediept door erosie én door hitte die gevormd wordt door vulkanische activiteit die uit de kern van de aarde naar de oppervlaktekorst komt. De breuk gaat heel langzaam: jaarlijks gaat het om een verschuiving van zo’n 45 millimeter.

Geschiedenis 

Over zo’n 10 miljoen tot 50 miljoen jaar zal Oost-Afrika zich daardoor hebben afgescheiden van de rest van Afrika, zegt wetenschapper Diaz. In de geschiedenis van Afrika is zoiets overigens wel eerder gebeurd. Zo heeft Madagaskar zich zo’n 110 miljoen jaar geleden losgemaakt van Somalië door middel van een zeer brede slenk.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

01-04-2018 om 23:45 geschreven door peter  

This Week's Top Space Stories

Photo Credit: The Aerospace Corporation/CORDS

Photo Credit: National Institute of Aerospace/Lunar and Planetary Institute

Photo Credit: NASA

Photo Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA

01-04-2018 om 22:58 geschreven door peter  

We May Have Uncovered the First Ever Evidence of the Multiverse

For many years, scientists have been very much baffled by a weird anomaly far away in space: a mysterious “Cold Spot” about 1.8 billion light-years across. It is cooler than its surroundings by around 0.00015 degrees Celsius (0.00027 degrees Fahrenheit), a fact astronomers discovered by measuring background radiation throughout the universe.

Previously, astronomers believed that this space could be cooler simply because it had less matter in it than most sections of space. They dubbed it a massive supervoid and estimated that it had 10,000 galaxies fewer than other comparable sections of space.

But now, in a recently published survey of galaxies, astronomers from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) say they have discovered that this supervoide could not exist. They now believe that the galaxies in the cold spot are just clustered around smaller voids that populate the cold spot like bubbles. These small voids, however, cannot explain the temperature difference observed.

To link the temperature differences to the smaller voids, the researchers say a non-standard cosmological model would be required. “But our data place powerful constraints on any attempt to do that,” explained researcher Ruari Mackenzie in an RAS press release.

While the study had a large margin of error, the simulations suggest there is only a two percent probability that the Cold Spot formed just randomly.

 “This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations,” said researcher Tom Shanks in the press release. “Perhaps the most exciting of these is that the Cold Spot was caused by a collision between our universe and another bubble universe.”

If more detailed studies support the findings of this research, the Cold Spot might turn out to be the first evidence for the multiverse, though far more evidence would be needed to confirm our universe is indeed one of many.

Via Futurism

{ http://www.thespaceacademy.org/ }

01-04-2018 om 22:17 geschreven door peter  

Pilots Who Saw UFO Over Arizona Speak Out: 'It Didn't Look Anything Like an Airplane'

RAY STERN

Blenus Green, a retired B-1 pilot who now flies for American Airlines, sounded amazed and couldn't seem to help smiling as he described seeing a UFO last month over Arizona.

News coverage of the astonishing sight blew up this week, a few weeks after Phoenix New Times — following a TheDrive.com story — published an article and Federal Aviation Administration audio recordings on March 9.

On Wednesday, the first interview of the Abilene, Texas, pilot aired on his hometown TV station, KTAB/KRBC-TV, describing what he saw from his American Airlines cockpit. New Times also interviewed the vice president of Phoenix Air Group, whose Learjet pilot also saw the weird object.

RELATED STORIES

• Hear American Airlines Pilot Discuss UFO Sighting Over Arizona in FAA Tape

• Phoenix the Source of Most Balloon-Caused UFO Reports, Says NASA

• Air Traffic Controllers Who Saw UFO Muzzled by FAA

As reported previously, the Learjet pilot reported to Albuquerque Center air traffic control on the afternoon of February 24 that he saw something bright and inexplicable fly over him, which would have put the object at about 40,000 feet.

After that, as Green told "Big Country" news reporter Pheban Kassahun in her exclusive interview, Albuquerque Center "asked us if we could just be on the lookout, see if we see anything."

Kassahun reported that Green has been flying for 20 years and displayed a photo of him in an Air Force uniform. On that day, American Airlines Flight 1095 was flying from San Diego to Dallas. Somewhere over the Sonoran Desert between Picacho and Mammoth, Green saw what the Learjet pilot had seen.

"So sure enough, I was looking out the windscreen to see if it was there, and yeah, I did. I saw it!" Green said in the interview. "It was very bright, but it wasn't so bright you couldn't look at it. You almost really wanted to look at it, to try to figure out what it was. It didn't look anything like an airplane."

In the FAA tape, an Albuquerque Center official asks Green to describe the object. He said it was flying several thousand feet above his Airbus and going "in the opposite direction."

Someone then asked the pilot if it was a "Google balloon."

EXPAND

Blenus Green, a pilot for American Airlines, describes the weird and bright object he saw over Arizona on February 24 in an interview with Texas TV news reporter Pheban Kassahun.

BigCountryHomePage.com

"Doubtful," Green replied on the FAA tape.

"What was weird about it, (is) normally if you have an object, you know, and if the sun's shining this way, the reflection would be on this side," he told Kassahun, using his hands to help him describe the object. "But this was bright all the way around. It was so bright, you couldn't make it out, what shape it was."

Earlier this week, American Airlines spokeswoman Katie Cody said she could add no further details about the incident.

However, Bob Tracey, vice president of Phoenix Air Group, Inc., which is based in Atlanta, said on Thursday that after receiving a "full debriefing" from the pilot of the Learjet, he's left wondering, "what the hell was it?"

Phoenix Air uses Learjets for a variety of contract work, including as air ambulances for the military's Air Mobility Command. That's what the Learjet pilot and his co-pilot were doing on February 24. Tracey couldn't say if a patient was on board at the time, but assumed it had no passengers because it was on its way back to Georgia from California.

The pilot realizes the public is interested in his story, but he and the company are worried he'll be overwhelmed by the publicity.

"I'm not naming him," Tracey said. "He's going to get buried with phone calls."

The pilot is a 15-year veteran with Phoenix Air, and is a "seasoned captain" with more than 14,000 hours of flying time.

At about the same time that afternoon, the pilot and his co-pilot noticed something flying outside and above them.

"What's that — what the hell is that?" the pilot remembered both of them saying.

Like Green, they mostly noticed the intense bright light of the object. The Learjet pilot described it as "like you woke up in the morning and stared at a bright light," Tracey said.

The brightness didn't fill the whole windshield, though — it was definitely a spot of light, and seemed to come from a source that was flying west at high speed, toward the eastbound Learjet but high above it.

The pilots put their fingers on the window to estimate how high in the sky it was. They concluded it might have been flying at nearly 50,000 feet, or more than 10,000 feet above them.

Then it raced past them. The pilot, knowing that another airplane likely would be coming near the area soon, put in his call to Albuquerque Center to alert air traffic controllers.

The pilot was concerned that "someone's going to whack into this thing."

When the pilot got back from the trip, he gave a casual briefing of the incident to the company's flight operations.

"He didn't think much of it," Tracey said. The pilot has seen many balloons in sky, he said. Sometimes they're sent up by amateurs with expendable GoPros. Like a balloon, it wasn't tracked by radar, and the Learjet's Traffic Collision Avoidance System didn't sound any alarms.

Yet in his full debriefing, he described something that didn't sound at all like a balloon, Tracey acknowledged.

"He said that it passed him at maybe a similar speed that an airliner would," Tracey said. That would be roughly 500 mph each, for a combined speed of "well over Mach 1," or the speed of sound.

Balloons, of course, may travel at high speeds on a vertical line, but not very fast horizontally.

Tracey summed up the incident as a "mystery."

"Everybody's got a theory on it," he said.

{ http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/ }

01-04-2018 om 22:06 geschreven door peter  

Chinese space station Tiangong-1 hurtling toward Earth for reentry

By Christopher Carbone | Fox News

China’s out-of-control, defunct space station is hurtling toward Earth and currently expected to enter the atmosphere sometime in the next 24 hours.

The 8.5-ton space lab, known as Tiangong-1, is likely to burn up upon re-entry, which is expected to happen about 37 miles above ground, so it only poses a small risk to people and property.

However, the exact timing of when the craft, which is about the size of a school bus, will fall back to Earth is uncertain due to how quiet the sun has been. The European Space Agency says it will happen between today and early Monday, while the Chinese Space Agency extends the potential landfall window to Wednesday.

A rogue Chinese space station that weighs 8.5 tons is hurtling toward Earth.  

(European Space Agency)

According to Space.com, if the sun is active, its energy pushes more strongly against Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere then balloons and becomes denser at higher altitudes, and the density impacts the drag against Tiangong-1’s orbital speed.

Most of the U.S. appeared to be outside the likely landfall area, but a senior member of Aerospace Corp. told Space.com that all predictions are subject to change based on new information.

In this June 13, 2013, file image released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft is seen while conducting docking with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space module.  

(AP)

Although the Chinese station has received intense media coverage, each year around 1,000 large objects such as lost satellites and rocket stages fall back to Earth. These numbers are projected to increase over the coming years as more and more satellites are placed into orbit.

Experts say there is also an economic risk that Tiangong-1 could present to air traffic as it hurtles toward Earth.

This undated file photo shows researchers installing China's first space station module Tiangong-1 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province prior to its launch on Sept. 29, 2011.  (AP)

“The problem here is less the probability for an aircraft to be directly hit by space debris (which is low, but not zero), but the difficulty to predict precisely the area of possible impacts and their exact time of occurrence, because of uncertainties resulting from variations of solar activity,” Dieter Isakeit, chair of the information and communication committee for the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, told Fox News in a statement.

Air traffic controllers could take a more conservative approach, Isakeit says, and “totally close” large areas to air traffic for several hours if they don’t have more reliable data about where the station is headed.

That type of closure has happened during other events, such as volcanic eruptions.

In this June 18, 2012, file image released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese astronauts, from left, Liu Wang, Liu Yang and Jing Haipeng wave while aboard the orbiting Tiangong-1 space station.  

(Xinhua News Agency/AP)

The good news is that it’s very unlikely that anyone will be hit with debris from the rogue space station.

• CHINA'S TIANGONG-1 SPACE LAB SET TO FALL TO EARTH: WHAT TO EXPECT

“When considering the worst-case location, the probability that a specific person will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot,” the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation told the Sun. “In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by re-entering space debris.”

Video

• Chinese space station heading to Earth

Indeed, only one person is known to have been hit by falling space debris: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Most famously, America's 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

• The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

{ http://www.foxnews.com/ }

01-04-2018 om 21:55 geschreven door peter