X-plane wordt supersonische opvolger van Concorde -  HLN.be

Bron: ANP

Met de zogeheten X-plane zou een vlucht van New York naar Londen nog maar drie uur duren. Het toestel moet gaan vliegen op ruim 16 kilometer hoogte met een kruissnelheid van 1500 kilometer per uur.

Lees ook

Ongeëvenaard: passagiersvliegtuig vliegt in recordtijd van New York naar Londen (met dank aan de wind)

Met de opdracht is een bedrag van 202 miljoen euro gemoeid. De bedoeling is dat de supersonische jet in 2021 zijn eerste testvluchten gaat uitvoeren boven bewoonde gebieden in de VS, om te bepalen of het geluidsniveau acceptabel is. Volgens NASA zal het doorbreken van de geluidsbarrière niet harder klinken dan het dichtvallen van een autoportier. Vluchten met passagiers zijn niet eerder voorzien dan 2035.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

06-04-2018 om 17:06 geschreven door peter  

UFO At Rocket Launch In Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia, March 21, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 21, 2018, but discovered today. 

Location of sighting: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia

NASA photo link: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ201803210017.html

While looking over some Russian rocket archives, I found a greenish UFO near a rocket upon its launch. This happened just a few weeks ago and as you can see, the UFO was semi transparent. It was cloaked, but the sudden burst of light from the engines reviewed its location for a few seconds. This is proof that aliens watch our technological growth carefully. 

 

Its also possible that America has keep the alien secret so long because they are using the alien tech...like this green UFO to observe and record activities of their enemies...like Russia. The country with the best tech, controls the world. 

Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

06-04-2018 om 16:52 geschreven door peter  

The Drake Equation Is Broken; Here's How To Fix It

Starts With A Bang

It's long been theorized that the first detection of extraterrestrial intelligence will come from radio waves. But it's possible that what's out there may go well beyond what anyone has dreamed to look for until now.

In 1961, scientist Frank Drake wrote down a simple-looking equation for estimating the number of active, technologically-advanced, communicating civilizations in the Milky Way. From first principles, there was no good way to simply estimate a number, but Drake had the brilliant idea of writing down a large number of parameters that could be estimated, which you would then multiply together. If your numbers were accurate, you'd arrive at an accurate figure for the number of technologically advanced civilizations that humanity could communicate with, within our own galaxy, at any given moment. It's a brilliant idea in concept, but one that's become less and less useful as we've learned more about our Universe. As it stands today, the Drake equation is broken, but we know enough about the Universe to construct an even better framework.

Wikimedia Commons user Lucianomendez

The possibilities of having another inhabited world in our Milky Way are incredible and tantalizing, but if we want to know whether it's real or not, we absolutely have to get the science right.

The Drake equation, to be specific, said that the number of civilizations (N) we have at any given time within our galaxy, is equal to the product of seven different unknown quantities from astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology, each of which build off of the previous element. They are:

1. R_∗, the average rate of star formation,
2. f_p, the fraction of stars with planets,
3. n_e the average number stars-with-planets that have one that could support life,
4. f_l, the fraction of those planets that developed life,

1. f_i, the fraction of life-bearing planets that developed intelligent life,
2. f_c, the fraction of these intelligence-having planets that are technologically communicative across interstellar space, and
3. L, the length of time such a civilization can broadcast-or-listen.

Multiply these numbers all together, in theory, and that will give you the number of technologically advanced, broadcasting civilizations we have in the Milky Way today.

NASA Ames / JPL-Caltech

An artist's rendition of a potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star. But we might not have to find another Earth-like world to find life; our own solar system may have all the ingredients we need. We simply don't know how ubiquitous life is.

Only, there are huge problems with this setup. There are a number of unspoken assumptions that simply writing down the equation this way makes, that simply don't reflect reality. Problems for its modern-day usefulness include:

• The fact that the equation was written before the Big Bang was validated and the Steady State model was disfavored.
• The equation assumes that only one planet per star system could support life.
• That intelligent, technologically advanced life will never spread to other worlds.
• And that broadcasting-and-listening-for radio signals is the method by which an intelligent species would choose to communicate across interstellar space.

That last assumption, in particular, was the motivation for SETI — the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (with radio dishes) — which has, of course, come up empty.

ESO/C. Malin

The Atacama Large Millimeter submillimeter Array (ALMA) are some of the most powerful radio telescopes on Earth. They are only one small part of the array forming the Event Horizon Telescopen and can image the Magellanic Clouds (shown here) and all of the stars in the southern sky, unlike most northern hemisphere observers.

This doesn't mean, however, that there aren't other worlds out there with intelligent life on them! Despite our uncertainties about what's out there or whether/how they might attempt to search for or contact us, the possibility of intelligent, communicative, or spacefaring extraterrestrials is one of tremendous interest to not only scientists, but all of humanity. Many of the steps of the Drake equation may be problematic, and they contain the major issue that there are huge uncertainties associated with them: so large that they render any conclusion about N, the number of civilizations within our galaxy, meaningless. But it's 2018 now, and there are a huge number of things we know about our galaxy and our Universe that we didn't know in 1961. Here's a better approach.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

A stellar nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. By surveying star clusters and field stars in and out of our galaxy, as well as measuring the extent of the Milky Way, we can simply determine the number and types of stars that exist.

1.) N_s: the number of stars in our galaxy.

Why estimate the rate of star formation when we can simply look at the number of stars we have today? We know how large our galaxy is, how thick it is, how large the central bulge is, and what their mass distribution is. Based on what we can observe with extremely powerful all-sky and pencil-beam (where you look at one narrow region very deeply) surveys, we can simply state that there are between 200 and 400 billion stars in our galaxy. An uncertainty that's only a factor of 2 is pretty good, and tells us that we have a very optimistic starting point: each star has a chance for success. Let's pick the larger number here.

NASA Ames/ W Stenzel

Illustration of the planet-finding space telescope, Kepler, from NASA. Kepler has found thousands of planets around stars in the Milky Way, teaching us about the mass, radius, and distribution of worlds beyond our Solar System.

2.) f_p: the fraction of stars with planets.

This is one we can keep from the original Drake equation, but in the aftermath of Kepler, it isn't all that interesting. Why? Because it's close to 100%! The fraction of stars with planets around them, based on the number of stars we've surveyed and what we've learned about them, is somewhere in the ballpark of at least 80%. To say "the fraction of stars with planets" is 1 is a nice, easy victory for the optimists out there.

NASA

Moon and clouds over the Pacific Ocean, as photographed by Frank Borman and James A. Lovell during the Gemini 7 mission. Earth, around our Sun, has the right conditions for life. But what about other stars?

3.) f_H: the fraction of stars with the right conditions for habitability.

This gets more interesting now! Of the major classes of stars, how many of them have worlds that could support life? A star like our Sun — with our Sun's mass, radius, and lifetime — could do it, as evidenced by our existence. But what about a more massive star? At some point, they'll be massive enough to burn through their fuel too quickly, and intelligent life could never arise.

On the other end, a low-mass star may be too unstable, flaring and blowing off a planet's atmosphere, or with little enough ultraviolet light that life cannot arise. We might worry about if there are enough heavy elements to support life on a world, or if a certain location in the galaxy renders the environment too chaotic for life. These may be unknowns, but we can probably safely say that at least a quarter, or 25%, of stars in our galaxy can have a potentially habitable planet.

ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/L. Calçada (ESO) & NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

Sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young, Sun-like star. The raw ingredients for life may exist everywhere, but not every planet that contains them will develop life.

4.) n_p: the number of worlds around habitable stars with the right conditions for life.

This is something we've learned a tremendous amount about from our exoplanet studies, but tremendous questions remain. What makes a world habitable? In the early solar system, Venus, Earth, and Mars all had similar conditions. In the outer Solar System, worlds like Enceladus and Europa, with sub-surface oceans, may have underwater life. In systems with gas giants at Earth-like locations, large moons could see life arise on them. Although the uncertainties are very large here, I think it's a fair estimate to say that of the stars which can have a potentially habitable world, on average there will be one world that clearly has the best chance for life. That's the world we're interested in, and so we'll say n_p = 1.

At this point, by the way, we can multiply those first four numbers together to get an estimate for the number of worlds with good chances at life within our galaxy: 100 billion. That's a promising start.

NASA, 1996

Structures on ALH84001 meteorite, which has a Martian origin. Some argue that the structures shown here may be ancient Martian life.

5.) f_l: the fraction of these worlds where life arises.

This is a great time to line up with Drake again, because this is one of the great unknown questions in the search for life beyond Earth. Of all the potentially habitable worlds, how many of them take that first incredible step, where life arises from non-life? Or, if primitive life originates in interstellar space, how many worlds see life take hold on the surface, in the oceans, or in the atmosphere? We don't even know the answer for our own Solar System, where it's arguable that we may have as many as 8 other worlds where life arose at some point. Life may be common; optimistically, it may have a 10% chance of arising from non-life. Or, alternatively, it could be exceedingly rare: a one-in-a-million shot or worse.

ESA, HEXOS and the HIFI consortium; E. Bergin

Signatures of organic, life-giving molecules are found all over the cosmos, including in the largest, nearby star-forming region: the Orion Nebula. Someday soon, we may be able to look for biosignatures in the atmospheres of Earth-sized worlds around other stars.

The uncertainties here are huge, and any number that you can pick is as ill-motivated as any other. Someday in the future, we'll have the capability of performing our first tests, however. When our telescope technology enables us to determine the atmospheric contents of worlds, we can look for the presence or absence of biosignatures like methane, molecular oxygen, and carbon dioxide. It will be indirect evidence, but it should be an incredible step towards inferring whether worlds have life on them or not. If we say there's a 1-in-10,000 chance that a potentially habitable world has life on it, as good a guess as any, that means there are 10 million worlds in the Milky Way where life exists.

Biolin Scientific

Ligand-gated Q-cells are essential channels with multiple biological applications, and are particularly needed for the human body to function. Single celled organisms can reproduce very quickly, but in order to develop complex functions and structures, multicellular organisms are required.

6.) f_x: the fraction of life-having worlds with complex, differentiated organisms.

Defining life as "intelligent" or not is a hazy prospect at best, as even the top scientists still argue over the classification of dolphins, great apes, octopi, and many other organisms as intelligent or not. What no one will argue about, however, is whether an organism is complex and differentiated: with different body parts with different functions and structures, in a macroscopic, multicellular arrangement. It took billions of years of life thriving on Earth until we evolved the first multicellular organism, and then hundreds of millions of years more until we developed gender in reproduction; without both, out-competing single-celled life would be impossible, as they'd out-evolve the larger forms of life.

Wikimedia Commons user Mike R

A bonobo 'fishing' for termites is an example of a complex, differentiated organism that uses primitive tools. It may not count as a scientifically/technologically advanced species, but it certainly counts as multicellular, differentiated, and highly interesting from an astrobiological perspective.

Again, Earth is our only laboratory for this, but let's be optimistic in the absence of evidence, and assume there's a 1-in-1,000 chance that a world that starts with a primitive, replicating, information-encoding strand of life can lead to something like the Cambrian explosion. That gives us 10,000 worlds in the Milky Way teeming with diverse, multicellular, highly differentiated forms of life. Given the distance between the stars, that means there's likely another planet where this has occurred just a few hundred light years away.

NASA

Alan Chinchar's 1991 rendition of the proposed Space Station Freedom in orbit. Any civilization that creates something like this would definitely count as scientifically/technologically advanced.

7.) f_t: the fraction of those worlds which presently house a scientifically/technologically advanced civilization.

This is a superior question to the ones asked by the Drake equation. Who cares if this is the first or the tenth time a technologically advanced civilization arose? Who cares if they're using radio waves? Who cares if they blow themselves up or self-extinct, or whether they have spacefaring ambitions or not? The big question is whether there are extraterrestrials who are intelligent the way we're intelligent, and that means scientifically and technologically advanced.

NASA / JPL / University of Arizona / Max Planck Institute / Spaceflight / Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer / Phoenix Lander

The 'holy cow' mosaic of the Mars Phoenix mission, with revealed water-ice clearly visible underneath the lander's legs. In order to learn the maximum amount possible about the presence or absence of life on a world, you absolutely must touch down and look, explicitly, for the surefire signatures.

There's no evidence for this anywhere other than Earth, of course, which means there's a huge range of possibilities. It could be easy, like 1% of them get there, or it could be a freak coincidence that humanity arose at all, and the odds could be more like one-in-a-billion. Here on Earth, it's been about 500,000,000 years since the Cambrian explosion, and we've only had a technologically advanced species on the planet for less than 1,000 years. Assuming humanity lasts for a few thousand more in this state, that means that Earth will have spent 1-in-100,000 of our time with complex, differentiated organisms in a technologically advanced state.

Even with 10,000 such worlds in the Milky Way, there's only approximately a 10% chance, under these estimates, that another scientifically/technologically advanced civilization exists at the same time as us.

Dennis Davidson for http://www.nss.org/

Once intelligence, tool use and curiosity combine in a single species, perhaps interstellar ambitions become inevitable.

But with all that said, it's those last three numbers — f_l, f_x, and f_t — that have such large uncertainties that make accurate estimates an impossibility right now.

Knowing how many worlds there are out there in the Milky Way with life on them, and finding even one, would have tremendous implications for our existence, and for understanding our place in the Universe. Taking even the next step, and learning that there were complex, differentiated, large organisms on a world, like we have with the fungal, animal, and plant kingdoms on Earth, would revolutionize what's possible. And finally, the chance we'd have to have communication, visitation, and a knowledge exchange with a scientifically or technologically advanced alien species would forever alter the course of humanity. It's all possible, but there's so much more we need to know if we ever want to find out. We must take these steps; the rewards are too great if there's even a chance of learning these answers.

{ https://www.forbes.com/ }

06-04-2018 om 00:22 geschreven door peter  

05-04-2018 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

Vast Black Hole Swarm May Surround Milky Way's Heart

05-04-2018 om 22:55 geschreven door peter  

Phosphorus — a crucial ingredient for life — might be a lot less common in the universe than we thought

BY TIBI PUIU 

Phosphorus, denoted by the symbol P in the periodic table, is the 11th most common element on Earth. It is fundamental to all living things, being essential for the creation of DNA, cell membranes, and for bone and teeth formation in humans. According to a new study by astronomers at Cardiff University, there seems to be far less of this precious element lurking in the rest of the universe than we used to think. If extraterrestrial life is similar to that on Earth, then the odds of it existing have just depreciated considerably.

P is for life

Phosphorus is one of just six chemical elements that are thought to be indispensable to the functioning of Earth organisms. Phosphorus cannot be manufactured or destroyed, and there is no substitute or synthetic version of it available. Astronomers claim that phosphorus in created in supernovae, which are massive explosions of dying stars. Dr. Jane Greaves of Cardiff University observed that the observed amounts of phosphorus in the universe don’t match the computer models, and naturally wondered what this implies for life on other planets given the unpredictable nature of phosphorus production. 

Using the William Herschel Telescope, sited on La Palma in the Canary islands, Greaves and colleagues probed the famous Crab Nebula in infrared for signs of phosphorus and iron. The first element supports life, while the second is a major part of our planet’s core. The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant around 6500 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Taurus.

This was only the second study of phosphorus from supernovae ever made. The first such study looked at the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova remnant. By comparing phosphorus content from both supernovae, the researchers concluded that there seems to be far less phosphorus in the Crab Nebula than in Cas A. The latter is the explosion of a rare type of supermassive star, which might explain the discrepancy in phosphorus content.

More observations by different telescopes could reveal more insight and complete some of the missing pieces of the puzzle. For instance, it could be that there are some phosphorus-rich regions in the Crab Nebula that astronomers have overlooked. But, so far, these preliminary results suggest that the amount of phosphorus blown into space can vary wildly. In the future, the researchers plan on studying more supernovae to establish how common it is to find supernova remnants that lack phosphorus.

“The route to carrying phosphorus into new-born planets looks rather precarious. We already think that only a few phosphorus-bearing minerals that came to the Earth—probably in meteorites—were reactive enough to get involved in making proto-biomolecules,” Greaves said in a statement.

‘If phosphorus is sourced from supernovae, and then travels across space in meteoritic rocks, I’m wondering if a young planet could find itself lacking in reactive phosphorus because of where it was born? That is, it started off near the wrong kind of supernova? In that case, life might really struggle to get started out of phosphorus-poor chemistry, on another world otherwise similar to our own.”

The findings were presented this week at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Liverpool.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

05-04-2018 om 22:43 geschreven door peter  

The Hidden Secrets of Cholula, The Largest Pyramid On Earth

The Largest Pyramid on Earth isn’t the Great Pyramid of Giza. Halfway around the world, in modern-day Mexico lie the ruins of a majestic ancient structure which rightfully holds the title as the largest pyramid ever built.

Said to have been erected by the giant Xelhua, according to Aztec Mythology, this ancient structure is believed to have taken ten centuries to build.

The pyramid of Cholula, in the state of Puebla, is the most massive building erected by man, not even the pyramids of Egypt, (although higher) occupy so many cubic meters of material.

It was allegedly built by a giant who wanted to build a pyramid that reaches to heaven, says mythology; but archaeologists are convinced that thousands of builders participated in its construction, taking them at least ten centuries to complete.

The site itself is shrouded in magic and mystery.

Model of the city and Great Pyramid of Cholula. Cholula Museum, Puebla, Mexico.

( CC BY SA 4.0 )

The ancient archaeological site of Cholula has been the center of study four archaeologists end exporter from all around the world.

In this article, we bring you the most important facts about the archaeological site home to the largest and most massive pyramid on the surface of the planet.

One of the most important facts, which many people are unaware of is that the great pyramid of Cholula is larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The pyramid of Giza, in Egypt, occupies 2 million 500 thousand cubic meters, but the pyramid of Cholula comprises 4 million 500 thousand cubic meters, which makes it the largest building built by man.

Mythology says Giants built it.

According to mythology, in ancient times, the earth was inhabited by giants, but after a massive flood swept over the Earth, all died except Xelhua, who in gratitude, built what we know today as Cholula, one of the most massive pyramids in the world. This giant wanted to build a gigantic pyramid that reached to the heavens.

But Tonacatecutli, father of all the gods, saw this as an offense and launched a rock from the heavens in the killing off many of the builders, causing the construction to halt.

Secrets buried deep beneath the Pyramid.

Diego Delso [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The last excavations done inside the pyramid of Cholula to explore the interior of this massive structure were conducted from 1966 to 1974, led by Miguel Messmacher.

However, exploration was halted for two reasons: the possibility that explorations would cause the entire Pyramid to collapse, and because of the risk of damaging the foundations of the church that was built at the top, which is protected by INAH.

Because there aren’t any written documents, no one knows when the pyramids construction process began.

However, archaeologists believe that it was in 300 BC or at the beginning of the Christian era when thousands of workers started erecting one of the most massive pyramids on the planet.

Bottoms up!

Meet the Mural of Drinkers.

Discovered at a depth of nearly eight meters, the Mural of Drinkers happens to be one of the largest pre-Columbian murals ever discovered in Mexico, having a total length of 57 meters.

The subject of the mural is a feast, featuring personages drinking what is most likely pulque.

Seven Pyramids, not one.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula or the Tlachihualtepetl as its also known, was the product of seven superimposed pyramids, each of which covered the whole of the previous pyramid. This motivated the gradual enlargement of the base, which reached up to four hundred and fifty meters on one side, reaching a height of sixty-six meters.

The current appearance of the great pyramid of Cholula is that of a massive hill on top of which a Catholic church was built, dedicated to the Virgin of the Remedies.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

05-04-2018 om 22:22 geschreven door peter  

Are aliens real? Grim discovery raises doubts about existence of extraterrestrial life

Jasper Hamill

The Crab Nebula, a supernova explosion 6,500 light years from Earth

(Photographer: Dr Jane Greaves/University of Cardiff)

The universe could be a more lonely place than we ever imagined. A new study has cast doubt on the existence of alien life after discovering that a chemical called phosphorus is less abundant than anyone expected

The element is vital to energy storage and transfer in cells, and is part of the chemical backbone of DNA.

Phosphorus is created in supernovae, exploding massive stars at the end of their lives.

But the new research suggests that typical supernovae may not provide the conditions needed for forging the element.

Earth may be unusually lucky, because it happened to be situated close enough to the ‘right’ kind of supernova.

A crater recently spotted on the surface of Mars

(Picture: NASA)

MORE: Ravenous apocalypse death bubble will swallow the universe, scientists warn

Astronomer Dr Jane Greaves, from the University of Cardiff, said: ‘The route to carrying phosphorus into new-born planets looks rather precarious.

‘We already think that only a few phosphorus-bearing minerals that came to the Earth, probably in meteorites, were reactive enough to get involved in making proto-biomolecules.

‘If phosphorus is sourced from supernovae, and then travels across space in meteoritic rocks, I’m wondering if a young planet could find itself lacking in reactive phosphorus because of where it was born?

‘That is, it started off near the wrong kind of supernova? ‘

In that case, life might really struggle to get started out of phosphorus-poor chemistry, on another world otherwise similar to our own.’

The evidence comes from observations of two supernova ‘remnants’, Cassiopeia A (Cas A) and the famous Crab Nebula.

The team used the UK’s William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, to look for signatures of phosphorus and iron from the Crab Nebula, the aftermath of a supernova explosion 6,500 light years away in the constellation of Taurus.

A previous study had searched for phosphorus from Cas A, 11,000 light years away.

for 35 years Comparing results from the two observations showed much less phosphorus from the Crab Nebula than Cas A, which came as a surprise.

Dr Phil Cigan, another of the Cardiff astronomers, said: ‘The two explosions seem to differ from each other, perhaps because Cas A results from the explosion of a rare super-massive star.’

The findings were presented at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting in Liverpool.

The scientists now plan to continue their search to see if other supernova remnants also lack phosphorus.

{ http://metro.co.uk/ }

05-04-2018 om 22:12 geschreven door peter  

Video of yet another claimed UFO sighting over North Carolina has hit YouTube, this time in Columbus, a Polk County town 85 miles west of Charlotte.

The video, shot at night, features a hovering v-shaped object illuminated by six lights.

"Whatever it is, it seems to be dropping," says the unidentified man behind the camera. "I'd like to know what the heck those six lights are."

The YouTube channel The Hidden Underbelly referred to the object as as a "huge mother ship."

Another unidentified object has been spotted over North Carolina, this time 85 miles west of Charlotte in Polk County. Was it a military craft? 

AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record Mark Wilson

{ http://www.charlotteobserver.com/ }

05-04-2018 om 21:54 geschreven door peter  

Strange unidentified flying object over Manchester, UK 3-Apr-2018

Strange bright object caught on tape over Manchester in United Kingdom earlier this month.

Witness report:

 This UFO was spotted over Heywood Manchester. This footage was captured with an Ipad on the 3rd of April of the 2018. The family dog started barking when he saw this scary UFO sighting. The light grew as it came towards the family as they took photo’s with their Iphones. These photo’s failed but the video footage was great. This great disc shaped UFO was being filmed with their smart phones. The object seemed to be turning into a light ring. They zoomed into the object what gives us the amazing the amazing image .This footage offer some of the best video evidence ever of UFO encounter ever.

Author (UFO Today @ Youtube)

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

05-04-2018 om 21:41 geschreven door peter  

CELESTIAL FIREWORKS

A series of young stars glimmer in the distance like fireworks in the sky. This image was released in April 2015 to celebrate Hubble's 25th anniversary.

NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/A. Nota/Westerlund 2 Science Team

The Hubble Space Telescope has continuously unleashed a stream of jaw-dropping intergalactic imagery since it launched on April 24, 1990. Not only do these images, which look more like paintings at first glance, allow researchers to study distant worlds, galaxies and nebulae, they have captured the minds of the general public, getting us genuinely excited about space exploration. But here's some sad news: despite all of these wonderful things, Hubble is getting older.

In a few short years, Hubble's technology will become fully outdated and NASA will let it drift to a fiery death in the atmosphere, like some crazed band of space Vikings. Once gone, at least we know we'll have the gold-encrusted James Webb Space Telescope to keep the images flowing in. With time marching on, let's not worry about what will happen to everyone's favorite space telescope and, instead, take a look at some of the most amazing pictures it's given us over the years.

A ROSE MADE OF GALAXIES

Released on Hubble's 21st anniversary, a pair of galaxies swirl together to form Arp 273. This unique object formed as two galaxies in the Andromeda constellation passed through one another.NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

WHEN BLACK HOLES COLLIDE

Though there isn't an actual picture of a supermassive black hole (yet), this image possibly captures two of them swirling together and shooting off jets of particles into the universe. Each of these jets, which travel at nearly the speed of light, stretch for thousands of light-years as two galactic nuclei blend together.

NASA/ESA/STScI

THE PILLARS OF CREATION

Taken in 1995, the 'Pillars of Creation' is one of Hubble's most notable images. Inside, you see three cold columns of gas illuminated by stars in the Eagle Nebula. This re-released version of the original adds more detail by including near-infrared light, which helps expose the various stars behind the pillars. Few other space images have received as much fame and adoration as this one.

NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA/J. Hester, P. Scowen (Arizona State U.)

A CHURNING VIEW OF SAGITTARIUS

The Lagoon Nebula churns with a series of crazy, huge storms. "The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust," NASA notes. This colorful image was released in August 2015.

NASA, ESA, J. Trauger (Jet Propulson Laboratory)

A SUPERNOVA IMPOSTOR

Meet the Eta Carinae system. It has two stars in it and one of them is huge and unstable. Since the 1800s, astronomers with less powerful telescopes have been watching the system's outbursts. However, it wasn't until Hubble came that researchers were able to fully check out the clouds of matter, dubbed the Homunculus Nebula, thrown off by it. This image in particular, which was released in 2012, is one of the most detailed. Researchers refer to these sort of outbursts as 'impostor supernovae' because they appear like normal supernovae but they do not kill off the star.

ESA/NASA

THE BUBBLE GALAXY

Known scientifically as NGC 3521, this flocculent spiral galaxy appears woolly because of how stars shine through its dusty clouds. Though it seems incredibly close in this image, it actually lies about 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo, and it was discovered back in 1784 by William Herschel. Hubble released this incredibly detailed picture back in 2015, though if you were to look at it with an ordinary backyard telescope it would appear like a giant bubble.

ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast); Acknowledgement: Robert Gendler

DI CHA SHINES THROUGH A SMOKE RING

The star system DI Cha was imaged by Hubble in October 2015. The unique bright spot in its center consists of two stars shining through rings of dust, which actually hide two other stars in this quadruple star system. Besides having two pairs of binary stars, the system is notable because it has a large region known as the Chamaeleon Complex, an area that gives birth to brand new stars.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

FINGERPRINTING THE STARS

Front and center in this March 2016 Hubble image is a star named IRAS 12196-6300, which lies 2,300 light-years from Earth. Researchers call this type of image a fingerprint because the light spreads out enough for them to understand what chemicals make up the star.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

CELESTIAL FIREWORKS

There is just so much going on in this image that it's hard to pin down just one thing to discuss. Inside, we see a ton of young stars inside a nebula. "The nebula reveals a fantasy landscape of pillars, ridges and valleys," says a NASA statement. "The pillars, composed of dense gas and thought to be incubators for new stars, are a few light-years tall and point to the central star cluster. Other dense regions surround the pillars, including reddish-brown filaments of gas and dust."

ESA/STScI/AURA, A. Nota (ESA/STScI)/Westerlund 2 Science Team

PISMIS 24, A FANTASTICAL TRIPLE STAR SYSTEM

While this may look the cover a direct-to-VHS fantasy film from the late-80s, this Hubble image showcases the open cluster known as Pismis 24, the three stars directly above the nebula. In fact, the biggest star of the three, Pismis 24-1, is one of the largest stars ever recorded at 100 solar masses.

NASA/ESA/J. M. Apellániz (IAA, Spain)

A GALAXY FULL OF DARK MATTER

Reminiscent of the default Mac background, this image shows off the galaxy UGC 447, which lies 110 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. Researchers believe galaxies like UGC 447 are composed mainly of dark matter, making them prime targets for future study because, though researchers see evidence of it everywhere, dark matter is super elusive. This is one of the relatively recent images captured by Hubble in April 2016.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

THE MONKEY HEAD NEBULA BIRTHS STARS

To celebrate Hubble's 24th anniversary (they always put out great images for anniversaries), researchers released this image of the Monkey Head Nebula, which is basically a star factory. This region specifically lies about 6,400 light-years from Earth.

NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA

{ https://www.popsci.com/ }

05-04-2018 om 18:28 geschreven door peter  

New AI Program Classifies Planets and Predicts Probability of Life

"We're currently interested in these ANNs for prioritizing exploration for a hypothetical, intelligent, interstellar spacecraft scanning an exoplanet system at range," Christopher Bishop, a researcher from the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at Plymouth University, said in the statement. 

ANNs are computer systems that essentially mimic the human brain's learning process. They have proven to be particularly useful for sorting through and identifying patterns in vast amounts of data that would otherwise be too complex and time-consuming for scientists to process, researchers said in the statement. 

In this case, the ANNs are fed atmospheric observations, also known as spectra, from present-day Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan and predictions for early Earth — all of which are rocky bodies that have characteristics that suggest the right conditions to support life, according to the statement. 

However, since life has yet to be discovered outside of Earth, the ANNs classify planets using a "probability of life" measurement that is based on the atmospheric and orbital properties of the five target bodies in our solar system, the researchers said. 

Based on these spectral profiles, the ANNs can predict the habitability of numerous planets, and, as a result, save researchers time by allowing them to focus only on the most promising targets. This technique has been successful for categorizing new planets, according to the statement. 

"Given the results so far, this method may prove to be extremely useful for categorizing different types of exoplanets using results from ground-based and near-Earth observatories," Angelo Cangelosi, a supervisor of the project, who is also from the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at Plymouth University, said in the statement. 

The researchers hope to apply this technique to data collected during upcoming missions such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Exoplanet Large-survey) space mission. 

Their findings were presented today (April 4) at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference in Liverpool, England. 

• Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13.
• Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.
• Original article on Space.com.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

05-04-2018 om 18:06 geschreven door peter  

Alien Implants: The New "Hard Evidence"

Joe Nickell

Science fiction author Whitley Strieber continues to promote the notion of extraterrestrial visitations. His _Communion: A True Story_ (1987) told of his own close encounter -- actually what psychologist Robert A. Baker has diagnosed as "a classic, textbook description of a hypnopompic hallucination" (or "waking dream"). Now, several money-making books later, Strieber offers _Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us_. In addition to UFO sightings and close encounters, there is the hard evidence, quite literally -- alien implants!

Implants are the latest rage in UFO circles, and Strieber marshals the diagnostic, radiographic, surgical, photographic, and analytic evidence that supposedly indicates -- but admittedly does not prove -- extraterrestrials are implanting devices in human beings.

The concept of implants is an outgrowth of the modern UFO craze which began in 1947. In the 1960s came reports of alien abductions, events now understood to consist largely of waking dreams, hypnosis-induced fantasies, and hoaxes. Implants seem to have begun with the alleged 1967 abduction of a Massachusetts woman, Betty Andreasson, who described a tiny spiked ball that had supposedly been inserted up her nose.

Soon such devices began to proliferate, one of which survived and was thoroughly investigated by the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in the late 1980s. Possessed by a self-claimed abductee, the object had supposedly been implanted by his extraterrestrial abductors, but was later dislodged when he caught a cold and blew his nose. It proved to be a common ball bearing!

Since 1994 alleged implants have been surgically recovered but they've become remarkably diverse: one looks like a shard of glass, another a triangular piece of metal, still another a carbon fiber, and so on. None was located in the brain or nasal cavity, instead being recovered from such extremities as toe, hand, shin, external ear, etc.; some were accompanied by scars while others were not.

As physicians know, a foreign object can enter the body unnoticed, as during a fall, or while running barefoot in sand or grass -- even as a splinter from a larger impacting object. Such foreign objects may become surrounded by a membrane, like several of the recovered "implants."

In _Confirmation_ Whitley Strieber describes several of the implants including one removed from his own external ear by a physician. It turned out to be collagen, the substance from which cartilage is formed. Strieber admits that the promised "hard evidence" provided by implants is not so hard after all: "I hope this book will not cause a rush to judgement," he writes, "with skeptics trying to prove that evidence so far retrieved is worthless while UFO believers conclude that it is proof. Both approaches are a waste of time, because the conclusive evidence has not yet been gathered."

Of course, it is not skeptics but implant advocates who have the burden of proof -- a burden they have emphatically failed to meet. Indeed, the implant concept -- like the larger alien abduction phenomenon itself -- lacks proof that it has an objective reality. Instead, the evidence indicates it is simply part of an evolving UFO mythology. Its theme of entities exerting influence over humans is one seen in many variants, ranging from ancient mythical lore to modern science fiction and persisting in some form in popular culture. There have always been individuals -- fantasizers as well as paranoid schizophrenics -- who have heard voices that directed or controlled them, voices that are expressions of hopes and fears. Therefore it seems safe to predict that, as the millennium draws near, there will be further claims of "hard evidence" of extraterrestrial visitation. We may also expect that misperceptions and exaggerations of natural phenomena, as well as hoaxes, will abound.

{ https://mara-gamiel.blogspot.be/ }

05-04-2018 om 17:53 geschreven door peter  

{ https://stopru.org/ }

05-04-2018 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

05-04-2018 om 17:33 geschreven door peter  

View larger. | Illustration of the rates of grounding line migration around Antarctica between 2010 and 2016, via ESA.

The European Space Agency said on April 3, 2018, that its CryoSat satellite mission has revealed a shifting inward of the grounding lines of ice sheets in Antarctica. Over the last seven years, according to ESA, Antarctica has lost an area of underwater ice nearly the size of Greater London (about 90 miles, or 140 km across, according to Britannica.com). ESA said the grounding lines – the place where the base of Antarctic ice sheets leave the seabed and begin to float – is shifting inward.

ESA said:

… warm ocean water beneath the continent’s floating margins is eating away at the ice attached to the seabed.

ESA said that between 2010 and 2017, the Southern Ocean melted about 565 square miles (1463 sq km) of underwater ice. A paper describing these results is published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience. The paper describes how CryoSat was used to map grounding-line motion along nearly 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of Antarctic coastline, over seven years.

• Read more from the European Space Agency

Bottom line: Illustration of shifting grounding lines of Antarctic ice sheets, over the last seven years, with data provided by an ESA satellite.

• Source: Net retreat of Antarctic glacier grounding lines

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

05-04-2018 om 17:19 geschreven door peter  

05-04-2018 om 16:53 geschreven door peter  

Dinosauriërs waren al aan het uitsterven toen de meteoriet insloeg, en wel door een gebrek aan smaak -  HLN.be

Bron: Phys.org

Prof. Gallup en zijn voormalige student Michael Frederick menen dat de dinosauriërs al in de problemen zaten en aan het uitsterven waren voor een meteoriet ze helemaal van de kaart veegde. Ze leggen dat uit in een nieuwe studie, die gepubliceerd werd in het vakblad Ideas in Ecology and Evolution. Volgens hen lag een fysiologisch probleem aan de basis van de uitsterving: ze hadden een slecht ontwikkeld smaakvermogen.

Het gaat hier meer bepaald om ‘aangeleerde smaakafkeer’, een evolutionair verdedigingsmechanisme dat je vandaag de dag bij de meeste diersoorten ziet. Dat wil zeggen dat dieren kunnen leren welke voeding voor problemen zorgt, zoals buikpijn, en die in de toekomst gaan vermijden. “Dat is waarom we er nooit in geslaagd zijn om ratten volledig uit te roeien, omdat ze geleerd hebben om om te gaan met toxische voeding. Komen ze iets tegen dat ze nog nooit geproefd hebben, dan proberen ze slechts een klein stukje. Bevalt het hen niet, dan zullen ze het voortaan vermijden, omdat ze de geur en smaak linken aan de negatieve gevolgen.”

Giftige planten

Dino’s hebben dat mechanisme echter nooit ontwikkeld. Aan het einde van hun tijdperk - de overgang van het Krijt naar het Tertiair - ontstonden de eerste bloeiende planten. Die angiospermae waren vaak giftig, maar de dieren bleven ze toch eten, omdat ze de problemen die ze ondervonden niet konden linken aan de planten in kwestie. Heel wat dinosaurussen bezweken aan de gevolgen van de toxiciteit, en hun aantallen begonnen achteruit te gaan. 

Gallup kwam tot die conclusie na onderzoek bij krokodillen, die rechtstreeks afstammen van de dino’s. Ook zij bleken geen onderscheid te kunnen maken tussen gezond en giftig voedsel. “Hoewel de meteoriet zeker zijn rol heeft gespeeld, stond de soort daarvoor al zwaar onder druk. Hun brein was niet genoeg ontwikkeld om te beseffen wat ze wel en niet mochten eten. De huidige theorie impliceert dat de dinosauriërs plotseling verdwenen zijn, maar de bewijzen zeggen iets anders: ze waren al lang voor de meteorietinslag aan het uitsterven. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

05-04-2018 om 16:41 geschreven door peter  

If you had “God particle” in the “What will cause the end of the universe?” pool, you stand a good chance of winning … but a poor chance of collecting your winnings. According to new research, scientists believe the universe will end when a tiny bubble begins expanding at the speed of light and devours everything it meets. Even scarier, the bubble will form inside the Higgs field. If that name sounds familiar, it’s the field of energy that creates the Higgs boson particle – better known as the “God particle” – which was discovered at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in 2012. If the mass of Higgs boson is altered, it could become the particle in the Higgs field that creates the bubble that eats the universe.

Have you guessed the bad news yet?

“At some point you will create one of these bubbles. It will be very unpleasant.”

Harvard physicist Anders Andreassen is the lead author of the study, published recently in the journal Physical Review D, who links the bubble to Higgs boson. The particle’s mass is currently 125 gigaelectronvolts, but it could change. When it does, the end result is that ever-expanding, universe-killing bubble-to-end-all-bubbles. It’s a good thing that hasn’t happened yet, right? Right?

“It’s possible that a bubble has already formed and is hurtling toward us at the speed of light right now.”

Live Science reports that Andreassen gave that depressing observation in an interview. Hopefully, we’ll at least be able to see it coming and make preparations for our demise, right? Right?

“It is sobering to envision this bubble, with its wall of negative energy, barreling towards us at the speed of light. We will never see it coming.”

Is there any good news or should we storm CERN and shut it down?

The Large Hadron Collider

Fortunately, Andreassen and company have been able to at least figure out approximately when the end of the universe will happen — between 10 quinquadragintillion years (one with 139 zeros after it) and 10 octodecillion years (one with 58 zeros after it).

“That is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long time. Our sun will burn up and many things will happen in our solar system before this is very likely to happen.”

Well, that a little good news, right? Right?

Yes, unless you’re one of those physicists who believes the universe will end in a battle between matter and dark matter, which could happen at any time.

Sleep tight.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-04-2018 om 16:26 geschreven door peter  

Every now and again, when I’m either lecturing on the Men in Black phenomenon, or being interviewed on radio on the subject, the matter of Jello surfaces. Yeah, really. It’s a fact that the MIB and Jello have a connection, as strange as it certainly sounds. Google “Men in Black + Jello” and you’ll see what I mean. You will find numerous references online to a certain case from the 1960s – involving a Man in Black and Jello. But, not everyone knows the full story. So, today, I thought I would rectify that.

John Keel, the author of the acclaimed 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies, was someone who had a deep interest in the Men in Black enigma and who even found himself in their clutches from time to time. Of the many cases that Keel personally investigated, one of the strangest has persisted – probably because of its sheer weirdness. It’s a story which had its origins in late 1966. And, it’s a story which Keel shared in his 1970 book, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse. Keel also made mention of the case on many occasions in his lectures, too. But, on with the story.

The location was a field in a rural part of the 19^th century city of Owatonna, Minnesota. It was late one night in ’66 when a Mrs. Butler and a friend were staring at a patch of the night sky, watching a curious display of unidentified bright lights dance around. Without warning, one of the lights dropped from the heavens at high speed. Just before it hit the ground, the UFO came to a sudden halt, bobbing just a few feet above the field, not unlike a small boat on ocean waters. In disturbing fashion, Mrs. Butler fell to the ground and briefly appeared to be under some kind of supernatural possession. Suddenly, the light shot away, vanishing into the night sky, and Mrs. Butler recovered. Ominously, and for the next few days, whenever the two friends tried to share the details of their encounter they were hit by pummeling migraines and debilitating weakness. But, there was something else, too.

During the course of the interview between Mrs. Butler and John Keel, something very intriguing surfaced. Quite out of the blue, she asked Keel if he knew anything about mysterious men visiting UFO witnesses; men who looked like military personnel, but who may not have been. Keel, who was hardly a stranger to the MIB phenomenon, played matters down a  bit and said that, yes, he had heard a few such stories. Actually, Keel had dozens of such cases on record, but he didn’t want to risk influencing Mrs. Butler. Instead, Keel sat back and listened as she told her story.

Mrs. Butler told Keel that some six months after the UFO sighting, a “Major Richard French” turned up on her doorstep, identifying himself as a representative of the military and asking questions about flying saucers. Just like all of the Men in Black, there was something just not right about Major French: his skin was an odd shade of olive. His face was extremely pointed, and particularly so his chin. He spoke English, but his accent was as blank as it could be. And he was dressed in a suit and a black tie, rather than in a military outfit.

Very oddly, Major French – quite out of the blue – said that his stomach was causing him some trouble. Mrs. Butler offered him some Jello, which he quickly declined. He soon left. The next day, though, the major was back. Yet again, he complained about his stomach.  Mrs. Butler again offered him a bowl of Jello, hoping that it might help. Here is where surreal became beyond surreal. For a moment or two, Major French stared at the Jello, seemingly completely unaware of what it was. He then stared at the spoon Mrs. Butler had given him, as if he had no comprehension of what it was. He then awkwardly picked up the bowl and proceeded to try and drink the Jello. Mrs. Butler went silent and stared in disbelief. Major French did not hang around, realizing, it seems, that Mrs. Butler knew something was not quite normal – which is an understatement of absolutely epic proportions. He quickly left, never again bothering Mrs. Butler.

So, now you know.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-04-2018 om 16:20 geschreven door peter