NASA lanceert ruimtesonde (met Belgisch tintje) naar Mars - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Met InSight zal de planeet voor het eerst ook inwendig geanalyseerd worden. “In tegenstelling tot eerdere missies - die vaak met mobiele rovers gebeuren - is deze sonde een platform dat wordt neergezet op Mars en niet beweegt”, legde Bart Van Hove van de Koninklijke Belgische Sterrenwacht eerder deze week uit. Hij volgde deze middag de vlucht van de sonde vanuit Brussel. Ook de Belgische professor Véronique Dehant maakt deel uit van het team en stond haar collega’s bij bij de lancering. 

Lees ook

Deze man heeft ‘bewijs’ voor buitenaards leven op Mars gevonden

Een van de andere grote vragen is of er tektonische activiteit mogelijk is op de Rode Planeet. Het is de eerste keer dat wetenschappers proberen om ‘Marsbevingen’ te detecteren. Dat zal gebeuren met een seismometer. Een warmtesensor in een boorkop zal dan weer de temperatuur meten tot vijf meter onder de grond. Tot nu toe heeft nog geen enkel experiment die diepte kunnen bereiken. 

InSight vertrok deze middag om 13.05 uur Belgische tijd vanop de luchtmachtbasis Vandenberg in Californië, aan boord van een krachtige Atlas V-draagraket. De missie, die rond de 650 miljoen euro kost, zal twee jaar duren. Wegens een lek in een onderzoeksinstrument moest de start wel twee jaar worden uitgesteld. 

 EPA

AP

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05-05-2018 om 16:44 geschreven door peter  

What Would Happen If Earth Rotated Backwards?

What Would Happen If Earth Rotated Backwards? In other words, what would happen in a retrograde rotating Earth?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if our planet rotated differently? If you have, then a computer simulation may offer many answers to your questions.

A computer simulation by experts from the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology has revealed what would happen if the Earth rotated in the opposite direction. Experts say that the desert would cover North America and the Amazon, and the greenness would spread in Africa and the Middle East.

In the simulation, presented at the 2018 General Assembly of the European Union of Geosciences, the simulation revealed how deserts would disappear from some continents and appeared in others, while cold winters ravaged over Western Europe.

Cyanobacteria, a group of bacteria that produce oxygen through photosynthesis, flourished where they had never before.

Figure 4: Leaf area index and tree cover for a) CNTRL and b) RETRO. The leaf area index is the ratio between the one-sided leaf surface area in a grid cell and the ground surface area. Notice the greening of the vast desert band in the Sahara and Arabia in RETRO. 

Image Credit: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

During the Earth’s one-year orbit around the sun, our planet completes a complete rotation on its axis – going from the North Pole to the South Pole – every 24 hours, rotating at a speed of about 1,670 km / h, measured in the Equator.

Its direction of rotation is programmed, or from west to east, which appears counterclockwise when viewed from above the North Pole, and is common to all the planets in our solar system, except Venus and Uranus, according to NASA.

As the Earth rotates, the thrust and pull of its momentum shape the ocean currents, which, along with atmospheric wind flows, produce a range of weather patterns around the world.

These patterns bring abundant rain to the humid forests or divert moisture from the dry wastelands through rain, for example.

To study how the Earth’s climate system is affected by its rotation, scientists recently modeled a digital version of the Earth by turning in the opposite direction, clockwise when viewed from the North Pole, something known as retrograde, explained Florian Ziemen, co-creator of the simulation and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany, in statements to Live Science.

“[Reverse Earth rotation] retains all the main features of topography as sizes, shapes, and positions of continents and oceans, but it creates a completely different set of conditions for the interactions between circulation and topography,” Ziemen said.

Figure 1: Left column: Annual averaged surface temperature in RETRO (a), CNTRL (b), and the difference between RETRO and CNTRL (c). Black isolines in (a) and (b) show summer and winter sea ice extent. Right column: Annual precipitation and 10m wind in RETRO (d), CNTRL (e), and the difference between RETRO and CNTRL (f).

Image Credit: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

To simulate what would happen if the Earth rotated in the opposite direction, they used the Terrestrial System Model of the Max Planck Institute to reverse the rotation of the Sun and, therefore, reverse the rotation of the Earth and reverse the Coriolis effect, an invisible force that pushes against the objects that travel on the surface of a rotating planet.

researchers found that a planet like Earth, that rotates differently, was greener. The global coverage of the desert was reduced from around 42 to 31 million square kilometers.

Pastures sprouted in more than half of the old desert areas, and woody plants emerged to cover the other half.

Experts also found that vegetation of this world stored more carbon than our Earth that rotates counterclockwise.

furthermore, through the simulation, experts noticed that deserts arose where they never had before: in the southeastern United States, in southern Brazil and Argentina, and even in northern China.

The change in the rotation also reversed global wind patterns, bringing changes in temperature to subtropics and mid-latitudes; the western areas of the continents cooled as the eastern limits warmed, and the winters became significantly colder in northwestern Europe.

The oceanic currents also changed direction, heating the eastern limits of the seas and cooling the western ones.

In the simulation, AMOC, the ocean current responsible for heat transport around the world, disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean, but a similar and slightly stronger current emerged in the Pacific, bringing heat to eastern Russia. This was somewhat unusual since a previous study that modeled an Earth that rotated in the opposite direction did not see this change.

“But since AMOC is the result of many complex interactions in the climate system, there may be many reasons for this difference,” the study concludes.

Source: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

Reference: Climate Features of a Retrograde Rotating Earth

Featured Image Credit: ESO/A.Santerne

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05-05-2018 om 01:33 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Find A Massive “Cosmic Fingerprint”

There is a mysterious universe out there.

Proof of that is the countless discoveries that have been made in the past years. With each discovery, it seems we only learn how little we know about the cosmos.

Now, a recent image shared by the European Space Agency has revealed a stunning new cosmic feature: A kind of massive cosmic fingerprint.

Thanks to ESA’s Gaia mission, which has managed to document a collection of more than 1.7 Billion stares in the Milky Way, the European Space Agency’s Mission has spotted something extraordinary by observing the Large Magellanic Cloud, or the LMC. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by the Persian astronomer `Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi Shirazi, (later known in Europe as “Azophi”), in his Book of Fixed Stars around 964 AD.

The second data release of ESA’s Gaia mission has produced an extraordinary catalog of over one and a half billion stars in our galaxy. Based on observations between July 2014 to May 2016, it includes the most accurate information yet on the positions, brightness, distance, motion, color, and temperature of stars in the Milky Way as well as information on asteroids and quasars.

The second release features an incredible characteristic of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Image Credit: ESA

The Large Magellanic Cloud is located some 200,000 light years from Earth, and it is a Satellite Galaxy of the Milky Way, floating around in space, dancing together in slow motion while traveling through space.

According to reports, the Large Magellanic Cloud has a diameter of about 14,000 light-years (4.3 kpcs) and a mass of approximately 10 billion solar masses, making it roughly 1/100 as massive as the Milky Way. The Large Magellanic cloud is home to the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star-forming region in the Local Group.

Using data gathered from Gaia, scientists say exquisite details about the structure of the Milky Way, its satellites, and the stellar population, in general, were revealed.

By measuring the proper movement of several million stars in the LMC, astronomers were able to see how the stars rotated clockwise around the center of the galaxy.

The impression of movement is what captured the attention of skygazers: It ends up forming a sort of human fingerprint. 

Astronomers are interested in deriving the orbits of globular clusters, ancient systems of stars linked by gravity and found in the halo of the Milky Way, and dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way.

This will provide extremely important information to study the past evolution of our galaxy and its environment.

Curiously, the same rotation of the LMC was also spotted by NASA in 2014 when the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it takes 250 million years for the satellite dwarf galaxy to complete a full rotation

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 01:21 geschreven door peter  

Legendary Lost City Of King David Found by Archaeologists

Experts have gotten excited about a recently made discovery. According to reports, an ancient city which dates back to the rule of King David from the Old Testament has just been unearthed by experts near Jerusalem.

According to a number of reports, the ancient lost city of King David has recently been uncovered near Jerusalem and biblical experts say it proves the Bible is accurate.

King David’s legend stars with him as a young shepherd, who killed the Giant Goliath with his sling. Eventually, he would take the throne and conquer Jerusalem.

The discovery comes as a surprise as there is a debate among experts whether or not Biblical figures such as King David and King Solomon ever existed.

However, Professor Avraham Faust, a scholar taking part in the excavation believes how the latest discoveries back the case for the historical accuracy of the Bible.

The ancient settlement is located about 30 miles from Jerusalem.

Image Credit: Professor Avraham Faust.

According to Professor Fause, the new discovery is “part of the events in the Bible ascribed to the Kingdom of David.”

If we take a look at Biblical references, we will find how King David is believed to have been an ancestor of Jesus and may have lived around 1,000 Before Christ.

Despite the fact that there is no direct evidence outside of the Bible speaking about King David, the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase ביתדוד, bytdwd, which most scholars have translated to “House of David”.

Radiocarbon dating tests performed on the archeological discovery suggest that the city belongs to that same time.

However, some experts believe that the ‘legend’ of King David is akin to that of King Arthur, a mixture of myths and historical facts, the basis of which has been lost to the sands of time.

The excavation of the mythical city took place in the Judean Shephelah to the east of the Hebron hills. There, experts have found an artificial mound composed of the built-up ruins of a number of ancient cultures that may have existed in the same area for thousands of years.

Many historic scholars are convinced that the site is the home of the Canaanite city of Eglon, later listed in the bible as part of the Tribe of Judah, of which David was the founder.

However, there are many scholars who question the use of the Bible as a valid historical reference because most events that are mentioned within it lack historical evidence.

Speaking to Breaking Isreal News, Professor Faust said: “We, of course, did not find any artifacts that said ‘King David’ or ‘King Solomon’ but we discovered site signs of a social transformation in the region which are consistent with a change from Canaaniteculture to a Judean culture.

“Since it took place at a time we believed the Kingdom of David began to spread into this region, it is clear this building was part of the events in the Bible ascribed to the Kingdom of David.”

“The structure was excavated, almost in its entirety, and was composed of a large courtyard with rooms on three sides. Hundreds of artifacts were unearthed within the debris, including a wide range of pottery vessels, loom weights, many metal objects, botanical remains, as well as many arrowheads, evidence of the battle which accompanied the conquest of the site by the Assyrians,” added Professor Faust.

• The full findings of the study were published in the journal Radiocarbon.

Source: The Sun

{https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 01:10 geschreven door peter  

IN 1974 CARL SAGAN SENT THIS MESSAGE INTO SPACE: IN 2001 WE RECEIVED THIS RESPONSE

In 1974, a broadcast (known as the “Arecibo” message) put together by Carl Sagan and colleagues was sent into space via radio waves at a special ceremony to celebrate the remodelling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It was the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed out into space. The message was directed at a star cluster sitting approximately 25,000 light years away, and consisted of a pictorial message. The radio signal depicted our planet’s location in our solar system, the core principles of our math and science, and the NASA antenna used to transmit the signal, in the hopes that it would be interpreted by an extraterrestrial intelligence. The message also included details about human beings, such as our physical appearance and DNA code. The signal was a million times stronger than the typical TV transmission. You can see the message in the cover photo (above),

27 years later in 2001, the crop circle phenomenon gained some well deserved attention when a pattern in the form of a response to the 1974 broadcast appeared right next to Britain’s largest telescope, the Chilbolton, and observatory, home to the world’s largest fully steerable meteorological radar. It’s one of the most amazing crop circles to ever appear, regardless of whether you believe it was done by human beings or an extraterrestrial intelligence

Above is a picture of what seems to be the response to the message sent out in 1974 by NASA (see cover photo). Only this time, the message describes a different solar system, an image of the sender (just like on the original NASA message), non-human DNA, and a microwave antenna, instead of the radio-wave antenna that was depicted in ours.

A simple Google search would suffice if you want to see more pictures. It was written off as a hoax, like most crop circles are within the mainstream.

The face you see there appeared three days before the rectangular image. The face represented a new technique in crop circle generation, a screen technique that is also used for printing a face on a piece of paper.

What’s also interesting to note is the fact that the microwave antenna signal in this crop circle also appeared a year earlier in the exact same field. You can view an image of that one here.

The Arecibo message sent out into space was in Binary, and I thought it would be fitting to source a declassified NSA (National Security Agency) document titled “Key To The Extraterrestrial Messages.” This document reveals that a series of 29 messages from outer space was received, which also appears to be in some binary form. You can view that document here. The title of the document alone is quite shocking given the fact that it comes straight from the NSA.

Some Things You Might Not Know About Crop Circles

Not many people are aware of the fact that the crop circle phenomenon is a very real one. They happen all over the world and there have been reports of them for decades. Some of these designs are so complex and elaborate that they’ve completely baffled onlookers, researchers, and scientists alike. Not only that, many of the designs are often electrostatically charged, usually with the nodes of some of the plant stalks blasted out on one side. Some of them are also littered with strange magnetic particles. This effect has been replicated by highly localized microwave heating, which causes water inside the plants to vaporize and dislodge, thus flopping the stock completely over to one side.

This fact has had some physicists publish work on the phenomenon, concluding that the perpetrators (who have never been caught in the act of making a crop circle, anywhere) are using GPS devices, lasers, and microwaves to create these astonishing geometric forms (works of art). (source)

“Crop circle artists are not going to give up their secrets easily. This summer, unknown artists will venture into the countryside close to your homes and carry out their craft, safe in the knowledge that they are continuing the legacy of the most science-oriented art movement in history.”  (source)

Other physicists, like Dr. Terence Meadon, have explained that the light energy involved is a result of atmospheric phenomena.

So, if the circle makers are indeed human, we are looking at an extremely advanced/artistic group of people with a tremendous amount of resources at their disposal.

What are your thoughts on the crop circle phenomenon? Feel free to share in the comment section below.

Source www.collective-evolution.com

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 01:01 geschreven door peter  

Scientists create mutant enzymes that eat plastic bottles

Mutants exist and they’re helping to save the planet.

OK, not those kinds of mutants. But these are equally cool.

An international team of scientists has created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drink bottles, according to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (the link is down at time of writing).

The creation of the enzyme came by accident when the team, led by Professor John McGeehan at the University of Portsmouth, UK, tweaked a bacterium they had discovered in a waste dump in Japan in 2016. The bacterium had naturally evolved to eat plastic, and the scientists inadvertently made it even better at breaking down polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the plastic used for drink bottles. The break-down process starts in a matter of days, not the centuries it can take in the ocean.

“What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock,” McGeehan told the Guardian. “It’s great and a real finding.”

In 2017, researchers found 38 million pieces of plastic waste on an uninhabited South Pacific island. Figures from the same year showed that a million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. That number is predicted to jump 20 percent by 2021.

“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic,” McGeehan said. “It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment.”

Fingers crossed.

{ http://www.mysterious-times.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:52 geschreven door peter  

Stephen Hawking’s Final Research Published—And It May Help Us Find Parallel Universes

Stephen Hawking may be among the stars now, but he has managed to give the world one more magnificent scientific study, which was published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.

Titled “A smooth exit from eternal inflation?” discusses how our universe is one in a “multiverse” of infinite parallel universes.

In his final scientific study, Professor Hawking spoke about the universe, its beginning, the multiverse, and parallel universes.

The latest theory on the origin of the universe of Stephen Hawking, developed in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog, of the University KU Leuven (Belgium), was initially submitted for publication shortly before the death of Hawking.

Then a group of reviewers gave their approval for the publication of the full version.

Modern Big Bang Theories, and how they all may be wrong

Modern theories about the Big Bang postulate that our “local universe” appeared after a brief outbreak of “inflation,” reports Phys.org.

In other words, a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the universe expanded at an exponential rate.

It is generally believed that once “inflation” begins, there are regions where it never stops. It’s a never-ending inflation.

It is considered that the quantum effects can prolong inflation forever in some regions of the universe, so, generally speaking, inflation is eternal.

But they also present, within these regions, a kind of stable pockets (as would be our own universe) where inflation has ended, and stars and galaxies have formed.

Each of these bubbles would then be a unique universe, within a larger and always inflated multiverse.

Kinda’ makes sense

“The usual theory of eternal inflation predicts that globally our universe is like an infinite fractal, with a mosaic of different pocket universes, separated by an inflating ocean,” Hawking said in an interview last autumn, according to the University of Cambridge.

“The local laws of physics and chemistry can differ from one pocket universe to another, which together would form a multiverse. But I have never been a fan of the multiverse. If the scale of different universes in the multiverse is large or infinite, the theory can’t be tested.”

A simplified Version, easy to process

In their latest study, Hawking and Hertog argued that this explanation of eternal inflation, like Big Bang theory, is wrong.

Therefore, they created a simplified model of this behavior and a mathematical approach that could severely restrict the number of possible multiverses.

What would remain would be universes with physics similar to ours.

Both scientists used their new theory to derive more reliable predictions about the global structure of the universe.

They predicted that the universe that emerges from eternal inflation, at the limit of the past, is finite, holographic, and much simpler than the infinite fractal structure of the old theory of eternal inflation.

Proving the theory

For the theory to be proven, however, it will be necessary to develop it to the point of making concrete predictions about the gravitational waves emitted in the initial stages of the universe.

One could predict, for example, what kind of irregularity the gravitational waves should have left in the cosmic background radiation.

If the experimental observations coincide with the predictions derived from the theory, they could even offer indications of the existence of parallel universes.

If we can detect the evidence, we’ll better understand how our own universe and its laws came into existence after the Big Bang – and it could help us understand whether other universes are really out there.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:39 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:28 geschreven door peter  

The Kum­burgaz, Turkey UFO incident vouched for its authenticity

"In conclusion, even though a detailed analysis of the footage is conducted, it might still remain unidentified. Hence, other reference objects need to be recorded in the same frame with the disputable object and further shootings need to be done by ourselves with special equipment in the same location and conditions.

Accordingly, the term “UFO” (Unidentified Flying Object) which has been used for these sort of dubious objects can also be used for these objects. But, this definition does not mean that these objects are from extraterrestrial (flying saucer etc.) origin."

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:21 geschreven door peter  

Tween Discovers 475-Million-Year-Old Fossil in a Huge Win for Paleontology

She's donating her discovery to research.

By Mary von Aue

Finding a 475-million-year-old fossil intact is a rare achievement even for top paleontologists. That’s why Dr. Colin Sumrall, Associate Professor of Paleobiology at the University of Tennessee, was shocked to see a long-extinct trilobite with all of its pieces unscathed and even more surprised by who discovered it: an 11-year-old.

Ryleigh Taylor was walking .along the Douglas Lake in Dandridge, Tennessee, when she stumbled upon the fossil, Time reported on Thursday. Not exactly sure what the artifact was, Taylor’s family reached out to Sumrall, who explained that they had discovered something extremely rare.

“Typically when we look at fossils of trilobites, they molt when they grow. So what happens is, when the trilobite skeleton just crumbles into hundreds of little pieces,” Sumrall told local news WATE-TV. “To find one where all the pieces are intact, it’s actually a pretty lucky find.”

Trilobites belong to a group of marine arachnomorph arthropods that once thrived as scavengers in Earth’s waters back in the day. The earliest records of Trilobites are from 521 million years ago during the Early Cambrian period, but they really hit their stride (er, sea-bed crawl) during the Paleozoic era. Because they had such a vast geographic reach during their glory days, fossilized trilobites have made important contributions to the studies of biostratigraphy, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and plate tectonics.

Taylor hopes her rare discovery will contribute to such research. The noble 11-year-old said she doesn’t plan to keep the fossil but does intend to donate it to a public museum so that others may enjoy it.

Sumrall was thrilled with Taylor’s choice, seeing as a fossil this old is so infrequently found intact. “To find something like that, it could spark this youngster into a whole career,” Sumrall said. “Maybe she’ll become a great paleontologist one day.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:13 geschreven door peter  

Nasa to land spacecraft on plain of Mars where online oddballs saw an ‘alien city’ and ‘crashed UFO’

Jasper Hamill

Nasa is preparing to send a robotic craft on a mission to Mars, where it will drill deep into the crust of the Red Planet and measure ‘Mars-quakes’ for the first time.

The InSight probe will zoom into the heavens just before dawn on Saturday aboard a beefy, mega powerful 19-storey-high Atlas 5 rocket.

Nasa launches spacecraft bound for Mars Scientists want to explore the rumblings of Mars in a bid to uncover the secrets of its ancient history.

But the wild minds of the internet are likely to be interested in the fact it will land in a place where alien hunters claim to have spotted a ‘crashed UFO’ and an ‘extraterrestrial city’.

Although this was claimed to be a crashed UFO, it is probably the site of an asteroid impact

(Picture: Nasa)

It will touch down on a flat, smooth plain close to the planet’s equator called the Elysium Planitia.

Once settled, the solar-powered InSight will spend one Martian year (two Earth years) plumbing the depths of the planet’s interior for clues to how Mars took form and, by extension, how the Earth and other rocky planets came into being.

‘The science we want to do with this mission is really the science of understanding the early solar system,’ said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator.

Alien hunters previously claimed to have seen ‘walled cities’ on the Elysium Planitia as well a ‘crashed UFO’.

This picture was hailed as evidence of ‘walled cities’ on Mars

(Picture: Nasa)

But it turns out the truth about this Martian plain could be wilder than the fiction.

The European Space Agency discovered signs of a huge ‘frozen ocean’ that’s about the same size as the North Sea.

‘The water that formed the sea appears to have originated beneath the surface of Mars, and to have come out through a series of fractures known as the Cerberus Fossae, from where it flowed in a catastrophic flood,’ ESA wrote in 2005.

‘It collected in a vast area about 800 kilometres long and 900 kilometres wide with a depth of about 45 metres. As the water started to freeze, floating pack ice broke up into rafts. These became later covered in ash and dust from volcanic eruptions in the region.’

InSight will complete its 301 million mile journey to Mars in about six months time.

Nasa’s InSight spacecraft snapped at Vandenberg Air Force Base on April 6, 2018

(Photo: Reuters)

 While Earth’s tectonics and other forces have erased most evidence of its early history, much of Mars – about one-third the size of Earth – is believed to have remained relatively static for more than 3 billion years, creating a geologic time machine for scientists.

InSight’s primary instrument is a French-built seismometer, a device designed to detect the slightest ground motion from marsquakes, even those on the opposite side of the planet.

Scientists expect to see a dozen to 100 marsquakes over the course of the mission, producing data that will help them deduce the depth, density and composition of the planet’s core, the rocky mantle surrounding it and the outermost layer, the crust.

InSight is not the first attempt to measure Martian seismic activity. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s were equipped with seismometers, too, but they were bolted to the top of the landers, which swayed in Martian winds on legs built with shock absorbers.

Banerdt joked: ‘We didn’t do seismology on Mars – we did it 3 feet above Mars.’

• MORE: How YouTube’s Nibiru ‘fear porn’ prophets are profiting from the apocalypse
• MORE: How Mars lost its water and became a dead world without alien life

{ http://metro.co.uk/ }

05-05-2018 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

NASA successfully tested a nuclear reactor that works in space

Hail Krusty! (NASA)

If space is an ocean, the International Space Station is a raft tethered to the shore. The moon is a nearby island that we’ve visited briefly. To go any further or stay any longer, humanity needs more power.

Now, NASA may have the source: A tiny nuclear reactor called KRUSTY, for Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology. (If you’re wondering if this is may be a reference to a popular animated series, its predecessor was known as DUFF).

The reactor uses nuclear fission—the energy released by splitting uranium-235 in a reactor core about the size of a paper towel— to produce 10 kilowatts of power for about ten years, which NASA says is enough energy to power several houses. Four of the reactors could power an outpost on the lunar surface.

Nuclear energy sources can be controversial because of the deadly radioactivity they can emit in accidents or malfunctions. Yet they remain the most efficient, light-weight source of long-lasting energy, which counts for a lot when you’re paying tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram of mass brought into space.

While long-running satellites use radioactive isotopes to generate power without nuclear fission, solar panels and batteries are the most common way of generating power in space. However, the energy needs required to keep humans alive far outstrip those of robotic explorers. Keeping humans at the right temperature in the vacuum of space, while providing them with air to breathe and water to drink, takes a great deal of energy. And then there’s the work humans might do in space, like mining ice and converting it into hydrogen and oxygen.

Besides demonstrating their small reactor could produce power, the NASA researchers put it through stress tests to ensure that it would operate safely even if systems failed or astronauts had to shut it down.

There are no immediate plans to send KRUSTY into space for now, but ifa version ever leaves earth’s surface, it won’t be the first nuclear reactor in space.

There are dozens still in orbit thanks to experiments with nuclear powered satellites during the Cold War space race. The US launched one that remains in orbit, while the Soviets launched dozens; none of them were powerful enough to generate the energy needed for long-term space habitation. One of these fell to earth in far northern Canada, resulting in radioactive contamination and an expensive settlement, while another released a cloud of nuclear liquid that still floats in orbit.

Besides powering the infrastructure of human space survival, some forward-thinking engineers believe that nuclear energy is the only way to make a rocket engine powerful enough to efficiently explore the solar system. The US tested systems until 1975, before we understood just how deadly nuclear tests were to the civilian population. NASA did non-nuclear tests of such propulsion systems as recently as 2013, but since rocket engines tend to explode at least once during testing, the nuclear version will likely have to wait until humans have enough experience in space to develop them there.

{ https://qz.com/latest/ }

04-05-2018 om 22:53 geschreven door peter  

More Than 20 People In Yukon, Canada Saw This Impressive UFO In The Sky!

More Than 20 People In Yukon, Canada Saw This Impressive UFO In The Sky!

What was seen by Many!

Here’s one fantastic example of strange objects that are commonly seen in the sky comes from the Yukon, a province in Canada situated on the Northwest side of the country. Yukon is a very remote area, nowhere near any major cities or populated areas. This incredible reported sighting happened on December 11th, 1996 near a place called Fox Lake. It’s extremely freezing cold in this part of the country at this particular time of year which is not too from Alaska, and again, it is hundreds of miles from any populated public area!

SO What Was Seen And Who Saw It?

Well, according to more than 20 witnesses, a very large aerial object with extremely bright lights hovered near the lake (Fox Lake) between 8pm and 9pm!

The picture we put as the cover for this article was done by a Canadian Engineer called Martin Jasek, who wrote a rather detailed account of the event after he had actually taken the effort himself investigated this strange incident.

“Two of the witnesses were cousins, driving in separate vehicles. Each saw it over the lake, slammed on their brakes, and got out of their vehicles. They watched the huge object as it slowly drifted towards one of them and was soon almost directly overhead.  It then moved slowly across the highway and over a hill to the east, whereupon it was lost to view.”

“While the two cousins were observing this object, a married couple with their baby were a bit farther to the south along the same highway, driving toward them. They too saw the object. By the time they caught up with the cousins and pulled over, the object had moved off. The married couple continued driving until they arrived at a lodge farther ahead. There, they told the owner about what they had seen. He promptly recounted a sighting from an earlier witness, who had gotten very close to this object.

“At the nearby village of Pelly Crossing, other people described the same object. In one case it seemed to respond to a man’s flashlight by accelerating towards him. When he turned off his flashlight, the object stopped. By then it had gotten quite close to him, filling much of the sky. It also emitted several beams of light, including one that swooped along the ground. They ran across a clearing, perhaps to get to a better view. When he turned to look for the object, it was gone.”

Just imagine how incredible it would be seeing something as spectacular as this. How AMAZING would that be hey???

This superb case has been investigated by many people, and the majority of the interviews with the witnesses are available online.

Here’s a video that has a few of them describing their experience in person, but again, more are available online:

This is particular story one out of many extraordinary sightings that has occurred all around the world, and by looking back at ancient artwork and history, it seems to have been happening for a very long time. One example would be, the aboriginal community in Canada. Their stories have not been passed down through documentation, but through an oral storytelling tradition. These stories often speak of spiritual beings from another world.

“My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving, and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.”

– Richard Wagamese, Ojibway Author

If you put all of these teachings and stories from multiple cultures around the world together with the evidence that is available today, things start to seem quite strange – and very real.

This particular case included various drawings and detailed interviews with many of the people who witnessed the object.

A Serious Issue That Deserves Serious Attention.

For MANY years, UFOs have received rather “serious attention” from government/military agencies and more, but it’s only now, thanks to the declassification of files, that people have been allowed to see the truth – that yes, something important is going on here, and has been for a very very long time!!

Documents released by the National Security Agency (NSA) reveal what is recorded when a UFO is being tracked on radar. Here is one example. Also HERE is a four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describing a particular encounter in brilliant detail:

“As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ”

“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.” 

 – Apollo 14 Astronaut, Air Force Captain and Founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Dr. Edgar Mitchell

Please see an intriguing video of Dr. Edgar Mitchell:

“Today we cannot produce machines that fly the same as UFOs do. They are flying by means of artificial fields of gravity. (I’d like to mention that there is a video of Dr. Brian O’leary, NASA astronaut and Princeton physics professor alluding to this same idea, you can view it here) We cannot take credit for our record advancement in certain scientific fields alone, we have been helped by people from other worlds.” – 1954, Professor Herman Oberth, NASA Space Scientist, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and aeronautics.

U.I.P Summary

---

And if anybody ever wants even more proof then look no further than the highly publicized case of the “Phoenix Lights” – you can read more about that here – or check out the crazy incident in Ruwa, Zimbabwe where more than 60 school children witnessed something spectacular. You can read more about that here also from our website.

There is also out now thousands upon thousands of declassified documents released pertaining to this phenomenon, as well as some remarkable statements by “people in high places.” things like this cannot EVER be ignored or shunned!

These types of amazing mass sightings should leave no doubt in readers’ minds as to the reality and seriousness/excitement of this issue, one that has been ignored and ridiculed for decades….But not anymore!

By the way don’t you think the UFO in this particular story looks a lot like the Mothership UFO in the fantastic film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ (U.I.P)

The UFO from the fantastic film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

{ http://www.ufointernationalproject.com/ }

04-05-2018 om 22:41 geschreven door peter  

The AATIP, Targeting Pod Videos and the DOPSR Process

This guest article is written by Roger Glassel, a researcher and writer for the Swedish quarterly magazine UFO-Aktuellt. Roger was a member of the Roswell Slides Research Group (RSRG, who exposed the claim that two Kodachrome photographs showed a space alien from the alleged Roswell crash - proven instead to be of a child's remains on exhibition at Mesa Verde Museum). He was also a member of the Puerto Rico Research Group, focused on the Aguadilla infrared video case. Roger is from Sweden and works as an IT architect specializing in system integrations and communications.

 

It has now been some months since The New York Times (NYT) revealed that the US Department of Defense (DOD) had run a program called the Advanced Aerospace (sometimes; Aviation) Threat Identification Program (AATIP) - reportedly studying the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, also known as the "UFO phenomenon." Roger Glassel has started looking into the matter of the release of the targeting pod videos.

By Roger Glassel

Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force's study of Unidentified Flying Objects, was closed in 1969, and that was - the public was told - the end of the government’s interest in UFOs. As Dr. Edward U. Condon concluded at the time, further study of UFOs would have no scientific interest, and the phenomenon itself was no threat to national security. So imagine everyone's surprise when the NYT revealed such a government study was being conducted once again - a study that not only included scientific interest in the matter, but held it as national security concern. For some in the UFO community - who over the years have disagreed on these two points made by Dr. Condon - this was like winning the lottery. Almost too good to be true.

 

Though the Pentagon has not characterized the nature of the AATIP as a UFO study, they have confirmed the existence of the program - a program they refer to as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. The videos released - that are said to be connected with the program - also conform with the AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting system used in the US military’s F/A-18 dual purpose fighter craft. So the videos do appear to be genuine. 

 

What is also interesting with this story is that a former DOD employee named Luis Elizondo, who resigned his position and joined the staff of Tom DeLonge's company To The Stars Academy of Art and Science (TTSA), has openly stated that he was the head for the AATIP. The program was reportedly contracted to the company Bigelow Aerospace, the Las Vegas company created by Robert Bigelow - a billionaire with a long-time interest in UFOs and the paranormal. Others, such as Dr. Eric Davis and Dr. Hal Puthoff, have also stated that they have worked for the program.

 

Although Mr. Elizondo is a new player in the game, both Dr. Davis and Dr. Puthoff are well known and have done theoretical studies for the US Government in the past - discussing subjects such as advanced propulsion (laser propulsion), wormholes, and teleportation. Also, the AATIP has been connected with the infamous Skinwalker Ranch (formerly owned by Bigelow) and studies of exotic materials, but these various associated curiosities are beyond the scope of this article.  The focus here is the military targeting pod videos now made public. More specifically, examining questions about the release of the videos.

 

The New York Times story and all the subsequent media attention for the AATIP has been driven by the videos, which so far are the only evidence provided that the program was studying UFOs. Videos from a ATFLIR system would of course have originated from the US military, but that does not equate with them being connected to a DOD program allegedly investigating the UFO phenomenon. Also, one of the targeting pod videos referred to as FLIR1, or Tic Tac, that TTSA is connecting with the AATIP, was leaked by a Navy technician and have been available on the Internet since 2007. There could be a possibility that the other videos have been available on the Internet as well (military forums, veteran groups, interest groups, promotional videos, etcetera) and that TTSA is depicting them for something they are not. Remember that TTSA is not AATIP. Therefore, as evidence, the authenticity of the videos - both the provenance and the events they depict - need to be carefully verified. Looking into how the videos were released would be a first natural step in such verification.

 

Conflicting claims

 

A while after the first NYT story came out, another article drew my attention. It was an article written on February 17, 2018 by science writer Sarah Scoles for the online magazine Wired. In that article it is stated by Major Audricia Harris, who is a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OSD PA), that the targeting pod videos were not approved for released by the Pentagon. She stood firm that the DOD did not release those videos.

 

A bit after that, on February 25, 2018, Luis Elizondo himself explained in the second hour of a radio interview on Coast to Coast AM that the targeting pod videos were prepared for release by the DOD in accordance to DoDD 5230.09 and DoDI 5230.29 by sending in the videos along with DD Form 1910 to Defense Office for Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR), and that the videos were cleared for unrestricted release to the public. Mr. Elizondo also mentioned there were emails sent back and forth, so he seemed to have been involved in the process.

 

So now we have a firm standpoint from the Pentagon that the videos were not released by them, and detailed information from Mr. Elizondo on how the videos were released. I thought the best way to sort this out would be to contact Maj. Harris.

 

After reaching out by email to Maj. Harris she explained in a response to me that the DOPSR process will only render in a recommendation for releasability, and that this recommendation does not equate to approved for public release. She also told me that OSD PA is the sole release authority for DOD information, however, they have no record of a request for clearance of these videos.

 

Maj. Harris’ firm standpoint became even firmer. But had these videos gone through the DOPSR process as claimed? What better way to find out than to contact the Defense Office for Prepublication and Security Review - so I did.

 

Questions leads to a request

 

I directly contacted the DOPSR by the only email address I could find - their public inbox for sending in unclassified information for review. This was, as I was quickly told, not the right way to contact them. This did however take an unexpected and fortunate turn, as I was given a personal Point of Contact (POC) at the Office of the Secretary of Defense Joint Staff Freedom of Information Act Office (OSD JS FOIA) by the Security and Review Specialist who answered my email. With this lead, I sent my questions on.

 

My POC was able to provide clarifying details and valuable advice. First, he explained to me that while Maj. Harris was correct about that the DOPSR process will only render in a recommendation for releasability, she was not correct in stating that the OSD PA is the sole release authority for DOD information. The 34 FOIA offices releases large amount of information that does not get reviewed by the PA office. 

 

He continued to explain that almost every information request related to Mr. Elizondo has been transferred to the DIA FOIA office for their processing and direct response to the requester. But for requests regarding the DOPSR review process, that I was asking for, he said would fall under their (OSD JS FOIA office) purview. As my letter to him was worded as questions, he asked me to resubmit it, structured as a proper request for information under the Freedom of Information Act - which I did.

 

Besides the background story pointing out which videos I was referring to, my request was worded as following.

 

"Under the Freedom of Information Act, I am seeking all documents related to DOPSR's review of these videos, to include who submitted the request and the results of such review."

 

Review and Release

 

In going through this search, I found out about the different channels that information goes through when subjected for release. As I have learned, there is a review process and a release process. 

 

The release process is divided between different release authorities. To find out from which authority information was released, you must file an FOIA request to every authority. In this instance, I am not actually interested in which authority that released them, or who initiated them for release, as I am just seeking verification that the videos came from DOD.

 

The review process, on the other hand, is handled by a single office, the DOPSR, and it is mandatory that information is reviewed and cleared by this office before going through the release process. So for me to understand if the videos came from DOD, I only had to file a single request to the FOIA office that the DOPSR falls under to find out who submitted them and what the result was. Or if they even went through this process.

 

After about a week I received the interim response with the name of the action officer assigned to my case and my case number: 18-F-0724. My request was registered March 26, 2018. Finally, the search for the provenance of the UFO videos was properly submitted and officially underway.

 

Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications

 

Going back a bit to March 21, 2018, I woke up and saw a message from my friend and fellow researcher Curt Collins, urging me to take a screenshot of a Twitter posting by Tom DeLonge. As Mr. DeLonge is a well known serial deleter of tweets, I took the screenshot and did not think much about it. After my request was registered, I thought I should have a look what the tweet was all about. In the tweet, DeLonge stated that TTSA was negotiating a deal with EarthTech to get the rights to Dr. Puthoff's laser beam energy propulsion (which I though was invented by Leik Myrabo in the 1980s, but never mind). DeLonge also seemed to insinuate that Puthoff's work on this matter was done as part of the AATIP. This drew my attention to the EarthTech website.

 

What was most interesting on the EarthTech website was not the things about Dr. Puthoff, but about Dr. Eric Davis, also connected with the AATIP. The site listed various publications written by him. Under "U.S. Government Program Contract Reports" he has listed six theoretical studies that he conducted for the Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Warning Office (DIA DWO) between the year 2010 and 2011, within the same time frame the AATIP was contracting studies.

 

Conducting a web search, combining "DWO" and the titles of the reports, I found that two of them - "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates and Negative Energy" and "Warp Drive, Dark Energy and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions" - were available for download on the Internet.

 

In these two reports it is stated that, "the report is a product of a series of advanced technology reports produced under the DIA DWO Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program (AAWSA)". The content of the two reports also correlates with the content of the study topics that Dr. Davis has openly stated he wrote for the AATIP. Basically, the same content that Dr. Davis wrote for the Air Force Research Laboratory (back in 2004) that is now available for download through the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).

 

By searching on the AAWSA name I also found a LinkedIn profile of a person in the Nevada area that had worked for Bigelow Aerospace between 2009 and 2010. More specifically, he was employed "in a interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers studying advanced aerospace weapon system applications including lift, propulsion, control, power generation, signature reductions, materials and armament".

 

AAWSA, if not the same, would seem to be closely related to AATIP, so close I thought it would be worth adding it to my FOIA request about the videos. It was important to have this information added because if, and I say if, the AAWSA program turns out to be the true name of the AATIP, without it, my request might be returned with a "no records found".

 

I forwarded the information to my POC at the OSD JS FOIA office to be added to my request. At first, he thought I was seeking information about the DIA program itself and directed me to their FOIA office. After explaining that I only wanted to use that name as a search phrase to be added to my request, the answer from him was that the videos themselves are very specific, and the DOPSR office does not review many videos, so it will be very easy for them to identify them, with or without the added information. However, he said he would pass on the information to the action officer for her action to pass onto DOPSR.

 

Now starts the waiting game, and it could be a long wait. In the interim response from my action officer, it was explained that due to unusual circumstances and an extensive backlog of 2600 open cases, my request was placed in a complex processing queue. I heard that others have got the same same kind of reply when filing their requests. The majority of the other requests are however general inquiries rather than targeted inquiries, so I have some hope about this one. Realistically, I am not expecting a response any time soon. But when I receive it, I will let you all know the outcome.

 

Share 'em if you got 'em

 

It should be noted that none of the research I have done would have been necessary if both TTSA and NYT would share the release documents they say they have. 

 

I have reached out to Leslie Kean - who was the co-author for the original NYT article about the AATIP - asking her to make the release documents public. Her answer to me was that the NYT has the documents that say that the videos was cleared for public release, but that background documents provided to the NYT by their sources are confidential until their sources say otherwise. Of course journalists have the right to protect their sources, but I told her that I did not fully understand how documents from an official release authority or review office could be considered as a source that need to be protected. Her answer was however the same.

 

I have also tried to reach out to TTSA asking them for the release documents. I first contacted Mr. Elizondo directly by email using an address that he left on a discussion forum, but with no success. I then contacted Dr. Garry Nolan - who I find to be both honest and sincere. He answered the he rarely interacts with TTSA and is not a representative for the company, but simply acts as an advisor. Dr. Nolan said that he have been instructed not to give out email addresses, and to direct anyone with questions to use the contact form on the TTSA website. However, he did say that he forwarded my email to relevant persons, giving them the opportunity to contact me with their reply. I did not hear from them, so I contacted TTSA through their contact form and got the response that I must contact the New York and Beverly Hills based PR company B|W|R with my questions. I sent my questions - directed to Mr. Elizondo - to the two persons provided to me, but up to this day I have not received a response of any kind from neither them nor Mr. Elizondo. 

 

A short encore

 

To those of you who have followed the story up to this point - listening to me go on about these utterly boring bureaucratic procedures and wonder why it is important, I will say; Processes are to be followed. You can work pragmatically within a process, but you can not work outside of the process. These DOD processes are made for the protection of information. So if they did review these videos before their release, there are records of it. If there are no records, the DOD did not release them. If the videos was not released as claimed, that would raise serious questions about the story being told about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

 

Could Maj. Audricia Harris be right after all? Time will tell...

Link section

• Warp Drive, Dark Energy and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions, Dr. Eric Davis, DIA DWO, 2010
• https://spherebeingalliance.com/files/get/1601/warp-drive-dark-energy-the-manipulation-of-extra-dimensions
• Traversable Wormholes, Stargates and Negative Energy, Dr. Eric Davis, DIA DWO, 2010
• https://spherebeingalliance.com/files/get/1600/traversable-wormholes-stargates-negative-energy
• What's up with those Pentagon UFO videos? Sarah Scoles, Wired, 2018
• https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-up-with-those-pentagon-ufo-videos/amp

{ http://www.blueblurrylines.com/ }

04-05-2018 om 22:33 geschreven door peter  

Donald Trump says he could launch a SPACE FORCE alongside other branches of the military to fight extraterrestrial wars

• Trump made claims in a speech to the Black Knights US army football team
• Supremacy in space appears to be an increasing priority for superpowers 
• Russia and China are already developing weapons that can strike satellites 
• US space weapons include the X-37B spacecraft and hypersonic missiles
• Congress floated the idea of a 'Space Corps' modelled after the Marines 
• This was rejected in December 2017 over fears of funding shortages  

By Tim Collins For Mailonline

A new space force could be created in the US to fight the extraterrestrial wars of the future, President Donald Trump has claimed.

Legislators and military experts have envisioned a possibility of war in space for at least the past several decades.

Until recently, that issue has been cast aside as other more pressing matters - including war and terrorism - have taken centre stage.

Now, addressing the prospect of an armed encounter above the Earth appears to be an increasing priority for the world's super powers.

Russia and China are already claimed to be developing armaments that can strike in space, including missiles that can target satellites.  

Trump's comments suggest America is prioritising its own offensive and defensive capabilities, to ensure its supremacy in the theatre of space conflict.

Previously revealed US space weapons include the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle and hypersonic missiles under development that could be used to strike objects in orbit.

Scroll down for video 

A new space force could be created in the US to fight the extraterrestrial wars of the future, President Donald Trump has claimed. His comments suggest addressing the prospect of an armed encounter in space is an increasing priority for the world's super powers

President Trump made the comments while presenting the annual Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to the US Army's Black Knights football team at the White House.

During his speech, the Trump said that his administration is 'seriously thinking' about creating a space force as part of his efforts to build up the nation's military.

Trump listed the 'five proud branches of the United States Armed Forces: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Coast Guard'.

According to reports in The Times, he paused for a moment before adding: 'And we're actually thinking of a sixth, and that would be the Space Force. Does that make sense?

'Because we're getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons. And we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.'

This is not the first time that Trump has raised the prospect of a new Space Force, telling a crowd of Marines in March he may want to start one.  

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Previously revealed US space weapons include the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This image shows The Air Force working on the reusable spacecraft after it landed at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2017

The US Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane has flown a number of secret missions to date. Each time it has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit. Staff are seen testing the Air Force's first unmanned re-entry spacecraft in 2010 

WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS X-37B ORBITAL TEST VEHICLE? 

The US Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane has flown a number of secret missions to date.

Each time it has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit.

The spacecraft looks similar to Nasa's space shuttle but is much smaller. The X-37B is about 29ft (8.8m) long and 9.5ft (2.9 m) tall.

Like a shuttle, X-37B is blasted into orbit by a rocket. However, it lands using a runway like a normal aircraft. The X-37B is too small to carry people onboard, but does have a cargo bay similar to that of a pickup truck, which is just large enough to carry a small satellite

It has a wingspan of just less than 15ft (4.6 m). At launch, it weighs 11,000lbs (4,990kg).

The craft is taken into orbit on a rocket but lands like the space shuttle by gliding down to Earth.

Its main mission payload is a mystery, although Nasa has revealed it has a hauled a number of materials experiments aboard into space.

Positioned in front of a Marine F/A-18 Hornet, Trump called space a 'war-fighting domain', and talked up both its military importance and the merits of private ventures.

'Space is a war-fighting domain just like the land, air, and sea,' he said on March 23, as he spoke to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232, nicknamed the Red Devils, at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

'We may even have a Space Force, develop another one – Space Force,' Trump added. 'We have the Air Force, you'll have the Space Force.'

In April, a new report outlined concerns that a space war may be approaching faster than many anticipated and that world leaders are woefully unprepared.

Other potential space weapons include hypersonic missiles under development in the US, Russia and China that could be used to strike objects in orbit. This artist's impression shows Boeing's hypersonic X-51A Waverider cruise missile currently under development

WHAT ARE HYPERSONIC MISSILES AND HOW DO THEY WORK?

Aircraft and missiles are said to be hypersonic once they exceed speeds of Mach 5 and above, or five times the speed of sound.

This occurs at 1,715 metres per second (3,836mph / 6,174kmh).

The latest class of hypersonic missiles would be smaller, guided and designed to carry conventional explosives for time-sensitive, rapid response in theatre operations. 

There are two kinds of approaches to solving the hypersonic challenge in missiles: 'scramjet' and 'boost glide.' 

The air-breathing scramjet relies on high speed for its power.

As it accelerates, more air and fuel is pushed into the engine, allowing it to accelerate even more - to hypersonic speeds.

The boost glide model rides a reentry vehicle to extremely high altitudes, where it skips across the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Traditional ballistic missiles already travel at hypersonic speeds.

Built to carry nuclear and conventional warheads, these weapons are capable of reaching outer space in the course of their flights, but they can't manoeuvre.

The US Department of Defense warned that the US isn't ready for a space war, while Russia and China have developed technologies that could destroy satellites that are crucial for many everyday tasks, ranging from ATMs to apps like Uber Eats.

The satellites are also used for reconnaissance and guiding precision bombs, missiles and drones. 

'We are now approaching a point where "Star Wars" is not just a movie,' Steve Isakowitz, CEO of think tank Aerospace Corp, told Politico at the time. 

The Pentagon has already set aside billions to 'harden' its defences against anti-satellite weapons and training troops to survive in space.

Congress also floated the idea last year of a new 'Space Corps', set to be modelled after the Marines.

It would be tasked with keeping the US ahead of its superpower rivals in the event of a war. 

Russia and China are already claimed to be developing armaments that can strike in space, including missiles that can target satellites

If a US satellite is blown up by enemies in a war in space, it can create thousands of piece of dangerous space that can float around forever (artists' impression)

The idea of creating the first new branch to the US military in 70 years encountered significant resistance, however, and was scrapped in December 2017. 

Alleged restriction of funds to the other armed forces squashed the idea. 

US Air Force chief, General David Goldfein, has also claimed space warfare is a real possibility 'within a matter of years'.

The US will need new tools, specialist training and billions of dollars in funding to prepare for combat in orbit, he has said.

 General Goldfein made the comments while speaking at the Air Force Association's 34th annual Air Warfare Symposium and Technology Exposition in Orlando in February.

'[It's] time for us as a service, regardless of speciality badge, to embrace space superiority with the same passion and sense of ownership as we apply to air superiority today,' General Goldfein said at the time. 

General Goldfein argues that the US Air Force is best placed to protect American interests in space.

He added: 'I believe we're going to be fighting from space in a matter of years.

'We are the service that must lead joint war fighting in this new contested domain. This is what the nation demands.'

If a conflict breaks out between major powers in the future, it could be fought in the final frontier - space, according to US Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein (pictured)

HOW CAN WE STOP SPACE WARS?

A group of more than 40 international experts are conducting a multi-year research project that will culminate in a Manual on International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space.

MILAMOS Project is to ensure space activities are conducted in accordance with the rule of law.

This will involve a consideration of the existing international rules on outer space.

It will also involve integration with international humanitarian law and the rules prohibiting the use of force.

The drafting of the rules will involve many meetings, heated discussions and compromises.

It is envisaged that at the end of the project the applicable rules will be agreed on the basis of consensus.

The MILAMOS Project is not an effort to condone warfare in outer space.

On the contrary, it seeks to prevent armed conflict and minimise the devastating impact that space technology and military operations may have on the long-term and peaceful use of outer space. 

The Outer Space Treaty, which was signed in 1967, was agreed through the United Nations, and today it remains as the 'constitution' of outer space.

The space treaty states that celestial territory is not subject to 'national appropriation' – in other words, no country can lay claim to them. 

In the fifty years the treaty has existed, it has yet to be violated.  

Read more:

• Space Warfare: America could soon have a new branch of the military protecting outer space | Fox News
• We¿re looking at a Space Force as new branch of the military, says Trump | World | The Times
• Space war is coming ¿ and the U.S. is not ready - POLITICO

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

04-05-2018 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

Pallasites are extremely rare even among meteorites (only about 1% of all meteorites are this type) and Fukang has been hailed as one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of the 21st century.

The Fukang pallasite is believed to originate from deep inside intact meteors created during the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago and very few specimens are thought to have survived their descent throug Earth’s atmosphere.

An anonymous group of collectors currently holds the largest portion which weighs 419.5 kg (925 pounds). In 2008 they attempted to sell it at auction at Bonham’s in New York for approximately $2 million but did not receive any biddhers. A total of 31 kilograms (68 lb) of the specimen is on deposit at University of Arizona’s Southwest Meteorite Laboratory.

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Photograph by Southwest Meteorite Laboratory

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04-05-2018 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

SCIENTISTS PROJECT HOLOGRAMS INTO THE BRAIN TO CREATE EXPERIENCES

One day soon you may be filling your lungs with crisp ocean air, your arms bathed in warm light as the sun sets over softly lapping waters and you may wonder, is this real? Or are scientists projecting holograms into my brain to create a vivid sensory experience that isn’t actually happening? A group of researchers at University of California, Berkeley are in the early stages of testing their ability to create, edit and scrub sensory experiences from our brains, both real-time and stored experiences–memories.

Using light to make us see what isn’t there.

Different sensory experiences show up in brain imaging as patterns of neurons firing in sequence. Neuroscientists are trying to reverse-engineer experiences by stimulating the neurons to excite the same neural patterns. At present, the steps to accomplish this are a little invasive. Scientists genetically modify neurons with photosensitive proteins so they can gingerly manipulate neurons using light. The process is known as optogenetics. Also, a metal head plate gets surgically implanted over the targeted area.

Then there’s the challenge of finding a way to bull’s-eye each individual, microscopic cell body without exciting neighboring neurons. Enter computer generated holography (CGH) to create three-dimensional floating light shapes. The diffracted light-forms are projected into the brain, sailing through a gossamer layer of brain tissue at the surface of the cortex and triggering just the right pattern and rhythm of neural activity to generate specific sensations and perceptions. The holograms can stimulate, edit and suppress patterns of neurons that correlate with the brain activity of actual experiences.

“The major advance is the ability to control neurons precisely in space and time,” says Nicolas Pégard, one of the first authors of a paper in Nature Neuroscience today. “In other words, to shoot the very specific sets of neurons you want to activate and do it at the characteristic scale and the speed at which they normally work.”

Development of the device required imagination and a confluence of emergent technologies. “This is the culmination of technologies that researchers have been working on for a while, but have been impossible to put together,” says another of the first authors, Alan Mardinly. “We solved numerous technical problems at the same time to bring it all together and finally realize the potential of this technology.”

The team published a paper last year in the journal Nature Communications, dubbing their holographic brain modulator The 3D-SHOT: a three-dimensional scanless holographic optogenetics with temporal focusing.

Source www.forbes.com

Also published on Medium.

{ http://alien-ufo-sightings.com/ }

04-05-2018 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

NASA lander will study ‘Marsquakes’

BY TIBI PUIU

NASA is gearing up for one of its most anticipated launches of the year. On Saturday, a one-of-a-kind Mars explorer called InSight is destined to launch for the Red Planet. Its mission: to study the slight rumbles and tremors produced as the planet wobbles. Just like ‘earthquakes’, these are ‘marsquakes’ — and whatever waves the lander’s instruments will pick up might help scientists gain unprecedented insights about Mars’ interior, from its crust to its very core.

“How we get from a ball of featureless rock into a planet that may or may not support life is a key question in planetary science,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “We’d like to be able to understand what happened.”

Like earthquakes, marsquakes are vibrations of the ground. However, while an earthquake is produced by the movement of tectonic plates, scientists believe that marsquakes occur when the planet cools and contracts, causing the crust to ruck up slightly. Scientists believe that all planetary bodies experience quakes, ranging from those that vibrate fast to those that rumble low. In the 1970s, NASA’s Viking lander tried to measure quakes on Mars but its instruments weren’t sensitive enough. However, during the Apollo missions, seismometers measured thousands of tiny quakes on the moon.

The new lander, called InSight, was supposed to leave for Mars two years ago but at the last minute, mission engineers found that the lander’s most crucial instrument — the vacuum-encased seismometer — had a leak that let air through. The instrument is extremely sensitive and even the slightest bit of air can ruin its measurements. The seismometer has since been fixed and, now that our planet and Mars are aligned again, it will soon launch for its mission.

Technicians inspect InSight instruments.

Credit: NASA.

Marsquakes could teach scientists a great deal about Mars’ interior, how it formed, and what kind of changes it has incurred throughout its geological history. When a quake travels through a material, its vibration changes. Therefore, the vibrations picked up by a seismometer can be decoded to reveal information about the various layers the quake has passed through. The lander is also carrying radio antennas that will help scientists estimate the size of Mars’ core. Another instrument, a nail-like device, is designed to insert itself into the ground in order to measure the planet’s internal temperature — the kind of information that can help scientists figure out what fueled Mars’ ancient volcanoes. 

InSight scientists hope to record hundreds to thousands of small Martian quakes. Perhaps InSight will be able to answer some very important questions like why Earth is a habitable paradise and Mars is a cold and barren rock. So far, we’ve learned a lot about the Martian surface — now, it’s time to probe its deep interior.

Insight is set to launch on an Atlas V rocket, which will take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on May 5th at 7:05 AM ET.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

04-05-2018 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

ONE OF THE TRAPPIST-1 PLANETS HAS AN IRON CORE

by Matt Williams

In February of 2017, a team of European astronomers announced the discovery of a seven-planet system orbiting the nearby star TRAPPIST-1. Aside from the fact that all seven planets were rocky, there was the added bonus of three of them orbiting within TRAPPIST-1’s habitable zone. Since that time, multiple studies have been conducted to determine whether or not any of these planets could be habitable.

In accordance with this goal, these studies have focused on whether or not these planets have atmospheres, their compositions and their interiors. One of the latest studies was conducted by two researchers from Columbia University’s Cool Worlds Laboratory, who determined that one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets (TRAPPIST-1e) has a large iron core – a finding which could have implications for this planet’s habitability.

The study – titled “TRAPPIST-1e Has a Large Iron Core“, which recently appeared online – was conducted by Gabrielle Englemenn-Suissa and David Kipping, a senior undergraduate student and an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University, respectively. For the sake of their study, Englemenn-Suissa and Kipping took advantage of recent studies that have placed constraints on the masses and radii of the TRAPPIST-1 planets.

These and other studies have benefited from the fact that TRAPPIST-1 is a seven planet system, which makes it ideally suited for exoplanet studies. As Professor Kipping told Universe Today via email:

“It’s a wonderful laboratory for exoplanetary science for three reasons. First, the system has a whopping seven transiting planets. The depth of the transits dictates the size of each planet so we can measure they sizes quite precisely. Second, the planets gravitationally interact with one another leading to variations in the times of the transits and these have been used to infer the masses of each planet, again to impressive precision. Third, the star is very small being a late M-dwarf, about an eighth the size of the Sun, and that means transits appear 8^2 = 64 times deeper than they would if the star were Sun-sized. So we have lots of things working in our favor here.”

Together, Englemann-Suissa and Kipping used mass and radius measurements of the TRAPPIST-1 planets to infer the minimum and maximum Core Radius Fraction (CRF) of each planet. This built on a study they had previously conducted (along with Jingjing Chen, a PhD candidate at Columbia University and a member of the Cool Worlds Lab) in which they developed their method for determining a planet’s CRF. As Kipping described the method:

“If you know the mass and radius very precisely, like the TRAPPIST-1 system, you can compare them to that predicted from theoretical interior structure models. The problem is that these models generally comprise of possible four layers, an iron core, a silicate mantle, a water layer and an light volatile envelope (Earth only has the first two, its atmosphere contributes negligible to mass and radius). So four unknowns and two measured quantities is in principle an unconstrained, unsolvable problem.”

This artist’s concept shows what each of the TRAPPIST-1 planets may look like, based on available data about their sizes, masses and orbital distances.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Their study also took into account previous work by other scientists who have attempted to place constraints on the chemical composition of the TRAPPIST-1 system. In these studies, the authors assumed that the planets’ chemical compositions were connected to that of the star, which can be measured. However, Englemann-Suissa and Kipping took a more “agnostic” approach and simply considered the boundary conditions of the problem.

“We essentially say that given the mass and radius, there are no models with cores smaller than X that can possibly explain the observed mass and radius,” he said. “The core might be bigger than X but has to be at least X since no theoretical models could explain it otherwise. Here, X would therefore correspond to what we could call the minimum core radius fraction. We then play the same game for the maximum limit.”

What they determined was that the minimum core size of six of the TRAPPIST-1 planets was essentially zero. This means that their compositions could be explained without necessarily having an iron core – for instance, a pure silicate mantle could be all that’s there. But in the case of TRAPPIST-1e, they found that its core must comprise at least 50% of the planet by radius, and at most, 78%.

Compare this to Earth, where the solid inner core of iron and nickel and a liquid outer core of a molten iron-nickel alloy comprise 55% of the planet’s radius. Between the upper and lower limit of TRAPPIST-1e’s CRF, they concluded that it must have a dense core, one which is likely comparable to Earth. This finding could mean that of all the TRAPPIST-1 planets, e is the most “Earth-like” and likely to have a protective magnetosphere.

As Kipping indicated, this could have immense implications when it comes to the hunt for habitable exoplanets, and might push TRAPPIST-1e to the top of the list:

“This gets me more excited about TRAPPIST-1e in particular. That planet is a tad smaller than the Earth, sits right in the habitable-zone and now we know has a large iron core like the Earth. We also know it does not possess a light volatile envelope thanks to other measurements. Further, TRAPPIST-1 appears to be a quieter star than Proxima so I’m much more optimistic about TRAPPIST-1e as potential biosphere than Proxima b right now.”

This is certainly good news in light of recent studies that have indicated that Proxima b is not likely to be habitable. Between its star emitting powerful flares that can be seen by the naked eye to the likelihood that an atmosphereand liquid water would not survive long on its surface, the closest exoplanet to our Solar System is currently not considered a good candidate for finding a habitable world or extra-terrestrial life.

In recent years, Kipping and his colleagues have also dedicated themselves and the Cool Worlds Laboratory to the study of possible exoplanets around Proxima Centauri. Using the Canadian Space Agency’s Microvariability and Oscillation of Stars (MOST) satellite, Kipping and his colleagues monitored Proxima Centauri in May of 2014 and again in May of 2015 to look for signs of transiting planets.

While the discovery of Proxima b was ultimately made by astronomers at the ESO using the Radial Velocity Method, this campaign was significant in drawing attention to the likelihood of finding terrestrial, potentially-habitable planets around nearby M-type (red dwarf) stars. In the future, Kipping and his team also hope to conduct studies of Proxima b to determine if it has an atmosphere and determine what its CRF could be.

Once again, it appears that one of the many rocky planets orbiting a red dwarf star (and which is closer to Earth) might just be a prime candidate for habitability studies! Future surveys, which will benefit from the introduction of next-generation telescopes (like the James Webb Space Telescope) will no doubt reveal more about this  system and any potentially habitable worlds it has.

Further Reading: arXiv

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-05-2018 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

04-05-2018 om 18:29 geschreven door peter