Mike Wehner @MikeWehner

Scientists have a serious love affair with Mars. If (hopefully “when”) mankind sets foot on another planet, Mars is almost certainly going to be the one, and it’s so much like Earth in terms of composition that there’s still a chance that we might find evidence of extraterrestrial life there. No, I’m not talking about a race of Martian “Warrior Women,” but fossils that reveal microbs or other primitive life forms that may have once inhabited the lakes and rivers we believe covered the planet millions of years ago.

We already have rovers taking samples of Martian soil and studying the makeup of the Martian landscape, but we haven’t found anything to suggest the presence (either current or in the past) of life. Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at The Open University, says that if we really want to see whether or not Mars once supported some form of life, we’re going to need to be able to study Mars samples here on Earth.

Effectively studying Martian rock samples requires some pretty sophisticated hardware. The newest Mars rovers and landers from NASA and the European Space Agency are incredibly high-tech, but they simply aren’t capable of performing the kind of analysis that is needed to provide evidence of life. For that, we need to bring rocks back to Earth, and we have to do so in a way that doesn’t risk contaminating either planet.

“The technology that would help us to avoid contaminating Mars with Earth microbes and vice versa (if there turns out to be life there) – “breaking the chain of contact”, where a capsule launched from Mars’ surface with a sample could not return to Earth, as it would risk contaminating our biosphere – is also well developed now,” Grady says. But how exactly do we make it all happen?

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and the ExoMars rover built by ESA are both capable of preparing samples for return to Earth, but that’s only the first step in a very complicated process. The two agencies are already working out the details, but it’s hardly a walk in the park. Completing the handoff would require a Mars Ascent Vehicle to take off from the Red Planet and successfully enter orbit. Meanwhile, a separate vehicle would have to meet up with the orbiter and take possession of the samples before venturing back towards Earth. None of his has ever even been attempted before.

Complicating matters further is the current budget woes of NASA. The agency doesn’t have a lot of money to play around with these days, and even by leaning on commercial launch companies to help cut costs, organizing multiple launches for the purpose of returning Mars samples to Earth will be incredibly expensive. Thankfully, NASA and ESA have pledged to tackle the challenge together, so hopefully the pursuit of science won’t be held up by an empty wallet.

{ http://bgr.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 19:51 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Closer to Solving the Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts

Scientists have received mysterious signals from space for the last decade. Are these perplexing signals really E.T. phoning home? Or a scrambled message from a galaxy far, far away? Dubbed “fast radio bursts,” the origin of this phenomenon has remained a mystery — until now.

What Are Fast Radio Bursts?

The latest astronomy research has found the origin of a fast radio burst in a dwarf galaxy some 3 billion light-years away, according to Astronomy. The source of the radio waves, once thought to be extraterrestrial contact, was hard to pin down because the signals only lasted for a fraction of a second.

Since FRBs were first discovered in 2007, astronomers have struggled to understand the science behind the phenomenon. Are FRBs a sign of alien life? Residual signals from a long-ago civilization traversing the vast blackness of space? Or perhaps signs of catastrophic cosmological upheaval?

Finding Clues to Distant Mysteries

The mystery began to unravel when an international group of researchers discovered FRB 121102. Unlike any of the previously discovered FRBs, this radio wave periodically repeated, which allowed scientists to home in on the source, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Thingiverse details how to print a 3-D copy of the radio burst that visually depicts the peaks and dips of the transmission.

In 2012, Arecibo Observatory’s radio telescope was the first to take note of FRB 121102. Then, using the Very Large Array — 27 movable radio dish antennas located in New Mexico — researchers captured a series of nine radio bursts over the next six months. The 8.19-meter Gemini North Telescope, located in Hawaii, confirmed the source of the radio bursts was a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away, Popular Mechanics reported.

Researchers presented their findings in Nature and at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society, delivering an unprecedented level of detail on the elusive FRB, captured at the Arecibo Observatory.

The current theory is that the source of FRB 121102 is a young neutron star — the leftover of a giant star that exploded in a supernova. The neutron star could be engulfed in gas and debris from the supernova. Other dwarf galaxies similar to FRB 121102’s have been found to be home to violent astronomical events, such as “‘superluminous supernovae and long gamma-ray bursts,'” according to interviews with the research team published in Popular Mechanics. The FRB’s don’t appear to be pulsars, or rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves on a predictable interval.

Searching for More Answers

Future research will build on the fact that nearly all of the light from FRB 121102 is polarized (or oriented in the same direction), unlike most other objects that emit unpolarized light in random directions. Emitting polarized light requires the presence of a strong magnetic field, such those given off by massive black holes. Another source could be a magnetar, a type of neutron star formed when a large star consumes all its fuel and collapses in on itself, according to Space.com.

Is it safe to rule out extraterrestrial contact? At this point, it is unclear if FRB 121102 is unique, or if there are other repeating radio sources to be discovered. Astronomy reports that 10,000 FRBs occur every day, so we may have an answer soon.

{ http://now.northropgrumman.com/ }

05-05-2018 om 19:28 geschreven door peter  

While astronomers keep looking but have not yet found the rumored Planet 9, and doomsayers still use NASA’s interest in it as proof that their cataclysmic Planet X or Nibiru also exists, two researchers in Ireland think the proof is not in space but on a wall. Wait, what?

The “wall” is in the Ulster Museum where, from May 2 through June 3, the Bayeux Tapestry is on display. This is the first time the Dark Ages tapestry has been outside of France in 950 years. According to various legends, it was either commissioned by Queen Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, or more likely by William’s half-brother, Bishop Odo, sometime in the 1070s. The embroidered tapestry measures 70 meter (230 ft) by 50 centimeters (20 in) and tells the story of the Norman conquest of England from the Norman point of view.

The cloth gets its name from the Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy where a 1476 inventory is the first historical reference to it. The size of the tapestry alone is significant, considering when it was made. The fact that it has survived in such good shape through all subsequent conquests, wars, sackings and moves is even more impressive. (A recent example: the Gestapo moved it to the Louvre during World War II and Heimlich Himmler was planning to later move it to Berlin.) However, that’s not what interested Marilina Cesario, a University of Ulster medievalist interested in astronomy, and Pedro Lacerda, a Queen’s University astronomer interested in the humanities. According to Space Daily, they were brought together by United Kingdom’s Leverhulme Trust which was funding projects that combine the arts and the sciences.

The end result of the meeting of Lacerdo and Cesario is “Marvelling at the skies: Comets Through the Eyes of the Anglo-Saxons,” the exhibit at the University of Belfast where the Bayeux Tapestry is joined by other examples of astronomical images made by Anglo-Saxons during the Dark Ages. The Bayex Tapestry earns its place in the exhibition due to its famous depiction of Halley’s Comet, the first known picture of the comet which visited in 1066 and was a good omen for William the Conqueror and a bad one for England’s Harold II, who died at the Battle of Hastings.

Halley’s Comet in 1066

Marilina Cesario hopes the exhibit creates new interest in old astronomy.

“We have a wealth of historical records of comets in Old English, Old Irish, Latin and Russian which have been overlooked for a long time. Early medieval people were fascinated by the heavens, as much as we are today.”

What does the Bayeux Tapestry have to do with Planet 9, Dr. Lacerdo?

“We can take the orbits of comets currently known and use a computer to calculate the times when those comets would be visible in the skies during the Middle Ages. The precise times depend on whether our computer simulations include Planet Nine. So, in simple terms, we can use the medieval comet sightings to check which computer simulations work best: the ones that include Planet Nine or the ones that do not.”

In other words, they’re not looking for woven images of Planet 9 (although finding one would be nice) … they’re searching the tapestries for discrepancies in the timing of the comets’ appearances between the pictures and the models. Those differences may indicate they were affected by the existence of a giant rogue planet.

If Planet Nine data is fed into the model and it matches the Dark Ages tapestries, will 1066 be replaced in the annals of famous numbers by 9?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-05-2018 om 19:14 geschreven door peter  

A new investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls using NASA imaging technology found scrolls that contain some of the oldest “paleo-Hebrew” writing ever found in the collection of mysterious texts and point to the existence of a previously undiscovered scroll, something not found in the Qumran caves for 60 years. According to Haaretz, the writing found on the scroll was “invisible to the naked eye” and was therefore passed over during investigations before using patented NASA space-age technology. Besides pointing to a mysterious, undiscovered Dead Sea Scroll, the text contains evidence of a changing Psalm, and complaints about how the temple was being run.

The announcement was made this week by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The IAA says that by using “imaging technology invented by NASA,” they were able to decipher writing on the scrolls that had been invisible and unknown to even exist. They found fragments that did not seem to be a part of any of the other scrolls in the collection, leading researchers to conclude that an undiscovered Dead Sea Scroll exists, and it’s probably one of the very oldest written.

Undiscovered scrolls are probably inevitable. Last year, researchers discovered the 12th cave in Qumran, which appeared as if it would house an entire new set of scrolls. It turned out to have already been looted, and no scrolls were recovered. That’s a shame, because, although they have been deciphered and dated, we still don’t know exactly who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are mostly fragmentary.

Any new scroll is hope for researchers that there may be answers to at least some of the many questions that still surround the mysterious Dead Sea Scrolls.

Part of the new discoveries is a third version of the Temple Scroll, which is a scroll describing either how the temple was run, or how it should be run. The new writing seems to differ slightly from the two other versions already found, mainly in that it was written in different handwriting. This leads researchers to believe that it may have been commentary on the state of temple business.

Qumran cave, where the scrolls were first discovered.

The newly deciphered writings also contain a part of the Psalm 147 that had previously been missing: the beginning of the first verse. It turns out that it was a word shorter than the version used today. While not exactly earth-shattering,  it’s strange how little that it’s changed since the 1st century CE.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a curious area of archaeology. On one hand, it’s an incredibly intriguing find, and one that, if completely deciphered, could provide some glimmers of answers to some of humanity’s oldest questions. On the other hand, the scrolls are so mysterious and inscrutable that they currently raise more questions than they answer. As time passes since the initial 1940 discovery, there is a real possibility that some of these questions may never be answered, and the scrolls will remain a mystery.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-05-2018 om 19:08 geschreven door peter  

The answer to that question is “No!” The reason I bring the matter up is because it’s being discussed right now at Rich Reynolds’ blog. It’s important to note that the terms “M.I.B” and “Men in Black” were created years ago to describe those sinister characters who turn up at the homes of UFO witnesses and terrorize them into silence. Today, the fact is that – unlike in the early days of Ufology – those terms are far more flexible than they were decades ago. Yes, the Men in Black are still calling on people and intimidating them. But, while the black suit is still dominating, it’s certainly not alone. Even the MIB, it seems, need a change in style now and again.

Back in the 1960s, when they weren’t always wearing black suits and black fedoras, the MIB were dressing in military uniforms, which is a far cry from the image that most people have of these creepy figures. Even U.S. Air Force personnel have acknowledged that fact. When John Keel’s research into the Mothman phenomenon of Point Pleasant, West Virginia was at its height in 1967, he came across more than a few cases of MIB. But, Keel was also given other accounts of strange characters who scared the you-know-what out of witnesses to UFO activity. They acted like the MIB, some of them looked weird – just like the MIB, too. But, they had the military uniform, rather than the suit.

In early ’67, Keel was able to speak to a Colonel George P. Freeman about this strange development. Freeman said: “Mysterious men dressed in Air Force uniforms or bearing impressive credentials from government agencies have been silencing UFO witnesses. We have checked a number of these cases, and these men are not connected to the Air Force in any way. We haven’t been able to find out anything about these men. By posing as Air Force officers and government agents, they are committing a Federal offense. We would sure like to catch one – unfortunately the trail is always too cold by the time we hear about these cases, but we are still trying.”

So, what we have here are cases of what appear to involve the Men in Black – except that they’re not dressed in black. I have a handful of cases of another kind of MIB: Men in Brown. They look just like the Men in Black. That’s to say they are pale, skinny and menacing. Their modus operandi is just the same: they warn, they threaten, and they give people nightmares. But, there’s not a black suit in sight. Typically, the suit is of a very dark brown. I have one case of a light-brown suit, this one from Warminster, England in the 1960s and after the witness encountered a Flying Saucer-type UFO, late one night. I have several cases of MIB wearing black suits, but also wearing largely unheard of (a) striped ties and (b) fedoras with white bands.

Then, there is the matter of the Men in White. In my 2015 book, Men in Black, Rich Reynolds said: “The Men in Black, whom Nick Redfern has documented rather fully in his book, The Real Men in Black, have been with mankind for a lot longer than surmised. They ensued right after the dawn of civilization, if The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) and various myths have any reportorial accuracy. The modern-day MIB phenomenon began with Gray Barker’s introduction of them in his 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. However, those versed in early religious and mythological tales know that Men in Black types have pounced on humanity well before 1956. The difference, which seems to have thrown off MIB enthusiasts, is that those early ‘men’ were garbed in white; Men in White, as it were. The Bible is replete with such encounters: Genesis 18/19: Verses 1 through 29 (in Chapter 19) recounts the visitation of God and/or his angels, telling Abraham about a pending birth and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

So, what we have here is a phenomenon that, for Ufologists, began with the MIB – and meaning quite literally strange characters in black and nothing else. Today, however, things have changed a bit. The term now encompasses entities that are MIB-like, but with certain, significant differences when it comes to their clothing. Should those terms “Men in Black” and “M.I.B.” be phased out, and replaced by something that has a broader scope and meaning? Any thoughts on what such a title should be?

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-05-2018 om 19:00 geschreven door peter  

WAT PROBEERT MEN TE VERBERGEN OP VENUS? ( VIDEO )

Is het eigenlijk niet vreemd dat altijd alle aandacht uit gaat naar de planeet Mars, terwijl er een andere dichterbij is die ook wel de zusterplaneet van de aarde wordt genoemd? 

Die planeet is Venus en misschien is het wel geen toeval dat er nauwelijks aandacht aan deze planeet wordt besteed die qua grootte overeenkomt met de aarde. 

Iemand die al jarenlang een obsessie heeft voor deze planeet is Tyler, de man achter Secureteam, die in het dagelijks leven, in het echt, te maken heeft gehad en heeft met de zogenaamde men in black. 

Alhoewel hij na de laatste gebeurtenissen behoorlijk was geschrokken omdat dit soort inbreuk op je privéleven toch wel heftig is en hij enkele dagen rust heeft genomen, is hij nu weer terug en dit keer met één van zijn favoriete onderwerpen, de planeet Venus. 

Er wordt zelfs gezegd dat miljoenen jaren geleden het klimaat op Venus heel anders was en er ongeveer qua omgeving zo zo uitzag als de aarde en er ongetwijfeld leven op voor kwam. Het verhaal gaat dan verder met dat er iets gebeurde waardoor Venus enorm opwarmde en de planeet bijna letterlijk ging koken, waardoor het nu de heetste planeet in ons zonnestelsel is met een temperatuur van meer dan 450 graden Celsius aan de oppervlakte. 

In 2010 besloten de Japanners echter om een ruimtesonde richting Venus te sturen: 

Akatsuki (ochtendgloren) (ook wel PLANET-C genoemd) is een Japanse ruimtesonde van JAXA die op 20 mei 2010 werd gelanceerd om de atmosfeer van de planeet Venus te onderzoeken. 

De bedoeling was dat de sonde in december 2010 in een baan om de planeet gebracht zou worden om vandaar uit twee jaar lang metingen te doen. De sonde is hiervoor uitgerust met drie ultravioletcamera's en een infraroodcamera. Verder is apparatuur aan boord om bliksems en vulkanisme te detecteren. In december 2010 lukte het echter niet om in een baan om Venus te komen. Door een probleem in de connectie met de druktanks raakte de motor oververhit en ernstig beschadigd. 

In december 2015 kwam Akatsuki na een langgerekte elliptische baan rond de zon weer in de buurt van Venus en op 7 december slaagde JAXA er wel in de sonde met behulp van de secondaire motoren in een baan rond de planeet te brengen. 

Toen men echter op een gegeven moment één van de zonnepanelen open klapte, was er in de verte iets waar te nemen dat als het ware in de ruimte lag te wachten en toekeek.

Eenmaal aangekomen bij Venus begon de Akatsuki foto’s te nemen en stuurde deze terug naar de aarde, waar men iets heel vreemds ontdekte.

Een vreemde langwerpige gebogen vorm die tot op de dag van vandaag wetenschappers voor raadsels stelt. Het wordt beschreven als een soort mysterieuze golf 

Daarnaast zijn er op foto’s vreemde donkere plekken ontdekt, zoals te zien op de volgende afbeelding.

Dit zijn allemaal tekenen dat er dan misschien op dit moment aan de grond geen leven is op de planeet Venus, maar wel degelijk hoog in de atmosfeer. 

En hoewel men dan zegt dat er geen leven op de grond mogelijk is, hoe kan het dat er dan toch opnames verschijnen van iets dat niet anders omschreven kan worden dan als een solide structuur in de vorm van de letter H?

Hier volgt het hele verhaal van Tyler en wat hij denkt dat er allemaal speelt op de planeet Venus. 

{ http://www.niburu.co/ } 

05-05-2018 om 18:48 geschreven door peter  

Why are Triangular UFO Sightings in New Jersey increasing?

A UFO that looked like a triangle. The New Jersey witness shares photos of the alleged triangular UFO and short interview with Angry Truthseeker.

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

05-05-2018 om 18:36 geschreven door peter  

UFO Summoning Event Los Angeles 22-Apr-2018

It took place at MacArthur Park, Los Angeles. Approximately 60 UFOs appeared. With approx 100 eye-witnesses could attest. Amazing footage taken and commented by Robert Bingham.

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

05-05-2018 om 18:33 geschreven door peter  

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

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

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

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

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