Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
29-05-2018
FROZEN ANTARCTICA IS HIDING THE HERITAGE OF THE LOST CONTINENT ATLANTIS?
FROZEN ANTARCTICA IS HIDING THE HERITAGE OF THE LOST CONTINENT ATLANTIS?
The dating method by Dr. W.D Urry from Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C. helped scientists to come upon the fact that the rivers of Antarctica were flowing as described on the Orontius Finaeus map 6,000 years ago.
What are the odds that the lost civilization of Atlantis is buried underneath the Antarctica’s ice?
Generally speaking, Antarctica and Atlantis are connected in many mysterious ways. People believe that Atlantis existed sometimes in the past and its location was on Antarctica.
The first masterpiece writer who mentioned the lost continent of Atlantis on paper was Plato, even though before him, many Native Americans had suspicions about it.
The stories and tales of the primitive Americans have different origins and yet they share resemblance in terms of the civilization that vanished but lived in the past. In Central America, the ancient culture that talked about this civilization lived in Aztlan. Myths say Aztlan, belonged to the south, on an island and ceased with no alert due to the devastating natural occurring. The Aztlan place was described as the “place of whiteness” and that feature explains the connection between Atlantis and Antarctica or more simply, that Aztlan might actually be Atlantis, the legendary place on the south.
The devastating events that happened in Aztlan (or Atlantis) left only a few survivors who migrated to different continents and blended with the others.
Doubters tend to reject the theories that associate Atlantis and Antarctica, mainly because Antarctica today illustrates an icy ambiance and no human civilization. Despite the scepticism, old artefacts prove that Antarctica was a place full with vegetation and courtesy. Examples of those artefacts are the ancient maps that paint America with no ice – zones. The most eminent one is the Piri – Reis map created by an admiral who served in the Navy of the Ancient Ottoman Empire.
The Piri – Reis map was established with the help of other, older maps which sketch the shoreline of Antarctica but not as we see it today, they sketch it free of ice. This confirms that whoever explored Antarctica and depicted it on the maps was doing that when the continent wasn’t frigid.
The question that pops now is how a continent with a location to the south could ever be free of ice? The response is that Antarctica wasn’t always occupying the South Pole and was rather between it and the Equator meaning it was based north and seasoned tropical climate and grew forests. Yes, Antarctica in the early history was a place that was home to many people who progressed into societies just like the other fellow continents.
The theory that justifies these allegations is called crustal displacement.
The dominant belief between the traditional scientists is the belief of continental drift. According to this theory, our planet’s layer is branched into tectonic plates that float over the inner layer. With the time passing by, these plates slowly bounce against one another.
The other, revolutionary theory, the theory of crustal displacement, enlarges the traditional history. This theory claims that every 40,000 years, the entire crust of our planet fluctuates as a single entity. After each fluctuation all the land masses on our planet, continents included, are dislocated to their new planet position.
Many researchers apply this is exactly what moved Antarctica from its position in the middle of the South Pole and the Equator to the top of the South Pole.
“We take it for granted that Antarctica has always been a frozen wilderness, but the ice caps only appeared relatively recently in geological history,” told Jane Francis of the University of Leeds.
In the present, Antarctica is built from a kilometre thick ice that consists 98 percent of its property. That means that all of the ancestry the ancient civilization made in the time Antarctica was “a green continent” is now entombed underneath the massive ice.
According the reports from Pravda.ru:
In 1949, Admiral Baird’s exploration drilled holes into the Ross Sea in three spots, where Orontius Finaeus sealed river – beds. At the end there were found fine – grained layers probably brought to the sea with the help of the rivers whose origins were located in zones free of glaciers. The samples were taken from three distinct locations: 70 deg. 17’ S 179 deg. 15’ W 2,990 M deep, 69 deg. 12’ S 180 deg. S. at 3,130 M. deep, 68 deg. 26’ S 179 deg. 15’W at 3,292 M. deep.
The fine – grained debris that was found is from the same kind as the one carried by rivers from non icy continents. Moreover, his expedition brought valuable data of fossils on Mount Weaver.
In 1952 the geologists found two species of a tree plant referred as Glossopteris that was regularly seen on the continents as Africa and Australia.
Core fragments taken from the Ross Sea during the excursion suggest glacial marine sediment from the present first appeared nearly 6,000 years ago.
In addition to that, there is a zone fine – grained sediment 30,000 years old which proves this continent was definitely not icy as it is now.
All these evidences tend to make us believe that between the 4th and 12th millennium before Christ, the Earth was housing extremely smart civilization with fascinating intellect of cartography, astronomy and other branches. They were much more advanced than their followers. The modern civilization was a precedent to the long lost civilization called Atlantis and the evidence is hidden the thick ice of Antarctica, theorists claim.
How would you like to head back to the future in a DeLorean car? Or travel with the crew of the USS Enterprise to save the whales? These two examples (from "Back to the Future" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home") show a very common trope in science fiction — time travel.
We all have things we regret in life, so the concept of turning back time (or in the case of one "Superman" movie, reversing Earth's rotation) is an inviting one. Who wouldn't want to fix the past, or erase a regrettable historical event that negatively impacted humanity? Or for people who are more focused on the future, how about turning time forward to see a neat event — such as the first human landing on Mars?
As one scientist points out, we all constantly time travel — but it's in only one direction. We're inevitably moving 1 second at a time into the future, and we could go faster if we wanted.
"Indeed, we can jump forward into the future as much as we want. It's only a matter of going really, really fast," Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, told Space.com in an email. He began by citing evidence from Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, which shows that time is relative depending on how fast you are moving.
"The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. We've been able to measure this with ultra-precise atomic clocks in jet airplanes, and the precision offered by the GPS system needs to take this into account. Sci-fi always seem to require complicated contraptions to jump in time, when all you need is a very large rocket," Sutter wrote.
This means that astronauts, for example, are already time travelers of a sort. That's because they go into space and live on the International Space Station, sometimes for months at a time. At a speed of about 5 miles (8 kilometers) a second, astronauts on the space station are moving faster than we are on Earth. This means that on the station, astronauts age just a tiny bit slower than they would on the planet's surface. (And that when astronaut Scott Kelly came back from a year in space, the age gap with his slightly older identical twin, Mark, widened by just a little bit.)
Jumping into the past
But many sci-fi franchises focus on time travel to the past. Such travel raises neat questions, such as whether you can go back in time and kill your own grandparent (a puzzle sometimes referred to as "the grandfather paradox").
Sutter pointed out that the physics of our universe appear to forbid this situation, at least as far as we can see. But surprisingly, some of Einstein's equations from the theory of general relativity may allow time travel into the past. (That theory basically discusses how huge objects distort space-time, which we feel as gravity.)
So how could Einstein's theory make time travel possible? Well, one way would be to break the cosmic speed limit and go faster than the speed of light — but that likely wouldn't work, because an object going at that speed would have infinite mass. Another possibility would be to form "wormholes" between points in space-time, although this would likely work for only small particles. There are even more exotic possibilities out there, such as using black holes, huge cylinders or cosmic strings to play with the fabric of space-time.
"When it comes to the past," Sutter said, "the mathematics of general relativity does allow a few strange scenarios where you can end up in your own past. But all of these scenarios end up violating other known physics, like requiring negative mass or infinitely long rotating cylinders. Why does general relativity allow past time travel, but other physics always jump in to spoil the fun? We honestly don't know."
But that doesn't mean that scientists are giving up. In 2015, Ali Övgün of Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus said wormholes might be possible in zones with dark matter. (This is a theoretical form of matter that cannot be seen or otherwise sensed with telescopes, but does show itself in its gravitational effects on other bodies.) While his equations show wormholes could occur in these regions, Övgün said he is still searching for proof. "It is only mathematical proof," he said. "I hope one day it will be possible to also find direct experimental evidence."
Even the world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking was entranced by the idea of time travel before his death this year, when he discussed in the Daily Mail how a black hole could make it possible. "Around and around they'd go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew would be traveling through time," he wrote in 2010. However, physicist Amos Iron at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, said a machine circling a black hole would probably disintegrate before moving that quickly.
Visit Exotic Exoplanets with NASA Visualization Tool
Visit Exotic Exoplanets with NASA Visualization Tool
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
NASA has created a virtual reality tool that lets you explore the imagined surface of exoplanet Kepler-186f (shown here in an animation) and other potentially habitable worlds.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
You don't need a spaceship to explore alien worlds.
An interactive, 360-degree NASA visualization tool puts you on the surface of TRAPPIST-1d, Kepler-186f and a handful of other exoplanets.
You can look all around and up, getting an eyeful of exotic landscapes and bizarre skies. And you can even do some planetary engineering, adding or removing an atmosphere and seeing how that tweak changes things. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
As the tool points out, these are all imagined vistas: Even the closest alien planets are much too distant to photograph in any detail from Earth's neighborhood. And once you get as far out as Kepler-186f, which lies 492 light-years from the sun, even some of the most basic characteristics about a world remain elusive.
"Because Kepler-186f and the majority of Kepler-discovered planets are so distant, it is currently impossible to detect their atmospheres — if they exist at all — or characterize their atmospheric properties," said Martin Still, the program scientist for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which launched last month.
"Consequently, we have limited knowledge about what these distant worlds are really like, but these surface visualizations allow us to imagine some of the possibilities," Still said in a statement. "Current and future NASA missions, including TESS and the James Webb Space Telescope, will find the nearest exoplanets to our solar system and characterize their atmospheres, bridging the gap between speculation and what's really out there."
"Because Kepler-186f and the majority of Kepler-discovered planets are so distant, it is currently impossible to detect their atmospheres — if they exist at all — or characterize their atmospheric properties," said Martin Still, the program scientist for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which launched last month.
"Consequently, we have limited knowledge about what these distant worlds are really like, but these surface visualizations allow us to imagine some of the possibilities," Still said in a statement. "Current and future NASA missions, including TESS and the James Webb Space Telescope, will find the nearest exoplanets to our solar system and characterize their atmospheres, bridging the gap between speculation and what's really out there."
TESS is following in the footsteps of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which has discovered about 70 percent of the 3,700 known exoplanets to date. But unlike Kepler, TESS will hunt for worlds around the sun's nearest neighbor stars, and some of the satellite's finds will be close enough for the $8.8 billion James Webb, which is scheduled to launch in 2020, to study in detail.
The visualization tool is part of NASA's "Exoplanet Travel Bureau," which also offers free posters of alien worlds for download.
Credit: Flickr, Many Wonderful Artists / Public Domain.
An international team of researchers has shown for the first time that artificial intelligence is better at diagnosing melanoma than human doctors. This particular form of machine learning, known as a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN), was able to make more correct diagnoses and fewer misdiagnoses than some of the world’s most capable skin care oncologists.
Man vs machine
The CNN starts off as a blank slate. In order to teach the artificial neural network how to identify skin cancer, the researchers fed it a dataset of over 100,000 images of malignant melanomas and benign moles. With each iteration, it learned patterns of features characteristic of malignant and benign tumors, becoming increasingly better at differentiating between the two.
After this initial training round, the team of researchers led by Professor Holger Haenssle, senior managing physician at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, introduced the AI to two new sets of images sourced from the Heidelberg library. These dermoscopic images of various skin lesions were completely new to the CNN. One set of 300 images was meant to solely test the performance of the CNN. Another set of 100 images was comprised of some of the most difficult to diagnose lesions and was used to test both machine and real dermatologists.
Researchers were able to recruit 58 doctors from 17 countries. Among them, 17 (29%) indicated they had less than two years’ experience in dermoscopy, 11 (19%) said they had two to five years of experience, and 30 (52%) were experts with more than five years’ experience.
The volunteers were asked to make a decision about how to manage the condition — whether it was surgery, follow-up, or no action at all — based on two levels of information. At level I, the only information that the dermatologists had at their disposal was from dermoscopic images. Four weeks after making the level I assessment, each participant was asked to review their diagnosis at level II, where they were given far more information about the patient — including age, sex, and the location of the lesion, as well as magnified images of the same case.
At level I, humans could accurately detect melanomas 86.6% of the time and correctly identified benign lesions with an average score of 71.3%. The CNN, however, was able to detect benign moles 95% of the time. At level II, the dermatologists significantly improved their performance, as expected, having diagnosed 88.9% of malignant melanomas and 75.7% that were benign.
Even though the expert doctors were better at spotting melanoma than their less experienced counterparts, they were, on average, outperformed by the AI.
Around 232,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed worldwide every year, which result in 55,500 deaths annually. The cancer can be cured, but it typically requires an early diagnosis. This is why this CNN is so impressive — it would be able to identify more cancers early on, thereby saving lives.
“These findings show that deep learning convolutional neural networks are capable of out-performing dermatologists, including extensively trained experts, in the task of detecting melanomas,” Haenssle said.
Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that doctors will soon be scrapped. Far from it: the researchers say that the machine will augment the performance of doctors rather than replace them. Think of a second ‘expert’ opinion which doctors can instantly turn to.
“This CNN may serve physicians involved in skin cancer screening as an aid in their decision whether to biopsy a lesion or not. Most dermatologists already use digital dermoscopy systems to image and store lesions for documentation and follow-up. The CNN can then easily and rapidly evaluate the stored image for an ‘expert opinion’ on the probability of melanoma. We are currently planning prospective studies to assess the real-life impact of the CNN for physicians and patients,” according to Haenssle.
Concerning the study’s limitations, it’s important to note that the study’s participants made diagnoses in an artificial setting. Their decision-making process might look different in a ‘life or death’ situation, which might impact performance. The CNN also had some limitations of its own, such as poor performance with images of melanomas on certain sites such as the fingers, toes, and scalp. For this reason, there is still no substitute for a thorough clinical examination performed by a trained human physician.
That being said, these impressive results indicate that we’re about to experience a paradigm shift, not only in dermatology but in just about every medical field, thanks to developments in artificial intelligence.
WETENSCHAPElon Musk waarschuwt al jaren voor de gevaren van artificiële intelligentie (AI). “Robots zullen tot álles in staat zijn”, zei hij vorig jaar tijdens een conventie van Amerikaanse gouverneurs. Ook de recent overleden fysicus Stephen Hawking en Microsoft-oprichter Bill Gates hebben al herhaaldelijk aangedrongen op voorzichtigheid met AI. Maar volgens een expert aan de universiteit van Oxford loopt het zo’n vaart niet. Robots zullen immers deel gaan uitmaken van ons gezin, zegt hij.
De vrees dat machines een bewustzijn zullen hebben en zich tegen de mensheid keren, is nergens op gebaseerd, zegt Nigel Shadbolt, professor computerwetenschappen aan de universiteit van Oxford.
De manier waarop robots in Hollywoodfilms afgebeeld worden, geeft ons de indruk dat ze allemaal op een dag gek, slecht en gevaarlijk zullen zijn. “Maar dit gaat voorbij aan het echte probleem. Het is niet artificiële intelligentie waarvan je bang moet zijn. Het is natuurlijke domheid”, aldus Shadbolt op het Hay Festival, een festival voor literatuur in kunst in Wales. “Natuurlijk beginnen mensen zich zorgen te maken: gaan de machines wakker worden? Gaan ze superbekwaam zijn? Ik wil je vertellen: nee, nee dat gaan ze niet zijn.”
Het is niet artificiële intelligentie waarvan je bang moet zijn. Het is natuurlijke domheid.
Professor Nigel Shadbolt
Volgens Shadbolt ligt de nadruk op de ontwikkeling van AI die gespecialiseerd is in nauw afgelijnde taken. Het zijn overigens mensen, niet computers die de relatie met robots verder willen ontwikkelen, verduidelijkt hij. Binnenkort zullen we empathie voor hen hebben. He zal niet lang duren voor deze toestellen de metgezellen zijn waarmee onze kinderen opgroeien en die voor ons zorgen als we oud zijn – van de wieg tot het graf.
“We projecteren emoties en bedoelingen op deze systemen. Het maakt niet uit dat er niemand ‘thuis’ is in de elektrische circuits, gewoon een erg goede chatbot. Het doet er niet toe. We zullen buitengewoon gehecht aan hen geraken”, aldus Shadbolt.
We projecteren emoties en bedoelingen op deze systemen. Het maakt niet uit dat er niemand ‘thuis’ is in de elektrische circuits, gewoon een erg goede chatbot.
Professor Nigel Shadbolt
Volgens de professor is die evolutie al aan de gang. Hij haalde het voorbeeld aan van een ceremonie in Japan eerder deze maand waarbij boeddhistische monniken een herdenking organiseerden voor 114 “overleden” Sony-robothonden. “Er werd gehuild. Dit waren ook erg geliefde familieleden.”
We proberen gevoelens op robots, terwijl die zelf helemaal geen emoties ervaren, verduidelijkt hij, onder aanhaling van het voorbeeld van de IBM-supercomputer Watson. Die moest het in 2011 opnemen tegen twee kampioenen van de Amerikaanse tv-quiz Jeopardy ( Waagstuk, red.). “Watson presteerde in dit spel op bovenmenselijk niveau omdat hij in essentie een gigantische database gebruikte van feiten en training tijdens voorgaande spelletjes. Hij geeft de indruk slim en bewust te zijn. Maar ik kan je verzekeren dat Watson zich helemaal niet tevreden voelde toen hij de besten van de wereld versloeg.”
EPADe figuur 'Los Manos' maakt deel uit van de Nazcalijnen in Peru.
WETENSCHAPArcheologen hebben met drones meer dan 25 nieuwe geogliefen ontdekt nabij de Nazcalijnen in de kustwoestijn in het zuiden van Peru. Dat deelt het ministerie van Cultuur vandaag mee.
De geogliefen zijn enorme tekeningen in het woestijnzand in de Peruaanse pampa’s. Dankzij dronebeelden hebben wetenschappers nog meer reusachtige afbeeldingen ontdekt, onder andere van een orka en een dansende vrouw.
De meerderheid van de recent ontdekte afbeeldingen zijn het werk van de Paracascultuur. Ze zijn meer dan 2.000 jaar oud en bijgevolg honderden jaren ouder dan de Nazcalijnen van de hand van het Nazcavolk. Dat zegt Johnny Isla, een archeoloog van het Peruaanse ministerie van Cultuur.
Drones “geven ons de kans om onze documentatie te vergroten en nieuwe groepen van figuren te ontdekken”, aldus Isla. “We hebben nog niet tussen [de geogliefen] gewandeld, we hebben alleen foto’s genomen. Dit is de eerste fase van het onderzoek”, zegt de archeoloog.
In tegenstelling tot de Nazcalijnen, waarvan de meerderheid enkel zichtbaar is vanuit de lucht, zijn de pas ontdekte ‘Palpalijnen’ aangebracht op heuvels en kunnen ze gezien worden vanaf de grond.
Mysterie
De Nazcalijnen zijn tientallen figuren van dieren en geometrische vormen die werden aangebracht in het woestijnzand op de Peruaanse hoogvlakte. Dankzij de unieke klimaatomstandigheden in de regio werden de figuren al die tijd bewaard. Niemand weet precies waartoe de Nazca- en Palpalijnen precies dienen, waarom ze zo groot zijn of waarom ze zo lang deel uitmaakten van de cultuur van de precolumbiaanse volkeren. “In totaal spreken we over ongeveer 1200 jaar waarin geogliefen gemaakt werden” in de regio, aldus Isla.
De Nazcalijnen werden in 1994 uitgeroepen tot UNESCO-werelderfgoed, maar hebben te lijden onder de druk van Peruanen die zich illegaal in het gebied vestigen en verkeer dat van de nabijgelegen snelweg afwijkt.
Vulkaan Kilauea blijft Hawaï teisteren. Sinds de uitbarstingen begonnen op 3 mei zijn al duizenden mensen geëvacueerd. Lavastromen slokten tientallen woningen op, en de vulkaan spuwt assen tot meer dan drie kilometer hoog. De verwoestende kracht levert ook prachtige taferelen op, zoals deze videobeelden van lavastromen die werden gefilmd door een drone.
There’s a lot hidden under Antarctica. Spoiler: it’s not Nazi bases or UFO hangers, at least not yet. According to a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have recently discovered an enormous series of mountain ranges and deep canyons buried beneath the south pole. This is the first real radar look at what’s underneath the South Pole, and gives scientists a better understanding of how the ice will flow out from the center of the world’s largest desert as climate change drives temperatures upwards.
The research was conducted by the European Space Agency PolarGAP project. The researchers discovered three canyons and a vast mountain range along the ice divide, a ridge in the south pole region that determines where ice will flow: the Weddell Sea in the east or the Ross Sea in the west.
Some of these mountains are over 8,000 feet high, and the largest canyon, named the Foundation Trough, runs 250 miles long and a mile deep. All of these geological features are completely hidden from view by solid ice. At its deepest point the ice covering these mountains and canyons is a full 1.2 miles thick.
The geographic South Pole, where the discovery was made.
The world’s most mysterious continent is covered almost completely in ice, and due to its incredibly remote location, scientists have been unable to get a decent view of the topographical features they knew were underneath. Because it’s at the South Pole of Earth, no orbiting satellites pass over it, and radio-echo sounding data is obscured by the massive amount of ice. The PolarGAP project had to use radar sensing aircraft to collect the data on what Dr Fausto Ferraccioli calls “one of the least understood frontiers in the whole of Antarctica.”
Because of this data, scientists now have a far better understanding of the dynamics of how Antarctica might have changed over time and how it could possibly change in the future. Importantly, scientists now know that these mountain ranges are responsible for how ice makes its way across the continent.
Scientists say that these canyons make up an important “bottleneck” that controls the flow of ice into the sea, but say that thinning ice as a result of climate change could speed up this flow. According to lead author of the study, Dr Kate Winter:
“If the ice sheet thins or retreats, these topographically-controlled corridors could facilitate enhanced flow of ice further inland, and could lead to the West Antarctic ice divide moving.
This would, in turn, increase the speed and rate at which ice flows out from the center of Antarctica to its edges, leading to an increase in global sea levels.”
No mention was made, however, of whether or not thinning ice in Antarctica might increase our chances of finding evidence for the hollow Earth.
Despite those beautiful pictures from the New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto continues to be the Rodney Dangerfield of space objects. The latest attack on it comes from a study the journal Icarus where astronomers present their evidence that the former planet and current dwarf planet is actually just a giant comet or, even worse, a giant dirty snowball made of billions of small comets held together by icy nitrogen. Will Pluto be reduced to being a frozen cosmic I-get-no-respect comic telling passing planets that it told its psychiatrist that every astronomer hates it and the shrink says “That can’t be true because every astronomer hasn’t seen you yet”?
“Using chemistry as a detective’s tool, we are able to trace certain features we see on Pluto today to formation processes from long ago. This leads to a new appreciation of the richness of Pluto’s ‘life story,’ which we are only starting to grasp.”
Sputnik Planitia on the right
That spin on the Pluto’s-just-a-ball-of-comets theory comes from Dr. Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Space Science and Engineering Division in San Antonio, Texas, and co-author of the study. According to the press release, Glein and other astronomers got this radical idea not from Pluto itself but from another space object – Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko – which was studied for over two years starting in 2014 by the Rosetta spacecraft. While looking at the Sputnik Planitia glacial area of Pluto in an attempt to determine why it had such a high concentration of nitrogen, Glein and his team had a Comet 67P-generted “Eureka!” moment.
“We found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside the glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects similar in chemical composition to 67P, the comet explored by Rosetta.”
Comet 67P
From that, they developed the “giant comet’ cosmochemical model of Pluto formation.” How did it happen? They’re not sure. In fact, they’re not even sure how much nitrogen Pluto had to start with, how much it leaked into space or why it has so little carbon dioxide. Is it buried under its surface? Was it destroyed by an ancient ocean? And then there’s the big question … how did billions of comets join together to form whatever it is we call Pluto?
“When Pluto was born, it was so ugly, the rest of the universe slapped the Big Bang.”
So what exactly is Pluto? Until more research is conducted and more space probes reach it, International Comet Quarterly (who knew comets had a quarterly publication?) had this to say:
“And, yes, it might be that we will want to consider placing Pluto in different categories, such as (minor) planet and comet. Such “dual status” already exists for some comets and minor planets, which are given formal numbers and names in both kinds of catalogues.”
Here’s an idea. Let’s show Pluto some respect by giving it a name and category all of its own … the Rodney.
“I looked up my cosmic family tree and found three dog stars using it.”
For the most part human beings have managed to dominate all but the most inaccessible and wild places of this planet of ours. Almost everywhere you go we are the rulers, the masters and subjugators of all around us, ever asserting our will over all we oversee. Yet there are places out over the horizon where we do not rule, and where animals of often mysterious origins have taken over.
One of the strangest and most amazing islands of animals can be found upon a remote speck of rough volcanic land sitting out in the middle of nowhere in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. Measuring approximately 10 km long and between 2.0 km and 0.3 km wide, Lord Howe Island is part of an archipelago of 28 scattered islands called the the Lord Howe Island Group, and it was long an uninhabited lost world until 1788, when it was claimed as a British possession by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, aboard the passing British prisoner vessel HMS Supply, while on the way to start a penal colony on Norfolk Island.
In the wake of its discovery by Europeans, Lord Howe island became first a major whaling outpost and provisioning port in the early 1800s, then a full-fledged settlement starting from 1834. None of this was particularly good news for the many endemic species here that were found nowhere else in the world. Here there abounded an incredibly diverse ecosystem of unique flora and fauna that had evolved in the complete absence of humans. Indeed, the island displayed a striking amount of biodiversity and a high degree of endemism for its size and relatively short geological history, and it still does. However, the arrival of humans brought with it earth shattering changes for the wildlife here.
Lord Howe Island
Humans readily hunted animals for food and also eliminated any that were perceived as a threat to their crops, which themselves required the clearing of large amounts of the island’s forests. Humans also brought with them invasive weeds that served to spread out to choke out native plant life, as well as various livestock animals such as pigs and goats, and unwanted stowaways in the form of rats and mice, as well as domesticated pets such as cats and dogs, which conspired to cause massive damage to the island’s ecosystem and wipe out many endemic plant and animal species that were found nowhere else on Earth.
The introduction of rats and mice to the island did perhaps even more damage to this previously untouched ecosystem than any other animal brought here by the hands of man. They ate practically anything they could get their paws on, including birds, eggs, insects, and lizards, ravenously bringing about destruction in their wake. The arrival of these rodents was an absolute scourge, and caused a breathtaking trail of decimation of native species, to the point where settlers of the island went to great lengths to eradicate rats and mice, even offering increasingly generous bounties for the tails of the little beasts, all of which made the hunt for rats and mice a very popular pastime and all of which had little effect on reducing the burgeoning rodent population on the island. This all did very little good in the end, and rats were eventually responsible for the apparent extinction of the island’s most enigmatic inhabitant, the massive Lord Howe stick insect.
The Lord Howe stick insect (Dryococelus australis) is truly a behemoth, with adult male specimens measuring up to 15 cm (6 inches) long and weighing in at around 25 grams (0.88 oz.), making them the largest and heaviest flightless stick insects in the world. The Lord Howe stick insect is so large and intimidating looking, in fact, that they have long commonly been aptly called “tree lobsters.” Indeed, they are impressive looking creatures, with thick legs, wingless armored bodies, and a heavy oblong shape. Despite their formidable appearance, they are actually quite harmless; with their main defenses being to climb trees or rocks and running surprisingly fast for their size, using their powerful legs to vault along. Besides their sheer size, the Lord Howe stick insects are known for their tendency to form strong life bonds with mates, and will adjust their behavior based on what the other is doing, follow each other everywhere, and even sleep together with their arms protectively wrapped around each other, which are all rather bizarre traits for an insect species.
Lord Howe stick insect
Once plentiful, the Lord Howe stick insect was found throughout the island, and was a common sight crawling about on trees and bushes, no doubt much to the chagrin of people afraid of very large bugs. In fact, the insects were so abundant that they were once used as bait for fishing. However, they were also seen as a delicacy for the island’s many rats, as was pretty much everything else, and had no real natural defenses against this alien threat. The rats made quick work of these easy targets, relentlessly hunting the stick insects down and eating through their population until by the early 20th century there were nearly none of these truly one-of-a-kind creatures left. The last Lord Howe stick insect was seen in 1920, after which they were considered to be extinct.
This seemed to be the end for these majestic insects, and for decades they were considered extinct. Then, in the 1964 an unusual report came in from a group of climbers who had been out scaling a precarious spire of rock jutting forth 1,844 feet into the air from the ocean off Lord Howe Island called Ball’s Pyramid. More or less a jagged tower of volcanic rock that soars straight out of the depths, the pyramid was a popular spot for climbers who were willing to navigate the treacherous rocks and swirling sea to ascend the spire. It also seemed like the last place anyone would expect to find anything living, but it was here that this particular group of climbers came across a recently deceased carcass of a Lord Howe stick insect, which was both exciting and baffling for biologists because it hinted that the insects were not gone after all, and also no one could figure out how in the world it had ended up on this isolated, forbidding slash of rock.
Ball’s Pyramid
Follow up expeditions were sent over the years to try and find living specimens, but these were unsuccessful and the Lord Howe stick insect became a sort of cryptid, a specter. Then, in 2001 a team of two Australian scientists by the names of David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, along with their assistants, braved the dizzying heights, unsettling vertical drops, and craggy surface of the pyramid to climb up hundreds of feet above the waves, where they found a single, solitary Melaleuca shrub growing out of a crevice high in the air, under which they found the droppings of some large insect.
It was exciting to say the least, and when the team returned after dark, there upon the branches of this lone bush that was so secluded it may as well have been on another planet they were met with a startling sight; two large, black and shiny bodies scampering about on the branches amid the leaves. A closer look found even more of the enormous things crawling about in the murk, and the excited scientists were able to count 24 Lord Howe insects going about their business as if they had never been gone. Further searches of other similar bushes turned up no further insects, and it became apparent that the total population of remaining Lord Howe stick insects in the entire world consisted of just these 24 individuals, and they all lived in only one place; on and under this one lone spindly little bush perched atop a bleak, craggy spike of rock in the middle of nowhere far from their original habitat. So it was that one of the largest insect species in the world, which had been considered extinct for over 80 years, was found still clinging to life in this remote, very unlikely location.
In the wake of this amazing discovery there have been efforts to preserve this anomalous population of the giant insects, and a very few have been removed from the island in order to breed them for possible reintroduction to their original habitat. At one point, a landslide destroyed the original bush and it was feared that the insects were gone once again, but fortunately there were some breeding pairs remaining. Out of two breeding pairs that were removed from the island, one pair died off, but another has managed to successfully produce eggs, and it was these eggs from this sole female that would serve as the basis to establish a whole captive population of the Lord Howe stick insects numbering in the hundreds, with thousands of eggs, and bring them away from the dark brink of extinction. By 2012, there were over 1,000 adult Lord Howe stick insects in captivity and around 20,000 eggs, many of which have been sent to zoos all over the world, including the Bristol Zoo in Europe, the San Diego Zoo in the United States, and the Toronto Zoo in Canada.
Lord Howe stick insects
The Lord Howe insect is both a remarkable success story and a puzzling conundrum. It is still unknown how these giant bugs managed to wind up on Ball’s Pyramid hundreds of feet above the sea on a craggy rock face, or how they managed to survive all of those years sequestered under that one lone bush. It is thought that they may have hitched a ride on sea birds or floating debris, but the answer remains elusive. With so few remaining specimens it was also unknown just how they had kept their numbers for the past 80 years without dwindling away to nothingness, although it could have been due in large part to the fact that in times of very low numbers the Lord Howe stick insect can demonstrate parthenogenesis, or the ability to procreate without the presence of a male. Whatever the answers may be, the story of the Lord Howe stick insect and their bizarre lost world island lair is intriguing to say the least.
If giant insects aren’t creepy enough for you, then how about an island ruled by poisonous snakes? Ilha de Queimada Grande is an isolated, 110 acre tropical island that lies in the South Atlantic roughly 20 miles off of the coast of Brazil. Other than its quaint beauty, the tiny, uninhabited island seems otherwise fairly innocuous and average from a distance, until one goes ashore and sees that the island is known by its other namesake “Snake Island” for a reason. For slithering through the thick vegetation, lurking in the underbrush, and even hanging from the trees, are thousands upon thousands of deadly snakes of the species Bothrops insularis, known by its common name, the golden lancehead viper.
Indeed, this particular species is only found on this one island, but the truly startling thing about Snake Island is not simply that venomous snakes are found there, but rather just how many of them there are. The island is absolutely teeming with them. Estimates for the density of these venomous snakes on the island vary from a conservative 1 to a horrifying and perhaps exaggerated 5 snakes per square meter. The most common figure given by researchers is around 3 snakes per square meter. It is said that when stepping foot on the island you are never more than 3 feet away from a venomous viper. Since understandably very few scientific expeditions have done a thorough exploration of the island, the exact number is unknown, but it is widely considered to be more snakes per square meter than anywhere else on Earth.
Ilha de Queimada Grande
Over the years the island has perhaps not surprisingly accrued a rather ominous reputation, and there are numerous tales of people venturing there to disappear without a trace or to be found half-melted by the flesh dissolving hemotoxic bites of the snakes. While these reports are for the most part unverified, there is plenty of mystery in the fact that no one really knows why there should be such a remarkable concentration of these snakes on the island. It is known that they feed off of the vast numbers of migratory birds that pass the island, but as to why they are so intensely concentrated here is anyone’s guess. For now Ilha de Queimada Grande is off-limits to visitors, with only a very few scientists permitted to go shore. For those of you who don’t like snakes, that is probably all for the best.
Moving away from creepy crawlies such as bugs and snakes, there are other island’s with perhaps cuter, yet equally enigmatic inhabitants. Big Major Cay, near Exuma Island, in the Bahamas, is in every way a postcard perfect island paradise, with white sand beaches and clear azure waters. The one thing that doesn’t really seem to fit in are all of the pigs that call this little island home. Here on this otherwise uninhabited speck of land dozens and dozens of feral pigs can be seen lounging about on the beach, and very unusually swimming and cavorting about in the crystal clear waters.
As with the other animals we have looked at, no one is quite sure how these hogs got here, although it is suspected that they are descended from domesticated pigs aboard a shipwrecked vessel or a population that was intentionally released here as a food source at some point in history. Today the island and its pigs have become a tourist attraction, with several outfits offering excursions out to see the pigs, which are known to swim right up to boats looking for hand outs, much to the delight of tourists. There are tours that actually go ashore as well, but the pigs are said to be bold, unafraid of humans, and potentially dangerous.
Another island paradise with its own strange denizens is the Aldabra Atoll, in Seychelles, which is composed of four tiny uninhabited coral islands and a lagoon. Here one can find the largest population of giant tortoises in the world, with an estimated 150,000 of the gentle giants wandering the beaches and vegetation. Again it is unclear why such a large concentration of these animals should be here, but their presence has made the island a UNESCO World Heritage site and it is mostly off limits to visitors except for small numbers of scientists and naturalists. Those who wish to visit can undergo a vetting process by the Seychelles Islands Foundation and pay a steep fee, which is used towards conservation of the tortoises.
Japan has several islands that are overrun by animals, such as Tashirojima (Tashiro Island), in Miyagi Prefecture, which is a haven for cats. The animals, which were originally introduced in the Edo period to control the rats that fed on precious silkworms, and the population has since ballooned to the point that cats outnumber humans on the island 6 to 1. The cats are well-cared for and revered as bringers of good luck, to the point that a shrine has been erected in their honor, and they bring in masses of tourists year round.
Japan also has Ōkunoshima, also called Usagi Jima, literally “Rabbit Island,” which lies just off the coast of Hiroshima. Here rabbits are king, with around a thousand of the creatures inhabiting an island with no natural predators and cavorting about with not a care in the world. The island is crawling with rabbits, which are very friendly and will approach people in droves looking for handouts, and as with many of the other animals here their presence on the island has long been a bit of a mystery, as they are not an indigenous species. The main idea is that they are test animals that were abandoned with the closing of a Japanese chemical weapon facility from World War II, the ruins of which can still be seen today. However, it is said that all of these animals were euthanized and could not possibly have been the origins of the island’s rabbits. Another idea is that a few rabbits were released onto the island by schoolchildren in 1971, after which they did what rabbits do and multiplied unchecked and unhindered by any natural predators.
Regardless of how the rabbits got to Ōkunoshima, they have managed to reach numbers over a thousand on this tiny speck of land measuring just 2 miles long. With no predators, and laws in place to protect them, making it illegal to kill or harm them in any way, as well as a complete ban on cats and dogs, the feral rabbits of Ōkunoshima are numerous, and their rather tame, inquisitive nature has made the island a very popular place to go to for curiosity seekers. Here visitors flock to see, play with, and feed the many, many rabbits frolicking about, and videos of tourists interacting with the island’s fluffy denizens swarming around them are quite the sensation in a nation that reveres all things cute, with photos and videos from here proving to be quite popular. Indeed, the island is far more well-known for its rabbits than it is for its dark history or poison gas museum. The rabbits are not particularly good for the island’s ecosystem, but they seem to be here to stay.
Ōkunoshima
Cute and cuddly creatures are all good and well, but last we come to perhaps the most tragic island of animals. Within the African country of Liberia there lies an island within a river that for many years served as a research facility run by the New York Blood Center (NYBC) dedicated to finding a vaccine for the disease Hepatitis. The facility, called Vilab II, was established in 1972 and home to around 100 chimpanzees that were used for testing, and was able to keep up its operations through two civil wars in the war-torn nation. The work done at this island lab is considered to be instrumental in helping to develop the vaccine for Hepatitis B, as well as the perfection of sterilization methods.
Then in 2005 the facility was closed down and the NYBC promised to provide ongoing care for the remaining 66 chimpanzees left on the island by making it a chimp sanctuary. However, the funding did not last and in March of 2017 the chimps were simply abandoned to fend for themselves. This was a devastating proposition for the chimpanzees, as they were trapped on a tiny swampy island with no fresh water supply, no food, and very little chance of escape since chimpanzees are not good swimmers. They had effectively been left to die, and despite the fact that the chimps were sterilized they still have somewhat managed to continue breeding. Life finds a way.
When the plight of these apes came to public attention, conservation organizations such as the Humane Society, the Jane Goodall Institute, and Born Free, as well as private donators and various care groups, came forward to try and provide food and care for this isolated island of chimps, gathering more funds through online campaigns, but this has not proved to be sufficient and the chimps face a bleak future. The NYBC has done nothing to help, simply stating that the island has now gone over to the Liberian government, which itself does not have the funds to take care of a bunch of chimpanzees that were never native to the island. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has repeatedly reached out to the NYBC for help, but this has turned up nothing, and Kathleen Conlee, the vice president of animal research issues at the Humane Society told the site Motherboard:
It can’t be us by ourselves. We need that New York Blood Center support. They absolutely should be doing this. We’re always cleaning everybody else’s messes up and they have the capacity here to do right by the animals. They’re going to have to.
Liberia’s Chimp Island
Sporadic donations and a steady but weak influx of money has helped the Humane Society and other groups provide some semblance of care for the island’s chimps, but it is not nearly enough, and in recent days the animals have become noticeably thin and haggard looking. Whenever caretakers arrive to feed them, which only happens every other day at best, the animals eagerly rush forward to meet them, frantically scrambling for every last scrap they are given. It is a sad state of affairs for these close human relatives, and without a steadier influx of money to help this island of chimps they are certainly doomed to die.
It is often uncertain where many of these animals came from, why they have risen to such heights, or what their futures may hold. They hold onto their island domains out past our control, sowing questions and mysteries. While it may not always be clear what the situation is with these strange lost worlds one thing that is for sure is that it seems that for as much as we reach out and usurp nature and its creatures there will always be some isolated pockets where creatures other than us reign supreme.
Century’s Longest Total Lunar Eclipse - Get Ready for a Rare Astronomical Phenomenon
Century’s Longest Total Lunar Eclipse - Get Ready for a Rare Astronomical Phenomenon
The Total Lunar Eclipse of July 27-28 is the next biggest astronomical phenomenon this year and this is the second and last total lunar eclipse of 2018.
The July 2018 full moon presents the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century and lasting for 1 hour and 43 minutes.
This lunar eclipse is primarily visible from the world’s Eastern Hemisphere (Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand). Lunar eclipses can be visible from everywhere on the night side of the Earth, if the sky is clear.
From some places, the entire eclipse will be visible, while in other areas the Moon will rise or set during the eclipse.
Daytime UFO caught on tape over Melbourne, Australia 27-May-2018
Daytime UFO caught on tape over Melbourne, Australia 27-May-2018
Here’s one new footage of a bright unidentified flying object that was hovering in the sky above Melbourne in Australia. This was taken on 27th May 2018.
Mars may once have been home to alien life, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh believe that rocks near ancient lakes may contain traces of tiny creatures, known as microbes on Mars.
The team believes that sedimentary rocks made of mud or clay are the most likely to contain fossils.
These rocks formed during the Noachian and Hesperian Periods of Martian history between three and four billion years ago, when Mars’s surface was abundant in water.
Researchers believe that rocks near ancient lakes may contain traces of tiny creatures, known as microbes on Mars(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL)
In the study, the researchers reviewed studies of fossils on Earth, and assessed the results of lab experiments replicating the conditions on Mars, to identify the most promising sites to look for traces of life.
Their findings could help inform the landing sites for NASA ’s next mission toe Mars, which is scheduled for 2020.
Dr Sean McMahon, who led the study, said: "There are many interesting rock and mineral outcrops on Mars where we would like to search for fossils, but since we can't send rovers to all of them we have tried to prioritise the most promising deposits based on the best available information."
The Voyager 'Golden Record' NASA hoped would help aliens learn about Earth could baffle them with Bulgarian folk music and show them humanity loves to argue, astronomers warn
The Voyager 'Golden Record' NASA hoped would help aliens learn about Earth could baffle them with Bulgarian folk music and show them humanity loves to argue, astronomers warn
Records include 117 pictures, whale sounds and greetings in 54 language
Experts say the greeting could 'sound like arguing' and warn the inclusion of so many types of music could be very confusing
Also point out record relies on alien life having the same senses as us
The 'golden record' NASA sent aboard its Voyager craft to help alien life understand humanity may just confuse them, researchers have warned.
The records include maps, images and charts along with 117 pictures, humpback whale sounds, greetings in 54 language, a 20-minute 'sound essay' of life on Earth, and 90 minutes of music.
However, Rebecca Orchard and Sheri Wells-Jensen at Bowling Green State University in Ohio say it could simply confuse alien lifeforms - and show them humanity likes to argue.
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The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records (pictured) on board. Each record was etched with a map (top right) similar to those placed on the Pioneer craft
WHAT IS ON VOYAGER'S GOLDEN DISCS?
The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
The records include maps, images and charts along with 117 pictures, humpback whale sounds, greetings in 54 language, a 20-minute 'sound essay' of life on Earth, and 90 minutes of music.
'The Golden Record is a beautiful artefact and representation of how humans want to see themselves, but it is meant to be received by and interpreted by something that has the sensory capabilities of the average human,' Orchard told The Guardian before their talk at the at the National Space Society meeting in Los Angeles on Saturday.
'If the second one of these senses is absent, or an entirely different sense is added, the Golden Record becomes a bit confusing.'
They say the inclusion of greetings in 54 languages could also be disastrous.
The barrage of greetings 'pile up in a way that could be construed as arguing', said Orchard, in a language that has 'no grammatical congruity' - and also assumes the lifeforms hear in exactly the same way we do.
They say trying to match the images with the audio, assuming they can work out how to listen to is, could also end badly.
This image shows a gold record in its cover, attached to a Voyager space probe before launch in 1977. The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train and horse and cart
'What if you pair the image of an open daffodil with the roar of a chainsaw?' said Orchard.
However, she hoped the mere fact it was sent could bolster our reputation.
'I would hope that the mere fact that we've endeavoured to send a record of humanity shows something about our humanity,' she concluded.
However, experts say it may be some time before the messages are read.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope map (pictured) of the paths of NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft as they journey through the solar system and into interstellar space. Hubble is gazing at two sight lines (the twin cone-shaped features) along each spacecraft's path. The telescope's goal is to help astronomers map interstellar structure along each spacecraft's star-bound route. Each sight line stretches several light-years to nearby stars
What the golden record shows: The Golden Record CoverIn the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour. The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines
Voyager 1 is currently 13 billion miles away from Earth, travelling northward through space.
However, it will be 40,000 years before it comes close to another star system.
The probe has recently sent back data to Nasa that cosmic rays are as much as four times more abundant in interstellar space than in the vicinity of Earth.
This suggests that the heliosphere, the region of space that contains our solar system's planets, may act as a radiation shield.
During their 40 years of operation, the Voyagers have set several records.
HOW DID NASA MAKE VOYAGER'S GOLDEN RECORDS?
Many people were instrumental in the design, development and manufacturing of the golden record, NASA says.
Blank records were provided by the Pyral S.A. of Creteil, France. CBS Records contracted the JVC Cutting Center in Boulder, Colorado to cut the lacquer masters which were then sent to the James G. Lee Record Processing center in Gardena, California to cut and gold plate eight Voyager records.
The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter
Gold plating took place on August 23, 1977; afterward, the records were mounted in aluminum containers and delivered to JPL.
The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter.
The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years.
The records also had the inscription "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" hand-etched on its surface.
The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years
In 2012, Voyager 1 became the only spacecraft to have entered interstellar space, which the Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown by all four outer planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Their planetary encounters include the discovery of the first active volcanoes beyond Earth – on Jupiter's moon Io – and the most Earth-like atmosphere in the solar system – on Saturn's moon Titan
The Golden Record was one of four attempts NASA made in the 1970s to send a message to alien lifeforms.
It sent maps revealing Earth's location into space on board four craft, in the hope of communicating with aliens.
But Dr Frank Drake, who designed the maps, last year spoke out about the potentially 'dangerous' decision to send the charts over 40 years ago.
All four craft have now left the solar system and are speeding into deep space with Earth's coordinates on board.
This image shows the diagram carried aboard Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, showing aliens how to find Earth. To the right are images of a man and a woman, while the star-like shape on the left pinpoints Earth (centre) relative to a number of pulsar stars (end of each point)
THE MAPS TO EARTH
Plaques placed inside the Pioneer craft show a man and a woman alongside a basic map of Earth which plots its position in relation to distant pulsar stars.
These star are long-lasting and bright so could still point aliens in the right direction if they are found millions of years from now.
The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records on board etched with similar pulsar maps to our planet.
The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train, horse and cart as well as a kiss between a mother and child.
Dr Drake worked with Nasa to design charts placed aboard Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in 1972 and 1973.
And similar maps were placed on Nasa's 1977 probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.
In a new interview, Dr Drake spoke about the maps he helped design.
'In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly,' he told his daughter, Nadia Drake, who writes for National Geographic.
'Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.'
Plaques placed inside the Pioneer craft show a man and a woman alongside a basic map of Earth which plots its position in relation to distant pulsar stars.
These stars are long-lasting and bright so could still point aliens in the right direction if they are found millions of years from now.
The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records on board etched with similar pulsar maps to our planet.
The goal was to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was travelling.
The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train, a horse and cart, and even a kiss between a mother and child.
Voyager 1 (artist's impression pictured) and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 were launched to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space
Despite the potential dangers the interstellar maps pose, Dr Drake said that the chances of aliens picking up the messages are 'very small'.
He added: 'The thing is going something like 10 kilometres [6.2 miles] per second, at which speed it takes - for the typical separation of stars - about half a million years to go from one star to another.'
The astronomer is not the first expert to warn of the risks of contacting aliens.
Renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking suggested last year that meeting beings from another planet could lead to humans being wiped out.
Hawking said it could be similar to when the Native Americans first encountered Christopher Columbus – and 'that didn't turn out so well'.
The physicist believes if aliens discovered Earth, they are likely to want to conquer and colonise our planet.
DID NOSTRADAMUS, EDGAR CAYCE, AND BABA VANGA SOMEHOW ACCESS THE AKASHIC RECORDS?
DID NOSTRADAMUS, EDGAR CAYCE, AND BABA VANGA SOMEHOW ACCESS THE AKASHIC RECORDS?
The Akashic Records; A Massive cosmic library?
Have you ever heard about the Akashic Records? Supposedly, the Akashic Records are a massive cosmic library where everything that has ever existed, and that will ever exist, is stored: it is like a massive memory bank, located outside the boundaries of time and space.
It is believed that the Akashic records contain all the knowledge and experiences of our soul acting as a supercomputer of cosmic information where we can access information on our past lives, the present and future possibilities (forming part of the theory of reincarnation), as well as the sense of our existence.
Every moment, every test, every feeling and thought, everything would be manifested there.
But these records do not hold only information about the human soul, supposedly, the Akashic records would also possess the knowledge of the whole universe, from the beginning of life to the last future possibilities manifested from the microcosm and the macrocosm, since it is a complete universal memory. From a Theosophical and Anthroposophical point of view, we understand that the Akashic records are a summary of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future: the perfect tool for a Prophet and Seer.
The idea that such a cosmic memory bank exists has fascinated scholars and philosophers since time immemorial.
Akasha or ākāśa is a term for either space or ætherin traditional Indian cosmology.
In ancient Sanskrit, it is used to describe the ‘ether’ (æther), which is an impalpable, immaterial, subtle and intangible fluid, which the ancient Hindus believed exists across and ‘inside’ the entire universe and would be the vehicle of sound and life.
As noted by Crystal Links, in Surat Shabda Yoga cosmology, the Akashic Records would be located within the causal plane of Trikuti. Believers in the Akasha make many claims about how widely the Akasha was used, including:
The claim that the Vedas of Hindus and the language of Sanskrit itself were extracted from Akasha.
The claim that in Egypt, those who could read the Akasha were held in high standing and would advise the Pharaohs on daily activities and dream interpretation.
The claim that the Druid cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England demonstrated the ability to access the Akasha.
The claim that the Bible refers to the Akasha records as the Book of Life in both the Old Testament (Psalm 69:28) and the New Testament (Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15 and Revelation 21:27 “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”)
Alice A. Bailey wrote in her book Light of the Soul on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Book 3 – Union achieved and its Results (1927):
The akashic record is like an immense photographic film, registering all the desires and earth experiences of our planet. Those who perceive it will see pictured thereon: The life experiences of every human being since time began, the reactions to experience of the entire animal kingdom, the aggregation of the thought-forms of a karmic nature (based on desire) of every human unit throughout time. Herein lies the great deception of the records. Only a trained occultist can distinguish between actual experience and those astral pictures created by imagination and keen desire.
In other words, we can define the Akashic Records as the ‘data’ that in theory exists in a single place, in a non-physical way, outside of time and space. The Akashic records can also be summed up as a kind of infinite memory (of everything that has happened since the beginning of time) that has become embedded and registered in the ether.
Tapping into the cosmic library
So, if such a library exists, is there a way we can access it? Tap into this information, passing all boundaries and discovering things we were perhaps better off not knowing?
If you think about the Akashic Records, and important people in history like Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and Baba Vanga, you can’t help and wonder whether they may have something in common.
If the Akashic records contain all the knowledge and history of the whole universe, from the beginning of life to the last future possibilities manifested from the microcosm and the macrocosm, then accessing this cosmic library means that he who access it would have infinite information available to him.
If everything that has happened, that is happening and that is yet to happen is located within this supposed cosmic library, then accessing it would mean that person would know of future events that are yet to happen.
He or she would become a seer. A Prophet. A person who has access to information others do not.
Nostradamus—one of the most notorious seers in the history of Earth
In 1555 in France, Michel de Nôtre-Dame, aka Nostradamus. began to write a series of mysterious verses, full of strange ideas, strange information. It is claimed that these were astonishing predictions of future events on Earth. Through his work, it is believed that Nostradamus managed to predict cataclysms and disasters hundreds of years before they happened.
Furthermore, it is also claimed that Nostradamus predicted the entire world history since his death up to now, and well beyond.
The French Physician and apothecary is credited with having predicted the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the rise of Hitler in the 1930’s. He also predicted Sept. 11, 2001, when he wrote: Earthshaking fire from the center of the Earth Will cause tremors around the New City. Two great rocks will war for a long time; Then Arethusa will redden a new river.
The man is also credited for predicting the Moon Landing, the assassination of J.F.K., and the nuclear bomb.
So how did he do it? Were his predictions the result of poems and personal writings that have wrongly been interpreted?
Or, is it possible, as some authors suggest, that Nostradamus did, in fact, manage to predict the future? And he did so by tapping into a mysterious cosmic energy: The Akashic Records.
Edgar Cayce—the other Nostradamus
Called by many as the sleeping prophet, Edgar Cayce has remained as one of the most popular seers despite the fact that not many know of his work.
He devoted his life to research topics related to the embodiment, clairvoyance, UFOs, Atlantis, spirituality, and healing, among many others.
Just as Nostradamus, he seemed to have had the incredible gift of seeing things that are yet to happen, many years into the future. He announced the awakening of one or both volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna.
In 1934, he predicted that the majority of Japanese territory would slide into the sea. Curiously, Japanese geologist Nobichico Obara argues that Japan is constantly sinking into the sea, two to three centimeters per year.
So how did he do it? Is it possible that just as Nostradamus, Cayce too managed to access the Akashic Records?
Just as Nostradamus and Cayce, Baba Vanga, a blind mystic from Bulgaria, predicted incredible things from the future.
The Bulgarian is referred to by many authors as the Nostradamus of the 21st century. Somehow, she managed to predict the 9/11 terror attacks, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, and she also warned the world about the rise of the terrorist group ISIS, decades ago.
9/11 according to Baba Vanga:
“Horror, horror! The American brethren (believed to be a reference to the two ‘brother’ towers) will fall after being attacked by the steel birds (thought to be the two hijacked passenger planes). “The wolves will be howling in a bush (believed to be a reference to then US president George Bush) and innocent blood will gush.”
She also managed to predict the tragic fate of the Russian Submarine the Kursk in 2000;
“At the turn of the century, in August of 1999 or 2000, Kursk will be covered with water, and the whole world will be weeping over it.”
HIDDEN WORLD UNDER ANTARCTICA REVEALED: SCIENTISTS FIND A WORLD THEY’VE NEVER IMAGINED
HIDDEN WORLD UNDER ANTARCTICA REVEALED: SCIENTISTS FIND A WORLD THEY’VE NEVER IMAGINED
The Discovery has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Despite the fact that satellites orbiting earth have helped map our planet’s surface in great detail, there was a gap around an area of the South Pole, which is not covered by satellites due to the inclination of their orbits.
Now, scientists have finally revealed what is there, and it comes as a surprise.
Scientists exploring Antarctica have found massive mountain ranges and vast canyons that run for hundreds of miles beneath the continents thick ice.
Hidden beneath south Antarctica, researchers used ice-penetrating radar to discover massive canyons cutting through three expansive subterranean mountain ranges under the Antarctic ice shelf.
Although there is extensive satellite data that helps obtain images of the surface of the Earth and its deep interior, there was a gap around the area of the South Pole, which is not covered by satellites due to the inclination of the orbits.
Therefore, the PolarGAP project was designed to fill the gap in the coverage of satellite data from the South Pole and, in particular, to acquire the missing data reports the British Antarctic Survey, which participated in the research.
Scientists warn as global warming advances, these massive valleys could play an important role in the flow of the ice.
“As there were gaps in satellite data around the South Pole, no one knew exactly what was there,” said Dr. Kate Winter, lead author of the study and a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Northumbria University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences.
“We now understand that the mountainous region is preventing ice from East Antarctica flowing through West Antarctica to the coast. In addition, we have also discovered three subglacial valleys in West Antarctica which could be important in the future.
“If the ice sheet thins or retreats, these topographically-controlled corridors could facilitate an enhanced flow of ice further inland and could lead to the West Antarctic ice divide moving. This would, in turn, increase the speed and rate at which ice flows out from the center of Antarctica to its edges, leading to an increase in global sea levels.”
Dr. Winter adds: “The data we have gathered will enable ice sheet modelers to predict what will happen if the ice sheet thins, which will mean we can start to answer the questions we couldn’t answer before.”
The mission marked the first time scientists were able to map three vast subglacial valleys in West Antarctica. The largest valley, known as Foundation Trough, is more than 350 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Its length is equivalent to the distance from London to Manchester, while its width equals more than one and a half times the length of the island of Manhattan in New York.
Two of the remaining valleys are equally vast. The Patuxent canal is more than 300 kilometers long and more than 15 wide, while the Offset Rift Basin is 150 long and 30 wide.
Scientists warn that if climate change causes the ice sheet to be reduced, these valleys could increase the speed at which ice flows from the center of Antarctica to the sea, raising global sea levels.
WHAT WAS MANNA, THE MYSTERY FOOD ‘GOD’ SENT DOWN FROM HEAVEN?
WHAT WAS MANNA, THE MYSTERY FOOD ‘GOD’ SENT DOWN FROM HEAVEN?
Manna: The Food of God
Manna—also known as Mana—was a mysterious substance which was, according to the Bible, sent by God and given to the Israelites as they traveled in the desert during their ‘forty-year’ period following the Exodus.
In the Bible, it explains how the Israelites got from Egypt, where they’d been slaves, to the Promised Land.
They had to cross the Sinai Desert. And inevitably, given that there was a lot of Israelites and very little growing, as it was a desert, they ran short on supplies. At this point, in order to prevent the population from starving, God sent down Manna from heaven.
As it fell to Earth, Manna is described as some kind of seed. These seeds were connected the day after they had fallen to Earth. Manna provided food for the Israelites every day except Friday, since on Saturday—the Sabbath—it did not fall.
In the Biblical book of the Exodus, it is written that Manna appeared every night and every morning after the dew had disappeared and that it had to be collected before the heat of the sun melted it.
According to historical accounts, Manna arrived with the dew, at night.
The manna is described as a kind of seed similar to that of the coriander, white, which after being ground and baked resembled wafers with honey, although in some accounts it is described as being the same color as Indian myrrh.
If we take a look at the Hebrew Bible, we will find two descriptions referring to Manna.
We find the first description in Exodus 16:1–36 and once again in Numbers 11:1–9.
In Exodus, manna is described as “a fine, flake-like thing” similar to the frost on the ground. In Exodus Manna is described as being similar to hoarfrost in color. The ‘Food’ had to be gathered before it melted by the sun. Exodus describes manna as tasting like wafers that had been prepared with honey.
The Gathering of the Manna by James Tissot. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
In the Book of Numbers Manna is detailed as arriving with the dew during the night. In Numbers, we find details of Manna resembling bdellium—a semi-transparent oleo-gum-resin extracted from trees growing in Ethiopia, Eritrea and sub-SaharanAfrica.
Mystery man…na
So, basically, Manna was a food sent by God, to keep the population from starving. But we still don’t know what it was.
In the book of Exodus, we find that the Israelites were told only to eat manna they had gathered for each day as stored mana “bred worms and stank.”
However, curiously, manna stored the day before the Sabbath did not spoil overnight, as it clearly states in Exodus16:23–24:
This is what the Lord commanded: “Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So, bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.” So, they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it.
So, what is Manna? Is it a naturally abundant food provided by God or, as some believe?
The Gathering of the Manna, c. 1460-1470. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Some believe that the Zohar—a collection of spiritual commentaries and interpretations of the Torah and is central to the mystical Kabbalah belief written in the 13th century may offer more details about this mysterious food source.
In the Zohar, we find descriptions of what is referred to as the Ancient of Days providing Manna.
According to the Book of Daniel AncientofDays is a name for God. In Eastern OrthodoxChristian hymns and icons, the AncientofDays is sometimes identified with God the Father or occasionally The Holy Spirit.
As noted by ancient astronaut theorists, the Zohar describes different-sized brains, different-sized faces that were connected with different tubes and different light sources.
And despite the fact that theologians have suggested that this is a description of God, ancient astronaut theorists argue that from a modern perspective, what is described in the Zohar isn’t necessarily a god figure, but rather a type of machine: A machine that somehow produced ‘manna’ a mysterious food source that has still not been identified, despite the fact that numerous historical accounts suggest it was real.
The Manna machine theory offers two explanations as to where the Israelites may have gotten it from.
One suggests they stole it from the Egyptians before their exodus, while the other, more controversial one suspect’s extraterrestrials gave it to them as a humanitarian gesture, to prevent their starvation in the desert.
Either way, the answer, like the Ark of the Covenant, seems lost to history.
Manna Machine
In 1978 George Sassoon and Rodney Dale wrote a book which was based upon a translation of the section of the Zohar a called “The Ancient of Days”. In the book, the authors conclude that Manna was produced by a machine that had created algae as food for human beings in biblical times. The so-called Manna machine was eventually reproduced by George who was an engineer, who is said to have followed the directions given in The Ancient of Days. After creating the machine, he claimed it created a food source of algae.
Furthermore, This explains how the Israelis survived their forty year journey in the Sinai Desert. It is said by Sassoon and Dale that a nuclear reactor used to power the manna machine was stored within the Ark of the Covenant.
This Remarkable New Crop Circle Formation Just Appeared
This Remarkable New Crop Circle Formation Just Appeared
This remarkable Crop Circle was just reported and documented in Buckland Down, Nr Cerne Abbas, Dorset on 26th May 2018. The new formation is visually stunning and incredibly precise!
A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN COSMOS
A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN COSMOS
The Egyptian Cosmos
The Egyptian cosmos is separated into two parts. The upper region consists of the earth (Geb), atmosphere (Shu) and heavens (Nut). Nut and Geb are lovers, but Shu must hold them apart to allow the other gods the freedom to move across the cosmos.
Most important of these celestial children is Ra, the sun-god, who sails across the sky at day and into the underworld at night. Whereas the heavenly bodies represent the divine order of the universe, the underworld epitomizes pure chaos. The ‘Duat’, as it is known, is a dark abyss thriving with snakes, monsters and evil spirits.
To bring order to this chaos, several gods made their home in the underworld, helping to guide the dead through its treacherous terrain. It is Ra, the sun-god, who helps bring balance to the cosmos, with the help of his fellow deities. He sails across the ‘River of the Sky’ in the day, resting in his boat known as Mandjet (the day barge). During the evening, he enters the underworld, and the boat would take on the name, Mesketet (the boat of millions).
As he descends into the netherworld, the body of Ra perishes, bringing darkness to the upper region of the Earth. A crew of lesser deities guard his body and steer the boat through the perilous underworld, in the hope of bringing him back to life.
The boats first stop is at the gap of Abydos, where the souls of countless humans onboard. They will be judged by Osiris who will determine their place in the afterlife. The Mesketet then sets off on its journey into the underworld, where it will pass through twelve gates, each chamber offering a challenge which must be overcome before Ra can rise again.
HOUR 1: At the ‘Watercourse of Ra’, Wepwawet, the opener of ways, unlocks the first gate, allowing the Ra access to the underworld. The boat passes six snakes whom the goddess Ba holds at bay.
HOUR 2: It is at ‘Ur Nes’, where Ra’s light nurtures the spirit of the corn so that it may flourish in the upper world, bringing health and abundance to his people.
HOUR 3: In the ‘Kingdom of Osiris’, the hearts of mortals are judged against the weight of a feather. If the weight of their sins causes the scales to drop all the way to the bottom, they are eaten by Amemt, devourer of souls.
HOUR 4: ‘Living One of Forms’ is a gloomy desert realm, presided over by Sokar, lord of the mysterious. The boat floats quietly over the sands, so as not to rouse a hydra which guards the realm.
HOUR 5: The boat of Ra passes into a ravine known as ‘The Hidden’. The way out is guarded by two sphinxes, whose riddles must be solved before the boat can move on. It is Sokar, god of the dead, who helps them solve the guardian’s secrets.
HOUR 6: At ‘the Abyss of Waters’, the boat drops into a great river. A monstrous lion prowls its banks, and further along, they are joined by Khepera, god of resurrection, who later, will help to revive the body of Ra.
HOUR 7: ‘The Secret Cavern’ is a perilous realm, for Apep, lord of Chaos resides there. The great serpent tries to swallow the boat, but Isis, goddess of magic, uses her powers to banish the beast back into the abyss.
HOUR 8: ‘Sarcophagus of the Gods’ is the resting place of bygone deities. When the boat of Ra passes, they cry out and salute the sun-god, for his time to arise is close at hand.
HOUR 9: As the boat enters the ‘Procession of Images’, the river becomes savage and unruly. The 12-star gods help guide the boat away from fire-breathing serpents, back to safer shores.
HOUR 10: The boat now arrives at ‘Lofty of Banks’. A group of Divine warriors protects Ra as a great hawk, known as the ‘Leader of Heaven’, guides them toward the light. Khepera joins himself to Ra, in readiness for his resurrection.
HOUR 11: ‘Mouth of the Cavern’ is a land of life and death. Those mortals who were deemed evil in the third hour are cast into a pit, guarded over by goddesses of fire until they perish. Shedu, as a winged serpent, brings with him the promise of a new day.
HOUR 12: ‘The Birth Shines Forth’ is the final chamber, where Khepera resurrects the great king Ra. His waking form glides through the mouth of the great serpent known as ‘Life of the Gods’.
So it is that Ra is reborn, and the glory of the morning sun causes all people to cheer as his light returns to the upper region of Egypt.
Written by Simon E. Davies, Contributor to Ancient Code.
HERE ARE 12 OF THE MOST PROMINENT ANCIENT GODS OF MESOPOTAMIA
HERE ARE 12 OF THE MOST PROMINENT ANCIENT GODS OF MESOPOTAMIA
Sumer, known as the “land of the kings”, was founded in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) between 4500 and 4000 BCE. It became one of the first civilizations ever established in history, where its people drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries such as weaving, metallurgy, and pottery.
Each city was protected by a particular god or goddess, with large temples built in the city center for them to reside in. The Gods of Mesopotamia still possessed the vestigial remnants of their earlier, elemental roles, such as air, fire, and thunder.
Anu (God of heaven) was the original ruler of the Mesopotamian pantheon. He was an ethereal-god, known as the lord of constellations and master of spirits, who dwelt in the highest region of heaven and had the power to judge those who committed crimes.
Enlil (God of the air) was patron to the city of Nippur, associated with the wind and open spaces. He was the only god who could reach out to Anu in heaven, because he ruled over the sky. It was Enlil who helped create humans, but he soon grew irritated of their commotion and tried to kill them by engulfing them in a great flood.
Enki (God of freshwater) was the patron of the city of Eridu. He was known as the lord of knowledge, crafts and creation, who resided over all who dwelt on the earth plane. He was the keeper of a divine power known as ‘Me’ which were inscribed on stone tablets (said to hold the secrets of civilization). He is often depicted with a horned crown, dressed in the skin of a carp.
Enbilulu (God of Rivers) was in charge of the river Tigris and Euphrates, both of which were considered to be very sacred. He ruled over the domain of agriculture, teaching men the craft of irrigation and farming. It is said he knew the secrets of water above and below the earth, granting him the power to make all things flourish.
Nergal (God of Death) was a chthonic deity whose seat of power resided in Cuthah. He is often presented as half man half lion, known by all as the “raging king,” or “furious one.” He represented the sun of noon-time that brings darkness and chaos, thereby associating him with war, famine and pestilence. He also presided over the netherworld, where he governed the dead souls of the afterlife.
Nanna (God of the Moon) was commonly known as the “lord of wisdom” who presided over the city of Ur. He personified the sacred knowledge of science, astronomy and astrology. Nanna was often presented as a great, winged bull flying across the crescent moon. In the astral system he is represented by the number 30 (which refers to the average number of days in a lunar month).
Ninurta (God of War) was lord of Lagash, often depicted with a magical mace called Sharur. Not only a master of war, he was also associated with healing and surgery, helping to release humans from injury, illness and demonic possession. It was Enki, the fresh-water God, who mentored Ninurta’s in the ways of warfare and arcane knowledge (probably based upon the sacred teachings of the Me).
Utu (God of the Sun) was in charge of truth, justice and law. He is usually portrayed as a man wearing a helmet, holding a sun disk and carrying a serrated sword. Every day Utu emerges from a mountain in the east, travelling across the Earth in a chariot, before returning to a cave in a west (creating dawn, midday and sunset respectively). Every night he descends into the underworld to decide the fate of the dead.
Gerra (God of Fire) was said to possess a wisdom and skill so vast “that all the gods could not fathom it”. He was known to his followers as “lord of the fire and the forge”, capable of refining potent metals, purifying people of evil spirits and mastering any weapon known to man. It was claimed that he was undefeatable in battle.
Tammuz (God of Vegetation) was a patrol deity associated with food and sustenance. He represented abundance in the spring, and the waning of life in the Autumn. The passing of summer came to represent death to Mesopotamian’s, and many rituals were practiced in Tammuz’s name, grieving for his passing and calling for his return in the coming year.
Marduk (God of Storms) was the patron deity of Babylon, who slowly rose to power as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. He is a complex God associated with prophecy, resurrection and thunder. He rose to power during a civil war between the gods and their prodigy (known as the Igigi). It was Marduk who conquered Tiamat (a primeval goddess), elevating him to the status of God-king, ruling over the Heaven and the Earth. All nature, including man, owed its existence to him.
Nabu (God of Scribes) was master of wisdom and writing. He was the son of Marduk, acting as his scribe and minister, and eventually became the keeper of the Tablets of Destiny, in which the fate of humankind was recorded. Nabu wears a horned cap, and stands with hands clasped, in the ancient gesture of priesthood. He rides on a winged dragon that is initially belonged to his father Marduk.
Written by Simon E. Davies, Contributor to Ancient Code.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
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