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 ALREADY 13 YEARS.
ON 06/06/2024 MORE THAN 2.056.610
VISITORS FROM 134 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...
02-06-2018
Are All Energy-Intensive Civilizations Doomed To Self-Destruct? Scientists Model Alien Planets To Find Out
Are All Energy-Intensive Civilizations Doomed To Self-Destruct? Scientists Model Alien Planets To Find Out
By Rosie McCall
Billions of galaxies and trillions of planets populate our universe. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, ours is the only one to host living organisms. As we hurtle down a path of climate change and possible self-destruction, some scientists are asking the question: Is it actually possible to build a sustainable energy-intensive civilization or are all doomed to fail?
Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, New York, and colleagues published a study in the journal Astrobiology looking at the various possible pathways open to alien civilizations (or "exo-civilizations") as they develop, exploit their planet's resources, and deal with the ensuing climate change.
“Given that more than 10 billion trillion planets likely exist in the cosmos, unless nature is perversely biased against civilizations like ours, we’re not the first one to appear,” he wrote in an article for The Atlantic.
"And just as most species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct, so too most civilizations that emerged (if they emerged) may have since ended.”
The study involves mathematical models built from laws in physics, chemistry, and simple population biology. In the end, they found there were three distinct trajectories a civilization may take. But be warned, it makes for rather grim reading.
The Die-Off
This "cosmic Easter Island"-type scenario was, Frank points out, disconcertingly the most common. Here, the civilization uses the energy available to it and grows exponentially as a result. However, by doing so, they change the environment. The planet can no longer sustain the population and so a "die-off" occurs, killing as much as 70 percent of the civilization until it achieves a viable – and sustainable – state.
The Soft Landing
The best possible trajectory for a civilization that has "out-grown" its host is the soft landing. As in the previous scenario, the population grows and the environment changes but together the civilization and planet reach a new equilibrium, thereby preventing a mass die-off.
The Full-Blown Collapse
As you might tell from the name, this would be the absolute worst outcome. It could happen if the planet is unable to cope with the changes to the environment and the conditions change rapidly, causing the civilization to "nose-dive" into extinction.
It's worth noting that the model is fairly simplistic. Frank says they made the equations as straightforward as possible and calls it a "first stab" at the science of exo-civilizations. However, the more accurate and detailed we can get the climate physics and the models, the more accurate and detailed we can get the results.
"[I]t’s too early to answer the question, 'Does anyone make it?'" he explains. Then adds, "Even though our initial models were simple, they still revealed a radical truth about the challenge we face as we push the Earth into its human-dominated era."
UFO disk flying in the sky over Hastings, Australia, the UFO follows a certain flight path and is clearly under intelligent control.
Witness: on May 30, 2018 I dropped my mom to work that day and on my way home saw this strange object flying in the sky, so I pulled over on the side of the road and took a video of it.
Area 51 under scanner again? Continuous UFO sightings in Nevada desert sparks alien debate
Area 51 under scanner again? Continuous UFO sightings in Nevada desert sparks alien debate
The man who shot the video speculates that the UFO might be of alien origin, and it is attracted by the Luxor lights of the sin city. The uploader has also released an enhanced version of the clip, and it clearly shows that the alleged UFO has a number of lights attached to its body.
Conspiracy theory channel 'Disclose Screen' has recently released a video featuring a UFO in the skies above Nevada desert. The object spotted in the video moves erratically before it disappears into thin air. Interestingly, the video was apparently shot somewhere near Area 51, the most confidential military site in the US. Now, conspiracy theorists have started saying that the government is testing secret alien experiments in the base, and the increasing number of UFO sightings in the area is a clear cut evidence of this.
The man who shot the video speculates that the UFO might be of alien origin, and it is attracted by the Luxor lights of the sin city. The uploader has also released an enhanced version of the clip, and it clearly shows that the alleged UFO has a number of lights attached to its body.
In the same video, the conspiracy theory channel shared the visuals of another weird sighting. In the second video, a white snake-like object is seen flying across the sky, and adding the mystery quotient, it moves in such a way that all the laws of physics have been defied.
As the video went viral, viewers started putting forward various theories explaining the weird phenomenon.
"The first group of objects certainly were strange, but without extreme zoom and clarity, we're stuck once again, without any definitive answers. As for the second one, I was expecting either someone to come rushing by, having snagged their shoot in mid-air or I was trying to figure out what other man-made objects it could be other than a long cut of fabric or paper and if it was either, where did it come from, as it was not floating but falling," commented Headon Enterprises, a YouTube user.
Most of the viewers who watched the video strongly argue that aliens are in constant touch with the government, and they used to visit military bases like Area 51. They even claim that these extraterrestrials are now gearing up for a disclosure which will reshape the entire course of humanity.
The new video was released just a few days after another clip showing an alien-like figure took the internet by a storm. The uploader of the alien video argued that the clip was shot from the S4 Base medical laboratory in Papoose Lake near AREA 51, Nevada. After watching this video, many conspiracy theorists stated that many aliens are being kept as captives in Area 51 after their UFO gets crashed.
UFO'S/Lights over the luxor light, Vegas May 20 (Disclose Screen)
How Area 51 became the center of alien conspiracy theories
Intriguing footage has emerged of a bright, circular UFO moving over Leeds last weekend.
The object had no wings, made no sound and appeared roughly 300 meters above the ground. It was described as being a pure "ball of white light" and moving with "absolute purpose" across a clear sky.
Evidence of the strange object was captured on a smartphone camera by Leeds resident James Goldman, 30, who was at a loss to explain what he was witnessing.
"It definitely wasn't a plane and it was too low to be a satellite. I know what drones look like and it just wasn't a drone either. I doubt it was a military craft because they wouldn't be flying something like that over a populated area," he told Mirror Tech.
A zoomed in image of the UFO that was spotted over Leeds last weekend(Image: James Goldman)
As the footage above shows, the UFO appears smaller and dimmer than the nearly full moon that was also present in the sky.
Gary Heseltine, a retired Detective Constable and UFO expert, verified the footage and was also unable to come to a conclusion over what it might be.
"It was an interesting piece of footage and based on the information supplied by the witness it appears to be anomalous," said Gary, who also runs UFO Truth Magazine which documents unexplained sightings.
This particular UFO was spotted at 10.30pm on Sunday night and moved at a speed Mr Goldman estimates to be around 200kph (124mph) - putting it beyond the speeds of any commercially-available drone.
"It was just a round bright white lit ball slightly metallic in nature," Mr Goldman said, likening it to the kind of light you see when metal is being welded.
It also bore a striking similarity to the Death Star space station from the Star Wars film series.
"I couldn’t believe such an object would fly so low," Mr Goldman said.
The UFO was spotted flying fast and low over Leeds
The question naturally arises whether or not the object was extra-terrestrial in nature and Mr. Goldman confirmed that he had nothing against that idea.
He told Mirror Tech that he had never seen a UFO before and had always been sceptical of mainstream media reports of alien visitors.
But witnessing the object in the sky at the weekend has made him more uncertain.
"It was much clearer with the eye than what the camera has captured," he said. "After I stopped recording it continued to move at a 45-degree angle upwards and disappeared into the distance. It didn't blink out suddenly or anything like that, it just petered out into the distance."
UFO(Image: Photographer's Choice)
They may often be sidelined as the hobby of conspiracy theorists, but the British government has actually been taking UFOs seriously for many years.
In 2008, the government started to release its UFO files to the public in the hopes of being as transparent as possible.
But while the release process was expected to take three years at most, three files still haven’t been made public, according to Nick Pope, a former employee at the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Mr Pope said: “Having worked on the Ministry of Defence's UFO project and having written many of the documents that have already been released, I'm extremely disappointed that ten years after the release of the first files, the project is still incomplete.”
Nick Pope, a former employee at the MoD
Why the Government is withholding the files remains unclear, but Mr Pope explained that the files have been sent backwards and forwards between the MoD and The National Archives at least twice, adding to people's suspicions.
Mr Pope said: “A lot of people think the government is covering up the truth about UFOs and this unfortunate situation is only adding fuel to the fire with regard to these conspiracy theories.”
Mr Pope added that while he and his colleagues took the issue of UFOs seriously, they were often forced to ‘spin’ the subject for the media, ‘disingenuously stating that the subject was of "no defence significance"'.
Do you have any idea what the Leeds UFO might be? Let us know in the comments below or get in touch on Twitter.
How The Blink 182 Guy Brought UFO News Into The Mainstream
How The Blink 182 Guy Brought UFO News Into The Mainstream
JAZZ SHAW
If you know about Tom DeLonge, you probably recognize the name first from his work as the frontman for Blink-182 and classic albums such as Enema of the State. But as the popularity of the band decreased, DeLonge began using his good fortune to pursue another interest of his. That was the paranormal, including everything from Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster was on the table. But what the singer was really interested in was UFOs and extraterrestrials. The odd thing is, people began taking him seriously… and that includes people in the United States government.
As I wrote about just before Christmas last year, DeLonge was part of the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science which brought forward news of a secret government program which had been studying possible extraterrestrial phenomenon and led to the release of military videos showing flying craft which nobody could quite explain. But a number of military pilots thought they had an explanation: aliens. Still, given all of the politicians, military personnel and scientists who were involved, the question still remains… how did a rock star wind up playing such an integral role in making this happen? The Washington Post dug into that curious arrangement this week and came up with at least a few answers.
At a launch event for To the Stars Academy in Seattle last fall, he explained that he was expanding his small entertainment venture — which has mostly published his graphic novels and books about UFOs and the paranormal — into a far more ambitious scientific operation, to explore “the most controversial secret on Earth.”
DeLonge, who was unavailable for comment, explained at the launch that he had used his fame to meet with the keepers of that secret, in “clandestine encounters” in “desert airports” and “vacant buildings deep within Washington, D.C.”
Some of those people sat behind DeLonge onstage, including former intelligence officer Luis Elizondo, the former director of a hush-hush UFO program at the Pentagon.
“The phenomenon is indeed real,” Elizondo said when it was his turn to speak. Just days before, the 22-year Defense Department veteran had submitted a resignation letter to the Pentagon, citing its disregard of “overwhelming evidence” that unexplained phenomena have been interfering with the U.S. military.
Reading this story it becomes clear that there was nothing particularly magical or mysterious as to how DeLonge managed to pull this off. It was just tenaciousness. He had made a fair amount of money (and plenty of contacts) through his work in music and publishing and once he launched into the UFO question he just didn’t give up. He was willing to talk to anyone – really anyone – who claimed to have information and he gained a foothold through some people with both government and military contacts. And then he kept on digging.
The biggest barrier DeLonge faced was the fact that there’s an unspoken rule about possible UFO phenomenon. Whether you’re in the government, the military or the media, you don’t talk about it. At least not seriously. To do so is a career death sentence and you’ll be mocked for it relentlessly. But Brad DeLonge had nothing to lose on that score and he kept digging, eventually finding some people willing to share information from inside the government and also some fighter pilots who had questions they knew they weren’t supposed to be asking. What were these things that they had been seeing?
DeLonge’s group has promised that there are more videos and reports being reviewed which will be released. None of it is conclusive… at least not yet. There could still be some perfectly acceptable terrestrial explanations for what they’ve found, though it would likely mean there is technology out there which most of us can’t even imagine and aren’t being told about. Perhaps it’s all U.S. black ops work. Or worse, something from the Russians or the Chinese. Or, just maybe… from somewhere further away.
Good for Brad Delonge. We don’t know what, if anything, he’s actually found yet. But these are questions worth answering and a very improbable agent was the guy who brought the conversation out into the daylight for examination.
Pluto has had a tough few years since losing its planet status. In the years since its demotion, NASA scientists found the trans-Neptunian object to be a colder, hazier hellscape than once believed, and other researchers are actively searching for Pluto’s replacement in the elusive Planet Nine. It’s about time Pluto got some good news.
According to a new study published in the journal Science on Thursday, the surface of Pluto is more geologically diverse and dynamic than had been expected. One surprising find is that Pluto has dunes that give the demoted dwarf planet “Earth-like characteristics” rarely seen elsewhere in the Solar System. Outside of Earth, dunes only exist on Mars, Venus, Saturn’s moon Titan, and, somewhat randomly, Comet 67P.
Led by Matt W. Telfer, Ph.D., of the University of Plymouth, and the team first identified Pluto’s dunes from images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. Unlike the sandy hills found on Earth, Pluto’s dunes are made from solid methane ice grains, found on the dwarf planet’s mountainous Sputnik Planitia region.
Dunes (black lines) at the margins of western Sputnik Planitia. Prominent wind streaks are marked with orange lines.
“When we first saw the New Horizons images, we thought instantly that these were dunes but it was really surprising because we know there is not much of an atmosphere,” said Jani Radebaugh, Ph.D. and co-author from Brigham Young University. “However despite being 30 times further away from the sun as the Earth, it turns out Pluto still has Earth-like characteristics. We have been focusing on what’s close to us, but there’s a wealth of information in the distant reaches of the solar system too.”
While Pluto’s dunes, situated at the edges of mountains near visible wind streaks, certainly give off an Earthly vibe, the dwarf planet’s atmosphere is considered too thin to actually pick up the tiny grains of methane to form these dunes. Dunes normally require a lot of wind-power to form, and it’s still unclear how Pluto’s methane dunes got there. Telfer’s team posits that methane grains could have been sent into the atmosphere due to the melting of nitrogen ice, or blown down from nearby mountains in Sputnik Planitia.
The age of Pluto’s dunes is also forcing researchers to reconsider what is known about the shamed former-planet. As observed by Telfer and Radebaugh’s team, these methane dunes appear largely undisturbed, which suggests that they were formed within the past 500,000 years or earlier. If they have, indeed, formed in the recent geological past, it would mean that Pluto, at 4.5 billion years old, still hosts an active and changing atmosphere that produces geologically young landforms.
While Earth-like characteristics might not bring back Pluto’s planet status, the rarity of this find means the dwarf planet still has a lot of insight to offer scientists. This discovery means researchers now must rethink the role of a space object’s atmosphere in shaping the surface landscape.
Aside from a stray asteroid whizzing past Earth every now and then, our little corner of the Milky Way may seem pretty peaceful. But in reality, our galactic neighborhood is being held together by an army of the most destructive and mysterious beings in the universe: black holes. Now, for the first time, NASA has captured this terrifying squad in living color.
We first got a hint of how many black holes formed this squad in April, when a Naturearticle revealed estimates that the center of the Milky Way is home to tens of thousands of black holes. In April, when InverseinterviewedChuck Hailey, Ph.D.,the co-director of the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory and lead author of that paper, he explained that this mob of black holes occupies an area only three light years away from the supermassive black hole that also resides at the center of our galaxy — Sagittarius A*.
Now, thanks to NASA we no longer have to imagine what the gaping jaws of death in the Milky Way’s core look like. On Thursday, the space agency published an image of the black hole cluster it rendered from data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
All black holes are completely invisible to us because they don’t emit or reflect light — they just gobble it up. Luckily, the region of space shown above is also inhabited by tons of stars, gas, dust for the black holes to feed on. For us to capture images of these perplexing, insatiable life-suckers, they need to be constantly feeding on these celestial bodies.
As debris from nearby stars spiral into a black hole, they form an accretion disk, which is a rotating disk of superheated particles. The debris in these discs heat up to millions of degrees and emit powerful X-rays before disappearing into oblivion. Telescopes like Chandra can pick up on those distant X-rays, which are represented by the bright white spots in the image.
While this image, with its numerous white spots, might seem more surreal than informative, astronomers can tell the relative sizes of some of the black holes by comparing their accretion disks. This also offers insight into how these monolithically destructive forces are transforming the core of our galaxy.
It’s a sobering thought: If you’re ever feeling stressed out or sad by minor Earth things, just remember that our existence is held in the balance by 10,000 to 20,000 black holes.
Ze bestaan niet uit zand, maar uit korreltjes methaanijs.
Onderzoekers ontdekten de duintjes op foto’s die ruimtesonde New Horizons in juli 2015 maakte terwijl deze langs Pluto scheerde. De duintjes bevinden zich aan het randje van Sputnik Planitia – een gigantische gletsjer – en lopen min of meer paralel aan de bergketen al-Idrisi Montes. In totaal ontdekten de onderzoekers in een vrij klein gebied meer dan 350 van deze duintjes.
Vraagstuk In eerste instantie geloofden de onderzoekers hun eigen ogen niet. Want hoe konden in de dunne atmosfeer van Pluto krachtige winden ontstaan die in staat waren om materiaal van het oppervlak op te pakken en elders weer neer te leggen? Om dat vraagstuk op te kunnen lossen, gingen de onderzoekers aan de slag met onder meer computermodellen. En ze denken er nu uit te zijn: het materiaal wordt opgezwiept door sublimatie, waarna de zwakke winden op Pluto het alleen nog maar mee hoeven te vervoeren.
Duintjes op Pluto.
Afbeelding: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
Methaan Volgens de onderzoekers zijn de duintjes opgebouwd uit methaanijskorrels die ongeveer net zo groot zijn als zandkorrels. En die methaanijskorrels kiezen het luchtruim door sublimatie. Je moet bedenken dat het oppervlak van Pluto bestaat uit methaan- en stikstofijskristallen. Wanneer die sterk genoeg door de zon verwarmd worden, verdampen ze. De gassen die zo ontstaan, haasten zich weg van het oppervlak en lanceren de methaanijskorrels die ze onderweg tegenkomen. Eenmaal in de lucht kunnen die methaanijskorrels – mede dankzij de beperkte zwaartekracht op de dwergplaneet – gemakkelijk door Pluto’s zwakke winden (met snelheden tussen de 30 en 40 kilometer per uur) worden meegevoerd. Waarna ze vervolgens aan de rand van de grote ijsvlakte die aan de voet van het gebergte ligt, worden afgezet.
Afgaand op onder meer de tamelijk onverstoorde vorm van de duintjes, denken de onderzoekers dat deze nog vrij jong zijn. Ze zouden in de afgelopen 500.000 jaar zijn ontstaan.
'We roeien aliens uit vóór we ze kunnen ontdekken'
'We roeien aliens uit vóór we ze kunnen ontdekken'
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Met die opmerkelijke verklaring voor de Fermi Paradox komt een Russische onderzoeker op de proppen.
Voor zover we nu weten, komt er alleen op onze aarde leven voor. En heel lang werd onze planeet dan ook als heel bijzonder beschouwd. Maar hoe langer astronomen het heelal in turen, hoe duidelijker wordt dat zowel onze zon als onze planeet en de chemie die aan het leven ten grondslag ligt, helemaal niet zo bijzonder is. In andere woorden: het lijkt zeer aannemelijk dat er elders in het heelal leven te vinden is. Het roept natuurlijk de vraag op waarom we dat buitenaardse leven dan nog niet ontdekt hebben. Het wordt de Fermi Paradox genoemd.
Verschillende oplossingen Over de oplossing van die paradox hebben heel veel intelligente mensen al heel lang nagedacht. En het leidt tot verschillende visies. Zo denken sommigen dat het feit dat we nog geen aliens gevonden hebben, bewijst dat zij er niet zijn. Anderen denken weer dat we geen aliens kunnen vinden, doordat zij reeds zijn uitgestorven.
First in, last out In een nieuw paper – dat nog peer review moet ondergaan – komt de Russische onderzoeker A.A. Berezin echter met een heel andere – en ietwat teleurstellende – oplossing. Hij heeft deze de ‘first in, last out-oplossing’ gedoopt. “Wat als de levensvormen die als eerste in staat zijn tot interstellair reizen automatisch alle competitie uitroeien om hun eigen expansie mogelijk te maken?” zo vat hij de oplossing samen. “Ik suggereer niet dat een hoogontwikkelde beschaving andere levensvormen bewust uit zou roeien. Waarschijnlijk merken ze het niet eens, net zoals bouwvakkers een mierennest vernietigen om een gebouw neer te kunnen zetten en een motief om dat mierennest te beschermen, missen.”
Wij zijn de eersten In de vergelijking van Berezin zijn wij niet de mieren. Nee, wij zijn de bouwvakkers. “Wij zijn hier, onze planeet en onze ster zijn nog relatief intact en we denken reeds na over de eerste interstellaire sondes. Als we aannemen dat bovenstaande hypothese (de first in, last out-oplossing, red.) klopt, wat betekent dat dan voor onze toekomst?” Berezin gaat er vanuit dat onze aanwezigheid erop wijst dat wij de eersten zijn die het interstellair reizen onder de knie gaan krijgen – want anders waren we in lijn met zijn hypothese toch al uitgeroeid door aliens? Wij zijn de eersten die dit stadium (het stadium van interstellair reizen, red.) bereiken. En zeer waarschijnlijk ook de laatste.”
Het is een behoorlijk droevige oplossing, vindt ook Berezin. “Het voorspelt een toekomst voor onze eigen beschaving die nog erger is dan extinctie.” Hij schrijft dan ook dat hij hoopt dat hij er met zijn oplossing naast zit. “De enige manier om daar achter te komen, is door het universum te blijven verkennen en naar buitenaards leven te zoeken.”
Wetenschap onthult waar we op Mars gefossiliseerde aliens kunnen vinden
Wetenschap onthult waar we op Mars gefossiliseerde aliens kunnen vinden
Caroline Kraaijvanger
In ijzerrijke gesteenten nabij oude meren.
Die conclusie trekken onderzoekers van de universiteit van Edinburgh in het blad Journal of Geophysical Research. Ze baseren zich op een vrij uitgebreid onderzoek, waarbij eerst gekeken werd waar we hier op aarde zeer oude fossiele resten kunnen terugvinden. Vervolgens werden in het lab de omstandigheden op verschillende plaatsen op Mars nagebootst om vast te stellen waar we het beste kunnen gaan zoeken naar gefossiliseerde Martianen.
Gesteente Het onderzoek wijst uit dat sedimentaire gesteenten die bestaan uit modder of klei de grootste kans hebben om fossielen te herbergen. Deze gesteenten moeten zijn ontstaan op de bodem van meren. Ze zijn rijk aan ijzer en een mineraal dat siliciumdioxide wordt genoemd en bijdraagt aan het behoud van fossiele resten. Deze gesteenten ontstonden tussen de drie en vier miljard jaar geleden. In die tijd was er op Mars waarschijnlijk zeer veel water te vinden waarin eventuele levensvormen konden gedijen.
Goed bewaard Wanneer we in deze gesteenten op zoek gaan naar fossiele resten, hebben we één groot voordeel, zo stellen de onderzoekers. De gesteenten zijn namelijk veel beter bewaard gebleven van gesteenten van een vergelijkbare leeftijd op aarde. Dat komt doordat op Mars geen sprake is van platentektoniek die er door de tijd heen voor zorgt dat gesteenten – en eventuele fossiele resten die daarin zitten opgesloten – vernietigd worden.
Missies naar Mars Het onderzoek kan letterlijk richting geven aan toekomstige missies naar Mars. Denk dan bijvoorbeeld aan de volgende Marsrover die NASA – rond 2020 – naar de rode planeet wil sturen. Deze zal actief op zoek gaan naar sporen van leven op Mars. Daarbij is het de bedoeling dat de rover gesteenten verzamelt die in een later stadium terug kunnen worden gebracht naar de aarde. En ook de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie werkt aan een soortgelijke missie. Dit onderzoek kan de ruimtevaartorganisaties helpen bij het kiezen van een geschikte landingsplek. “Er zijn veel interessante plekken op Mars waar we op zoek zouden willen gaan naar fossielen,” stelt onderzoeker Sean McMahon. “Maar aangezien we niet naar al die plekken een rover kunnen sturen, hebben we geprobeerd om de meest veelbelovende afzettingen op basis van de beste informatie die we tot onze beschikking hebben, op een rijtje te zetten.”
Vervolgonderzoek kan dat rijtje met veelbelovende plekken mogelijk nog wat overhoop gooien. Zo wijzen de onderzoekers er in hun paper op dat er nog moet worden uitgezocht hoe eventuele Martiaanse levensvormen onder de omstandigheden waarmee de rode planeet 4 miljard jaar geleden te maken had, fossiliseerden.
Het sterrenschip van de toekomst evolueert onderweg
Het sterrenschip van de toekomst evolueert onderweg
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Vergeet de Enterprise en Voyager. Echte interstellaire ruimteschepen zullen er héél anders uitzien en bovendien continu veranderen.
Op dit moment zijn we nog druk bezig met het verkennen van ons eigen zonnestelsel. En het moet worden toegegeven: daar valt ook nog genoeg te ontdekken. Maar het lijkt een kwestie van tijd voor we het verderop gaan zoeken; de interstellaire ruimte lonkt. Voor een reis naar andere sterren hebben we echter heel andere ruimteschepen nodig dan de exemplaren die we nu of in de nabije toekomst gebruiken om naar het ISS, de maan en Mars te reizen. Grote vraag is natuurlijk hoe zo’n interstellair ruimteschip er dan precies uit moet zien. Een onderzoeksgroep aan de TU Delft doet daar, onder leiding van Angelo Vermeulen, momenteel onderzoek naar. De studie zal niet resulteren in de bouw van zo’n sterrenschip of het ontwikkelen van de benodigde hardware, maar stevent af op een conceptueel ontwerp waar de eerste interstellaire reizigers over enkele decennia of in de loop van de volgende eeuw wellicht hun voordeel mee kunnen doen.
Apollo-missies De afgelopen decennia heeft de mensheid behoorlijk wat ervaring opgedaan met ruimtereizen; we bouwden een paar ruimtestations, zetten mensen op de maan en organiseerden tal van onbemande missies naar andere planeten, planetoïden en kometen in ons zonnestelsel. En er is zelfs één onbemande ruimtesonde die ons zonnestelsel reeds verlaten heeft. Al die ervaring komt natuurlijk van pas wanneer we een bemande interstellaire ruimtereis gaan uitstippelen. Maar tegelijkertijd moeten we ons realiseren dat zo’n interstellaire ruimtereis in niets te vergelijken is met wat de mensheid tot op heden in de ruimte heeft uitgespookt. “Dat heeft vooral te maken met de schaal van het interstellaire reizen,” vertelt Vermeulen aan Scientias.nl. “Tijdens het Apolloprogramma en ook de missies naar Mars zie je dat we stapsgewijs naar ons doel toe werkten. Eerst cirkelden de astronauten om de maan heen, tijdens een latere missie naderden ze het oppervlak, om vervolgens toch weer terug te keren naar de aarde en tijdens een volgende missie pas op het oppervlak te landen. Dat is een heel zinvolle strategie, die je in staat stelt om de risico’s in kaart te brengen. Bij interstellair reizen gaat dat niet. Je kunt niet een stukje interstellair gaan en dan weer terug.”
Neil Armstrong zette in 1969 voet op de maan.
Afbeelding: NASA.
Waar Armstrong gewapend met een draaiboek naar de al uitgebreid in kaart gebrachte maan ging, zullen de eerste interstellaire reizigers een veel onzekerdere toekomst tegemoet gaan. Ze weten niet wat ze buiten ons zonnestelsel tegen gaan komen en dus ook niet wat ze aldaar nodig zullen hebben. Wat ze wel weten, is dat ze niet op de aarde hoeven te rekenen. Een reis naar de interstellaire ruimte duurt decennia of misschien zelfs eeuwen. Even teruggaan om een probleempje of tekort op te lossen, is geen optie: waar de interstellaire reizigers ook tegenaan lopen, ze zullen het zelf moeten oplossen. En met dat alles in het achterhoofd ga je als vanzelf heel anders nadenken over het ruimtevaartuig dat zij daarbij nodig zullen hebben. “Ingenieurs moeten iets ontwerpen zonder dat ze weten waar het in de toekomst mee te maken krijgt.”
Een sterrenschip zoals we dat kennen uit sciencefiction. Mooi om te zien, maar wellicht niet zo praktisch als we denken.
Evolutie Hoe pak je zoiets aan? “De biologie heeft er een antwoord op,” stelt Vermeulen. Sterker nog: eigenlijk komt de natuur met twee antwoorden. “De eerste oplossing is redundancy. Je ziet dat veel bij bloemen en vissen. Zij produceren heel veel zaden of eitjes, in de hoop dat een klein percentage daarvan het gaat redden. Dat is een manier om met een onzekere toekomst om te gaan.” Een andere manier is: evolueren. “In dat scenario is er een compleet ontwerp, dat zich vervolgens middels evolutie aanpast aan de veranderende omstandigheden.” Het is een effectieve manier waarop je een onzekere toekomst kunt omarmen in plaats van eraan onder door te gaan. Vermeulen en collega’s hebben zich dan ook door deze oplossing van de natuur laten inspireren: ze denken momenteel na over een sterrenschip dat evolueert. In dat scenario gaat het ruimteschip zich bijna gedragen als een levend organisme dat gaat roeien met de riemen die het heeft en materialen die het in de ruimte aantreft, gaat gebruiken om zichzelf aan te passen en de overlevingskansen te optimaliseren. Dat klinkt prachtig. Maar hoe gaat dat dan in de praktijk? Daar buigen Vermeulen en collega’s zich momenteel over. Voor nu steven ze af op een ‘asteroid starship‘: een sterrenschip dat uit een kleine ruimtesteen verrijst.
Een 3D-model van een interstellair ruimteschip dat op een kleine ruimtesteen verrijst.
Afbeelding: Nils Faber & Angelo Vermeulen.
Planetoïde Wanneer je een ruimteschip wilt laten evolueren, heb je vanzelfsprekend grondstoffen nodig. En dat is een uitdaging, zo vertelt Vermeulen. “Bij interstellair reizen ligt je snelheid heel hoog. Je kunt dus niet zo gemakkelijk afremmen om wat grondstoffen te verzamelen en daarom moet je eigenlijk ruwe materialen meenemen.” Dat klinkt logisch. Maar hoe zwaarder je ruimtevaartuig is, hoe duurder het is om het te lanceren. Daarom stelt Vermeulen voor om die grondstoffen kort na de lancering in de ruimte op te duikelen. Heel concreet: hij wil een proto-ruimteschip op een ruimtesteen laten landen, waarna die ruimtesteen eigenlijk deel uit gaat maken van de interstellaire missie en dienst doet als bron van grondstoffen. Die grondstoffen worden bijvoorbeeld gebruikt om het proto-ruimteschip groter te maken (dat zal nodig zijn naarmate de populatie aan boord van het ruimteschip groeit). Maar ook om levensondersteunende systemen verder te ontwikkelen (ruimtestenen bevatten water en organisch materiaal) en het ruimteschip aan te passen aan de grillen van de interstellaire ruimte (denk bijvoorbeeld aan straling en inslagen van kleine stofdeeltjes, die door de grote snelheid heel wat schade kunnen aanrichten). In feite wordt de planetoïde zo langzaam maar zeker uitgehold, terwijl het ruimteschip groeit en verandert. Daarbij is overigens een cruciale rol weggelegd voor 3D-printers die de ruwe materialen om kunnen zetten in datgene wat de interstellaire reizigers nodig hebben.
Hier zien we de verschillende modules van dichtbij. Je ziet dat ze verschillende kleuren hebben. Deze vertellen iets over het materiaal waarvan de modules zijn gemaakt. Ook staat op elke module een icoontje dat meer vertelt over de functie ervan (zie inzet).
Afbeelding: Nils Faber.
Het is een prachtig idee dat Vermeulen en collega’s op dit moment verder verkennen. Want er valt nog veel te onderzoeken. Zo wordt momenteel met simulaties bekeken welk type ruimtesteen nu het meest geschikt is om tijdens een interstellaire ruimtereis mee te nemen. “Daarbij kijken we niet alleen naar welke materialen er in een ruimtesteen aanwezig zijn, maar ook hoe ze over de ruimtesteen verdeeld zijn.” Met behulp van simulaties wordt ook bestudeerd hoe een sterrenschip het beste kan evolueren. “Voor nu richten we ons op een modulaire architectuur.” Oftewel een uit verschillende modules opgebouwd sterrenschip. “Dat leent zich goed voor het uitbouwen. Maar evolutie gaat verder dan dat: evolutie herschikt ook. En dat kan met de modules heel goed.” Verder moet ook nog gekeken worden wat de drijvende kracht achter de evolutie in de ruimte moet worden. En wanneer deze aanpak wel en niet werkt.
Reacties Je kunt dan ook rustig stellen dat het conceptuele ontwerp – helemaal in lijn met wat Vermeulen voor ogen heeft – nog volop evolueert. Maar de reacties op de voorlopige resultaten van de onderzoeksgroep zijn overwegend positief. En recent werd het concept zelfs door ESA gepubliceerd als Technology Image of the Week. “Mensen vinden het mooi dat wij de verbeelding aanzwengelen en dat ons werk tegelijkertijd wel verankerd is in concrete data en concreet onderzoek. Dit is in die zin dus geen puur speculatieve studie.”
Dat de mens ooit de interstellaire ruimte ingaat, daar twijfelt Vermeulen geen moment over. Of daarbij gebruik wordt gemaakt van een evoluerend sterrenschip? Die kans acht hij groot. “Als gekozen wordt voor een systeem dat niet evolueert, zul je zien dat interstellaire reizigers het onderweg toch moeten veranderen. Alleen zal dat dan op veel primitievere manieren gebeuren dan wanneer je kiest voor een evoluerend ruimteschip.” Hij ziet dan ook eigenlijk geen reden om het evoluerende sterrenschip niet in te zetten. “Als je toch weet dat je dingen moet gaan veranderen, kun je het maar beter omarmen en ermee werken.” Het zal een behoorlijke ommezwaai worden voor de huidige ruimtevaartsector. “In de ruimtevaart heerst toch een cultuur van controle. De dagschema’s van de astronauten in het ISS zijn bijvoorbeeld tot op vijf minuten bepaald.” Heel anders zal het zijn tijdens de eerste interstellaire reis: aardbewoners zullen al spoedig niet meer weten wat de mensen aan boord van het sterrenschip aan het doen zijn en alleen maar kunnen gissen naar hoe het sterrenschip waarin de interstellaire reizigers vertrokken er na een paar jaar uitziet.
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Angelo Vermeulen Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Nils Faber & Angelo Vermeulen
Finger-print like pattern observed near al-Idrisi Montes mountain on Pluto.
Credit: NASA.
For some time, scientists have been intrigued by strange, regularly spaced ridges, that stuck out of Pluto’s cold, dark plains like thumbprints pressed into ice. Now, a new study suggests that these formations are actually dunes made out of methane “sand,” which is striking considering the dwarf planet’s extremely thin atmosphere.
“When we first saw the New Horizons images, we thought instantly that these were dunes but it was really surprising because we know there is not much of an atmosphere. However despite being 30 times further away from the sun as the Earth, it turns out Pluto still has Earth-like characteristics. We have been focusing on what’s close to us, but there’s a wealth of information in the distant reaches of the solar system too,” said Dr. Jani Radebaugh, Associate Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Brigham Young University.
Earth is not the only place in the solar system with dunes. Previously, scientists had spotted them on Mars, Titan, and even on a freaking comet. Now, Pluto, a place few expected could harbor such formations, joins the list of dune-bearing worlds.
“We knew that every solar system body with an atmosphere and a solid rocky surface has dunes on it, but we didn’t know what we’d find on Pluto,” said Dr Matt Telfer, Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, lead author of the new study published in Science.
The dunes were first spotted by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 when it found methane mounds nestled beside the massive glacier that makes up the western half of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia, the famous heart-shaped region. The mounds stretch for more than 12 miles and occupy an area equivalent to twice that of Utah Lake.
Pluto’s heart-shaped Sputnik Planitia.
Credit: NASA.
The frozen sand whose features resembles earthly dunes is shaped by winds blown on the glacial plain from the direction of a mountain range found along Planitia’s border. Scientists know this because of the shape of the piles of sand whose dark streaks allowed them to retrace the direction from which the wind blew.
This was a surprising observation. With an atmosphere 100,000 times thinner than on Earth and an average temperature hovering at about -230°C, it’s difficult to imagine the wind blowing anything there. The surface patterns recorded by New Horizons don’t lie, though.
Researchers modeled the conditions they saw and concluded that the ‘sand’ is made of nitrogen or methane ice. There’s plenty of nitrogen ice adorning the glacier nearby from the dunes while methane is likely sourced from the snowcaps of nearby mountains like al-Idrisi Montes, which drifts down into the plane.
Once airborne, the particles are pushed by winds that blow between 18 and 24 miles an hour. The winds may be powered by the sublimation of surface ice which turns from solid directly into gas when sunlight hits. The upward force is what drives the piles of particles at the surface.
“On Earth, you need a certain strength of wind to release sand particles into the air, but winds that are 20% weaker are then sufficient to maintain transport. The considerably lower gravity of Pluto, and the extremely low atmospheric pressure, means the winds needed to maintain sediment transport can be a hundred times lower. The temperature gradients in the granular ice layer, caused by solar radiation, also play an important role in the onset of the saltation process. Put together, we have found that these combined processes can form dunes under normal, everyday wind conditions on Pluto,” said Dr Eric Parteli, Lecturer in Computational Geosciences at the University of Cologne.
The researchers also think that the dunes are young, rather than ancient, and might still be active. For instance, Pluto’s heart-shaped central plain has a peculiar polygonal pattern which resembles the surface of gently boiling water. This feature is the result of slow convection in the thick layer or nitrogen and other ices over hundreds of thousands of years, according to one hypothesis. If this is true, the dunes have to be more recent than the action of this convection otherwise they’d be churned apart by it.
Personally, I find it remarkable every time we get to see familiar Earthly features on alien worlds, be them tall mountains, vast deserts, or undulating canals. Sights like these, including these most recent findings on Pluto, remind us that, in some respects, our world isn’t that special at all.
Govert Schilling neemt je mee naar een fascinerende bestemming, op 4,2 lichtjaar van onze aarde.
Met een onvoorstelbare snelheid vliegen we door het heelal. De zon is achter ons ineengeschrompeld tot een heldere ster. Voor ons, oogverblindend fel inmiddels, schittert Alfa Centauri. Maar ons werkelijke reisdoel is dat onopvallende rode sterretje rechts daarvan, pas sinds kort zichtbaar met het blote oog, nu we al aardig in de buurt komen. Dat is Proxima, de ster die het dichtst bij de zon staat, op 4,2 lichtjaar afstand.
Onze geigertellers slaan op hol wanneer een tsunami van geladen deeltjes ongehinderd op het planeetoppervlak inbeukt
Het wemelt in het Melkwegstelsel van de rode dwergen. Proxima is de dichtstbijzijnde. Nauwelijks groter dan de reuzenplaneet Jupiter, maar wel minstens honderd keer zo zwaar. Veel energie produceert hij niet; het oppervlak is nog geen 3.000 graden Celsius heet. We brengen ons ruimteschip in een baan rond de dwergster. De cockpit hult zich in een mysterieus oranjerood licht.
En kijk, daar cirkelt planeet Proxima b rond, op slechts 7,5 miljoen kilometer afstand van zijn ster. Een wereld die vergelijkbaar is met de aarde. Proxima b is weliswaar een slag groter en zwaarder, maar heeft ook een kern van ijzer en een rotsachtig oppervlak. En er heerst een aangename temperatuur. Wie weet stroomt er water op deze planeet. Misschien is er leven.
De remraketten gaan aan; we maken een zachte landing op het buitenaardse oppervlak. Gehuld in beschermende ruimtepakken stappen we even later de ladder af. De omgeving ligt bezaaid met rotsblokken. In de verte is een hoge bergrug te zien. Het terrein is kaal en ruig; het oogt zwartgeblakerd.
Op Proxima b valt de nacht. Rechtsboven de rode dwergster Proxima fonkelen piepklein de sterren Alfa en Bèta Centauri.
De blik gaat al snel omhoog, naar die vreemde zon. Proxima b staat zo dicht bij zijn kleine moederster dat die aan de hemel toch nog twee keer zo groot lijkt als de zon vanaf de aarde. En ondanks de relatief lage temperatuur is Proxima veel te fel om in te kijken. Dit mag dan een zwak dwergsterretje zijn, het blijft een gigantische bal van gloeiend heet gas, aangedreven door kernfusiereacties in het inwendige.
En dan gebeurt het. Vanaf het oppervlak van de ster schiet een gigantische tong van vuur de ruimte in. De explosie breidt zich binnen een paar minuten uit over het hele steroppervlak. Proxima verandert in een kolkende zee van energie. De ster straalt steeds feller en feller, tot hij uiteindelijk bijna zeventigmaal zijn oorspronkelijke lichtkracht bereikt. We knijpen onze ogen dicht; zelfs het donkere planeetlandschap is nu oogverblindend helder.
Een uur lang baadt Proxima b in een allesverzengende vloedgolf van uv- en röntgenstraling. Gelukkig bieden onze ruimtepakken afdoende bescherming, anders werden we levend geroosterd. Even later slaan onze geigertellers op hol wanneer een tsunami van geladen deeltjes ongehinderd op het planeetoppervlak inbeukt. Tegen dit kosmisch geweld is geen enkel organisme opgewassen.
Na een paar uur is de supervlam gedoofd, en keert de rust weer. Opeens is het niet langer zo verwonderlijk dat Proxima b zo’n getormenteerd uiterlijk heeft. Dat de dampkring die de planeet misschien ooit had al lang geleden weggeblazen is. Dat geen enkel complex molecuul, laat staan een levende cel, het lang uithoudt in deze hel.
’s Nachts straalt er een heldere ster aan de hemel: onze zon, op een afstand van een slordige 40 biljoen kilometer. Ook die vertoont af en toe uitbarstingen en explosies, maar vergeleken bij Proxima is zij de rust zelve. Met weemoed denken we terug aan onze paradijselijke aarde.
Leven is er niet op Proxima b. We moeten elders zoeken. Verder. Gelukkig heeft het heelal nog veel meer voor ons in petto.
Figure 1 Principle of range measurement using laser
Afstanden meten met lasers, nieuw is het niet. Toch is er vandaag veel te doen rond een geavanceerde vorm van de lasermeettechnologie.
Een van de heetste technologieën van het moment is één waarvan je wellicht nog nooit gehoord hebt. En toch heb je het binnenkort mogelijk zelfs in huis staan – of liever: in de garage. LIDAR of LIght Detection And Ranging of Laser Imaging Detection And Ranging blijkt een cruciale bouwsteen te zijn voor autonoom rijdende auto’s. Dit verklaart ook de plotse toename in start-ups die rond LIDAR werken en de grote overnames die rond de technologie plaatsvinden. LIDAR is ook de achterliggende reden waarom Uber in een bits juridisch gevecht verwikkeld raakte rond een ingenieur die het wegplukte bij zijn Amerikaanse rivaal Waymo.
Radar met licht
LIDAR is een paraplu waaronder verschillende technologieën schuilen om snel en accuraat afstanden te meten. Je zou kunnen stellen dat het een verre verwante is van de lasermeters die doe-het-zelvers gebruiken in plaats van rolmeters, maar dan wel heel wat geavanceerder. Lijkt de naam wat op ‘radar’? Dat is geen toeval, want LIDAR lijkt er wat op. In plaats van radiogolven worden laserpulsen uitgestuurd. De tijd die nodig is om een weerkaatsing te ontvangen, geeft aan hoe ver een object zich bevindt.
Een fotodetector in een LIDAR-eenheid kijkt echter niet enkel naar directe reflecties, maar observeert hoe het licht dat terugkeert verstrooit. Het ziet hiermee hoe een laserstraal ‘breekt’ op een object. Door te werken met miljoenen laserpulsen en verschillende frequenties wordt zo een 3D-beeld van een object gevormd. Met meerdere lasers en door deze te plaatsen achter een bewegelijke spiegel wordt het mogelijk om heel de omgeving te scannen.
LIDAR-technologieën bestaan al decennia. De NASA paste het zelfs toe voor één van de Apollo-maanmissies. Sinds de jaren zeventig wordt breed ingezet, bijvoorbeeld om zeer nauwkeurige kaartdata vanuit vliegtuigen of satellieten te creëren. Er zijn systemen die vanaf extreme hoogte toch in staat zijn om objecten van enkele tientallen centimeters groot te detecteren.
Het is die extreme nauwkeurigheid dat LIDAR zo aantrekkelijk maakt voor autobouwers. Op korte afstand is de technologie veel preciezer, waardoor niet enkel een menselijke lichaam kan gedetecteerd worden maar ook delen er van, zoals armen en benen. Als je denkt aan scenario’s zoals een autonoom rijdende wagen die een fietser moet voorbijsteken, dan is dat wel belangrijk. Maar er is nog veel werk aan de winkel, want het moet nog sneller, nauwkeuriger en goedkoper kunnen. Daarom dat er nog veel ruimte is voor nieuwe start-ups, naast oudere LIDAR-bedrijven, zoals Velodyne. Die laatste begon al tien jaar geleden met LIDAR in kader van een robotautorace die de Amerikaanse defensie organiseerde.
Velodyne was tot voor kort de enige die een LIDAR-systeem kon produceren die goed genoeg was voor gebruik op de openbare weg, maar er zijn nu uitdagers zoals Luminar (verbonden met Toyota en uitvinder van een systeem die in één blik 120° graden bestrijkt) en Innoviz (die samenwerkt met BWM en LIDAR maakt zonder bewegende delen). De uitdaging blijft LIDAR voldoende betrouwbaar te maken voor zelfrijdende wagens van level 3 (conditionele automatisatie met chauffeur die kan ingrijpen) tot level 5 (volledig autonoom).
Recente ongelukken met (semi)-autonome wagens verhoogt de kans dat overheden hier nog strenger op zullen toekijken. LIDAR kan daarbij ook de oplossing zijn. Tesla is één van de weinigen die LIDAR links laat liggen en camera’s in combinatie met slimme software toepast voor afstandsmeting van objecten rondom de auto. Het bedrijf van Musk heeft echter af te rekenen met enkele incidenten waarbij een Model S verongelukte in autonome modus, wat Tesla onder druk zet om toch ook LIDAR te implementeren.
Welke zijn de Top 5 gebruiken van LIDAR? Waarom is LIDAR zo belangrijk?
An artist’s illustration of a potentially habitable exomoon orbiting a giant planet in a distant solar system. Credit: NASA GSFC: JAY FRIEDLANDER AND BRITT GRISWOLD
We've all heard about the search for life on other planets, but what about looking on other moons?
In a paper forthcoming in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Southern Queensland have identified more than 100 giant planets that potentially host moons capable of supporting life. Their work will guide the design of future telescopes that can detect these potential moons and look for tell-tale signs of life, called biosignatures, in their atmospheres.
Since the 2009 launch of NASA's Kepler telescope, scientists have identified thousands of planets outside our solar system, which are called exoplanets. A primary goal of the Kepler mission is to identify planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars, meaning it's neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water—and potentially life—to exist.
Terrestrial (rocky) planets are prime targets in the quest to find life because some of them might be geologically and atmospherically similar to Earth. Another place to look is the many gas giants identified during the Kepler mission. While not a candidate for life themselves, Jupiter-like planets in the habitable zone may harbor rocky moons, called exomoons, that could sustain life.
"There are currently 175 known moons orbiting the eight planets in our solar system. While most of these moons orbit Saturn and Jupiter, which are outside the Sun's habitable zone, that may not be the case in other solar systems," said Stephen Kane, an associate professor of planetary astrophysics and a member of the UCR's Alternative Earths Astrobiology Center. "Including rocky exomoons in our search for life in space will greatly expand the places we can look."
The researchers identified 121 giant planets that have orbits within the habitable zones of their stars. At more than three times the radii of the Earth, these gaseous planets are less common than terrestrial planets, but each is expected to host several large moons.
Scientists have speculated that exomoons might provide a favorable environment for life, perhaps even better than Earth. That's because they receive energy not only from their star, but also from radiation reflected from their planet. Until now, no exomoons have been confirmed.
"Now that we have created a database of the known giant planets in the habitable zone of their star, observations of the best candidates for hosting potential exomoons will be made to help refine the expected exomoon properties. Our follow-up studies will help inform future telescope design so that we can detect these moons, study their properties, and look for signs of life," said Michelle Hill, an undergraduate student at the University of Southern Queensland who is working with Kane and will join UCR's graduate program in the fall.
The title of the paper is "Exploring Kepler Giant Planets in the Habitable Zone." In addition to Hill, who is the is lead author, and Kane, other contributors are: Eduardo Seperuelo Duarte from Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; Ravi K. Kopparapu from the NASA Goddard Flight Center in Maryland; Dawn M. Gelino from the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech; and Robert A. Wittenmyer from University of Southern Queensland.
Human Brains Are Too Small To Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe
Human Brains Are Too Small To Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe
The universe is so huge that it boggles the mind when thinking about it. In fact, the true scale of the universe is so big that human brains cannot truly understand the full scale of it and perhaps never will.
The Universe Extends Tens of Billions of Light Years
The universe extends over many tens of billions of light years. For many people this is incomprehensible. Perhaps the easiest way to begin to grasp it is if it is broken down into smaller steps with the first of these steps being to gain an understanding of the size of Earth.
Start with how big the sun is it is around 100 times the size of Earth in diameter. Now consider the fact that when flying from San Francisco to Dubai on a non-stop flight it is about 8,000 miles. This is about the same as Earths diameter. Then consider the fact that the distance in-between the sun and Earth is even bigger, about 100 times bigger as it is roughly 100 million miles. This alone is overwhelming, but in reality, it is a measurement in astronomy. An AU or Astronomical Unit is the “radius of the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
Things get even more complex going on when talking about size and distance. The Voyager 1 spacecraft went into space in 1977, and it traveled at about 11 miles per second and was 137 Astronomical Units away from the sun. Then we come to think about the stars, and the closest of them is 270,000 Astronomical Units away, 4.25 light years in fact, and this is the Proxima Centauri star. To put this distance into perspective, the distance is equivalent to the distance of 30 million suns. This is truly overwhelming and difficult to grasp.
The Moon Is As Far As Humans Have Got In the Universe
While space exploration has sent men to the Moon, this is as far as man has got in space. This should come as no big surprise as the distance to the closest star is so vast. There are numerous stars twinkling away in the Milky Way, around 300 billion of them and the average distance between them is four light years. This is something that is difficult to comprehend when sitting on the front porch staring up at the night sky. However, the reality of it is that the Milky Way is vast with a diameter of about 100,000 light years.
Many of the stars in the Milky Way that are like the sun have orbiting planets, and many of these are at a distance and have a size from their parent that suggests they may be capable of hosting life. Many people believe that we are not alone in the universe, but finding the truth is another matter and an almost impossible task as it would take 75,000 years for a spacecraft to arrive at Proxima Centauri, which is the closest of the stars.
The Universe Cannot Be Explored until Suspended Animation Arrives
Space travel is one of the main scenarios in science fiction. TV shows and movies show humans traveling into far-reaching space and coming across aliens. The only way they can make people believe it is possible to go so far into the universe is by coming up with “states of suspended animation.” In the Alien movies, the humans went into suspended animation while they traveled into space. Of course, there was never a happy conclusion in these movies, so perhaps it is good that it is only science fiction. Another successful TV series “Star Trek” featured being able to travel at the speed of light or warp speed.
Centuries ago, astronomers mapped out the measurements of the galaxy, and the true scale of the universe became apparent. It was overwhelming and for the time being science fiction is the only way that humans can travel deep into space to reach other planets.
Light from Stars Astronomers See Has Travelled 13 Billion Years
Astronomers use telescopes to peer deep into the sky and pick up light that comes from galaxies that are distant. Bear in mind that the light picked up has traveled for around 13 billion years they are so far away. The nearest neighbor to Earth is an astonishing 2 million light-years.
The enormity of the universe comes when considering what lies outside the boundaries of the universe seen. Just because humans cannot see it, it does not mean there is nothing there. The universe extends forever, and this is something almost impossible to grasp. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a US astronomer, said 'The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.' For many people this is so true, it is unfathomable.
Earth Is Just One Small Planet in the Universe
Science fiction writers can only guess what is out there and many do not understand the vastness of the universe so they cannot expect to capture the true scale. Earth is only one small planet in the entire cosmos, and this is something that has been a challenge to comprehend by not only science fiction writers but also astronomers and everyday people alike. The reality is that the human brain is too small to be able to understand the full scale of the universe.
The Texas Town Where You're Almost Guaranteed to See UFOs
The Texas Town Where You're Almost Guaranteed to See UFOs
Marfa, Texas has been enchanted by sightings of mysterious "ghost lights" for over a century. The glowing balls of light of varying sizes show up in the sky seemingly randomly, and behave in ways that no man-made craft or flying animal should - like zipping from one part of the sky to the other, and disappearing and reappearing. You can travel to Marfa to observe the lights yourself, as they are a popular tourist attraction! But could they just be an optical illusion?
US Route 67 is a magical stretch of road, is that is where the famous unexplained lights of Marfa, Texas appear. Although they don't show up all the time, they show up frequently enough to earn a reputation not only in Marfa, but around the world.
Even scientists have tried to explain them. The University of Texas at Dallas studied the Marfa lights in 2004 and was apparently able to prove a strong correlation between highway traffic and the UFO sightings, deducing that the lights were just an optical illusion caused by passing car headlights, a popular theory at the time.
However, many still believe the Marfa Lights have a much more mysterious story than that, considering that their story began in the late 1800s, before car traffic even existed. Some believers have suggested that the Marfa Lights are a mirage created when cold and hot air mix (more specifically a "fata morgana" mirage), while others have suggested these lights could be electrical discharges in the atmosphere.
What do you think of the mysterious Marfa Lights? Could they be an example of weird natural phenomenon, aliens, or just cars headlights? Have you ever seen them in person?
Share your theories on this amazing phenomenon in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitteror Instagram!
Ancient man’s method of moving large blocks is only one mystery. Another surrounds the techniques of their stonemasons. How did prehistoric civilizations cut such intricately designed patterns in solid granite?
In Palm Springs California, master stonemason and sculptor Roger Hopkins uses a variety of advanced tools to cut and shape hard stones. Powered implements such as diamond-tipped wires and polishers enable him to fashion works of art out of huge granite blocks obtained from nearby quarries.
Yet even with these high-tech tools, Hopkins cannot replicate what ancient civilizations accomplished thousands of years ago. Could these advanced engineering methods be the smoking gun that proves humans had help from alien beings? The precision on some of the work that I’ve seen is just incredible.
It’s possible to do by hand, but it would take an incredible amount of time. Plus, you have to have years of experience to be able to pull it off. In my opinion, the most tangible pieces of evidence that we have regarding possible extraterrestrial technology is when we look at the ancient stone-cutting techniques. Because in some instances, we ourselves today could not replicate what our ancestors allegedly accomplished with stone masonry.
Puma Punku is a large temple complex located on a high plateau in Bolivia. Mainstream archaeologists date the site from approximately The people who lived here had neither a written language nor the wheel, yet somehow they built one of the world’s most complex structures. Ancient alien theorists view Puma Punku as clear proof of extraterrestrial influence. The ruins we find at Puma Punku are simply extraordinary.
Puma Punku defies logic.
The interest of Puma Punku is not so much that the individual stones sorted together perfectly, but the fact that the stones, as such, are of such tremendous design that it requires concepts of mathematics which are far beyond anything we are actually using right now.
Yet somehow in the past, somebody has made that for a specific purpose, and in a way which even computer programs today would kind of go, how is this possible? In the highlands of Bolivia, Puma Punku– some of these blocks are over What can you tell us about this? Boy, they had their stone-cutting abilities pretty well fine-tuned for 5,000 years old. I mean, it’s almost unbelievable.
But these cutting planes that they have on here are very impressive. And some of the incised cuts– see, like in here, all these interior cuts– very hard to do.
I mean, it would be difficult for us with our equipment to get that kind of precision. The inside boxes are a hell of a piece of work.
I mean, if we were to do something like that today, we’d use– what they have, these computer-driven CNC machines which have diamond tips.
And you have a template that, you know, the computer follows. Even then, it may not come out as perfect.
Because even though you can tell that obviously, this piece broke off. Nowhere in here can you see any imperfection. When you’re there, if you go with your finger over these edges, and you put a little pressure on your fingertip, you can cut yourself. This is how sharp the edges are. But where could the ancient peoples have developed such technology? Is it really possible that extraterrestrial visitors provided different construction methods and tools? When I saw these blocks, I didn’t really think that they were cut.
Image Credit
The first thing really that I thought of was this appears very similar to Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block system of construction, which he used in his California houses in the early 1920’s. Now what he did was– he took concrete, poured it into molds.
There actually are ancient Incan legends that suggest that they had the capability of softening the stone. At Sacsayhuaman, for example, we find these gigantic stone blocks, gigantic stone walls, where it looks as if those stones were molten, put into place, and then the stone hardened again.
Several hundred miles north of Puma Punku, Machu Picchu sits high atop the Peruvian Andes. Built by the Incas in the 15th century, this stone citadel was suddenly abandoned about 100 years later.
Like Puma Punku, Machu Picchu also has signs of advanced engineering and possibly, molded stones. I can’t help but think that whoever was behind this thought the process through from beginning to end.
They didn’t quarry the rock, and then decide, “How the heck are we gonna transport this?” They knew from beginning to end what needed to be done with whatever techniques and technology they were going to use, so that this was no big deal.
In industry today, there’s a kind of an adage: Keep it simple, stupid. Based on his experience, Mike Dunn believes the simplest way to build the great walls of Machu Picchu would have been to transport small rocks to the site, then melt them, and use molds to fashion exact size and shape needed.
That would solve a lot of difficulties of constructing this wall. First, you have your shapes, all the same size, each shape. So you’re guaranteed that they would fit together as opposed to being cut by different artisans.
Melting the rocks, and then pouring them into place would take and an incredible amount of heat just to spool off pieces of stone. I have a stone torch which I use for sometimes shaping granite. And, I mean, it generates a temperature of in excess of When we look back at the ancients, and we see a technology that they couldn’t possibly know, there’s only two possibilities then: either God did it– which we really don’t think happened– or some high-tech civilization from another planet came and showed them how to do it, then took their materials and tools and went back home.
The idea behind that is that none of these ancient monuments were constructed or manufactured by extraterrestrials.
It was us humans who built it with extraterrestrial technology. It’s entirely possible that there were visitations, that they pointed out ways to do things, and that they wanted to leave some kind of a record.
I mean, if you’re gonna leave a permanent record, the only way you can do that is in stone. But if advanced beings from another planet really did bring their technology to Earth, might the ancient astronauts have left one of their tools behind? The methods used to build huge megalithic structures such as Puma Punku and the pyramids of Egypt remain a mystery.
But what about the tools used to build them? Where are they? And might they provide a clue as to how these enormous stone structures were created? A lot of the real ancient mysterious work was done at a time when there was no steel, and the copper they had was, yeah, they could harden it by cold-hammering it, but still, it wouldn’t make a dent in rocks like basalt and granite.
So they would have had to use, you know, much more laborious techniques othey had some sort of advanced technology which escapes me, and I’ve been in the business 40 years.
The tools and machines must have been equal to the task of actually building the pyramids, crafting those statues to such a high order of precision crafting those boxes to a modern-day precision that you find in our inspection lab.
And the big question: Where are the tools? In the late 19th century, British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie scoured Egypt, looking not for the biggest items, but the smallest. Petrie was absolutely fascinated by the technical achievements of the Egyptians, particularly the early Egyptians. He constantly was looking for how they made things, how they developed things, how they continued to sort of basically perfect their tools.
We’re normally taught that the ancient Egyptians had simple tools, and what Petrie brought out is information that seems to actually argue against that notion. This is an example of a drill hole. You can see the very fine lines on it. You can see the technology that’s made to use it. You can see how it’s a perfect hole almost all the way through, but it tapers at one end. This is a fragment of a diorite bowl.
It’s one of the hardest substances, and you can see on this, on this fragment that there’s a, a lathe mark, which is really interesting that they managed to make such a mark in such a hard material.
Among all the tools discovered by Petrie, however, one stood out from all the rest. While working inside the Great Pyramid, Petrie stumbled across a tubular drill made of granite. Tubular drills amongst the ancient Egyptians were actually fairly common. I mean, Petrie found quite a few of them.
The interesting thing about the one that he found in Giza is that it’s such hard stone that was so carefully carved, precisely grooved. As you can see, it’s got very, very fine markings on it, basically lines, literally a couple of millimeters apart.
You can see it goes all the way round very, very accurately, hardly any waves at all. He was absolutely amazed by this. He kept returning to it throughout his life. His theory was that the Egyptians must have had access to diamonds or some kind of jewel that would have cut it. The interesting thing about Petrie’s theory about how these drill lines are made was that he never discovered any diamonds in ancient Egypt.
So where were they? Where did they go? We don’t know.
If the ancient Egyptians didn’t possess diamonds, how were the precision grooves cut onto the granite drill? Did Petrie accidentally discover a tool made by extraterrestrials? Machinist expert Chris Dunn attempted to answer this question by creating his own granite drill using the known tools and techniques of the ancient Egyptians.
In order to test the Egyptologist theory about how the ancient Egyptians drilled into granite, I took a tube and I fixed a crank on it, and actually used sand and silicon carbide, and after many hours of turning and drilling into this piece of granite, finally got deep enough that I could actually pop a core out.
And the reason for that was to actually look at the surface, not just of the whole, but of the core.
The next step was to use a high-tech industrial microscope to compare his drill core to a latex copy of the one at the Petrie Museum.
We have under the microscope the core that we drilled with the copper tube and sand.
And as you can see, the surface of the core, the striations are not very clear.
There’s nothing really distinctive in terms of the feed of the tool marks using sand and, and copper.
Now bring in the latex that they took of the core in the Petrie Museum, and we see something totally different.
The striations are very clear and they’re quite deep.
The devil is actually in the details, and the details of this particular artifact are what I consider to be a smoking gun in terms of what level of technology we give the ancient Egyptians credit for.
Intrigued by his discovery, Chris Dunn performed other experiments using his precision instruments.
As you can see, this is an inspection surface plate, probably ground to within 2/10,000 of an inch.
That is one-tenth the thickness of a human hair.
Now, I was really amazed when I went inside the Serapeum and put these gauges up against the surface, and found them to be within what I consider to be the tolerance of these particular gauges.
If you would put a piece of paper under one edge of that blade– just a piece of paper– you begin to see that there was would be light leaking through.
And so, the precision on the inside of the granite boxes in the Serapeum are, I would say, within 2/1,000 of an inch, which is incredible because those tolerances can’t just appear by accident.
It was very shocking. It was astounding to me to go to Egypt and, uh, go into a facility that was supposedly same kind of precision. Dunn was amazed.
Dunn had seen evidence of the carvings on granite done in Egypt, and they did they did it with little shards of, uh of quartz. He believes they would have just scratched away the stone with that.
That that’s one possibility, but I mean, that’s a heck of a lot of work to do that. I mean, we’re talking, somebody would devote years to doing something like that.
But precision-cut stone monuments are not the only enduring Middle Eastern mysteries. Engineering experts have also examined the Bible story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.
Just how did they survive for 40 years in the desert? Could they have possessed intricate machines with extraordinary abilities, used not for building, but for man’s own survival? In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Exodus describes how the Jewish people suffered as slaves living in Egypt.
Then sometime in the 14th century BC, the ruling pharaoh feared their growing numbers and ordered the killing of all first-born Jews living in Egypt.
In an effort to save her son, one mother put her child in a small basket and set him adrift on the Nile River. That child was found by the pharaoh’s family, who named him Moses and raised him as their own. As an adult, Moses discovered his true identity and demanded that the Pharaoh free the Jews. When the pharaoh rejected him, Moses helped the Jews escape from Egypt.
Historians believe that Moses and his people crossed the Red Sea and made their way into the Sinai Desert.
According to the ancient text, God grew angry at the Jews for idol-worshipping and forced them to wander the desert aimlessly for 40 years before allowing them to enter Israel.
During this time, the Bible says the Israelites survived by eating a single food source: Manna. But what is manna? A naturally abundant food provided by God or, as some believe? 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.
God stepped in at this point and sent manna from heaven.
This took the form of some kind of seeds that rained down upon the desert. And then they were collected the next day. And they provided food for the Israelites, except Friday, when there was a double portion, because on Saturday, being the Sabbath, it didn’t fall. While the Hebrew Bible fails to give a clear description of manna, another ancient Jewish text provides an alternative clue.
The Zohar is a collection of spiritual commentaries and interpretations of the Torah and is central to the mystical Kabbalah belief written in the 13th century.
The Zohar describes what is called the Ancient of Days as providing the manna, but what was this Ancient of Days? A man, a god or something else? The text speaks of different-sized brains, different-sized faces that were connected with different tubes and different light sources. Theologians have suggested that this is a description of God.
However, when looked at from a modern perspective, what is described in the Zohar isn’t necessarily a god figure, but rather a type of machine.
Intrigued by this information, two electrical engineers, George Sassoon and Rodney Dale, used the anatomical descriptions of the Ancient of Days to design what they called a manna machine.
This really is-is the key diagram of the manna machine, as we built it up from the text. For instance, one here is the mouth, but it’s actually the air intake, which carries what is described as the breath of life.
The air goes up this tube here, which is described as the brain of the Ancient One but is actually a dew still. So that although we’re talking about the great sea and the hairs of the beard and so on, at the same time, we were able to work out their relative positions and build out the specification of the machine, and find that we had something that was biochemically viable.
The machine took in the moist morning air and condensed it in the part of the machine that looked like a Plexiglas dome.
From there, it mixed with an algae culture. The algae culture was treated with energy, such as a strong laser light, in order to speed the growth. Of course, it needed energy for cultivating the algae. And this was produced, we postulate, in a small nuclear reactor, which would produce both heat and light as required. The manna machine was a very dangerous device. We suspect that the reactor that powered the machine was transported in the Ark of the Covenant. We have multiple references in the Bible that whoever came close to the Ark of the Covenant and didn’t know how to operate it was smitten to death.
And sometimes people, after they encountered the Ark, started to lose their nails and started to lose their hair. So we have evidence of some type of radiation poisoning which was in direct correlation with the Ark of the Covenant.
And so, the Ark of the Covenant housed an extraterrestrial device which was given to the Israelites during their 40-year wandering through the desert. The manna machine is believed to have supplied a highly nutritious form of green algae, or chlorella, as its food source. It’s yet another theory supported by modern science.
We found that work in the field of space travel had already been done, where the green algae– chlorella– was bred in tanks and fed to people living in a closed environment and kept them alive.
Research studies done by NASA in the 1960’s and life could be sustained for extended periods of time by consuming chlorella algae and nothing else. If it’s possible for astronauts to survive on algae, could the Israelites have done the same? The manna machine was a sensitive device. In order to function properly, it had to be cleaned once a week.
On that day the machine was taken apart and cleaned. So it’s possible that the Sabbath we have today actually originated from cleaning this machine.
One theory that one could put forward of course is that the machine, although they knew how to maintain it and make it produce the manna, that it did after a time pack up, not work anymore. And that was why they came out of the desert.
But if the Israelites’ survival depended upon the manna machine, where did they get it? Some believe they had stolen it from the Egyptians prior to their exodus.
Others suspect 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. Today, scientists have successfully pioneered a process that produces a substance high in protein by means of solar energy, water vapor, and chlorella algae.
Could this be a duplication of alien technology from thousands of years ago? They actually built a machine, a machine based on algae culture producing some type of super food.
And we can find a similar type of technology described in the Zohar. Is history repeating itself? One of the big questions is “where did the machine come from?” And I suppose there are two answers to that.
Either it was built on Earth, which is a theory I can’t really subscribe to. The other question, of course, is that it might have come from outer space somewhere. Now, that’s quite a big leap of imagination, but of course, the interesting part is that it actually produces food as is used by spacecraft. If the ancient world contained manna machines, giant mega-saws, and sophisticated aircraft, what was the energy source for all of this technology? The answer may be hiding in plain sight.
Of all the ancient structures located around the world, perhaps none is more mysterious or as enduring as the Great Pyramid at Giza. At a height of 471 feet, the Great Pyramid stood as the tallest structure in the world until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. But while other pyramids and temples contain walls filled with hieroglyphics describing their purpose, the Great Pyramid lacks even a single marking.
What was its function? Why was it built? And what secrets remain hidden inside? Nobody has been able to explain the interior design of this pyramid. It simply doesn’t make sense, according to our logic.
You have narrow tunnels that you have to crouch. You emerge in grand galleries that are nine meters high. You have chambers that made of granite, where granite doesn’t come from in the area. You have to ship the granite by barges 600 miles away.
It’s an anonymous site.
Not a single inscription.
Not a single hieroglyph.
Not a single anything.
It’s just there.
Some people speculated that it was a temple and an initiation chamber, where people would go to the king’s chamber and become enlightened.
There are anecdotal reports about people who have been inside the pyramid and have come out absolutely shaken and– because it was haunted.
Egyptologists believe that the pyramids were built to bury the dead pharaoh.
The problem with the accepted view is the fact that not a single dead pharaoh’s body has been found inside a pyramid, even when the pyramid was completely sealed.
Not a single grave robber could have entered it.
The Egyptologists say it’s to conceal the body.
Well, why advertise it? I mean, there’s nothing more visible than a pyramid for miles.
And to this day, you would have thought, in this modern age, with all the knowledge we have, we should be able to explain this pyramid. We cannot explain this pyramid. Engineering expert Christopher Dunn has been on a personal quest to unlock the secrets of the Great Pyramid since the late 1970’s. According to him, there are specific clues in the design and construction of this mega-monument that can help answer exactly why it was built.
When you look at the Great Pyramid and look at the culture that built it, they’re brilliant, brilliant engineers. In fact, a lot of engineers say we couldn’t build the Great Pyramid today. And it was built, supposedly, And it was built to the precision of a machine.
When I started to do the research and I examined the Great Pyramid with the eye of functionality, um, it was built like a machine.
Perhaps it functioned like a machine.
The interior design of the Great Pyramid features four inclined air shafts emanating from the king’s chamber and the lower queen’s chamber.
Like the Great Pyramid itself, their presence and purpose cannot be easily explained. The difficulty of building those shafts is incredible. It’s a bit like building a chimney at an incline across a house. I mean, as a construction engineer, it’s a nightmare.
In 2002, a team of engineers and Egyptologists sent a small robot into one of the airshafts connected to the queen’s chamber. After 65 meters, a stone door blocked its path.
A hole was then drilled through it. On the other side was a small room with yet another door leading further up the shaft. Since the discovery of the door, we’ve had every university, archaeologist, anthropologist, every engineer you can think of– nobody has been able to explain the purpose of the shafts.
But were these shafts ever open? And if they were, what might they have been used for? The early explorers that went into the queen’s chamber found that the walls were coated with a layer of salt.
That kind of gelled with a theory that I had developed.
You had a dilute hydrochloric acid solution coming down one shaft and hydrated zinc coming down the other shaft and when they combined in the queen’s chamber, they created hydrogen. Hydrogen.
It is one of the most powerful energy sources in the universe. In the mid-19th century, it was hydrogen gas that helped lift some of mankind’s first airships, called zeppelins, into the sky. Today, it is used as a fuel to launch rockets into space.
And if thousands of years ago, the Great Pyramid was actually producing hydrogen, that would make it one of the earliest power plants known to man.
The Giza power plant theory is essentially the drawing of energy from the Earth through the Great Pyramid, and converting that energy into microwave energy.
So the chemicals actually come in through the shafts into the queen’s chamber, and then they combine and mix and hydrogen boils off.
The hydrogen is then lighter than air and it will flow into all the upper chambers. The energy from the earth is then vibrating the whole pyramid. The vibrations are picked up in the Grand Gallery.
So it was proposed the Grand Gallery was a resonator hall and there are 27 pairs of slots that actually go up the length of the gallery and then the resonators were mounted in there vertically.
Christopher Dunn is theorizing that with resonating galleries, the pyramid shot a microwave out of one of the shafts, and once you started up this power plant, it would have gone on for years, decades, even hundreds of years without stopping and creating the microwave.
And that was a usable energy that could be captured. Now we can speculate where it goes from there. It could be collected in the immediate vicinity or it could keep traveling off into space. We don’t know.
That’s the mystery. But if the Great Pyramid was actually a power plant producing energy, was it doing it alone, or was it part of a larger network? And are there any clues that could tell us what all of that energy was being used for? Perhaps the 20th century’s most influential inventor was a Serbian-American named Nikola Tesla.
His patents on alternating electrical currents and distribution helped establish the commercial electricity industry. He also made contributions to robotics, radar, and computer science. But while Tesla can be credited for many scientific advances, one idea that fell short was his attempt to create a wireless electrical grid. Tesla’s project was to have these towers around the United States and around the world. And they would broadcast electricity like a television station. Instead of having to string power lines all over the place, you just transmit the energy through the air or through the ground.
There were a number of demonstrations of this device for wireless power transmission during Tesla’s lifetime.
So, we know the device worked. It appears that he was using the conductivity of the ground or the air to carry the electric current.
Basically in the air, if you put enough voltage on it, you’ll get an arc across it. I mean, you see that all the time in a fluorescent light bulb. In the ground, you have water, minerals, salts that can also carry the ions along, and therefore carry the electric current.
But while Tesla’s power towers proved popular in theory, the project ended in financial failure. But could Tesla’s idea of wireless electricity have been a rediscovery of an ancient technology? I believe that what Tesla was doing was trying to recreate what was an ancient power system that was used around the world, and the way they did this was the use of obelisks.
Obelisks as monolithic, granite towers, which are one solid piece of crystal, and the obelisks themselves were cut to special sizes and tuned like a tuning fork.
Could these ancient broadcast towers really have sent electricity up into the atmosphere? And if so, how was the electricity generated? Each of these obelisks would have required some kind of generating power station similar to what we have today.
Electricity is created by rotating magnetic fields. So rotating magnetic fields generate AC power. The very first power station was built by Nikola Tesla at Niagara Falls.
You’ve got to have some sort of power that’s spinning the rotating fields, and in this case would be water.
So every obelisk would have had to have had a power station similar to like the one at Niagara Falls. It’s generating power, but the obelisk itself is putting the power into the atmosphere, making it useable.
And this is similar to Christopher Dunn’s theory of the Giza power plant because he believes that the Great Pyramid was actually sending a microwave beam to a satellite that was in orbit around the planet.
That satellite then could have been taking microwave power and then it could transmit it again, in theory, to some other location on the earth, such as, say a remote island like Easter Island or something like that.
From some of the descriptions of ancient flying machines, it’s possible that some form of power beaming might have been used. And in fact, for a lot of the schemes that you see, it actually would make a lot of sense because you could put the power beaming station on a mother-ship in orbit.
You’re just beaming energy to the vehicle, where it’s absorbed and turned into propulsion thrust. It actually makes a lot of sense because you’re taking the energy system, the power system, off of the vehicle and locating it remotely.
Electricity power tools mega-machinery And the ability to explore the heavens Have these technologies been available for just the past few centuries? Or are they of ancient origin, only recently rediscovered? Were our ancestors capable of these incredible achievements? Or might they have come from another source, one much more out of this world? Civilizations were much more advanced than we give them credit, and literally, as advanced as we are today.
In my view, we need to take this seriously simply because of the scale of the work.
We’re looking at monuments that took, perhaps, a century to build. Even today, we have difficulty in considering such a project. It just boggles the mind.
And really, to look at those artifacts and to go back in time and say, how did they do it? We are kind of cracking the lid open a little bit and looking inside to try and see just what happened in our history.
It’s a question which is a scientific question. And you constantly have to ask it. And the possible answer of have aliens visited in the past could be a potential yes. It’s a very specific reason why all of this stuff was built in stone: For posterity.
So it would last. So that a future generation would have to stumble across these monuments. We are that society who can look at these ancient monuments and finally recognize that all of this stuff was built as a message for us to see that our past is way different than what we’re being taught in school.
Deep-Sea Volcanic Springs Aid the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Deep-Sea Volcanic Springs Aid the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
ByABBY TABOR, NASA'S AMES RESEARCH CENTER
Dramatic jets of ice, water vapor and organic compounds spray from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus in this image captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in November 2009.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island and more than 3,000 feet beneath the ocean surface lie the warm, bubbling springs of a volcano — a deep-sea location that may hold lessons for the search for extraterrestrial life.
Here, NASA and its partners are blending ocean and space exploration, with a project called SUBSEA, short for Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog. Lessons learned in both fields will be mutually beneficial and could help design future science-focused missions across the solar system.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa are thought to have liquid oceans and hydrothermal activity under icy crusts. Locations on Earth with key similarities to future deep-space destinations are called analog environments. SUBSEA’s target, the springs emerging from a volcano forming the next Hawaiian island, called the Lō`ihi seamount, is an analog for these ocean worlds.
Artist rendering showing an interior cross-section of the crust of Enceladus, which shows how hydrothermal activity may be causing the plumes of water at the moon’s surface.
Credits: NASA-GSFC/SVS, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute
When NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn discovered a plume of water erupting from beneath the icy surface of Enceladus, the characteristics of the plume told scientists what conditions might be like on the sea floor. This included the temperature, pressure and composition, and suggested the presence of hydrothermal activity. Scientists think these moons are good places to look for potential life, because water interacting with rock on their sea floors could yield chemical reactions that would make microbial metabolism possible.
Lō`ihi is an especially good place to test predictions about seafloor hydrothermal systems and their ability to support life. Previous research focused more on locations where tectonic plates come together, but the Lō`ihi seamount involves molten magma erupting from the middle of one of these plates. This is the type of volcanic activity scientists think could be similar to seafloor volcanoes that may exist on Europa and Enceladus. The zones where plates meet may actually be too hot to provide a realistic representation of hydrothermal activity on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Throughout the 2018 SUBSEA expedition aboard the vessel Nautilus, the team’s scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and various academic institutions will study the conditions around Lō`ihi’s seafloor springs across a range of pressures and temperatures. What they learn here will increase our understanding of the potential for conditions that could support life forms on other ocean worlds.
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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 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
