Which is more shocking: the fact that Jupiter has at least 12 more moons than once thought or the fact that they were discovered by real astronomers who were looking for the mythical Planet Nine? Planetary scientists announced that the discovery of the tiny and somewhat erratic moons brings Jupiter’s total to 79, but are they just bragging to cover up the time they spent searching for an allegedly apocalyptic yet unproven giant planet?

12 new moons discovered around Jupiter

“Jupiter just happened to be in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant Solar System objects, so we were serendipitously able to look for new moons around Jupiter while at the same time looking for planets at the fringes of our Solar System.”

In a press release by The Carnegie Institution for Science, part of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, astronomer Scott S. Sheppard admitted publicly that he and his team were looking for Planet Nine or Planet X in 2017 when Jupiter passed into the field of vision of their telescopes and they spotted the 12 tiny new moons. “Tiny” is an overstatement – most the moons range from just one to three miles in diameter. It required waiting a year for them to appear a few more times before the team was confident enough to announce the find.

Jupiter and its four biggest moons

12 new moons discovered around Jupiter

Nine of the newly discovered moons are in three groups making distant retrograde orbits (opposite Jupiter’s rotation) and the researchers speculate they may be what’s left of three larger moons that suffered collisions with each other, other moons, asteroids or comets. Two more moons are closer to Jupiter and follow its spin. Their matching orbits and tilts indicate they were probably once a single moon.

Then there’s the tiny eccentric satellite.

“Our other discovery is a real oddball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon. It’s also likely Jupiter’s smallest known moon, being less than one kilometer in diameter. This is an unstable situation.”

According to Sheppard, this moon’s orbit is prograde despite being far enough from Jupiter that it should be retrograde or at least off-kilter due to collisions. The abundance of these tiny moons suggests that they formed after the solar system’s planetary creation had settled down, allowing them to survive rather than be knocked down by Jupiter’s formational gas and dust.

While Sheppard seemed excited about the discovery of this odd and minute moon, its chosen moniker suggests otherwise. The astronomers named it Valetudo after the Roman goddess of health and hygiene. Really? There’s a goddess of hygiene? How far down the line of succession is she?

Valetudo

And what about Planet Nine? The announcement seems to overplay the discovery of moons around a planet that already had five dozen of them and doesn’t mention much about the Planet Nine search. Is it being phased out due to lack of success? Did the discovery of Valetudo and her friends save some jobs?

Is there a god of hygiene or did the Romans figure men wouldn’t listen to one anyways?

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

18-07-2018 om 01:12 geschreven door peter  

A giant black sarcophagus the likes of which have never been seen before has been found deep within the ground in Egypt, and a whole lot of scientists want to open it – despite having neither one earthly nor one unearthly idea what might lie waiting possibly maliciously inside. Say it with me now: “What! Could! Go! Wrong?” [cue applause and intro music]

Today’s episode of What The Hell Are They Thinking? comes to you straight from the ancient city of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the cradles of Western civilization as we know it. Earlier this month, construction crews there unearthed a true archaeological mystery the likes of which can only be found in Egypt. A massive alabaster head was found in the ground, the identity of which still remains a mystery. Even stranger (and scarier), a massive black sarcophagus was discovered nearby, measuring two meters by three meters, weighing over 30 metric tons, and carved entirely from black marble. Sounds like the perfect way to entomb an immortal evil wizard if you ask me.

How would you feel if some science nerds a few thousand years from now cracked open your coffin to look at your embarrassingly shriveled remains? How are they supposed to know you’re a grower and not a shower?

But they didn’t ask me. Instead, a team of archaeologists and scientists from Egypt’s money hungry Ministry of Antiquities will crack the menacing-looking thing open despite the entirety of the internet knowing that it’s a terrible idea. “We are hoping this tomb may belong to one of the high dignitaries of the period,” Ayman Ashmawy, the head of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement, his pupils turning into dollar signs as he eyes the sarcophagus and licks his lips. “The alabaster head is likely that of a nobleman in Alexandria. When we open the sarcophagus, we hope to find objects inside that are intact, which will help us to identify this person and their position.”

Let’s take a step back for a second, though: why would you take the time and resources to bury something underneath a 15-ton slab of black marble unless you really, really want it to stay there? But no, fetch the crowbars and let’s get crackin’ boys! There’s museums to stock and tours to plan!

“Why did you release me!? I wasn’t finished with my cleanse yet!”

While in all likelihood the tomb contains nothing more than the stinking remains of some poor inbred aristocrat and all of his junk, there does in fact seem to be a precedent for a real-life pharaoh’s curse – although it seems the “curse” is more like a lifetime of disappointment and waning fame living in the shadow of your greatest discovery than a persistent haunting from a vengeful ancient ghost. But who knows? Maybe vengeful ancient ghosts work in mysterious ways. Maybe evil wizards don’t like being buried for 2,000 years in a musty black marble box. Maybe some things are better left in the ground where one of the most advanced civilizations in human history clearly wanted it to stay.

I’ll be in the bunker tonight, honey; no dinner for me. I’ve got talismans to enchant and salt circles to pour.

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

18-07-2018 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Are we sitting on a gold mine? No, it's a gigantic diamond mine 120-km below us

We are sitting on top of a 1,000 trillion tonnes of diamond buried 120-km below the Earth, but it is out of reach to humans.

By : Immanuel Jotham

Diamonds are famously known to be both rare and "forever". Both of those supposedly well-known facts are, as it turns out, not true at all.

New research by a team from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley has found that there is a lot more diamond in the planet than once believed. A quadrillion tonnes, or about a 1,000 trillion tonnes of diamond is buried below the Earth, but it is out of reach to humans. At about 120 to 150 km below the surface, it is out of reach of even the best drills available right now.

That means there are more diamonds than gold on the planet. According to a BBC report, there is only 2.5 million tonnes of the shiny metal in the world.

"This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the [geological] scale of things, it's relatively common," said Ulrich Faul, of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

"We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before."

This massive stash of diamonds are stored in rock formations called cratons. Cratons form as a result of tectonic plate movement. Similar to the way mountains happen as a result of tectonic movement and are pushed up, cratons are pushed down. They can be likened to inverted mountains and can go as deep as 200 miles, says MIT. At the very bottom of these cratons lie the diamond "roots". The study found that diamonds likely make up about 1 to 2 percent of croton roots.

As to how this find was made, the tech is similar to what is used to detect and measure seismic activity, or earthquakes. Seismic data can also be used to effectively see inside Earth, similar to an ultrasound scan.

Sound travels faster in more dense material than light materials, so its speeds vary according to the composition, temperature, and density of rocks below the surface. By comparing the way sound travels and bounces back, scientists can accurately find what rock lies beneath the surface and at what depth they lie.

The study was published by the American Geophysical Union.  

{ https://www.ibtimes.co.in/ }

18-07-2018 om 00:53 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers stumble upon 12 new Moons orbiting Jupiter while looking for Planet X

This discovery was made while on the lookout for massive, distant solar system objects far beyond Pluto.

18-07-2018 om 00:47 geschreven door peter  

UFOs are real, but don't know what they are: Former UK ministry official Nick Pope

Former MoD official Nick Pope has claimed that UFOs are real, but nobody knows what they really are

By : Nirmal Narayanan

Representational ImageCreative Commons

Nick Pope, a British media commentator who worked with the British Government's Ministry of Defence (MoD) from 1985 to 2006 has claimed that unidentified flying objects (UFO) are real. In an exclusive story written for the Sun, Pope revealed that most of the UFO sightings could be explained, but around five percent remain mysterious.

UFOs are real

As per Nick Pope, the cases which perplexed his MoD team during the investigation were the near misses between UFOs and commercial aircraft. The former MoD insider argued that many pilots have reported mysterious UFO encounters which still remain unanswered.

"The bottom line was that we knew UFOs were real, but we didn't know what they were. What was much more fun was the other weird stuff that came our way simply because there was nowhere else in government to send it: crop circles, claims that people had been abducted by aliens, ghost sightings and people who claimed to be psychic and volunteered their services to British intelligence," wrote Nick Pope on the Sun.

Nick Pope also made it clear that Russians and Chinese had conducted tremendous probe to unravel the mystery behind UFO sightings. As per Pope, Russians had also researched and investigated about parapsychology, telekinesis, and various other psychic phenomena.

US government's clever move

The former Directorate of Defence Security also talked about Pentagon's secret UFO search program 'Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)'. He wrote that the US government did a very clever move by not mentioning the word UFO in the name of the investigation program.

"We still don't know much about AATIP, and it may take Congressional hearings to resolve the issue. Either way, if anyone was laughing about UFOs before, they're not laughing now," added Pope.

He also revealed that the UFOs spotted in the gun camera footage of the Royal Air Force were very similar to that of the flying objects featured in the declassified videos released by Pentagon.

worldufoday.com

18-07-2018 om 00:19 geschreven door peter  

Former UK Ministry Official Says UFOs Are Real

Symbolic picture

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are real, according to British media commentator Nick Pope. While conceding the fact that most of the UFO sightings could be explained, Pope stressed that five per cent remain mysterious. Pope, who worked with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) from 1985 to 2006, stated that near-misses between commercial aircraft and UFOs perplexed his MoD team during the investigation. He said that several pilots had reported unexplained UFO encounters, which remain mysterious.

Pope said that they knew UFOs were real, but no idea what they were. He revealed that other weird stuff also came their way because there was nowhere else in the government where people could send it. They also met people who claimed to be psychic and volunteered to be part of the British intelligence.

Nick Pope also disclosed that China and Russia had conducted serious investigations to shed light to reported UFO sightings. As per Pope, Russia had also researched about parapsychology, telekinesis and several other psychic phenomena.

Pope also made mentioned about the Pentagon’s secret UFO search program “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program” (AATIP). He noted the smart move of the American government not to mention the word UFO in the name of the investigation program.

He said that they do not know much about the program and it might need Congressional hearings to resolve the issue.

He further revealed that the UFOs recorded in the gun camera of the Royal Air Force had similarity to the flying objects in the Pentagon’s declassified videos.

The Navy Pilot Who Encountered The UFO (Pentagons Secret UFO Project)

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

18-07-2018 om 00:13 geschreven door peter  

‘Alien arachnids’: Spider-like mounds captured by NASA on Martian surface (PHOTO)

An image, taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in May as the South Pole of Mars edged towards spring, shows patterns etched across the surface, freakishly similar in appearance to Earth’s eight-legged creatures.

“But these aren't actual spiders,”NASA clarifies in a post explaining the scientific process behind the distinct features.

View image on Twitter

NASA

✔@NASA

So where are the spiders? On Mars! Our Mars orbiter took this image of "araneiform terrain," spider-like radiating mounds that form when Martian carbon dioxide ice below the surface heats up and releases each spring in a process not seen on Earth: https://go.nasa.gov/2KYSRAn 

1:06 AM - Jul 16, 2018

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The spider-like radiating mounds are known as “araneiform terrain,” and form when carbon dioxide ice below the surface heats up and releases. This is an active seasonal process not seen on Earth, according to the space agency.

The carbon dioxide ice on Mars changes from solid to gas as it warms, causing the gas to become trapped below the surface. Over time this trapped gas builds in pressure and breaks through the ice as a jet that emits dust.

• READ MORE: ‘Once in a blue dune’: NASA shares striking image of Martian crater

The result is veiny spider-like ‘formations’ spread across the planet accompanied by dark spots formed by dust deposited around vents during the CO2 eruption.

{ https://www.rt.com/news/ }

17-07-2018 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Southern bull kelp can drift huge distances before washing ashore. 

Ceridwen Fraser, Author provided

How an alien seaweed invasion spawned an Antarctic mystery

Two small pieces of seaweed found by a Chilean scientist on an Antarctic beach set in train research that may transform our understanding of ocean drift and reveal what the future holds for Antarctic ecosystems affected by climate change.

It all started in January 2017, when sharp-eyed marine biologist Erasmo Macaya spotted two clumps of southern bull kelp washed up on the tide line of an Antarctic beach.

Most of us would have walked right on by, but it stopped Macaya in his tracks. To him it was as if an alien had just landed – and in many ways that was exactly what had happened.

Every piece of science he knew said that this species of kelp should never have ended up in Antarctica. Its home was the regions around New Zealand, Chile and the sub-Antarctic islands. Indeed, a genetic test later confirmed that the pieces he found had travelled tens of thousands of kilometres from the Kerguelen and South Georgia islands.

So how did the kelp get to Antarctica?

The ocean barrier

Many scientists considered such a journey impossible, because of the fierce barrier of winds and currents that encircle Antarctica. These winds – known to sailors as the Roaring Forties – combine with the world’s strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and the Coriolis force generated by Earth’s rotation.

Together, these forces push floating objects east and north, away from Antarctica. Before Macaya’s discovery, this barrier was thought to be impenetrable to floating debris.

But if kelp and other organisms could make it to Antarctica, this would have profound consequences for Antarctic ecosystems. So was there a way for the kelp to drift through that barrier?

• Read more: Why I'm spending three months sailing right around Antarctica for science

Surfing kelp

We took up the challenge, using our ocean models. The mystery deepened when our first modelling attempts suggested that the Southern Ocean was indeed uncrossable by floating kelp. Even ocean eddies – the “weather” of the ocean – were not able to push floating objects southward away from the main ocean currents.

Yet the kelp had undeniably made the crossing. This led us to think about other influences on ocean drift that could play a role. We decided to add a very small effect known as Stokes drift to our models.

You can think of Stokes drift as deep ocean surfing. Waves can push floating objects in unusual directions. In the kelp’s case, each time a wave passes, the kelp will move a short distance with the wave. This drift is slow when waves are small, but in regions with large waves (such as the Southern Ocean) it can be much faster.

During storms around Antarctica, waves are typically 10-15m high. The largest wave ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, more than 23m, was in the Southern Ocean off New Zealand. Stokes drift must be large here.

When we added this factor to our ocean models, the change was instant. The massive waves generated by Antarctic storms pushed a small proportion of floating objects southwards. As we report in Nature Climate Change today, this conceivably explains the kelp’s voyage to Antarctica.

We calculated that the kelp specimens must have drifted at least 20,000km to reach Antarctica – the longest biological rafting events ever recorded.

Our results will also change the way that drift pathways for floating objects – such as plastics, aeroplane crash debris, pumice from volcanoes, driftwood, seaweeds, and messages in bottles – will be calculated, particularly in stormy oceans.

What this means for Antarctica

The implications don’t stop there. Until now, Antarctica was thought to be an isolated ecosystem, largely insulated from environmental change. This is not in fact true.

Southern bull kelp can carry many other species of plants and animals when it detaches and floats out to sea. The discovery that this kelp can raft to Antarctica means we could see major ecological changes in Antarctic marine ecosystems as the climate warms.

So far there is almost no evidence of natural colonisations of Antarctica from northern regions in the past few tens of thousands of years. Many Antarctic plants and animals are distinct from those found on other continents and sub-Antarctic islands.

In fact, the kelp strands Macaya found are the first recorded foreign organisms to have drifted across the Southern Ocean. But our models suggest these are unlikely to be the only ones to have made the trip.

This means that Antarctica’s ecological differences are not really due to physical isolation. It is more likely that the harsh Antarctic climate prevents new plants and animals from establishing themselves.

But Antarctica is changing. Parts of the frozen continent are among the fastest-warming regions on Earth. As Antarctica and the ocean around it warms, the kelp rafts – and other floating organisms, including invertebrates hanging onto the kelp, seeds, driftwood that could harbour insects, and larvae – may one day be able to colonise.

By the end of this century, when parts of Antarctica are expected to be similar to current sub-Antarctic environments, we might see many new species colonising Antarctica, bringing dramatic ecosystem change.

Other human-caused influences may also be felt. If kelp can break through the barrier, then floating plastic debris from the large garbage patches in the South Atlantic and South Pacific, just north of the Southern Ocean, could conceivably make a similar journey.

• Read more: The winners and losers of Antarctica’s great thaw

Plastic litter is still very rare in the waters around Antarctica. But with ever-growing amounts of plastic entering our oceans and the new drift pathways we have discovered, more plastic will likely find its way south to pollute one of our last near-pristine environments.

And all of this has been revealed through the discovery of two small pieces of kelp on a distant beach, and the application of a relatively insignificant piece of ocean physics. From these small beginnings we now know that one of the world’s last great wildernesses might not escape our influence.

{ https://theconversation.com/uk }

17-07-2018 om 23:44 geschreven door peter  

SpaceX: 'Mr Steven' Giant Net Tested at High Speeds in Stunning Video

By Mike Brown

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

17-07-2018 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

Another Volcano? Jupiter Probe Sees Hotspot on Roiling Moon Io (Photo)

17-07-2018 om 23:19 geschreven door peter  

How Engineers Are Practicing for the BepiColombo Mission to Mercury (Video)

17-07-2018 om 23:04 geschreven door peter  

Fermi Telescope: Studying the High-Energy Cosmos

17-07-2018 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

TR-3B Black Triangle ∇ Code Name: ASTRA | Magnetic Field Disruptor Plane

TR-3B Black Triangle ∇ In recent years, countless people have reported seeing flying objects of strange shapes (including triangular) and spectacular trajectories. Without ever challenging the existence of UFOs of alien origin, we must make it clear that some of such aircraft are in fact owned and used in the greatest secrecy by the US government.

TR-3B Black Triangle | Code Name: ASTRA

Only with the tremendous courage of some people who worked in different military bases, the truth about these aircraft’s was able to come to light, which is likely to hurry their future use in civil society for the benefit of all mankind.

This is not just about the use of the aircraft itself but primarily about the technology behind its propulsion system – a technology that is also called “black technology” and which, as Steven Greer mentions in his Hidden Truth,

Prohibited information is about 10,000 years more advanced than space-based space technology currently used globally.

In this regard, it is very interesting, the account of an American specialist who worked on a secret military base near Groom Lake City, about an unimaginable aviation technology for the general public, which the Americans already have.

Since this report, originally published online at http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/tr-3b/, is no longer accessible at that address, we offer it below:

“A friend told me at some point he would never forget the image of the TR-3B aircraft in the Papoose Base, which looks exactly like an alien ship.

Black as triangular pitch, TR-3B was rarely mentioned (and only whispering) in Groom Lake, where he worked.

At one point, the aircraft flew over the Groom Lake track in complete silence, and as if by surprise, it suddenly stopped above the S-4. Floated silently in the same position for about 10 minutes, after which he left softly on the asphalt of the track.

Sometimes a bright blue-silver crown surrounds the massive circumference of the TR-3B.

The operational model is approximately 183 meters in diameter.

The TR-3B aircraft also has the ASTRA code name.

The first operational reconnaissance flight took place in the early 1990s.

The triangular nuclear platform of the aircraft was built in the highest secret of the AURORA Program, funded with money from the “black budget” (at least $ 3 billion invested in this project).

“Aurora” is now the most secretive US aerospace program and TR-3B is the most “exotic” vehicle that was created under the Aurora Program, funded and coordinated by the NSA (National Security Agency), the NRO National Recognition) and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

The functionality of TR-3B is not a fiction, it was built with technology already available in the mid-1980s. So, not every UFO spotted is necessary of alien origin.

The material covered by the TR-3B aircraft is a radar-reactive polymer, which can change its reflectivity, radar absorption, and color.

This polymer, when used in conjunction with some internal TR-3B electronic systems, can give the vehicle such a look that it looks like a small ship or a flying cylinder on the radar screen.

A circular ring, filled with acceleration plasma, called the Magnetic Field Disruptor (MFD), surrounds the crew’s rotating compartment and outperforms any currently known technology.

The Sandia and Livermore laboratories have developed this secret technology, and the [American] government will do everything to protect it.

The plasma generated by bringing mercury to 250,000 atmospheres and at a temperature of -123 degrees Celsius, if accelerated to 50,000 rpm, becomes a superconducting plasma, the ultimate result of this process being the cancellation of gravity (levitation).

More specifically, by generating this rotating magnetic field, the effect of gravitational attraction on the ship is neutralized to 89%.

In other words, the weight of the circular accelerator, as well as all the weight of the accelerator – crew cap, avionics (navigation and operation devices and appliances), fuels, crew environment systems and a nuclear reactor, etc. – are reduced by 89%.

This makes the vehicle extremely easy and has the ability to far exceed the performance and manoeuvrability of an aircraft built so far (except, of course, UFOs).

The TR-3B aircraft evolve at high altitudes in an undetectable way (using STEALTHtechnology), thus providing an undetermined flight time recognition platform.

Once it reaches (at a high speed) at that altitude, it needs only very little propulsion to maintain its altitude.

In addition, I remember that at the Groom Lake secret base there were rumours about a new element that would act as a plasma catalyst.

Having the weight reduced by 89%, the vehicle can travel at a speed of 9 Mach [9 times the sound speed: approx. 10,000 km / h], both vertically and horizontally.

Sources say that performance is limited only by the biological limitations of pilots – which are many, given that the gravitational force is reduced by 89%.

The propulsion of the TR-3B is provided by three multimodal propellers mounted in each corner at the bottom of the triangular platform (see Fig. …). TR-3B moves at a speed of up to 9 Mach (Mach is a unit of measurement used in aerodynamics to express the speed of a body moving in a fluid: projectile, aeroplane, rocket, etc.

The Mach 1 speed is equal to the sound velocity in that fluid; Under standard conditions, Mach 1 is equal to 1224 km / h (or 340 m / s) until it rises to 120,000 meters (120 Km), then God knows how fast it can move.

The three multimode rocket engines that are mounted on each corner of the platform use hydrogen or methane and oxygen for propulsion.

In a rocket system that uses hydrogen and liquid oxygen, 85% of the propulsion provides oxygen.

The rocket nuclear engine uses a liquid hydrogen and oxygen boost for additional power.

The reactor heats liquid hydrogen and injects liquid oxygen through supersonic nozzles so that hydrogen combusts at the same time with liquid oxygen.

The multimodal propulsion system can operate in the atmosphere with the propulsion offered by the nuclear reactor in the upper atmosphere with hydrogen propulsion and in the combined orbit (hydrogen/oxygen) circumferential orbit.

What you need to keep in mind is that the three rocket engines actually propel only 11% of the mass of the Top Secret TR-3B aircraft. Engines are built by Rockwell.

Therefore, when triangular UFOs are recorded, it does not necessarily mean they are of extraterrestrial origin, and may also be ultra-sensitive flight apparatus, such as the TR-3B.

The National Security Agency (NSA), the National Recognition Office (NRO), the CIA and the United States Air Force (USAF) intentionally created a certain ambiguity about the names of these aircraft: they created the TR-3, which was modified in TR-3A, TR3-B, plus 2, 3, or 4 suffixes that actually mean completely different aircraft.

Thus, the TR3-B model is just as different from TR3-A as banana grapes. Some of these are designed to have a human crew, others are designed to operate unmanned. ”

Independent journalists who courageously reveal all this secret information hope that their emergence on more and more media channels will greatly help to “wake up” people in the face of these occult realities and thus lead them to their use for the good of the whole mankind.

On the other hand, disclosure in the press of this information will prevent and completely dismantle the various manipulations of an eventual alien invasion or other similar rumours that are being made to escape the “black operations” of the satanic “elite” of so-called “enlightened”. 

TR 3B Secret Plane | Top Secret US Air Force Black Triangle

Source www.matrixdisclosure.com

{ http://alien-code.com/category/ufos/ }

17-07-2018 om 22:24 geschreven door peter  

Robot orbiters circling Mars have acquired images of ghost dunes. They’re pits where, scientists believe, tall crescent-shaped sand dunes once existed on this red desert world.

Ghost dunes in the Noctis Labyrinthus region on Mars, west of the more famous Valles Marineris. The crescent-shaped pits are the remains of active barchan-type dunes from billions of years ago.

Image via Mackenzie Day/David Catling/AGU.

Mars is a desert planet, a lot like some deserts on Earth, but much colder. Also just like Earth, the Martian deserts have vast dunes, ranging from small sand ripples (technically not dunes) to towering, cliff-like true dunes of fine sand. But – while various types of dunes have been seen from orbit and up close by Mars rovers, currently still active and gradually making their way across the landscape – now another kind of dune has been found on Mars as well. Scientists call these ghost dunes, and they are very ancient. They reported the finding in GeoSpace on July 10, 2018. The new research paper was just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

These ghost dunes are not active dunes today. Rather, they are the remains of previous ancient dunes that left pit-like depressions in the ground after they eroded away. Hundreds of these crescent-shaped pits have been discovered, each about the size of the U.S. Capitol building. As Mackenzie Day, a planetary geomorphologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and an author of the new study, explained:

Any one of these pits is not enough to tell you that it’s a dune, or from an ancient dune field, but when you put them all together, they have so many commonalities with dunes on Mars and on Earth that you have to employ some kind of fantastic explanation to explain them as anything other than dunes.

Current and active crescent-shaped sand dunes in the Hellespontus region on Mars, west of the Hellas basin.

Image via NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

How do ghost dunes form? On Earth, ghost dunes may have been partially buried by lava or water-borne sediments. For these Martian ghost dunes, when the lava or sediments hardened, they preserved the contours of the dunes. The remaining top portions of the dunes were then eroded away by winds, which scoured them out, leaving only the “mold” outlines of the former dunes. Now they look like pits with hardened edges.

These dunes’ existence on Mars provide more clues as to what conditions were like billions of years ago, in particular, winds. As Day noted:

One of the cool things about the ghost dunes is that they tell us, for sure, that the wind on Mars was different in the ancient past, when they formed. The fact that the wind was different [when the ghost dunes formed] tells us that the environmental conditions on Mars aren’t static over long time scales, they have changed over the past couple billion years, something we need to know to interpret the geology on Mars.

Crescent-shaped barchan dunes in Egypt’s Western Desert.

Image via Google Earth.

How barchan dunes form.

Image via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Martian ghost dunes were found in orbital images of Hellas Planitia basin and Noctis Labyrinthus. They are similar to ones discovered in the Snake River Plain in eastern Idaho in 2016. More than 480 potential dune molds were discovered in orbital images of Noctis Labyrinthus alone, and more than 300 in Hellas Planitia, by Day and co-author David Catling. Noctis Labyrinthus is a region of jumbled plateaus just west of Valles Marineris, the largest-known canyon in the solar system. Hellas Planitia is a massive 4-billion-year-old impact crater over 1,678 miles (2,700 km) across in the southern hemisphere.

The shapes of the ghost dunes on Mars are crescents, just like barchan dunes on Earth, meaning that the original dunes would have been very similar to barchan dunes, the most common type on both Mars and Earth. The “horns” or tips of the crescents point in the direction of the prevailing wind. This type of dunes tends to form on flat terrain where there is little or no vegetation. The fact that there are so many of these pits in each location points to them being the remains of once-active dune fields. As Day noted:

They are all going the same way, which you would expect for dunes because they are all migrating and forming in the same wind regime. So just the shape and size tell us that these are features that are coming from an ancient dune system.

Ghost dunes on Idaho’s eastern Snake River plain. Image via Google Earth.

Analysis of the ghost dunes on Mars indicates that the original dunes were quite large – about 130 feet (40 meters) tall at Noctis Labyrinthus and 246 feet (75 meters) tall at Hellas basin. By comparison, the Curiosity rover has studied a series of dunes near the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. The striking Namib Dune is about 16 feet (5 meters) tall.

As well as providing fascinating clues about ancient environmental conditions on Mars, these ghost dunes may also be a good place to search for evidence of past life. As mentioned in the summary in the new paper:

Ancient dunes in two places on Mars were partially buried and then eroded away, leaving behind dune-shaped pits that preserve information about the ancient environment. These pits may contain ancient dune sandstones around the edges of the pits and could be a good place to look for evidence of ancient life. The shapes of the pits also tell us how the winds behaved in the past.

Namib Dune in Gale Crater on Mars, as seen by the Curiosity rover. It is about 16 feet (5 meters) tall.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Thomas Appéré.

And as Day noted also:

We know that dunes on Earth can support life, and dunes on Earth are very similar to dunes on Mars. One problem that Mars has that Earth doesn’t is the surface radiation. If you are inside a dune, or at the bottom of a dune, and you are microbial life, the dune is protecting you from a lot of that radiation. There is probably nothing living there now. But if there ever was anything on Mars, this is a better place than average to look.

Bottom line: As well as being common on Earth, dunes have also been found on Mars, Venus, Titan and even comet 67P. Now another type of dune has been discovered on Mars – “ghost dunes,” the pit-like remains of ancient, once-active dunes which have mostly eroded away. They bear a strong similarity to present-day dunes and may even hold clues to past life on the red planet.

• Source: Dune Casts Preserved by Partial Burial: The First Identification of Ghost Dune Pits on Mars
• Via GeoSpace

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

17-07-2018 om 21:27 geschreven door peter  

This Is The Center Of The Milky Way In Its Clearest View Yet... Breathtaking

A mega-telescope gives the clearest breath-taking view of the center of the milky way.

The MeerKAT radio mega-telescope has given us a glimpse of the center of the Milky Way that is stunning. The image reveals the red center in all its glory, showing in clear detail the region around the black hole, some 25,000 light years away.

Galactic Center of the Milky Way Galaxy in the Infrared

The MeerKAT Telescope with 64 Dishes is More Sensitive than Any Telescope Before

The telescope is a combination of 64 individual dishes with all of them being able to detect radio waves. The MeerKAT radio telescope is situated in South Africa in the Karoo region with it being more sensitive than any other telescope according to Sciencealert. com.

The starling red colors in the image reveal just how bright the radio waves are when the telescope picks them up. They range in color, with the faintest emissions being red, while the stronger of the emissions vary orange, yellow and white. The whole image looks like a photograph from hell with a fiery swirling mass. The telescope has managed to give us a never before seen glimpse of the features in the center of the Milky Way. It also gives a view that is clearer than those offered by other telescopes of the remnants of the supernova along with the star-forming regions.

Long Narrow Filaments Have Been a Riddle For Three Decades

The filaments, which are narrow and long, were first seen during the 1980s, but scientists did not know the origin of them. They lie close to the middle of the black hole, however, they are not found in any other location in the Milky Way. Farhad Yusef-Zadeh from the Northwestern University in Evanston in Illinois said, "This image is remarkable", Farhad is an expert on filaments such as these. He went on to say, "It could provide the key to cracking the code and solve this three-decade riddle."

Because the Milky Way is 25,000 light years away, it has been very difficult to capture images of it in the past. Along with this, the Milky Way lies behind Sagittarius constellation, which means it is obscured by gas clouds along with dust. The telescopes used on Earth have not been able to pick it up before the MeerKAT telescope was used. The MeerKAT telescope makes use of x-ray, infrared and radio wavelengths, which penetrate the dust, giving a unique view of the region. It is also ideally located in South Africa as for 12 hours each day there is a visible view of the Milky Way.

The MeerKAT Telescope Shows Science Capabilities Never Before Seen

Fernando Camilo, the chief scientist of the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory who was responsible for the building along with the operation of the MeerKAT telescope, said:

"We wanted to show the science capabilities of this new instrument. The center of the galaxy was an obvious target: unique, visually striking and full of unexplained phenomena – but also notoriously hard to image using radio telescopes. Although it's early days with MeerKAT, there is a lot that remains to be optimized, we decided to go for it – and were stunned by the results."

Scientists are not the only ones who are stunned by the results of the telescope. People alike are amazed at the clarity of the image along with the breath-taking views of the center of the Milky Way.

Milky Way Galaxy Center in Infrared (2006.01.10) [720p]

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

17-07-2018 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

Chinese Airports Shut Down After Mass UFO Sighting

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

17-07-2018 om 20:58 geschreven door peter  

Made with New Horizons’ data, the charts reveal never-before-seen details

BY LISA GROSSMAN 

 

UPS AND DOWNS  This view shows Pluto’s highest mountains, which rise 3 to 6 kilometers above the smooth nitrogen-ice plains of Sputnik Planitia. New maps of Pluto’s topography show more details of familiar landscapes like this one.

PAUL SCHENK/LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE

The first global maps of Pluto and its moon Charon are now available, putting a bookend on NASA’s New Horizons mission.

“From a completionist’s point of view, they are all the good data we have, stitched together into a coherent, complete mosaic,” says planetary scientist Ross Beyer of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The charts focus on the 42 percent of Pluto and 45 percent of Charon where New Horizons snapped images from at least two angles during its 2015 flyby, revealing the landscapes’ height and depth (SN: 6/27/15, p. 16).

These measurements add topographic detail to already familiar features. For instance, the smooth plains of Pluto’s distinctive, heart-shaped ice sheet, known as Sputnik Planitia, lie two to three kilometers below the region’s rim.

The biggest surprise on Pluto is a 3,200-kilometer-long system of ridges and troughs that traces a single, long line across the dwarf planet. That streak may stretch all the way around the globe, Beyer and colleagues report online June 11 in Icarus. This feature was only visible with all the data put together, Beyer says. The team doesn’t have a good explanation for its formation yet.

LONG AND LEAN This subset of the new Pluto map (bottom) shows part of a long series of ridges and troughs that extends over at least 3,200 kilometers. Astronomers aren’t sure how it formed. The digital elevation model (top) shows the same area. White arrows highlight the edge of Sputnik Planitia, the planet's heart-shaped plains of nitrogen ice.

P.M. SCHENK ET AL/ICARUS 2018

Charon’s map confirmed that the moon is made up of two large zones: smooth plains in the southern hemisphere and fractured blocks and canyons in the north, Beyer and colleagues report online July 3 in another paper in Icarus (SN: 4/2/16, p. 20). Initially, scientists thought both terrains were at the same elevation, but the new map shows that the plains are situated a kilometer or two lower than the northern terrain.

“We don’t know quite why that is yet, but it sure is interesting,” Beyer says.

Other planetary scientists will use these charts to continue unearthing Pluto and Charon’s secrets. “These maps really form the basis, the cartographic foundation, for anything any other scientist will do,” Beyer says.

Citations

• P.M. Schenk et al. Basins, fractures and volcanoes: Global cartography and topography of Pluto from New Horizons. Icarus. Vol. 314, November 1, 2018, p. 400. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2018.06.008.
• P.M. Schenk et al. Breaking up is hard to do: Global cartography and topography of Pluto's mid-sized icy moon Charon from New Horizons. Icarus. Vol. 315, November 15, 2018, p. 124. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2018.06.010.

Further Reading

• C. Crockett. Ice gave Pluto a heavy heart. Science News. Vol. 190, December 24, 2016, p. 15.
• C. Crockett. Charon’s surface cracked when ancient subsurface sea froze. Science News. Vol. 189, April 2, 2016, p. 20.
• C. Crockett. Rendezvous with Pluto. Science News. Vol. 187, June 27, 2015, p. 16.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

17-07-2018 om 20:50 geschreven door peter  

Cassini's Fatal Crash | Mission Saturn

Crashing Into Saturn: This Cassini Mission Is the Most Epic Yet | Short Film Showcase

{ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ }

17-07-2018 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

L’OVNI APERÇU EN AUSTRALIE N’AVAIT RIEN D’EXTRATERRESTRE

{ http://www.fredzone.org/ }

17-07-2018 om 13:06 geschreven door peter  

The witness has taken several photographs of a disk-shaped UFO with port holes that according to the photographer goes in and out the water of Lake Michigan known for its many mysterious UFO sightings.

Below the statement of the witness:

On the night of March 31st 2018, about 10:20pm, it was a very clear, calm night with a bright full moon. I was driving along the coastline from Kewaunee to Algoma when I noticed a very long, brightly lit ship.

Then, when it seemed to have been completely aligned with my vehicle (maintaining a good mile out or less distance in front of me), all the electronics, my vehicle radio, dashboard lights, headlights, cell phone turned on by themselves bright and loud. After about 3 seconds they all suddenly turned off at once.

I took that as my sign to take off. I sat there another few minutes, trying to calm myself and locked my vehicle doors (out of instinct). After I got my wits about me, I left with the UFO still just meandering on it's way over the water going northeasterly.

The witness has submitted the sighting including the images to Mufon , case 93368

17-07-2018 om 12:49 geschreven door peter