By: Nidhi Goya

{ http://www.industrytap.com/ }

28-07-2018 om 00:35 geschreven door peter  

Alien life could lurk just one centimeter below the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa

By jimmy

 

The test of extraterrestrial life could be found in the ice that covers the surface of Europe, according to NASA scientists.

The moon, the fourth largest in orbit around Jupiter, has long been considered the most likely place to house signs of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System.

Europe, which orbits around the largest planet in the Solar System, has no atmosphere and is constantly bombarded by the strong cosmic radiation of Jupiter and the sun, which makes it impossible for life to survive on its surface.

As a result of the strong radiation, the researchers believe that any living organism will be hidden in the depths of the planet, where it is believed that there is liquid water.

Nevertheless, New findings from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California, evidence of life could be much closer to the surface than previously thought.

While scientists previously believed that future missions to Europe would have to dig several meters into the ice to find signs of life, the latest research suggests that microbial fossils are between one and three centimeters. [0.4 inches – 1.2 inches] under the ice

Scroll down to watch the video

The search for alien life on Jupiter's moon, Europa, continues as scientists discover that microbial life may be living just below its frozen surface. Europe has long been considered the most likely place, outside the Earth, to sustain life in our Solar System.

The latest research is a strong indicator that future missions to Europe will be able to find evidence of life on the moon.

Previous estimates stated that research crafts on the surface of Europe would have to dig a few meters to find any kind of evidence of life, which is impossible since no lander or spacecraft currently has the capacity to bury itself in that depth.

Dr. Tom Nordheim, icy-world habitability expert and researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, said: "These results indicate that future missions to the surface of Europe do not need to excavate material at great depths to investigate the composition of the material. and look for possible biofirms. & # 39;

NASA believes it will find evidence of extraterrestrial life in the next two decades.

The space agency is already planning two missions to Europe, including a flight called Europa Clipper, which will be launched in 2022 and will take images and measurements of the moon in its path.

This will be followed by a landing mission a few years later.

Previous research has found that Europe has a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, which makes it a primary target in the search for extraterrestrial life within our Solar System.

NASA believes it will find extraterrestrial life in the next two decades and is already planning two missions to Europe (pictured). A flight called Europa Clipper could be launched in 2022, and be followed by a landing mission a few years later

NASA believes that microbial fossils of organisms that inhabit liquid water deep in the surface of the moon could survive up to 10 million years to less than three centimeters (1.18 inches) below the ice.

Dr. Nordheim and his team believe that they have identified the best place to look for evidence of life, which are regions in mid to high latitudes on the moon.

This is because Europe is immersed in hard radiation levels, sent from the sun and the large planets, including Jupiter. However, the largest doses come from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) that come from distant sources such as exploding stars.

Earth's atmosphere protects life from these rays, however, life in other worlds may not have been so fortunate.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT EUROPE AND WHY IS IT SO SPECIAL?

The icy moon of Europe, Jupiter, is slightly smaller than Earth's moon.

Europe orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is blocked by tides, just like the Earth's Moon, so the same side of Europe faces Jupiter at all times.

It is believed to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and a surface ocean of salt water, such as Earth.

Unlike Earth, however, this ocean is deep enough to cover the entire surface of Europe, and being far from the sun, the surface of the ocean is globally frozen.

Many experts believe that the hidden ocean that surrounds Europe, warmed by powerful tidal forces caused by the gravity of Jupiter, may have favorable conditions for life.

NASA scientists are about to explore the ocean moon of Jupiter, Europe, in search of signs of alien life.

Europe is our best option to find biological life in the solar system, researchers say.

The space agency is preparing two probes, including one that will land on its surface, to explore the distant moon in detail within the next decade, the agency says.

It is believed that Mars once had an atmosphere similar to Earth, but now it is thin. Meanwhile, Europe has practically none.

Both worlds are bombarded by high levels of radiation, which could condemn the destruction of fossils that once existed on the surfaces of worlds.

Dr. Nordheim modeled the effect of these particles on the surface of Europe.

The Jet Propulsion Lab team then compared these estimates with laboratory data on how quickly the radiation destroys amino acids, the building blocks of life.

Dr. Nordheim, who also works at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said: "At mid to high latitudes, amino acids could persist at detectable levels of just one or three centimeters. [0.4 inches – 1.2 inches] below the surface of Europe on a time scale of ten million years.

However, Dr. Nordheim added: "In the most irradiated equatorial regions, however, this depth increases to several tens of centimeters."

This would be too deep for the current generation technology to deepen in Europe.

Dr. Nordheim and his team, whose findings are published in Nature Astronomy, said a future mission in Europe will not have to dig too hard to find signs of life, as long as NASA knows exactly where to land.

Dr. Nordheim said: "Observations of the surface of Europe made with an orbiter or approach flybys, such as those of NASA's Europa Clipper mission, will be key to identifying such regions."

Previous research has discovered that this moon has a liquid ocean beneath the icy crust of Europe (in the image), which makes it a primary target in the search for alien life. Young regions in medium to high latitudes could be the best locations to look for such signatures

Clipper will carry a payload of nine instruments, including a camera that will represent most of the surface.

They will use spectrometers to scan their composition, an ice penetration radar to map the shell in 3-D and find liquid water and a magnetometer to characterize the ocean.

Dr. John Cooper of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland says that a lander should probe more than ten centimeters from where it falls or make shallower measurements at high-latitude sites.

Dr. Cooper, who was not involved in the study, said: "The lander would be the final judge of whether we were smart or were lucky enough to find a biofirm, perhaps one that takes shelter from radiation within reach of a small block of ice, a sign of life that we can probably recognize as coming from our closest extraterrestrial cousin in the Universe of life. 

{ https://whatsnew2day.com/ }

28-07-2018 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

‘UFO or Kremlin’s secret weapon’. Russians baffled over daytime blackout over Yakutia

A black cloud came to north-east Siberia on Tuesday at about 11:30. The sudden darkness lasted over two hours.

As the defense and meteorological officials failed to comment on the phenomenon, locals and media outlets started developing conspiracy theories.

The only thing head of Verkhoyansk town Yevgeny Potapov said was ‘Something strange happened on that day’.

Local media were the first to cover the situation; then The Sun and Daily Maildirected their attention to the interesting fact, while nationwide media focused on the problem only recently.

According to the British tabloids, the local residents came up with different versions of its origin, including dust from a meteorite strike, a secret Kremlin weapon test, a UFO and even the ‘work of the devil’.

The cloud of darkness hit three vast districts in Yakutia region. No meteorite strikes, solar eclipse or weapon tests were reported.

“Day suddenly turned into a dark night,” Daily Mail quotes a local resident.

Some also feared possible radioactive contamination and poisonous dust.

“We took torches and went out. But now nobody wants to be on the street, because we were short of breath then,” another inhabitant said.

The locals doubt that the authorities will ever tell them the truth.

• pj/belsat.eu, photos by The Siberian Times

Sky mysteriously turns black in the middle of the DAY in Russia

{ http://belsat.eu/en/ }

28-07-2018 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

• Read more at: 
• https://phys.org/news/2018-07-scientists-rio-scale-alien-encounters.html#jCp

{ https://phys.org/ }

27-07-2018 om 23:19 geschreven door peter  

Star spotted speeding near black hole at centre of Milky Way

Chile’s Very Large Telescope tracks S2 star as it reaches mind-boggling speeds by supermassive black hole

Hannah Devlin - Science correspondent

USA: STRONG EVIDENCE OF A BLACK HOLE AT CENTRE OF MILKY WAY

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

27-07-2018 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

{ https://cosmosmagazine.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 22:26 geschreven door peter  

Despite thousands of filed Freedom of Information Act requests, documents or videos generated during the secret Pentagon UFO study have been scarce to non-existent. Investigative Reporter George Knapp has obtained key documents related to the UFO inquiry. Here they are, so you can see them first.

Senator Harry Reid initiated the Pentagon UFO study back in 2007 yet kept it secret. Since his role was revealed last year, he has had calls from many others in Congress and believes there have likely been classified briefings involving military eyewitnesses. Reid fought hard to keep AATIP going, as revealed in a 2009 letter obtained by George Knapp. 

"It's about changing the paradigm in which our government can finally take this issue seriously without worrying about their political survival, right, allowing Congress to have a conversation in open or closed session saying, all right guys, gals, what do we do about this? What we can talk about now is, should this scientific study continue, that's already been started? That's huge, volumes and volumes of stuff, we now have the basis for doing it."

- Sen. Harry Reid, former Senate Majority Leader

Physicist Hal Puthoff recently made the first public presentation about the Pentagon UFO study. Puthoff was the chief scientist for BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies), the Las Vegas company that won the Pentagon contract to study UFOs and related phenomenon. Puthoff said his group has studied unknown materials recovered from crash sites.

In Puthoff's presentation he listed subjects explored in the dozens of scientific studies initiated by BAASS. The titles and authors of these technical papers have not been released, that is until now. This list is being made public for the first time and includes subjects such as worm holes, warp drive, invisibility, antigravity, metamaterials and how to track hypersonic vehicles.

"You've got these advanced aerospace vehicles flying around, that we don't know where they come from, what the intent is, possibly off-world even."

- Dr. Hal Puthoff, physicist

The idea is that you can use this to find out more about the programs. Documents and descriptions below... happy hunting!

Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell
Creator, Extraordinary Beliefs

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

27-07-2018 om 22:09 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

Worms frozen during an ice age 42,000 years have been brought back to life by scientists, fuelling hope for human cryogenic freezing

• Two nematodes were found lying dormant in the ancient Pleistocene Age ice  
• They lived at the time of woolly mammoths and have since been dormant
• The worms came back to life in a Petri dish after being awoken in a laboratory  

By WILL STEWART FOR THE MAILONLINE

Worms frozen in permafrost for 42,000 years have sprung back to life, scientists say.

Experts managed to coax the two roundworms back to life after thawing the ice that had imprisoned them since the era of woolly mammoths.

The experiment could provide a breakthrough in the fields of astrobiology and cryonics, since it demonstrates the 'ability of multi-cellular organisms to survive long-term', the researchers claimed. 

Cryonics, which bridges the gap between science-fiction and reality, is a field that hopes to suspend people in time by freezing their bodies for years.

The end goal is to keep people on ice for centuries at the time, long enough to  allow for long-term interplanetary exploration.

Scroll down for video 

Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age 42,000 years ago 

The ancient roundworms - frozen since the era of woolly mammoths - started wriggling again in Petri dishes at a Russian institute (pictured)

The nematodes were coaxed back to life in a Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, near Moscow.

Russian researchers team worked with geoscientists from Princeton University, New Jersey, USA to analyse more than 300 frozen worms to find suitable candidates.

According to researchers, only two ‘were shown to contain viable nematodes’. 

One of these was found in permafrost near the Alazeya River back in 2015, and believed to be around 41,700 years old.

The other was taken in 2002 from an prehistoric squirrel burrow in Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River, and is around 32,000 years old.

This location is close to the site of Pleistocene Park, an experimental project seeking to recreate the Arctic habitat of the extinct woolly mammoth.

Both sites are in Yakutia, which is renown for being the coldest region of Russia.  

The worms were coaxed back to life in Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science near Moscow. The breakthrough demonstrates the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term

Both specimens were found in the Yakutia region of Siberia, which is known to be the coldest region of the country

WHAT IS CRYONICS?

WHAT IS CRYONICS?

The deep freezing of a body to -196°C (-321°F). 

Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged. 

The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life.

Two main US organisations carry out cryonics in the US: Alcor, in Arizona, and the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.

Russian firm KrioRus is one of two facilities outside the US to offer the service, alongside Alcor's European laboratory in Portugal.

HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK?

The process can only take place once the body has been declared legally dead. 

Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15. 

The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting. 

At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above 0°C and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs. 

Cryonpreservation is the deep freezing of a body to - 196°C (-321°F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged 

The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to -130°C. 

The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196°C.

WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS?

Many experts say there is none. 

Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed.

It is even less likely a whole body, and the brain, could be without irreversible damage.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Charges at the Cryonics Institute start at around £28,000 ($35,000) to 'members' for whole-body cryopreservation.

Rival group Alcor charges £161,000 ($200,000) while KrioRus' procedure will set you back £29,200 ($37,600).

HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?

Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries. 

However, medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to 'mush' they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg.'

After being defrosted, the nematodes showed signs of life – they started moving and eating,' said another report on the findings cited by The Siberian Times.  According to the international team of researchers, this latest breakthrough demonstrates 'the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term – tens of thousands of years' in a state of 'natural cryoconservation.'

'It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,' the researchers wrote in the report, published in journal Doklady Biological Sciences.

One of the worms was from a site near the Alazeya River (pictured), found in permafrost in 2015, and believed to be some 41,700 years old

A second worm was taken in 2002 from an prehistoric squirrel burrow in Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River (pictured), and is around 32,000 years old

Read more:

• Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-07-2018 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

Roundworms brought back to life after spending 42,000 years iced in permafrost

 BY MIHAI ANDREI 

These creatures have set a new record for cryogenic survival.

The nematodes isolated from permafrost deposits of the Kolyma River Lowland. Image credits: Shatilovich et al.

The Kolyma River in north-eastern Siberia flows along over 2,129 kilometers (1,323 miles) before ultimately emptying into a part of the Arctic Ocean. For the most part (about 250 days each year), the Kolyma is frozen to depths of several meters. Similarly, most of the path it flows along is surrounded by thick ice — after all, this is the permafrost land we’re talking about.

A while back, Russian biologists dug up more than 300 samples of frozen soil from the area. They found that the samples are teeming with microscopic life: single-celled cyanobacteria, green algae, and yeasts. But among these samples, they also found some macroscopic organisms — namely, some nematodes (Panagrolaimus aff. detritophagus and Plectus aff. parvus) — or, as most people would call them, roundworms.

Some were found in what was likely a ground squirrel burrow some 32,000 years ago, but had since caved in and frozen over. The others were found in a bore sample at a depth of around 3.5 meters (about 11.5 feet). They were carbon dated and found to be 42,000 years old. There’s still the off chance of contamination, but researchers have detailed their strict practices, and peer-review also confirmed the sterility procedures.

After identifying the worms, biologists placed them in a room kept at a mellow temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). It didn’t take long before they started showing signs of life. Within weeks, they were moving around and eating, setting a new record for how long animals can survive frozen in ice.

Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age 42,000 years ago 

Longest survival

In 2000, scientists found bacteria spores inside 250 million-year-old salt crystals, and after careful processing, were able to bring them back to life.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that the tricks bacteria pull off to survive so long cannot be applied to macroscopic creatures, which are much more complex. Roundworms are remarkably sturdy creatures (related to tardigrades), but they don’t even come close to bacteria. Yet even tardigrades, these incredibly resilient creatures, have “only” been known to survive for decades after preservation.

The worms were coaxed back to life in Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science near Moscow. The breakthrough demonstrates the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term

Both specimens were found in the Yakutia region of Siberia, which is known to be the coldest region of the country

Aside from the main story, — that the creatures survived for 42,000 years, frozen — there are two ways to look at this. The first is optimistic and upbeat: by studying the mechanisms which allowed them to survive, we can learn more about cryomedicine and how creatures (potentially, alien creatures) survive in extreme environments.

“It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,” the researchers write in their study.

But there’s a darker side to the story. As global warming takes its course and much of the permafrost continues to melt, it could release a string of pathogens currently frozen. What the consequences will be is anyone’s guess.

• This research was published in Doklady Biological Sciences.

{https://www.zmescience.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 21:10 geschreven door peter  

NASA eavesdropped on the Sun, and they made a video so you can hear it too

BY ALEXANDRU MICU 

With a bit of help from NASA, you can now hear the sun’s roar — and it’s glorious.

The Sun’s surface seen in ultraviolet light, colored by NASA.
Image credits NASA Goddard.

Although you never hear it, the Sun is actually pretty loud. This massive body of superheated, fusing plasma, is rife with ripples and waves generated by the same processes that generate is light and heat — and where there’s motion, there’s sound. We never get to hear it, however, as the huge expanse of nothing between the Earth and the Sun acts as a perfect acoustic insulator.

With some of ESA (European Space Agency) data and a sprinkling of NASA’s magic, however, you can now hear the Sun churn in all of its (surprisingly tranquil) glory.

Hear me roar (softly)

“Waves are traveling and bouncing around inside the Sun, and if your eyes were sensitive enough they could actually see this,” says Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

What Young is referring to are seismic waves, a type of acoustic waves — the same kind of motion that causes earthquakes in rocky planets — that form and propagate inside the Sun. Hypothetically, if you were to look at the star with the naked eye, you could actually see these waves rippling through its body and surface.

Stars are formed of a much more fluid material than most planets, and so their bulk flows more readily under the sway of seismic waves — wiggling just like a poked block of Jell-O.

As most of us learned in early childhood, however, one cannot look directly into the Sun for long. Luckily for us, ESA recently embarked on a one-of-a-kind mission: they sent the Parker Solar Probe hurtling towards our star. Using its SOHO Michelson Dopler Imager (MDI) instrument, the probe recorded these motions inside the Sun. Researchers at NASA and the Stanford Experimental Physics Lab later processed into a soundtrack.

It’s not half-bad, as far as tunes go. I actually find it quite relaxing. Check it out:

It took a great deal of work to turn the readings from Parker into something usable. Alexander Kosovichev, a physicist at the Stanford University lab, processed the raw SOHO MDI data by averaging Doppler velocity data over the solar disc and then only keeping low degree modes. These low degree modes are the only type of seismic waves whose behavior inside stars is known and accessible to helioseismologists. Afterward, he cut out any interference, such as sounds generating by whizzing of instruments inside the craft. He then filtered the data to end up with uninterrupted sound waves.

While scientists probably enjoy a groovy track just as much as the rest of us, the soundtrack actually has practical applications. By analyzing the sounds, researchers can get a very accurate picture of the churnings inside of our Sun — much more accurate than previous observations could provide.

“We don’t have straightforward ways to look inside the Sun,” Young explains. “We don’t have a microscope to zoom inside the Sun. So using a star or the Sun’s vibrations allows us to see inside of it.”

A more comprehensive understanding of the motions inside the Sun could allow researchers to better predict space weather events.

Story via NASA.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

Two billion years ago, Andromeda ‘ate’ a sister-galaxy of the Milky Way

BY ALEXANDRU MICU 

Our closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, seems to like the taste of its brethren.

The Andromeda Galaxy imaged through a hydrogen-alpha filter.
Image credits Adam Evans.

Researchers from the University of Michigan (UoM) report that the Andromeda galaxy smote and consumed one of its brethren some two billion years ago. Although its victim was shredded almost completely, the team pieced together evidence of the collision from the thin halo of stars that spans the gap between Andromeda and its enigmatic companion, Meiser 32 (M32).

The discovery helps further our understanding of how galaxies like the Milky Way evolve, and of their behavior during large mergers.

Family dinner

Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and our closest neighbor, Andromeda, are the two largest members of a group known as the Local Group (of galaxies). The extended family includes some 54 different galaxies — most of them dwarf galaxies acting as satellites for their larger relatives — all orbiting around a point roughly between Andromeda and the Milky Way.

It may sound idyllic, but researchers have found that at least one member of this group found its demise at the hands of Andromeda. This once-galaxy, christened M32p, was the third-largest member of the Local Group — a distinction that now falls on the galaxy Triangulum.

The team started their research using data pertaining to the halo of stars around Andromeda. It’s not a unique feature; many galaxies harbor such wispy-thin groupings of stars around their bulk, the final remnants of smaller galaxies that they absorbed over time. Since Andromeda is so large and rich in matter (it has over double the diameter of the Milky Way and double its number of stars), the researchers expected it to have consumed hundreds of smaller galaxies — which they thought would make it impossible to study a single such meal.

Size comparison between M32p and today’s M32.
Image credits Richard D’Souza; for the image of M64: NOAO/AURA/NSF.

However, the team’s computer simulations revealed that although Andromeda did dine on many of its companion galaxies, most stars in the outer halo originate from a single, large galaxy. Piecing the evidence together to peer back in time, the team found that M32p would have been massive — likely the third-largest in the Local Group, after Andromeda and the Milky Way. The paper adds that M32p was at least 20 times larger than any galaxy the Milky Way ever merged with.

“The stars in Andromeda are very metal-rich and considerably young,” Richard D’Souza, lead author of the paper, explained in an e-mail. “In general, the larger the galaxy the more metal rich the stars are. We suspected that since the stars in the halo of Andromeda were so metal-rich, it must have come from a large metal-rich galaxy.”

One big bite

A metal-rich halo large enough to encompass a galaxy such as Andromeda could only be formed “through a single large merger,” he adds, noting that “there are not many smaller galaxies in the Universe to build up to the mass of the halo”.

“In terms of a business analogy, galaxies also grow through mergers and acquisitions. In order for a major company to grow at a very fast pace, it would need to acquire a similar large company into its business. Such was the case with Andromeda,” D’Souza adds.

The findings call into question our models of how mergers between two massive galaxies play out. Until now, astronomers believed that such an event would flatten the disk of a spiral galaxy into an elliptical one, but Andromeda’s disk evidently pulled through still very spiral-shaped. Some effects of this collision can still be seen, D’Souza told me. Among them are the thickness of Andromeda’s disk and the higher speeds its stars travel at (90 km/s compared to around 30 km/s in the Milky Way).

The process of shredding of the large galaxy M32p by the Andromeda (M31) galaxy which eventually resulted in M32 and a giant halo of stars.
Image credits Richard D’Souza; M31, courtesy of Wei-Hao Wang; Stellar halo of M31: AAS/IOP.

Still, he admits that it came as “a major surprise” that Andromeda could retain its spiral shape following this collision. One explanation could be that the particular angle of the collision between the two galaxies helped keep Andromeda spiral-like, “but we need to run more computer simulations to see which set of orbits helps preserve the disk”.

Beyond this, it helps us better understand Andromeda’s evolution over time. The timing of the merger coincides with a burst of intense star formation in Andromeda two billion years ago. All this star-forming activity also suggests that M32p must have been gas-rich in order to supply enough building blocks.

Finally, the findings point to Andromeda’s mysterious, compact, and very dense, satellite galaxy M32 (the one today) as the last sliver of the once-mighty galaxy — the naked core. This piece of data could help explain why we see so few galaxies similar to M32 zipping around in the universe.

“M32 is a weirdo,” co-author Eric Bell, UoM professor of astronomy, said in a press release. “While it looks like a compact example of an old, elliptical galaxy, it actually has lots of young stars. It’s one of the most compact galaxies in the universe. There isn’t another galaxy like it.”

“Galaxies like M32 are considerably rare in the Universe,” D’Souza adds. “The term used for them in the literature is called ‘compact ellipticals’, and they are one of the most rarest galaxies in the Universe. We do know a dozen or so compact ellipticals in the nearby Universe, and we have inferred that further out (where we cannot resolve them), the number is equally low.”

As part of the paper, the team also found that the merger scenario could help explain the scarcity of M32-like objects. It seems the secret is not just in the merging process itself, but also in the particular makeup of the galaxies involved. “What one really needs is a galaxy with a high central surface density of stars comparable to M32,” D’Souza explains. It seems to be quite a rare occurrence — the team only identified 8 potential progenitors for M32-like objects.

Their study may alter the traditional understanding of how galaxies evolve, the researchers say. The realization that Andromeda’s disk survived an impact with a massive galaxy flies in the face of our current models, which suggests that such large interactions would destroy disks and form an elliptical galaxy.

It went so fundamentally against the grain of our understanding of galaxy-formation that, previously, we didn’t even consider the possibility that this scenario could have ever occurred.

“Astronomers have been studying the Local Group–the Milky Way, Andromeda and their companions–for so long. It was shocking to realize that the Milky Way had a large sibling, and we never knew about it,” Bell concludes.

Such investigative methods can be applied to other galaxies as well, the team explains, to help us tease out the merger history of other galaxies besides Andromeda.

• The paper “The Andromeda galaxy’s most important merger about 2 billion years ago as M32’s likely progenitor” has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 20:15 geschreven door peter  

NASA will soon launch a probe that will travel through the sun’s atmosphere — here’s what you need to know

 BY TIBI PUIU

Illustration of the Parker Solar Probe.

Credit: NASA.

According to Greek mythos, Daedalus was an unrivaled Athenian craftsman — the Leonardo da Vinci of his day. To his great misfortune, he angered King Minos, the ruler of the island of Crete. Desperate to flee the island, Daedalus built two pairs of wings for himself and his son Icarus, which he fixed with wax. Icarus is warned, however, that he shouldn’t fly too high lest the sun melt the wax that holds his wings. Icarus heeded his father’s advice — but only for a bit before he got cocky. Daedalus’ son flew too high and, sure enough, his wings melted, plunging the boy into the sea where he drowned.

Fast forward to present reality and the Daedaluses of our time — NASA scientists, who are gearing up for one of the most anticipated and exciting launches of the year, that of a probe destined to ‘touch’ the sun. But unlike Icarus’ flimsy, wax-coated wings, NASA’s probe is more than well equipped to brave the sun’s corona, where temperatures can reach millions of degrees Celsius.

The Parker Solar Probe ought to launch no earlier than August 6, 2018, aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy that will light the sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida. Today, the mission’s scientists held a press conference detailing the probe’s science goals and the technology behind it.

“We’ve been studying the Sun for decades, and now we’re finally going to go where the action is,” said Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

There’s a lot of things we don’t know about the hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system. For one, the sun is dynamic, constantly belching magnetized material outward even as far as beyond Pluto’s orbit. The intensity and frequency of these ejections wax and wane according to a nearly periodical 11-year solar cycle. For instance, at the peak of the cycle, our star grows more sunspots and spews more solar flares, which can damage satellites in Earth’s orbit and even our electricity grids.

The influence of solar activity on Earth and other worlds is known as space weather. Now, scientists are looking to understand the sun and its weather activity by sending a probe in its midst, just like weather satellites in orbit that track Earth.

This mission has been in the making for the last 60 years, ever since physicist Eugene Parker published a groundbreaking scientific paper in 1958 theorizing the existence of the solar wind.

“The Sun’s energy is always flowing past our world,” said Nicky Fox, Parker Solar Probe’s project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. “And even though the solar wind is invisible, we can see it encircling the poles as the aurora, which are beautiful – but reveal the enormous amount of energy and particles that cascade into our atmosphere. We don’t have a strong understanding of the mechanisms that drive that wind toward us, and that’s what we’re heading out to discover.”

To undergo its mission, Parker carries a range of instruments that can study the sun both remotely and in situ (directly) — the kind of observations that might unravel some of the sun’s most well-kept secrets.

Of course, NASA has several specific questions it wants Parker to investigate. One of them has to do with the mystery of the acceleration of solar wind — the constant ejection of magnetized material from the sun. Somewhere, somehow this solar wind is accelerated to supersonic speeds.

Parker will fly straight through the corona — the sun’s atmosphere that extends millions of kilometers into outer space. The corona is scorching hot, reaching temperatures in the range of millions of degrees Celsius. However, the sun’s surface has a temperature of only about 6,000 degrees Celsius. This makes no sense at first glance: how is it possible that the surface of the sun is much less hot than its atmosphere? Well, scientists hope that Parker might come up with an answer to this counter-intuitive conundrum.

To answer these questions and more, Parker will rely on instruments such as the FIELDS suite which will capture the scale and shape of electric and magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere. Of course, there will also be an imaging instrument — because how could a probe fly this close to the sun and not take awesome pictures. Called WISPR, short for Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, the instrument is mainly designed to image coronal mass ejections (CMEs), jets and other solar ejecta. The SWEAP suite of instruments, short for Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation, will count the most abundant particles in the solar wind — electrons, protons and helium ions — and measure such properties as velocity, density, and temperature to improve our understanding of the solar wind and coronal plasma. Finally,  ISʘIS suite – short for Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun, and including ʘ, the symbol for the Sun, in its acronym – measures particles across a wide range of energies in order to understand their life cycles — that is, where they came from, how they became accelerated and how they move out from the Sun through interplanetary space.

But how will Parker keep its ‘wings’ from melting? During its closest flyby, Parker will be only 6.1 million kilometers (3.8 million miles) from the sun’s surface, where temperatures can reach millions of degrees Celsius. But there’s a catch — just because the corona is that hot, that doesn’t mean that the probe will ‘feel’ that temperature due to the phenomenon of heat transfer. Simply put, some mediums conduct heat (energy) better than others.

For instance, if you stand on a bathroom’s tile floor you’ll feel cold but if you stand on a carpet your feet feel comfortably warm. However, both kinds of surfaces have the same temperature because they’ve had time to reach a thermal equilibrium — it’s just that the tile floor is a good heat conductor, which will make your feet seem cold because your body’s surface usually has a higher temperature than the ambient, whereas the carpet is a poor heat conductor and it would take you ages for your feet to match its lower temperature.

Bearing these physics in mind, we can now understand how Parker won’t get obliterated — even though the corona has a huge temperature, the sun’s outer atmosphere has a very low density and, hence, is a poor heat conductor. According to NASA, Parker’s sun-facing side will be heated to only about 1,644 degrees Kelvin (1,370 C° or 2,500 F°).

That’s still a lot, to be fair, which is why the Parker Solar Probe is equipped with a cutting-edge heat shield called the thermal protection system, or TPS. It’s a sandwich of carbon-carbon composite surrounding nearly 4.5 inches of carbon foam, which is about 97% air. Thanks to its lightweight materials, the TPS only weighs 72.5 kilograms (160 pounds) despite being nearly 2.4 meters (8 feet) in diameter. Strikingly, anything behind the shield shouldn’t heat to more than 300 Kelvin (30 C° or 85 F°)! A cooling system that runs on pressurized deionized water keep temperatures at manageable levels in the parts with Parker will be fully exposed to the sun.

The key is for the shield to be always facing the sun, but sometimes the probe will have to operate for long periods of time without being able to communicate with Earth. To solve this predicament, NASA engineers have designed a fault management system that self-corrects the probe’s course and direction facing the sun to ensure that the scientific instruments stay cool and functioning.

All in all, the Parker Solar Probe is a one-of-a-kind space mission that may not only unravel the sun’s mysteries but also those of the myriad of other stars that astronomers are eyeing.

“By studying our star, we can learn not only more about the Sun,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ. “We can also learn more about all the other stars throughout the galaxy, the universe and even life’s beginnings.”

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

27-07-2018 om 19:31 geschreven door peter  

Flash, Bam, Alakazam: Lightning-Detecting Satellite Also Spots Meteors

27-07-2018 om 17:51 geschreven door peter  

HOE GAAT NASA DIT GEBOUW OP DE MAAN VERKLAREN? ( VIDEO )

Publiek geheim is dat voordat NASA foto’s online zet van opnames die gemaakt zijn op of van de maan, ze deze goed nakijken en waar nodig ongewenste realiteiten wegpoetsen. 

Maar soms gaat het mis, zoals met een gebouw op slechts 50 kilometer afstand van de plek waar de Apollo 15 missie landde op de maan. 

Voor mensen die veel geduld hebben valt er soms veel te ontdekken op door NASA gepubliceerde foto’s, want ook daar wordt de censuur gedaan door mensen en zij werken niet foutloos. 

In juli 1976 vond de Apollo 15 missie plaats: 

Apollo 15 was de vierde missie van het Apolloprogramma van de NASA, waarbij in de jaren 70 astronauten op de maan landden en deze verkenden. De landingsplek van de Apollo 15 op de maan heet Hadley Rille. De bemanning bestond uit David Scott (commandant), James Irwin (piloot van de maanlander) en Alfred Worden (piloot van de commando-module). 

Bij deze missie werd voor het eerst een maanwagen meegenomen. Door dit voertuig kon een groter oppervlak worden verkend dan bij eerdere missies. Met de wagen is ruim 27 km afgelegd met een maximumsnelheid van rond de 13 km/h. Door de maanwagen en de bemanning werd Apollo 15 met 48 599 kg het zwaarste voorwerp dat de aarde verliet. Daardoor kwam Apollo 15 in een lagere baan om de aarde dan de vorige vluchten. De baan was onstabiel, maar liet wel toe om van daar naar de maan te vertrekken uit het zwaarteveld van de aarde. 

We gaan er in dit verhaal even vanuit dat de maanlandingen echt waren ondanks dat daar gerede twijfel over is, en dat er daadwerkelijk mensen op de maan zijn geweest. 

Nu is er iets bijzonders gebeurd, want op relatief korte afstand van de plek waar deze astronauten zijn geland, hebben internetspeurders op een NASA foto een gebouw ontdekt dat er als volgt uitziet:

Het is strategisch gebouwd bovenop een heuvel met vrij uitzicht over verschillende kraters. Dit gebouw bevindt zich op ongeveer 50 kilometer afstand van de landingsplek van de Apollo 15 module. Dit gebouw is echt, want je kunt de zwarte schaduw van de zon links en boven zien. Deze schaduw komt overeen met die die is waar te nemen bij andere dingen op de foto zoals heuveltjes. 

Is er een speciale reden dat deze Apollo missie is geland vlakbij dit gebouw? Is het toeval dat deze Apollo missie karretjes aan boord had, waarmee astronauten zich konden voortbewegen over het maanoppervlak? 

Dat NASA liegt over wat er werkelijk op de maan te vinden is, blijkt duidelijk uit de volgende foto die in 2009 is genomen van een aantal werknemers van NASA. 

Op zich niets bijzonders totdat je goed kijkt op de foto onder de linkerarm van de man. Pas als je deze uitvergroot, zoals te zien op de tweede foto, dan zie je heel duidelijk een gebouw.

Al het bovenstaande en meer wordt behandeld in de onderstaande video van Secureteam, het Youtubekanaal waar vaak bijzondere dingen te vinden zijn. Tyler, de eigenaar, krijgt heel veel materiaal opgestuurd van zijn 1,7 miljoen abonnees en daarmee komen soms heel interessante dingen boven water.

{ http://niburu.co/ }

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

27-07-2018 om 15:11 geschreven door peter  

27-07-2018 om 14:44 geschreven door peter  

Image at top: Fully eclipsed moon on January 31, 2018, 20 minutes into totality, via Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona.

The full moon on the night of July 27-28, 2018, presents the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century (2001 to 2100). The total phase of the eclipse – called the totality – spans 1 hour 42 minutes and 57 seconds. That’s in contrast to the shortest total lunar eclipse of this century, which occurred on April 4, 2015, and lasted 4 minutes and 48 seconds. And it’s in contrast to 2018’s other total lunar eclipse – on January 31, 2018 – whose totality lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes.

A partial eclipse precedes and follows the total phase of the eclipse, each time lasting 1 hour and 6 minutes. So, from start to finish – on July 27-28, 2018 – the moon spends nearly 4 hours (3 hours and 55 minutes) crossing the Earth’s dark umbral shadow. Wow! That’s a long eclipse.

Lunar eclipse on July 27, 2 cm018: The century’s longest eclipse, blood moon and what happens

Adding to the excitement on eclipse night … this eclipse will happen on the same night that Earth is passing between the sun and Mars, placing Mars at opposition in our sky. In one of the sky’s wonderful coincidences, the Mars opposition happens on July 27, too. It’s not just any Mars opposition, but the best Mars opposition since 2003. Mars is very bright and red throughout July and August, 2018. But eclipse night will be a very special night. On July 27, the sun, Earth and moon are aligned – placing the moon opposite the sun in our sky – producing an eclipse as Earth’s shadow falls on the moon’s face. On the same night, the sun, Earth and Mars are also aligned, bringing Mars also opposite the sun in our sky, just like the full moon. That’s fun to think about, but there’s more for those who plan to observe the eclipse.

Picture it, if you will. During the long total phase of the July 27, 2018, lunar eclipse – the totality – the moon will turn red from sunlight filtering through Earth’s atmosphere onto the moon’s surface. And Mars will be near the moon, exceptionally bright – brighter than since 2003 – and red in color also.

Red moon, red Mars … does it get any better? Expect some great photos!

The eclipsed moon on July 27 will be close to the planet Mars, which – in July and August 2018 – is at the peak of its very special brightness as seen from Earth.

 Read more.

Clouded out on eclipse night, or on the wrong side of Earth? Never fear. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome is offering a free live viewing. Click here for details. It starts at 18:30 UTC on July 27. That’s 2:30 p.m. EDT on July 27; translate UTC to your time.

Here’s another option for following the eclipse, live, free, online. This one offers a commentary in Spanish. The live broadcast of sky-live.tv starts at 18:20 UTC. It will cover both the partial and total eclipse with a commented-cam (in Spanish) and a sky-cam (only music), both located in Namibia (Africa). Click here for information.

Free live lunar eclipse webcast from Bareket Observatory in Israel. Friday, July 27, 2018. This special webcast will start at 18:30 UTC and last about 5 hours. For more information, visit Bareket’s live page.

Now for the bad news for us in North America. This lunar eclipse is primarily visible from the world’s Eastern Hemisphere (Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand). South America, at least in part, can watch the final stages of the eclipse just after sunset July 27, whereas New Zealand will catch the beginning stages of the eclipse before sunrise July 28. North America, most of the Arctic and much of the Pacific Ocean will miss out entirely, as shown on the worldwide map below.

Worldwide map of the July 27, 2018, total lunar eclipse, via Fred Espenak’s EclipseWise.

The greatest eclipse (20:22 UTC) takes place at or around midnight for Madagascar and the Middle East. Europe and Africa view the greatest eclipse during the evening hours (sometime between sunset and midnight on July 27), whereas most of Asia, Indonesia and Australia view the greatest eclipse in the morning (sometime between midnight and sunrise on July 28).

We give you the eclipse times in Universal Time (UTC) below. You must convert these eclipse times from Universal Time into your local time. Here’s how. If it’s easier for you, the local times of the eclipse are available at TimeandDate.com (remember to put your place or country in the search box).

July 27, 2018

Partial eclipse begins: 18:24 (6:24 p.m.) UTC

Total eclipse begins: 19:30 (7:30 p.m.) UTC

Greatest eclipse: 20:22 (8:22 p.m.) UTC

Total eclipse ends: 21:13 (9:13 p.m.) UTC

Partial eclipse ends: 22:19 (10:19 p.m.) UTC

The moon crosses the Earth’s shadow from west to east, entering the dark umbra (inner shadow) at 18:24 UTC and leaving it at 22:19 UTC. The penumbra (outer shadow) is so faint that you may not notice any darkening of the moon while it’s in the penumbra.

Earth’s shadow has two parts: a dark inner umbra and lighter surrounding penumbra. When Earth’s penumbral shadow falls on the moon, it creates a very subtle eclipse – a shading on the moon’s surface. When the darker umbral shadow falls on the moon, it appears as if a “bite” has been taken from the moon’s face. Illustration via astro.washington.edu.

What causes a long-lasting total lunar eclipse?

For an especially long-lasting total lunar eclipse of 1 hour and 43 minutes to occur, the moon has to pass through the central part of the Earth’s shadow. The previous total lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018, didn’t last as long (1 hour and 16 minutes) because the moon passed to the south of the shadow’s center; and the next total lunar eclipse on January 21, 2019, won’t be as long either (1 hour and 2 minutes) because it’ll pass to the north of the shadow’s center.

In 2018, the July full moon and July lunar apogee – the moon’s most distant point from Earth in its monthly orbit – both fall on the same date: July 27, 2018. Therefore, the July 2018 full moon showcases the most distant and smallest full moon of the year. Sometimes called an apogean full moon (or micro-moon or mini-moon), this smaller and slower-moving full moon takes more time to cross the Earth’s shadow than does a full moon that’s closer to Earth and moving faster in orbit. That’s why a full moon at or near lunar apogee adds to the duration of a total lunar eclipse.

The longest possible total lunar eclipse is 1 hour and 47 minutes. In fact, the longest total eclipse of the 20th century (1901 to 2000) occurred on July 16, 2000, with a duration of 1 hour and 46.4 minutes. That’s because, at greatest eclipse, the center of the lunar disk aligned almost perfectly with the center of the Earth’s shadow.

It’s no coincidence, by the way, that the extra-long total lunar eclipses of July 16, 2000, and July 27, 2018, belong to the same Saros series and are separated by one Saros period (18.031 years).

The moon crosses the ecliptic (Earth’s orbital plane) from north to south. This descending node Saros series starts when the moon first clips the southernmost part (bottom) of Earth’s shadow and then migrates northward (upward) with each succeeding Saros period of 18.031 years. Midway through the Saros series, the full moon passes through the center of Earth’s shadow for a maximally long total lunar eclipse. Saros Series 129, of which the total lunar eclipse on July 27, 2018, is a part, lasts for a total of 1,262 years. Image via Matthew Zimmerman.

On July 27, 2018, the center of the lunar disk will swing a tiny bit north of the shadow’s center, so this total lunar eclipse with a duration of 1 hour and 43 minutes will be a few minutes shy of the maximum duration possible (1 hour and 47 minutes). Even so, this July 2018 total lunar eclipse counts as a whopper, giving us the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century.

The longest total lunar eclipses of the 20th and 21st centuries both take place in July, which is of consequence. That’s because yearly, in early July, the Earth swings out to aphelion – its farthest point from the sun for the year.

At aphelion, the Earth’s dark umbral shadow reaches its maximum length (and width) for the year. All else being equal (moon’s distance and centrality of eclipse), the greater width of the Earth’s umbra in July means a longer total lunar eclipse. Therefore, long-lasting total lunar eclipses tend to take place in a Northern Hemisphere summer (or Southern Hemisphere winter) because the umbra is wider at this time of year.

The full moon will plunge deeply into the Earth’s shadow on the night of July 27-28, 2018. Depending on atmospheric conditions, this could be an especially dark total eclipse, though you won’t know for sure unless you look!

During a total lunar eclipse, the moon always passes through Earth’s very light penumbral shadow before and after its journey through the dark umbra.

Bottom line: July 27, 2018, brings the longest total eclipse of the moon of the 21st century. It happens when the most distant and smallest full moon of the year passes through the center of the Earth’s shadow, which is at its widest in July. And it happens on a night when the moon is near Mars, which also comes to opposition on July 27. What a night!

Century's Longest Lunar Eclipse of July 27, 2018 Visible In Most Parts Of The World - WARNING SIGN

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

27-07-2018 om 14:24 geschreven door peter  

New UFO Documentary 2018

Full Docmentary 2018 - New Alien Truth …

New Alien Truth is Sometimes Beyond Imagination 2018 UFO DOCUMENTARY

UFO Documentary January 2018

UFO Documentary 2018 - YouTube

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

27-07-2018 om 13:55 geschreven door peter  

27-07-2018 om 12:44 geschreven door peter