The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
12-08-2018
Mysterious Organisms Living Inside Gemstones and the Search for Alien Life
Mysterious Organisms Living Inside Gemstones and the Search for Alien Life
A recent scientific study reveals that life may exist in places we haven’t even considered before, possibly opening new possibilities in our search for life outside of Earth. According to new research published in PLOS One, garnets found in Thailand may be evidence of unknown forms of microbial life which are capable of living inside of the gemstones themselves, possibly representing an entirely new habitat for life.
For years, geologists have observed strange systems of microscopic channels or tunnels in the centers of garnets. It was previously assumed that these were the product of some unknown geological process, perhaps the grains of another mineral working their way through the garnets. That would be difficult to prove however, because the only minerals capable of cutting through garnets are diamonds or sapphires.
Channels within the garnets.
Credit: Ivarsson et al, 2018
With that mystery in mind, the University of Southern Denmark’s Dr. Magnus Ivarsson travelled to Thailand where garnets are commonly found in river sediments in order to find specimens of these channeled garnets and find out what might be creating the tunnels. After cracking a few open and searching for clues inside, Ivarsson and his team discovered evidence of lipids and fatty acids in the tunnels – evidence of life.
Credit: Ivarsson et al, 2018
According to their publication, the presence of these molecules and the lack of them on the outside of the garnets can likely only be caused by some type of unknown microbes living inside the stones themselves:
The organic content of the garnet interior detected by [mass spectrometry] and the complex nature of these organic molecules indicate microbial presence within the tunnel system of the garnets. […] The lack of organic compounds on the garnet surfaces, the relative complex nature of the organic compounds and their abundance throughout the tunnels indicate that they likely represent remnants of endolithic communities once living in the network of tunnels in the garnets.
The exact processes through which microbes can eat garnet and create these tunnels remain unknown. There are organisms known as endoliths which can live inside of rocks or minerals, but these are typically found in softer, more porous minerals or rocks such as sandstone.
While on one hand this is merely the discovery of some weird germs inside pretty rocks found here on Earth, this study could have far-reaching ramifications for our search for extraterrestrial life. If life can be found inside of a relatively hard mineral on Earth, who knows in what other overlooked or seemingly far-fetched places else it might be hiding?
NASA spot enorme mysterieuze ‘muur’ rond ons zonnestelsel. Ontdek er hier alles over
NASA spot enorme mysterieuze ‘muur’ rond ons zonnestelsel. Ontdek er hier alles over
NASA-wetenschappers zeggen bewijs te hebben gevonden voor een mysterieuze ‘muur’ rond ons zonnestelsel. De Amerikaanse sonde New Horizons zou deze muur van waterstof hebben gespot.
De muur vormt de grens van ons zonnestelsel, de plek waar de ‘bubbel’ rond de zon ophoudt en een massa interstellaire materie begint.
De NASA-onderzoekers zijn er vrij zeker van dat New Horizons, de sonde die in 2015 langs Pluto scheerde, die grens kan waarnemen.
Voyager-sondes
In het tijdschrift Geophysical Research Letters schrijven ze dat de sonde extra ultraviolet licht heeft waargenomen, precies wat je zou verwachten als je een muur van waterstof tegenkomt.
De twee Voyager-sondes, die eind jaren zeventig werden gelanceerd, pikten in 1992 een soortgelijk ultraviolet signaal op.
De wetenschappers houden nog een slag om de arm. Ze zeggen dat nog niet definitief is bewezen dat de sondes op een muur van waterstof zijn gestuit; het zou ook kunnen gaan om een andere bron die dieper in het sterrenstelsel gelegen is.
Veel gevoeliger
Ze merkten wel op dat Alice, het instrument waarmee de ontdekking is gedaan, veel gevoeliger is dan de apparatuur aan boord van de Voyager-sondes.
New Horizons gaat nu twee keer per jaar zoeken naar ultraviolet licht en vervolgens de gegevens terugsturen naar de aarde.
Dieper
“Als er op een bepaald moment geen ultraviolet licht meer wordt gemeten, heeft New Horizons de muur mogelijk achter zich gelaten,” zeiden de onderzoekers in een verklaring.
“Maar als het licht niet zwakker wordt moet de bron dieper in het heelal liggen,” klonk het.
MYSTERY: Seven cows were mutilated with body parts missing in Santa Fe, Argentina
The maimed cattle were discovered in Santa Fe, Argentina and no-one can explain what caused the horrific injuries.
According to local farmers, the animals were mutilated following the appearance of "strange lights" in the sky, which they say were not stars.
Agricultural workers claim the phenomenon was caused by aliens or the legendary 'chupacabra' (goat-sucker), a folklore creature which feeds on animals' blood.
Norberto Bieri, who owns one of the seven cows, said: "They did not have tongues or flesh around the jaw, but they did not take any animals away or remove their bones."
He added: "It seems as though the clean incisions were done with a laser as there is no trace of a knife being used.
“The cows did not have signs of blood and nothing had appeared to eat them."
Samples have so far proven inconclusive but confirmed the cows were not poisoned or shocked.
Bieri said: "Some people say chupacabra or aliens did it.
CEN
HORROR FIND: Locals believe either a mythical creature, rodents or aliens were responsible
CEN
TESTS: It is reported the cows were not poisoned
"Others believe it was rodents.
“The truth is, the cows are dead and there are no answers as to why."
The farmer also claimed that there have been other recent cases of mutilated animals locally.
The Santa Fe cow mutilation match a hugely bizarre series of cases spanning decades in the USA which were featured in a book the 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway – written by Ben Mezrich.
CEN
BIZARRE: The cattle were found with tongues and genitals missing
CEN
CATTLE MUTILATION: The incident in Argentina is similar to disturbing cases in the USA
Thousands of mutilated cows and horses, drained of blood and missing surgically-removed organs such as tongues and ears have been discovered along the 37th Parallel, a fixed geographical location based on a point’s distance from the equator, which runs through America.
In the majority of cases, there were reports of unexplained lights before and after the mutilations.
Authorities have looked into the disturbing crimewave and some people have theorised that the horrific acts were carried out by secret military personnel or by satanic cults.
Local media in Argentina said the hocicudos (Oxymycterus), rat-like animals endemic to South America, are responsible for mutilating the livestock.
They also suggested scavenger birds could also have eaten the cow's flesh, as they like to feast on the softer parts.
Animal health expert Juan Calla Fontana said animals often die at this time of year "due to exposure and lack of food and therefore there is nothing mysterious here".
A Wall At The Edge Of Our Solar System Has Been Spotted By New Horizons Spacecraft
A Wall At The Edge Of Our Solar System Has Been Spotted By New Horizons Spacecraft
The New Horizons Spacecraft team have announced that they may well have found the exact region of Space when the influence of the Sun begins to wane in the form of an ultraviolet wall of hydrogen.
The team has been searching for this elusive wall of hydrogen particles long before their much-vaunted by-pass of Pluto back in 2015. The hydrogen wall was first spotted by the Voyager spacecraft more than thirty years ago leading scientists to believe that they may have stumbled upon the border between this solar neighborhood and interstellar space. As Leslie Young of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado explains, “We’re seeing the threshold between being in the solar neighborhood and being in the galaxy.”
New Horizons craft will continue to examine the wall
The discovery of the wall of hydrogen particles which do not appear to be classically affected by the power of the sun could have huge implications for our understanding of mapping the solar system. David McComas of Princeton University who was not involved in this research has explained that the discovery and subsequent mapping of the wall could be instrumental for astronomers when it comes to discerning the exact shape and variability of the boundary of the solar system.
NASA's New Horizons Probe
The boundary of this solar system
Considering how vastly important the research could eventually turn out to be, the New Horizons team are leaving nothing to chance. Mapping out the hydrogen has been a long and meticulous process and will not culminate for more than a decade. Randy Gladstone, who is currently working on the project, has explained that the New Horizons craft will continue to examine the wall about twice a year from 2019 onwards and that this will continue for between ten and fifteen years.
New Horizons Probe's path to the edge of the solar system
Wayne Pryor, a team member based at Central Arizona College in Coolidge explains that this extraordinarily prolonged attention to detail is to ensure that the wall of hydrogen particles really does signal the boundary of this solar system and is not being caused by a source of light from deep in interstellar space.
Scientists Want To Put These Spider-Like Microbots Under Your Skin
Scientists Want To Put These Spider-Like Microbots Under Your Skin
If anyone suggests having micro spider-like robots, living under the skin people might think them insane. However, people may actually want them to get under their skin, as they might be able to help fix the body when it begins to stop working, as it should.
The robots in question are spider-like microbots researchers are developing that might one day be able to crawl around the body of humans. The robots are soft, they are squishy and flexible, plus they look a lot like spiders. While they are not yet ready to go around mending the bodies of humans just yet, future versions of them might be able to undertake tasks that humans would not be able to achieve.
A team of roboticists working at the Harvard University Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Boston University and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created such robots.
New Fabrication Process Means Robots Can Be Just Millimeters
The team got together to create microrobots based on a new fabrication process allowing them to make machines that are millimeters in scale while having features that are micrometer. This is not the first time that robots of this size have been created. However, robots in the past of equal size have not been as dynamic. The team made a spider bot that is transparent, which they based around the Australian peacock spider, to show off the robot.
Assistant professor, RommasoRanzani, from Boston University said:
"The idea of designing along with fabricating a soft robot inspired by the peacock spider comes from the fact that this small insect embodies a large number of unsolved challenges in soft robotics.” He went on to say, “Indeed it is less than a centimeter wide, has features down to the micron scale, a well-defined three-dimensional structure, and a large number of independently controllable degrees of freedom in only a couple of centimeters width. In addition, it is characterized by beautiful color patterns. We saw here an opportunity to advance the manufacturing capabilities in small-scale soft robotics and to demonstrate the capabilities of our process."
The team came up with an approach to fabrication called "Morph" also known as Microfluidic Origami for Reconfigurable Pneumatic/Hydraulic. To make the robot the researchers put 12 layers of elastic silicone together to make up the legs, the abdomen, and torso of the spider robot. They then used processes including laser-micro-machining in order to ensure the measurements were precise.
The Process Leads to Robots That Mimic Real Life Spiders
The resulting micro-spider can flex its joints along with moving its legs. It is even capable of raising its abdomen just as the real Peacock spider does in real life. The spider works by injecting micro fluids into hollow channels that run from the abdomen on the spider down into the legs.
The team believes that the robotic spiders manufacturing process might lead to Microbots with soft and dynamic bodies one day being able to undertake medical tasks that are extremely delicate inside the bodies of human beings. The robots may also be capable of undertaking search along with rescue missions, which are too dangerous for humans.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
Air Force Camera films UFO over Nellis Air Force Base including audio
Air Force Camera films UFO over Nellis Air Force Base including audio
An interesting footage filmed by an Air Force camera within a highly secure range of tests on May 30, 1995 shows the erratic movements, changing shape and disappearing 1:53 and then reappears at 2:03 of a UFO, including the live audio conversation between the pilot and tower.
This footage is one of the most important pieces of uncensored UFO material that has appeared in recent years.
Unlike the censored Navy / Pentagon UFO videos from Tom deLonge, the images from this video are uncensored.
My interview with astronaut Leland Melvin is going viral. Figures. UFO Sighting News.
My interview with astronaut Leland Melvin is going viral. Figures. UFO Sighting News.
UFO Sightings Daily@UFO_Sightings_X
@Astro_Flow I apologise the news gets you in any trouble with NASA. The public believes in you and what you saw, more than they trust NASAs opinion. I didn't mean for the news to go worldwide, but the public loves you! You are an American hero who also saw an alien life-form.
The interview I conducted with astronaut Leland Melvin is going viral in world news. In the last 48 hours its been in the news over 25x, in the last 24 hours (according to google news search) its been in the news 10-15X in over 6 languages. I apologised to Leland on Twitter today. He's a good guy. It may get him in hot water with NASA, but I respect him for telling the truth. He is a brave man, a two time astronaut on the shuttles...an American hero who also witnessed an alien life form.
Fast radio bursts – aka FRBs – are brief, powerful, puzzling bursts of radio waves from deep space. Now astronomers have detected a new and even more unusual type of FRB.
The CHIME radio telescope in Canada (seen at night here), which recently detected a rare, low-frequency fast radio burst.
Image via Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME).
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most recent, and puzzling, discoveries yet in astronomy. They are powerful, but very brief, bursts of radio waves from deep space. They’ve been relatively rare so far, but astronomers continue to study them as they’re discovered. On August 1, 2018, astronomers used the Astronomer’s Telegram to report on another FRB, just detected, which is a little different from previous ones studied by astronomers.
They detected the new FRB the morning of July 25, using a state-of-the-art radio telescope in the mountains of British Columbia (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment or CHIME). The telescope has been in operation for only about a year and has been used to find several FRBs prior to this one. The astronomers labeled the new discovery as FRB 180725A after the year, month and day it was detected. It was found to be transmitting in radio frequencies as low as 580 megahertz, nearly 200 MHz lower than any other FRBs ever detected. Patrick Boyle, author of the Astronomer’s Telegram report and a project manager at CHIME told Live Science on August 3:
These events have occurred during both the day and night, and their arrival times are not correlated with known on-site activities or other known sources.
fast Radio Bursts are brief but powerful and as-yet-unexplained bursts of radio energy originating from deep space.
Image via Jingchuan Yu/Beijing Planetarium, NRAO.
The fact that this FRB was of such low frequency indicates that the burst was extremely bright, originating from a very powerful source.
Several other low-frequency bursts have reportedly been detected by CHIME, since FRB 180725A, as well.
So just what are FRBs? As with the discovery of any unusual cosmic phenomena, there is a lot of debate and speculation. They are reminiscent of pulsars, but are extremely brief in duration (only a few milliseconds) and emit an incredible amount of energy in that short time. Some postulated origins include supernovas, supermassive black holes or other sources of intense electromagnetic radiation, including pulsars.
They are known to originate from immense distances, but because they are so brief, it is difficult to pin down their exact sources. Plus, only about 40 FRBs have been discovered altogether so far, since 2007. Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, explained to the Daily Mail that FRBs may actually happen regularly, reaching Earth thousands of times per day, but that most simply haven’t been detected yet with available instruments..
The only known repeating FRB found so far, FRB 121102.
Image via Gemini Observatory/AURA/NRC/NSF/NRAO.
So far, only one FRB has been discovered which keeps repeating – FRB 121102. Those bursts have been at higher frequencies, up to 7 GHz, and were traced back to a galaxy 3 billion light-years away.
It is inevitable that another possible origin would come up in discussion – aliens. As of now, there is no evidence to assume that these signals are artificial; they are most likely natural, but not enough is known about them yet to know for sure. As noted by Avi Loeb, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:
Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven’t identified a possible natural source with any confidence. An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking.
A theory proposed last year was that FRBs could be leakage from planet-sized transmitters powering interstellar probes in distant galaxies. The idea is that such transmitters could be used to drive interstellar light sails. The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of about a million tons (about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth). As Manasvi Lingam from Harvard University surmised:
That’s big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances.
Artist’s concept of a pulsar, one of the most powerful known phenomena in the universe. They are one possible origin of FRBs.
Image via Goddard Space Flight Center.
The paper detailing that theory is available here. But what are the chances that FRBs could really be a product of extraterrestrial intelligence? Loeb was asked that question and responded:
Science isn’t a matter of belief, it’s a matter of evidence. Deciding what’s likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It’s worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge.
Bottom line: Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the most unusual cosmic phenomena discovered in recent years, and this recently detected one is one of the most unusual detected so far. The very brief but intense bursts of radio energy must have some kind of exotic explanation, but astronomers are still trying to figure it out.
At least once a week (and sometimes as often as two or three times a day), our Sun has a coronal mass ejection (CME), an event during which it spews plasma and charged particles from the outermost part of its atmosphere called the corona. This usually happens following a solar flare, a sudden increase in the Sun’s brightness.
We’ve known about our Sun’s CMEs since 1971, but we’d never observed them from another star — until now.
A team led by University of Palermo astronomer Costanza Argiroffi found evidence of a CME from HR 9024, a star about 450 lightyears from Earth and with about three times the mass of our Sun. The researchers published a study about their discovery on July 26 in The Astrophysical Journal
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY.
The team noted HR 9024’s CME while sifting through decade-old data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. They were looking at changes in the wavelengths of X-rays from the star in the hopes of improving their understanding of its corona.
While looking at this data, they noticed approximately 1 billion trillion grams of material — what you’d expect from a CME — moving away from HR 9024 following a solar flare. But, strangely enough, the material then moved back toward the star.
This doesn’t happen after CMEs from our Sun, but it does fit in with the prediction of previous research that a CME might not be able to fully escape the magnetic field of a larger star. It could also explain why we hadn’t noticed CMEs from other stars before — the plasma and particles never really left their home stars.
THE SEARCH FOR LIFE.
When CMEs reach the Earth’s atmosphere, they can disrupt our satellites, bathe airplanes in radiation, and even cause electrical blackouts. They can’t hurt humans on the Earth’s surface, though — the planet’s atmosphere and magnetosphere protect us.
Now that we know for sure that other stars can have CMEs, we might be able to use that information to inform our hunt for habitable planets. But we have to understand what effect they have first. If CMEs aren’t likely to reach a planet that orbits a massive star, life might be more likely to survive on that planet’s surface. But the continual looping of CME energy could also result in more solar flares, which can also impact a planet’s habitability.
In any case, this research tells us more about stars than we knew before. And now, other researchers will have a better idea of what to look for as they search for CMEs elsewhere in the universe.
How Does NASA Search For New Planets and How Do They Find Them?
How Does NASA Search For New Planets and How Do They Find Them?
by Anna Kucirkova.
How does NASA search for new planets, and how do they find them?
Sometimes we take for granted all the things we know about our solar system. After centuries of intrepid exploration and scientific breakthroughs, we now have nine (err, eight?! Sorry, Pluto) planets in our own Milky Way.
We also understand why the sun rises and sets, what ‘shooting stars’ really are, and how the moon affects the tides. However, for all that we know and all the time it’s taken us to learn it, we’re still barely scratching the surface of space exploration.
As we fill in our own solar system’s cosmic map with the near-in planets, scientists are increasingly turning to exoplanets (that is, planets outside the solar system) to understand our universe at-large. Here is a little more about how scientists find new planets.
How Do Scientists Find New Planets?
Discovering new planets that can’t be observed from Earth’s surface requires getting well beyond the Earth’s orbit in order to ‘look’ for new planets from a distant and darker vantage point.
NASA just launched a satellite called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) that’s headed beyond the moon on its way out of our solar system so it can watch for ‘transits,’ which occur when a planet passes in front of a star from the perspective of the equipment or observer.
This is similar to a miniature eclipse, where a distant body passes over the star it orbits, creating a marked change in the observed light emitted from the star. In many cases, even high-powered equipment cannot directly observe distant planets, but it can measure a periodic dip in a star’s brightness that is attributed to an orbiting planet passing in front of it. According to NASA, more than 78 percent of the 3,700 confirmed exoplanets have been discovered using transits.
The last major exoplanet search spacecraft, Kepler, found over 2,600 exoplanets by watching for transits. Most of them were orbiting distant (read: dim!) stars 300 to 3,000 light-years from Earth. TESS is seeking stars that are ten times closer than Kepler did–30 to 300 light-years away–and thus 30 to 100 times brighter than the Kepler mission’s targets.
Another fascinating NASA project, the James Webb Telescope, is set to launch later this year. Instead of measuring light like TESS, the James Webb will act more like a traditional telescope, gathering images of faraway space using a staggering array of highly-accurate mirrors and lenses to capture data that will be turned into infrared and other similar images that scientists can use to get a clearer ‘picture’ of faraway sections of space.
By focusing on brighter target stars, researchers can use spectroscopy to learn far more about the exoplanets they detect. By measuring the stars’ light emissions and observing how much light the transiting planets absorb, they will be able to make detailed inferences about planets’ masses, densities, and atmospheric compositions. This includes the potential to observe water and other key molecules known to support life.
The closer, brighter stars will provide for more accuracy and information about the planets that orbit them, which scientists hope will allow them to learn not just the location and distance of other solar systems but also the elemental composition of the planets within them. This provides scientists a much clearer picture of how related different galaxies are and whether the building blocks of life as we know it may exist elsewhere.
What Is Planet Hunters?
In December 2010, the crowdsourced research platform Zooniverse launched Planet Hunters, a public-facing project that enlisted volunteers to review data from the Kepler satellite in order to see if humans could identify patterns that machines missed. If a satellite misses a transit or two, it may create a pattern too irregular for computers to detect. Similarly, some transits are periodic enough to suspect the presence of an exoplanet but may not create enough of a dip in light for the computers to mark them.
That telltale dip in measured light caused by transits might be missed by computer software for a variety of reasons. By showing multiple volunteers the same 30 day log of observed light patterns, the system aggregates human observations and then passes the correlated markings on to scientists to review in-depth.
The project received help from over 500,000 volunteers and led to the discovery of a number of confirmed planets and an even longer list of suspected planets or other celestial bodies that require further investigation. By combining human intuition and powerful computing software, the Planet Hunters project combines hundreds of thousands of passionate volunteers with NASA’s latest satellite technology to accomplish a staggering amount of research on an impressive timeline.
The team behind Planet Hunters estimates that over 200 years of review work has been accomplished in the seven years since the project launched, while Version 2.0 is being updated to support new features in anticipation of the first round of data to review from TESS.
One of the biggest challenges Planet Hunters and other space scientists face is the overwhelming amount of data produced by each new satellite. With the help of half a million volunteers, the project has accomplished 200 years of work in seven years, but this still points to one of the biggest hurdles that exoplanet hunters face: no equipment we have can actually see these distant bodies, so the only way to find them is by using specialized equipment and sifting through the massive amounts of data each mission gathers.
TESS promises to provide us even more data than before as its spectrometers will not only detect transits but will also measure individual planetary properties through the nature of light absorption and diffraction around them.
Why Finding New Planets Matters
Whether you’re convinced that there are aliens around every cosmic corner or you firmly believe that Planet Earth is the only one that supports life, understanding the composition of distant galaxies is a mesmerizing thought exercise.
For example, the recently-discovered planets within the TRAPPIST-1 solar system seem to have many of the ingredients that we think of as being vital for supporting life. There are also staggering differences between TRAPPIST-1 and our own solar system–the central star (akin to our own sun) is far smaller and dimmer, so the planets all orbit it far closer than our own closest planet, Mercury, orbits the sun.
That means that a ‘year’ on one of TRAPPIST-1’s nearest planets (that is, how long it takes to complete one trip around its own sun) lasts the equivalent of a day and a half while the longest takes less than a month. Contemplating what we consider ‘normal’ from the length of a year to the elements that are the building blocks for our idea of life is a thought-expanding exercise in galactic exploration, while potentially discovering new planets or life forms is a critical part of placing ourselves as citizens not only of nation or planet but of the universe at-large.
Many scientists believe that understanding faraway planets and solar systems can provide us with relevant knowledge about our own solar system and about our own sense of place as the only planet in the universe that supports life… or not.
The Next Era of Space Exploration
NASA and other organizations are still working hard to put men on Mars, but they also have their sights set well beyond our planetary neighbors. For all of the logistics that go into sending humans to space, it is perhaps even more valuable to put equipment into orbit that focuses on deep space and sheds light on the distant, dimmest stars.
If there were life on Mars, the rovers likely would have found it. As for planets dozens of light-years away? We’re only just now figuring out that they exist, so there’s no telling what might be on them.
Though we are still a long ways (literally) from getting near them, the idea of familiar elements and atmospheres on faraway planets has the potential to dramatically broaden our horizons. As we discover more planets every day, the odds of finding something even more significant than a transit blip on a light reader only go up.
And as we get better at building precision devices used to observe and measure objects in deep space, ideas that once sounded impossible become reality. Both the TESS and James Webb Telescope use technological advances that only a few years ago would have sounded like far-fetched science fiction.
With each new advance in materials and designs, we grow one step closer here on Earth to seeing what exists many galaxies away. The next time you look up at the night sky, try to notice the dimmest stars you can see with your eyes. Then contemplate looking for stars that are many times farther away and dimmer and studying the planets that orbit them. It may make you feel small, but it also makes life on earth seem extra special.
36,400 BC: The Historical time of the Zep Tepi Theory
Many conjectures have been made concerning the monumental complex of Giza. Some of these fall within the theories of the so called “independent school of Egyptology”, of which they constitute a great part. It is undeniable that “academic” Egyptology has greatly contributed to our knowledge of a unique and incomparable civilization, incredibly developed socially, artistically and scientifically. Unfortunately, academic Egyptologists have also persisted in misattributing some archaeological finds to Dynastic Egyptians, which I believe have little to do with that civilization. This has created confusion among researchers and has affected our comprehension of the prehistory of Egypt.
In the last 20 years, one of the most outstanding theories, in scientific terms, is that proposed by Robert Bauval, known as The Orion Correlation Theory. He proposed a correlation between the major pyramids of Giza and the three largest stars forming the Belt of Orion. Particularly, he suggested that a perfect alignment between the former and the latter occurred in the year 10,450 BC.
As a result of this, a fervid debate among scholars originated, which has long slowed, and at times even impeded, objective analysis of the pyramid complex.
Ahmed Osman, Armando Mei, Robert Bauval and John Major Jenkins.
International Conference on Ancient Study, Zayed Univesity, Dubai. Photo Credit: Armando Mei
Still mysteries remain, for example, the dispute over the “Zep Tepi” (‘First Time’ or Golden Era). While academics agree to confine its purpose to mythology, I believe that their position conflicts with the long lists of sovereigns found so accurately transcribed in Egyptian documents and temples. I do not believe that the First Time is a myth, as it is regarded by some researchers. I assume that the Zep Tepi was an historical time of prosperity. In my opinion, all major monuments of Giza were built before the Dynastic Age to celebrate the Age of Osiris rule. But, when were the monuments of Giza built?
Astronomical Configuration & the Zep Tepi
I studied the astronomical configuration of the sky above Giza in the remote past. First of all, I analyzed the astronomical configuration concerning the sky above Giza in the year 10,450 BC (Bauval’s Theory).
Bauval’s Orion Correlation Theory – Vernal Equinox 10,500 BC. Al Nitak is not on the Meridian and not connected to the Great Pyramid. Sirius is under the Horizon. Planets have not a symbolic arrangement.
At the dawn of the vernal equinox, the Constellation of Lion is right on the ecliptic, while the Constellation of Orion is on the Meridian. Remarkable is the position of Mintaka, because this star lies on the Meridian while Alnitak has moved toward the south-east. In my opinion, this is not the right configuration, because I would expect to find Alnitak (the correspondent of the Great Pyramid, the most important monument of Giza) on the Meridian and not the pyramid of Mycerinus, the smaller pyramid of Giza. Any other astronomical object, close to the monuments of Giza, were in the Sky at that time.
The Age of the Zep Tepi
In the following table, what is most striking is the configuration of the sky above Giza in the year 36,420 BC. At the dawn of the vernal equinox, at an entire astronomical precessional cycle before 10,450 BC, all monuments of Giza were perfectly aligned with the constellations as follows:
The Sky above Giza at Vernal Equinox in the year 36,400 BC: my proposal on Historical Golden Age of the Zep Tepi (processing by Armando Mei)
At the dawn of the vernal equinox.
The Lion constellation and Sphinx are closely connected to the East. The Orion constellation is on the Celestial Meridian, exactly above the Pyramids. Most importantly, it’s a perfect connection between Al Nitak – the largest Star of the Belt of Orion – and the Great Pyramid , the biggest monument in the Giza Plateau. The connection occurred only in this astronomical configuration and in no one astronomical alignment ever proposed by experts, from 2,000 AD to 100,000 BC.
As Al Nitak cuts the Celestial Meridian, so the Great Pyramid lies in the center of emerged lands, the main meridian and parallel intersection, or rather at the distance of 1/3 between the Equator and North Pole, symbolizing the “natural zero” for longitude.
Moreover, there are many astronomical guidelines proving the concept of the Beginning of a New Age. First of all, the planets positions. They are positioned in the south-east hemisphere, as though following the rising Sun through its movement along the ecliptic. In particular, the Moon is a New Moon, and it’s positioned just below the celestial horizon, ready to follow the Sun’s movement towards the light.
Symbolism Analysis
The seven planets are positioned along the ecliptic in a perfect row, fixing the beginning of the New Era. Just below the ecliptic, the New Moon gives way to Sunrise - the rebirth of the New Light - that will flood the Land of Egypt, bringing lifeblood for new crops. In a few moments, the Moon will follow the god Sun-Ra, through its astronomical move; while all courtiers-planets, waiting for him, will be darkened by its vitality.
In its rising path, the Sun-Ra will have its first stop at the foot of the Lion Constellation-Sphinx, where it will meet Jupiter-Temple of Valley; Jupiter symbolizes the Father of the Gods, and it’s an expressive symbol of Justice.
Giza 36,400 BC - Lion Constellation meets Mercury and Jupiter – Two mysterious temples have planets proportional values (processing by Armando Mei)
Sun-Ra then meets Mercury-Temple of the Sphinx, the Messenger of the Gods, ready to accomplish its function: give forth the Beginning of the Zep Tepi.
The arrangement of two planets, in conjunction with the star Regulus, has an amazing meaning. If we take a look at the Sphinx, there are two temples at its feet; the buildings, characterized by colossal and mysterious columns, were built at the same time as the Pyramids and represent Jupiter and Mercury.
In his climbing path, that will lead it to the Zenith, Sun-Ra meets Venus, symbolizing Love, Passion and Beauty. The planet is located in the south-east quadrant, almost half way from the Zenith. It is not an accidental position, and also it is the astronomical connection that gave birth to the original symbolic meaning of “unity of Opposite. An "astronomical wedding" takes place between different cosmic objects - a planet and a star – before walking together to the sunset.
Lastly, the Sun meets Mars, the red planet, symbolizing Power. It is time to establish the Rule over the Universe, sitting on the throne of the Sky, so as for Osiris when he ruled over the Land of Egypt, starting the Age of the Zep Tepi.
Now, the Sun-Ra is at the Zenith. Everything has been accomplished according to the Laws of Astronomy. Passing the Zenith, the Sun-Ra goes through the ecliptic, in the south-west quadrant, where Saturn is waiting.
Observing the astronomical map, a curious detail strikes: all planets, whose names are associated with the days of the week, are on the ecliptic. It is very intriguing to note that the planet of rest, Saturn-Saturday, is located exactly in the south-west quadrant, the place of death for Ancient Egyptians. The disposition of Saturn is very fascinating. In Hebrew traditions, they consider Saturday as the day of rest, dedicating it for celebrating the Lord. It means that Hebrew Traditions could have been influenced by memories of Zep Tepi.
Isis-Sirus & the Zep Tepi
Ancient Texts of Pyramids told us about connections between the Star Sirius and the Goddess Isis. She played a great role after the death of Osiris, at the climax of the Zep Tepi. So, when Giza was projected, the builders gave her a key role; they built a monument to celebrate the goddess who preserved Egypt. The monument is located south-east of the Sphinx, known as the Tomb of Khentkhaus.
As I explain in my book “The Gods Secret”, three clues prove my purpose:
1) a correct interpretation of the Inventory Stele;
2) Star Sirius position in the sky above Giza in the year 36,400 BC.
3) proportional connections between physical values of the Star and dimensions of the Monument.
Correct interpretation of Inventory Stele hieroglyphs is essential to explain where her monument was built.
Abstract from Inventory Stele.
Credit: Armando Mei)
The academic interpretation of the inscription is is:
“He [Cheops] found that the temple of Isis, lady of the pyramid, was near the temple of the Sphinx (…)”
A correct interpretation of the hieroglyphs gives the following translation:
“He [Cheops] found that the temple of Isis was beside the pyramid near the temple of the Sphinx (...)”
The hieroglyph, shown below, is the key to the mystery. Academics have misunderstood the meaning of the phrase. The hieroglyph comes into the sentence twice... first, it means "beside", and second it means "near". Egyptologists have translated it only once, making a remarkable mistake in translation..
So, according to the Inventory Stele there is a monument beside the Pyramid near the Sphinx. But where? Take a look at the Astronomical Map. Sirius is just above the horizon between the Lion and Orion constellations.
Lost Tomb of Khentkhaus is the correspondent of the Star Sirius (processing by Armando Mei)
The Tomb of Khentkhaus has the following property:
The lower part was built at the same time as the Pyramids and Sphinx;
The lower part of the tomb has water erosion so to as the Sphinx;
Its base is entirely carved in the rock and has a spiral shape. Its transposition on a plane surface is equal to the orbital movement of Sirius;
Khentkhaus’ tomb proportions are very close to some Sirius physical parameters, for example: Tomb height is 10mt.; in Egyptian cubits is: 22.37. Sirius brightness is 22.40. (Difference -0,03); Area of the Tomb is: 2083.9 square meters. Sirius Mass is 1/1000 of this value: 2,15 (Difference -0,067); Tomb Perimeter is: 182.6 mt. Sirius Radius is 1/100 of this value: 1.88 (Difference -0.054);.
Sirius Angular Separation from East is: 67°59’22”; Khentkhaus Tomb position from East is: 67°32’00”, a difference of 0°27’22”.
In conclusion, the lower part of the Khentkhaus tomb is the Ancient Throne of Isis!
That’s the hermetic message that the Lost Civilization of Giza wanted to convey. In the Age of Lion, preceding the perfect alignment that Bauval suggested, an extraordinary event took place. This event marked the climax of an amazingly developed civilization, that managed to colonize emerged lands and whose fingerprints have resisted the passing of time, but who wished to leave a record of their presence on Earth.
Treasure hunter claims he found evidence of USO's beneath Bermuda Triangle
Treasure hunter claims he found evidence of USO's beneath Bermuda Triangle
A treasure hunter has made an astonishing "unexplained" discovery deep beneath the Bermuda Triangle that he believes could provide the first evidence of an extra-terrestrial visit to Earth hundreds of years ago.
Explorer Darrell Miklos has been using secret maps created by his close friend and famed NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper to find shipwrecks in the Caribbean.
A close up of one of the horizontal structures
the right jutting section of the USO
"something that was completely different from anything that I've seen"
Here you can see the gigantic mound rising above the ring of structures
Treasure Hunter believes he's found first evidence of an extra-terrestrial visit to Earth.
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Detailed Space Force Plans To Be Revealed In Today's Pentagon Speech
Detailed Space Force Plans To Be Revealed In Today's Pentagon Speech
According to the Washington Post, Vice President Mike Pence will give a speech at the Pentagon today to explain the government's plans for the Space Form in detail.
The speech is scheduled for 11:15 AM EST.
In June, US President Trump announced "the sixth branch of the Armed Services". The first new military branch created in more than 70 years.
Space Shuttle Astronaut Encountered Something Organic Alien-Like In Space
Space Shuttle Astronaut Encountered Something Organic Alien-Like In Space
The more or less well-known UFO fighter Scott Waring has asked the former space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin if he has ever seen an alien.
His answer was:
"I have not seen one in space or on the ground but thought I saw something organic/alien like floating out of the payload bay. I called the ground to ask what it could be and (they said) it was ice that had broken off the Freon hoses. Translucent, curved, organic looking."
Would an astronaut really don't know the difference between some ice and an organic alien object?
This Meteor 'Exploded' Over Greenland, But Nobody Saw It. Here's Why It Matters.
This Meteor 'Exploded' Over Greenland, But Nobody Saw It. Here's Why It Matters.
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Since there aren't any images of the Greenland fireball, here's an illustration of a space rock burning up as it enters Earth's atmosphere.
Credit: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock
A fireball that streaked across the sky above the Thule Air Base in Greenland on July 25 was notable for not only the 2.1 kilotons of energy it released — the second-most-energetic "explosion" of its kind recorded this year — but also the stir it caused on social media and the frenzied calls it prompted to the U.S. Air Force.
And the blazing rock — which was traveling at about 54,000 mph (87,000 km/h), about 74 times the speed of sound, according to The Aviationist — may have sent meteorites to the ground for passersby (the few people who happened to be this far north of the Arctic Circle) to discover.
The first reports of the meteor above Greenland came from two tweets from scientists. On July 31, Ron Baalke, of the Solar System Dynamics group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (or "Rocket Ron" on Twitter), wrote, "A fireball was detected over Greenland on July 25, 2018 by US Government sensors at an altitude of 43.3 km. The energy from the explosion is estimated to be 2.1 kilotons." His tweet was followed by a similar one on Aug. 1 by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists: "Meteor explodes with 2.1 kilotons force 43 km above missile early warning radar at Thule Air Base." [Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever]
Apparently, the news reports that stemmed from those tweets led to a flurry of calls from reporters to both the air base and NASA asking about potential harm to the Thule Air Base, according to the Military Times.
So, what's up with the fireball? Though meteors like this one are large enough to create a blaze when entering the atmosphere, they are not big enough to be seen before they plow through Earth's atmosphere.
"These objects are only a few meters across and smaller, which is too small to be detected before they strike the Earth," Robert Lunsford, a longtime meteor observer with the American Meteor Society, told Live Science. "Therefore, we have no idea when and where such events will occur."
When this Greenland meteor ripped through the atmosphere last month, some 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle, some sensors in the global network run by the base's 21st Space Wing detected it.
"As the meteor[s] enter the atmosphere, they ablate until they either completely disintegrate or remnants fall to the ground," Lunsford said. "The shock wave generated by the collision with the atmosphere is the source of the 'explosion' and resulting estimate of impact energy."
These objects are too small to cause much damage, unless someone gets hit by a fragment of the rock or if someone is near the sound blast, he said. That did indeed occur in 2013, when a 55-foot (17 meters) meteor struck Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shock wave from the impact smashed windows and damaged buildings, and more than 1,000 people were injured.
For comparison, that fireball packed 300 kilotons of energy, or 20 to 25 times more energy than the atomic bombs dropped during World War II. Even so, the Chelyabinsk impact was much less powerful than the Tunguska meteor explosion in Siberia that released 10 to 15 megatons (10,000 to 15,000 kilotons) of energy in 1908, Live Science previously reported.
Though the Greenland fireball explosion was significant, nobody saw it.
"Being that it was such a remote location, there are no pictures of this fireball," Lunsford said. "In fact, we have not received any visual reports, either. If not for the U.S. government sensors, we would not even know about this object."
Einstein's Genius: Describing the Geometry of Space-Time
Einstein's Genius: Describing the Geometry of Space-Time
By Paul Sutter, Astrophysicist
General relativity is a complex theory, but imagining falling objects can help trace its contours. (Here, GPS satellites are shown around Earth — GPS depends on relativity to give accurate positions.)
General relativity is one of the greatest feats of human understanding, made all the more impressive by the fact that it sprang from the fertile imagination and dogged mathematical brilliance of just one mind. The theory itself is the last and most persistent of the "classical" (i.e., not-quantum) models of nature, and our inability to come up with anything more sophisticated over the past hundred years is a constant reminder of just how dang smart Albert Einstein was.
Another testament to Einstein's genius comes in the tangled spaghetti of complex, interconnected equations that make up the full theory. Einstein made a beautiful machine, but he didn't exactly leave us a user's manual. We can trace his path in the seven years of self-inflicted torture that led to the theory's final form, but that route of development was guided by so much of Einstein's gut intuition that it's hard for us mere mortals to make the same blind jumps of genius that he did.
Just to drive home the point, general relativity is so complex that when someone discovers a solution to the equations, they get the solution named after them and become semi-legendary in their own right. There's a reason that Karl Schwarzschild — the guy who figured out the geometry of black holes — is a household name (or at least, a physics department name). [Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: A Simplified Explanation]
Geometry is destiny
The absolute core of general relativity, and a perfectly acceptable alternative name for it, is geometrodynamics. Go ahead, say it out loud — it's fun. The way that general relativity models gravity is through the dynamic machinations of space-time itself. According to the theory, the presence of matter and energy alters the fundamental space-time geometry surrounding those substances, and that altered geometry influences motion.
This relationship comes about from the most important, fundamental, can't-ignore-this concept underlying the entire theory of general relativity: the equivalence principle (E.P.). This principle is the assumption that inertial mass (how much oomph it takes to move an object) is the same property as gravitational mass (how much an object responds to gravity). And this is the key that unlocks the whole gravitational shebang.
Using that equivalence, we can imagine a scenario to help visualize the connection between geometry and gravity. Pretend you're orbiting high above the Earth, serenely watching the continents and oceans roll under your vantage point.
As the bits of debris float away from you, you ponder the ramifications of what you just did. Sure, you've now created a cloud of potentially hazardous debris that poses a major risk to satellites and future missions. But upon further reflection, your mind eases. You're doing a science experiment, and the equivalence principle guarantees that all these bits of debris, no matter their shape or mass, will perfectly trace the effects of the Earth's gravity, without the need for any other calculations. That's something unique to the force of gravity, thanks to the E.P. [Why Relativity's True: The Evidence for Einstein's Theory]
Bending the rules
Watch what happens to the junk you tossed into space. Some, by pure chance, may start off in a perfectly horizontal line. But as the objects fall to Earth, they follow straight lines heading right for the center of the globe. If you watch them closely, you'll see that as they head downward, they'll gradually converge. If they could pass through the solid Earth, they would eventually collide at the very center.
Other bits of junk might start off in a perfectly vertical line aimed toward Earth, evenly spaced apart from each other. They, too, would fall. But the lucky one at the front of the line would fall slightly faster, due to its slightly closer proximity to the Earth, with the last in line lagging slightly behind. So, as the pieces of debris continued their descent, they would slowly diverge in their vertical line.
In some cases, we get converging, narrowing trails. In other cases, we get diverging, spreading trajectories. In both cases, paths start out as perfectly parallel or uniform but change character s. These changing paths are exactly what the mathematicians use the language of "curvature" to describe, and that is the language of geometry.
Ding, ding, ding. There it is. The equivalence principle tells you that the paths of falling junk directly inform you about the nature of gravity, and those same paths reveal a complicated geometry of the underlying space-time. In other words, that gravity is the geometry of space-time.
Geometrodynamics.
Stretching our brains
tThe "time" in space-time is very important to the full theory. You've probably seen the science museum demo or graphic accompanying an article on general relativity showing what looks like a stretched rubber sheet. A heavy ball, representing a planet or star or black hole or whatever, is placed at the center, pulling the fabric down. Rolling other balls on the sheet reveals the "influence" of gravity: They try to follow straight lines, but their paths get deflected by the underlying curvature.
That demo is perfectly fine as a first, kindergarten introduction, but we're well past kindergarten now. There is no "down" in real space-time, and the curving is happening in four dimensions, not two. It is a little harder to visualize, which is why we usually retreat to the simpler demo.
It is true that a massive object distorts the static space in its vicinity, but that's only half the picture. Mass also affects the dimension of time, and it does so by altering the possible trajectories a passing object is capable of.
Every object has what's called a light cone, or a set of possible destinations that the object could reach traveling slower than the speed of light. Imagine riding along with a speck of dust as it races by the sun. It has a range of future possibilities, given by its light cone. But as the dust comes near the sun, the gravity of that giant fireball tilts the dust's light cone toward the sun itself. .The dust now has a new, more specific future assigned to it: Some destinations are off-limits (they are outside the new light cone), while others have now opened up.
This may seem like splitting hairs, but the static bending of space and the altering of light cones appear in the mathematics of general relativity in separate places, and only by combining the two effects do we get the full (and accurate!) predictions of the theory. Space and time must both be considered together; you can't ignore one.u
In other words, gravity is the geometry of space-time. Geometrodynamics.
Learn more by listening to the episode ""Seriously, What Is Gravity? (Part 3)"on the "Ask A Spaceman" podcast, available on iTunes and on the web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to Andrew P., Joyce S., @Luft08, Ben W., Ter B., Colin E, Christopher F., Maria A., Brett K., bryguytheflyguy, @MarkRiepe, Kenneth L., Allison K., Phil B. and @shrenic_shah for the questions that led to this piece!
NASA Spotted a Vast, Glowing 'Hydrogen Wall' at the Edge of Our Solar System
NASA Spotted a Vast, Glowing 'Hydrogen Wall' at the Edge of Our Solar System
By Rafi Letzter, Live Science Staff Writer
The sun moves through the galaxy encases in a bubble formed by its own solar wind. In front of the sun, galactic debris builds up, inlcuding hydrogen.
Credit: Alder Planetarium/NASA
There's a "hydrogen wall" at the edge of our solar system, and NASA scientists think their New Horizons spacecraft can see it.
That hydrogen wall is the outer boundary of our home system, the place where our sun's bubble of solar wind ends and where a mass of interstellar matter too small to bust through that wind builds up, pressing inward. Our host star's powerful jets of matter and energy flow outward for a long stretch after leaving the sun — far beyond the orbit of Pluto. But at a certain point, they peter out, and their ability to push back the bits of dust and other matter — the thin, mysterious stuff floating within our galaxy's walls — wanes. A visible boundary forms. On one side are the last vestiges of solar wind. And on the other side, in the direction of the Sun's movement through the galaxy, there's a buildup of interstellar matter, including hydrogen.
And now NASA researchers are pretty sure that New Horizons, the probe that famously skimmed past Pluto in 2015, can see that boundary.
What New Horizons definitely sees, the researchers reported in a paper published Aug. 7 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is some extra ultraviolet light — the kind the researchers would expect such a wall of galactic hydrogen to produce. That replicates an ultraviolet signal the two Voyager spacecraft — NASA's farthest-traveling probes, which launched in the late 1970s — spotted all the way back in 1992. [Images: Dust Grains from Interstellar Space]
However, the researchers cautioned, that signal isn't a sure sign that New Horizons has seen the hydrogen wall, or that Voyager did. All three probes could have actually detected the ultraviolet light from some other source, emanating from much deeper in the galaxy, the researchers wrote.
But Alice, the instrument on board New Horizons responsible for this finding, is much more sensitive than anything the Voyagers had on board before beginning their own journey out of the solar system, the researchers wrote. And they said they expect Alice to function 15 to 20 more years.
New Horizons will continue to scan the sky for ultraviolet light twice a year, the researchers wrote, and report what it sees back to Earth.
"If the ultraviolet light drops off at some point, then New Horizons may have left the wall in its rearview mirror," the researchers explained in an accompanying statement. "But if the light never fades, then its source could be farther ahead — coming from somewhere deeper in space."
Colorful view of the universe as seen by Hubble in 2014. NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz and M. Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech), A. Koekemoer (STScI), R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), and Z. Levay (STScI)
Next time you eat a blueberry (or chocolate chip) muffin consider what happened to the blueberries in the batter as it was baked. The blueberries started off all squished together, but as the muffin expanded they started to move away from each other. If you could sit on one blueberry you would see all the others moving away from you, but the same would be true for any blueberry you chose. In this sense galaxies are a lot like blueberries.
Since the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding. The strange fact is that there is no single place from which the universe is expanding, but rather all galaxies are (on average) moving away from all the others. From our perspective in the Milky Way galaxy, it seems as though most galaxies are moving away from us – as if we are the centre of our muffin-like universe. But it would look exactly the same from any other galaxy – everything is moving away from everything else.
To make matters even more confusing, new observations suggest that the rate of this expansion in the universe may be different depending on how far away you look back in time. This new data, published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicates that it may time to revise our understanding of the cosmos.
Hubble’s challenge
Cosmologists characterise the universe’s expansion in a simple law known as Hubble’s Law(named after Edwin Hubble – although in fact many other people preempted Hubble’s discovery). Hubble’s Law is the observation that more distant galaxies are moving away at a faster rate. This means that galaxies that are close by are moving away relatively slowly by comparison.
The relationship between the speed and the distance of a galaxy is set by “Hubble’s Constant”, which is about 44 miles (70km) per second per Mega Parsec (a unit of length in astronomy). What this means is that a galaxy gains about 50,000 miles per hour for every million light years it is away from us. In the time it takes you to read this sentence a galaxy at one million light years’ distance moves away by about an extra 100 miles.
The Hubble Space Telescope as seen from the departing Space Shuttle Atlantis, flying STS-125, HST Servicing Mission 4. Wikipedia
This expansion of the universe, with nearby galaxies moving away more slowly than distant galaxies, is what one expects for a uniformly expanding cosmos with dark energy (an invisible force that causes the universe’s expansion to accelerate ) and dark matter (an unknown and invisible form of matter that is five times more common than normal matter). This is what one would also observe of blueberries in an expanding muffin.
The history of the measurement of Hubble’s Constant has been fraught with difficulty and unexpected revelations. In 1929, Hubble himself thought the value must be about 342,000 miles per hour per million light years – about ten times larger than what we measure now. Precision measurements of Hubble’s Constant over the years is actually what led to the inadvertent discovery of dark energy. The quest to find out more about this mysterious type of energy, which makes up 70% of the energy of the universe, has inspired the launch of the world’s (currently) best space telescope, named after Hubble.
Cosmic showstopper
Now it seems that this difficulty may be continuing as a result of two highly precise measurements that don’t agree with each other. Just as cosmological measurements have became so precise that the value of the Hubble constant was expected to be known once and for all, it has been found instead that things don’t make sense. Instead of one we now have two showstopping results.
On the one side we have the new very precise measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background – the afterglow of the Big Bang – from the Planck mission, that has measured the Hubble Constant to be about 46,200 miles per hour per million light years (or using cosmologists’ units 67.4 km/s/Mpc).
On the other side we have new measurements of pulsating stars in local galaxies, also extremely precise, that has measured the Hubble Constant to be 50,400 miles per hour per million light years (or using cosmologists units 73.4 km/s/Mpc). These are closer to us in time.
Both these measurements claim their result is correct and very precise. The measurements’ uncertainties are only about 300 miles per hour per million light years, so it really seems like there is a significant difference in movement. Cosmologists refer to this disagreement as “tension” between the two measurements – they are both statistically pulling results in different directions, and something has to snap.
New physics?
So what’s going to snap? At the moment the jury is out. It could be that our cosmological model is wrong. What is being seen is that the universe is expanding faster nearby than we would expect based on more distant measurements. The Cosmic Microwave Background measurements don’t measure the local expansion directly, but rather infer this via a model – our cosmological model. This has been tremendously successful at predicting and describing many observational data in the universe.
So while this model could be wrong, nobody has come up with a simple convincing model that can explain this and, at the same time, explain everything else we observe. For example we could try and explain this with a new theory of gravity, but then other observations don’t fit. Or we could try and explain it with a new theory of dark matter or dark energy, but then further observations don’t fit – and so on. So if the tension is due to new physics, it must be complex and unknown.
A less exciting explanation could be that there are “unknown unknowns” in the data caused by systematic effects, and that a more careful analysis may one day reveal a subtle effect that has been overlooked. Or it could just be statistical fluke, that will go away when more data is gathered.
It is presently unclear what combination of new physics, systematic effects or new data will resolve this tension, but something has to give. The expanding muffin picture of the universe may not work anymore, and cosmologists are in a race to win a “great cosmic bake-off” to explain this result. If new physics is required to explain these new measurements, then the result will be a showstopping change of our picture of the cosmos.
Astronaut claimt ‘organisch, buitenaards aandoend wezen’ te hebben gezien. Dit is de reactie van de NASA
Astronaut claimt ‘organisch, buitenaards aandoend wezen’ te hebben gezien. Dit is de reactie van de NASA
Een astronaut beweert in een spaceshuttle een ‘organisch, buitenaards aandoend wezen’ te hebben gezien.
NASA-astronaut Leland Melvin deed deze uitspraak tijdens een discussie met een complottheoreticus op sociale media.
De ruimtevaarder zei dat hij het wezen spotte in het laadruim van de spaceshuttle Atlantis, die op dat moment in een baan om de aarde draaide.
Iets doorzichtigs en organisch
Toen hij de NASA vertelde over zijn ervaring, zeiden experts tegen hem dat hij waarschijnlijk ijs had gezien dat van de shuttle was afgebroken.
Scott C. Waring van de website UFO Sightings Daily vroeg de astronaut: “Wat is uw mening over het bestaan van intelligent buitenaards leven in ons zonnestelsel? Heeft u ooit een UFO gezien?”
Melvin antwoordde dat hij ooit iets ‘doorzichtigs en organisch’ had gezien toen hij met zijn collega Randy Bresnik in de ruimte was.
Je weet maar nooit
Het tweetal nam contact op met de NASA en kreeg te horen dat het waarschijnlijk ijs was dat was afgebroken van de leidingen.
Volgens Melvin probeerde het ruimteagentschap de waarneming niet in de doofpot te stoppen, maar ‘je weet maar nooit’.
In totaal heeft Melvin twee ruimtevluchten op zijn naam staan. In 2010 ging hij met pensioen, maar tot februari 2014 bleef hij nog bij NASA werken.
UFO Sightings Daily@UFO_Sightings_X
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Hello @Astro_Flow whats your outlook about the existence of intelligent alien life living in our solar system? Have you ever witnessed a UFO? Please share with us. Thanks, SCW
Leland Melvin✔@Astro_Flow
I have not seen one in space or on the ground but thought I saw something organic/alien like floating out of the payload bay. @AstroKomrade and I called the ground to ask what it could be and it was ice that had broken off of the Freon hoses.Translucent, curved, organic looking
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
