Key ingredient for life on Earth may have come from outer space

 BY TIBI PUIU 

Phosphates, essential ingredients for DNA-based life forms, may have originated from space, according to a new study that recreated the formation of the molecules in a laboratory setting. The life-seeding phosphates would have then made their way to Earth through asteroids and comets that impacted the planet billions of years ago.

Phosphate compounds may have arrived on Earth delivered by comets, such as comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM.

Without phosphates and diphosporic acid, living things wouldn’t be able to synthesize DNA. They are the main components of chromosomes, thread-like structures in which the DNA is packaged. Phosphorus is also part of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which stores energy in the cell and powers cellular processes. Bones and teeth are also made up of phosphorus.

A long-standing debate among scientists is whether these chemical compounds were forged on Earth or someplace else in the universe, hitching a ride on cosmic bodies that collided with our planet.

Although the debate sounds impossible to solve, researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manatoa have now offered compelling evidence that phosphates can be generated in space.

For their experiment, the researchers worked with the chemical phosphine, which is derived from phosphorus and can be found in the atmospheres of planets such as Jupiter or Saturn, but also those of comets such as the famous 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, explored by the Rosetta spacecraft in 2016.

First, the team recreated icy grains — the kind typically found in interstellar space — in a vacuum chamber where the temperature sat  just 5 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero (-450°F/-267.7°C). Then, they added water, carbon dioxide and — very carefully because it is highly toxic — phosphine. Finally, the researchers fired ionized radiation — the kind found in cosmic rays — at this, triggering chemical reactions that formed phosphoric acid and diphosphoric acid.

“On Earth, phosphine is lethal to living beings,” said Andrew Turner, lead author of the study in Nature Communications, in a statement. “But in the interstellar medium, an exotic phosphine chemistry can promote rare chemical reaction pathways to initiate the formation of biorelevant molecules such as oxoacids of phosphorus, which eventually might spark the molecular evolution of life as we know it.”

In deep space, it’s reasonable to assume such nanoparticles became embedded in large objects like asteroids and comets, which would have eventually made their way to Earth.

“Since comets contain at least partially the remnants of the material of the protoplanetary disk that formed our solar system, these compounds might be traced back to the interstellar medium wherever sufficient phosphine in interstellar ices is available,” said Cornelia Meinert of the University of Nice.

The findings appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

01-10-2018 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

Tf that wasn't awe-inspiring enough, JAXA has just released not only more images, but even a small video from Ryugu's surface, and all their footage is mind-meltingly wonderful.

Here's what it looks like to be standing on a rocky, rugged asteroid, hurtling through space 100 million miles (160 million km) from Earth, as the Sun's light beams and flares around you.

We have no words.

The two rovers, Rover 1A and Rover 1B, were launched onto Ryugu's surface on September 21 by their 'mothership' Hayabusa2, which had journeyed three and a half years before finally make it to the asteroid in June.

The rovers weight around 1 kg and are pretty much the size and shape of a cookie tin. They move about the asteroid's low-gravity environment by hopping, fuelled by a solar-powered internal mass that rotates to generate force.

(JAXA)

Twitter user Transferrins created this incredible stop-motion animation of the rover's landing on the asteroid, which shows just how nail-biting that journey was.

These new videos and images show in detail Ryugu's rugged, boulder-covered landscape, and it's the closest look we've had to date at this kind of Solar System object.

Ryugu is 900 metres (2,952 feet) wide and is thought to be a particularly ancient type of asteroid known as a C-type asteroid, dating back to the early days of our Solar System more than 4 billion years ago.

(JAXA)

Researchers hope that by studying it, we could learn more about the evolution of Earth.

As well as taking these breathtaking images and videos, the rovers will be measuring temperatures across the surface of the asteroid, and will also eventually collect underground material.

Ryugu is thought to contain water, which is why it's named after a magical palace at the bottom of the sea; this mission will tell us more about the object's composition.

(JAXA)

"I cannot find words to express how happy I am," said project manager Yuichi Tsuda when the rovers' safe arrival was confirmed earlier in the week.

View image on Twitter

HAYABUSA2@JAXA@haya2e_jaxa

Our MINERVA-II1 rovers have sent back more images from the surface of Ryugu! Let’s take a look at these images in detail.

On September 23, 2018, We were able to confirm that Rover-1B hopped! [1/6]http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20180927e_MNRV/ …

1:31 PM - Sep 27, 2018

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"By studying asteroids, we learn more about the early Solar System and more about life itself," the 'Science Guy' and Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye tweeted as the rovers made their descent Friday.

"It is amazing to be a human living at this moment in the history of space exploration." 

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

01-10-2018 om 20:49 geschreven door peter  

Despite all warnings that it’s probably a horrifically bad idea, NASA seems to be pushing full steam ahead on the search for alien civilizations. At a workshop in Houston, Texas, this week,  NASA explored developments and possible investment in the search for “technosignatures” of alien life. Technosignatures refer to to any bi-product of civilization that we may be able to detect, such as radio waves like the unexplained  fast burst emissions detected coming from deep space. Other technosignatures could include polluted atmospheres, laser emissions, and artificial structures.

The NASA Technosignatures Workshop looks like it was the real deal. It ran from September 26 through September 28 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. In person attendance was invitation only and limited to 50 people. The three days consisted of almost 9 hours of back to back talks exploring the current state of the search for alien life and the prospects and predictions moving forward. Organized by NASA scientists in collaboration with scientists from a variety of American universities, it shows that, at the very least, these 50 people are taking the search for not just alien life, butadvanced alien civilizations seriously. Here are the four goals of the workshop, according to the website:

1. Define the current state of the technosignature field. What experiments have occurred? What is the state-of-the-art for technosignature detection? What limits do we currently have on technosignatures?

2. Understand the advances coming near-term in the technosignature field. What assets are in place that can be applied to the search for technosignatures? What planned and funded projects will advance the state-of-the-art in future years, and what is the nature of that advancement?

3. Understand the future potential of the technosignature field. What new surveys, new instruments, technology development, new data-mining algorithms, new theory and modeling, etc., would be important for future advances in the field?

4. What role can NASA partnerships with the private sector and philanthropic organizations play in advancing our understanding of the technosignatures field?

Throughout the three days, presentations addressed topics like “Technosignatures in the context of planetary evolution,” “Future prospects and data mining for structures in transit”, and “Future Projects.” Also listed in the schedule was the ominous sounding daily “Feedback From HQ.”  Then again, these scientists wouldn’t have gotten into this field if they didn’t harbor a secret desire to play secret agent.

Pictured: HQ, probably.

The workshop ended on Friday with  attendees broken up into groups to discuss and compile responses on three subjects: existing upper limits of our ability to detect alien technosignatures, new initiatives and partnerships, and emerging and future opportunities.

The mentions of private investment and partnering with philanthropic groups are interesting, and while alien research isn’t known as the most lucrative field, it makes sense. What better legacy for a billionaire to buy than first contact with an alien species? If it takes the vanity of a few super wealthy people to expand our understanding of the stars, so be it.

It always comes as a surprise to learn that there are subsets within the scientific communities actually taking the search for alien life seriously. The fact that there was a three day invitation only workshop on the subject shows that top scientists do believe in the possibility of advanced alien civilizations. Although, there still seems to be an assumption that alien civilizations would resemble ours. Just because we love polluting or atmosphere doesn’t necessarily mean aliens would. We really don’t have a frame of reference on what an alien intelligence might look like. Maybe there’s only one alien and it’s a floating ball of hyper-intelligent ooze, we just don’t know.

This is really just the beginning of our exploration into the unknown of space though, and however wise it is to go looking for a species that very well may want to eat us, we seem to be ramping up the search. Only time will tell what we’ll find.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-10-2018 om 20:16 geschreven door peter  

On September 14, a strange ring of lights like a flying saucer type has been spotted in the sky above Shakopee Archery Range, Jackson Township and above Stillwater in the state of Minnesota, see our article here.

The mysterious ring of light has appeared again and this time above Bloomington, Minnesota on September 30, 2018, see image above.

The flying saucer-like object has been photographed by a couple who were driving home from downtown Minneapolis and when they exited the highway in Bloomington, they saw a small-ish band of light in the sky.

As they continued on the road, the circular “orb-ish” object appeared to get larger, with about a dozen points of brighter light with a slightly dimmer ring connecting them. It just hovering in the sky, there was no movement and it was not the moon shining behind a cloud, according to the witnesses. Mufon case 95253.

A strange case, whether someone is joking with a drone equipped with lights or there is more going on with this ring of lights.

01-10-2018 om 20:06 geschreven door peter  

The strangest and most convincing UFO sightings which baffled Devon residents

The truth is out there (above Exmouth and Chudleigh)

By Alex Richards, Deputy News Editor

Eerie lights in the sky, mystery metallic discs, whizzing 'triangles' being chased by helicopters: It's all been happening in the sky above Devon in recent years.

But are these 'Unidentified Flying Objects' merely bizarre natural phenomenon or proof that we are not alone in the universe?

A recently declassified report reveals that British defence experts and the RAF spent nearly half a century trying to capture an alien spacecraft so they could use its technology to build stealth bombers and superweapons.

And in Devon there has been 10 alleged UFO or alien sightings that have been officially reported to Devon and Cornwall Police in the last three years, a Freedom of Information request revealed.

Here is a list of the most convincing recent sightings in the skies above Devon.

Fascinated by ghosts, UFOs and Devon's grisly past? Join Supernatural Devon

Emerging from the mists of Dartmoor is Supernatural Devon, a spine-chilling new Facebook group from Devon Live.

From campfire tales of ghosts and ghouls passed down through generations of Devonians, to 'UFOs' and strange beasts captured on modern smart phones - this is a place to share your story.

From the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor to the Beast of Bodmin, we'll also be showcasing the most famous - and infamous - tales of terror in the county the archives of newspapers which stretch back hundreds of years.

You can join the group here

{ https://www.devonlive.com/ }

01-10-2018 om 12:51 geschreven door peter  

Real-life UFO spotted? Bizarre 'blue flying object' caught on camera over London

A QUICK-THINKING cameraman caught a very strange object flying in the skies above London, fuelling rumours of alien life. 

By Warren Muggleton

In the clip, the cameraman is looking at a cloudy sky with a large tree in the foreground. 

But there is something hovering above it. 

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

01-10-2018 om 12:30 geschreven door peter  

Six UFOs Seen Over Caloundra, Australia On Sept 28, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Sept 28, 2018
Location of sighting: Caloundra, Australia
Source: Twitter report  https://twitter.com/UFO_Sightings_X

Here is a UFO video sent into me on my Twitter account. A person witnessed six or more glowing UFOs flying over their city in Australia on Sept 28th. The UFO video was great, however I did need to add a bit of light and contrast to make the UFOs more visible...as I explained in the video below. Australia is famous for its UFO sightings and the city of Caloundra is on the ocean, so most likely these UFOs came from an underwater alien base not far off shore. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

01-10-2018 om 11:38 geschreven door peter  

Local Geologist Films UFO Sighting Over Cairns

People staring at the night sky over the Trinity Park a couple of months ago might have seen a UFO.

A local geologist Adam Murfet caught an apparent UFO while recording on video an intense storm activity with his camera.

Mr Murfet said that he saw the strange light in the sky during the end of a lightning storm. He explained that there was no lightning going on by the time he noticed what could be described as an unidentified flying object.

The video shows a small object hovering, zipping around erratically and seemingly vanish before reappearing.

He said that it shot up and disappeared.

Then all of a sudden, the pitch black sky reignites with lightning quickly after the light vanished.

The possible existence of little green men in the skies makes Mr Murfet to consider starting a Northern Beaches UFO watchers group.

He said that he has never created one before, but believes they could form a group together to see what they could see.

He sent the footage to Mutual UFO Network for consideration.

Mr Murfet said that UFOs have always fascinated him, but it was the first time he has seen one.

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

01-10-2018 om 01:34 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.francetvinfo.fr/ }

01-10-2018 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

By Rachel Feltman

Do we really want to hide, though?

(G. Hüdepohl/ESO)

Most of the time when we talk about silly scientific papers related to alien life, we're talking about crazy ideas for how to find aliens. But a new study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes a way of hiding from aliens. Humans are so fickle.

(giphy)

A lot of our search for Earth-like planets (and, by extension, for life as we know it) hinges on transiting planets. These are planets that pass in front of their host star in such a way that the transit is visible from our perspective. The movement of the planet in front of the host star makes the light from that star dim or flicker, and we can use that to determine all sorts of things about distant worlds — including how suitable they may be for life.

[Study: Maybe we can’t find aliens because they’ve all died already]

Some scientists have suggested that we should hope that Earth is a transiting planet from the perspective of some other world that hosts intelligent life. In other words, our best shot at finding aliens might be hoping that they're using exactly the same methods of planetary detection that we are, and that they can see the passage of Earth in front of the sun with their telescopes. If we made a lot of noise in the direction of those theoretical planets, we might get their attention faster.

Or we could point lasers at them instead.

(giphy)

Professor David Kipping and graduate student Alex Teachey, both of Columbia University, decided to see how much laser light it would take to mask the dimming caused by our planet's transit. According to their math, it would take about 10 continuous hours of shining a 30 MW laser once a year to eliminate the transit signal in visible light. Actually replicating every wavelength of light emitted by the sun would take about 250 MW of power.

"Alternatively, we could cloak only the atmospheric signatures associated with biological activity, such as oxygen, which is achievable with a peak laser power of just 160 kW per transit. To another civilization, this should make the Earth appear as if life never took hold on our world," Teachey said in a statement.

This assumes, of course, that the aliens in question haven't already figured out more sophisticated (or just very different) methods for detecting a planet's habitability. It's possible that they'd catch on to our little laser show pretty quickly.

• [Looking for alien civilizations? Check these star clusters, scientists say.]

But we could use our lasers to be even louder. Instead of cloaking ourselves, we could make our transit signature so darn weird that aliens would have to take notice.

There's a big, interdisciplinary debate about whether we should try to contact intelligent life from other planets. To be fair, it's possible that we'd really, really regret it. Humans are kind of the worst, so intelligent life has a pretty bad track record so far.

"Our work offers humanity a choice, at least for transit events, and we should think about what we want to do," Kipping said in a statement.

But it could also be really great. And hey, the chances are slim anyway — especially now that we know it's pretty easy to hide from our best method for detecting Earth-like planets. I already worry that people are ignoring my texts because they hate me. Now I get to wonder if aliens might be pointing lasers at us because they think we're gross, and they just can't even.

Read More:

• The hunt for extraterrestrials turns to the ‘dim bulbs of the universe’
• Stephen Hawking announces $100 million hunt for alien life
• Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade
• Study suggests a new trick for finding alien civilizations
• A new way of calculating distant stars’ gravity could help us find alien worlds
• This broken space telescope keeps spotting new planets

{ https://www.washingtonpost.com/ }

01-10-2018 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has warned that Hadron Collider could 'shrink Earth to 330ft'

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

01-10-2018 om 00:51 geschreven door peter  

'It felt like rape' - Woman claims she was 'aggressively probed' after being abducted by aliens

Lisa Tenney also says that she has met with higher beings that feel like members of her family throughout years of 'extra terrestrial experiments'

By Kara O'Neill

A woman who believes she has been abducted by aliens says she was "aggressively probed" by extra-terrestrial beings.

Lisa Tenney, 40, has shared her story and claims a number of different aliens have 'captured' her over the years, since the age of about six.

The life coach, from Idaho, USA, describes meeting both evil and friendly extra-terrestrials and wants to encourage others with similar experiences to openly talk about what they saw and felt.

Talking to Earth Mystery News , Lisa said: "My first experience I can remember is these beings coming through a wall in my room.

"And somehow I ended up being able to go through the wall with them."

Lisa said she was around age five or six at the time of her first alien abduction.

"I would be in a ship. Like physically be on a metal-ish, solid, cool surface.

Did astronaut reveal NASA's 'codeword for aliens' in live International Space Station feed?

"I've had all types of contact experience."

She believes she's had contact with 'evil beings' from a government project, known as MyLab, as well as visits from other 'higher beings' she considers to be like family members.

Lisa also claims that the MyLab beings would "aggressively" examine her genitals.

She tells the cameras: "There was no emotional connection. It felt like rape. It was not a good feeling."

Lisa then says that she has been left with physical scarring from the probings. After having three children, she was forced to get her uterus removed - which she believes is a result of the alien examination.

Lisa also says most of her experiences occurred with her twin sister at night after they had gone to bed from when she was six, right through to her teens.

But while Lisa is comfortable talking about her memories, she admits that her sister won't talk openly about alien abduction.

{ https://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

01-10-2018 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

30-09-2018 om 23:55 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Give More Details On Cigar-Shaped UFO Moving Close To Earth

Scientists claim to have known the mysterious object that was observed flying through space. The space rock was spotted in 2017 and eventually called Oumuamua, which has been hurtling the solar system of the Earth.

A report from acclaimed astronomers of NASA, the European Space Agency and the German Max Planck Institute for Astronomy was released this week, revealing the origins of the cigar-shaped asteroid that was first noticed in October 2017.

The space rock was named by the site who first observed it and is the Hawaiian for a messenger from afar arriving first.

The report mentions that a high-powered telescope in Hawaii discovered a fast-moving object on an unbound orbit close to the Earth.

The report describes Oumuamua as a metallic or rocky object, around 400 metres in length and approximately 40 metres wide.

It also claims that the object has a density similar to a comet and has a dark red surface, which may suggest either an organic-rich surface identical to the outer solar system asteroids and comets or a surface similar to the dark side of Saturn’s moon Iapetus, containing minerals with nanoscale iron.

According to the report, Oumuamua left its home when it was ejected during planet formation and migration millions of years ago and has been linked to four possible star systems.

The report also mentions that Oumuamua moved faster than the existing laws of celestial mechanics. The Astrophysical Journal has been accepted the report.

When Oumuamua was first discovered, scientists could not explain precisely the long, thin asteroid flying so close to Earth.

The discovery sparked suggestions that the strange rock was an alien spaceship or probe exploring our solar system.

The only uncontested fact is that Oumuamua is the first object ever spotted flying into our solar system from deep space.

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

30-09-2018 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

{ https://nationalufocenter.com/ }

30-09-2018 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

Filer’s Files #38 – 2018 Are the Aliens in Control? - PART II

UFO Sightings in the United States

Arkansas Game Camera

Hot Springs — The three pictures were taken by a game camera in my backyard on the following times….11:22pm 09/09/18…..2:10am 09/10/18…..2:22am 09/10/18. This is the second photo. No one else that I have talked to saw the lights. Thanks to MUFON CMS

California Object

Camarillo –I was in the backyard with my mother and my son I looked up and I saw a hovering Orb. I was all jacked that started in meeting more of the brightness and then with them in a look like there was a smaller or just below the larger object on September 18, 2018.

It hovered for a few minutes and then took off south southeast very slowly. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Florida Lights

Tampa — Walking the dog on September 15, 2018, it didn’t look like an airplane or jet it was small and white.

It moved slowly across the sky, then it’s gone. I was amazed and I couldn’t believe it and it just kept moving slowly till it was gone. I didn’t see it anymore and was gone. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Illinois Lights

 Chicago — We saw 6 objects flying in formation above Chicago.  Five were similar in that they had a shiny metallic like appearance like they were blinking.

One was in the middle of the formation, alternating red and white. They were moving pretty slow or they were so high up they appeared to be moving slowly, but staying in formation the entire time.  Thanks to MUFON CMS

Indiana Light’

Fort Wayne — I work the night shift and some fellow colleagues and I have noticed an object in the sky at least the past three nights on September 16, 2018. The object moved south very slowly at a 40° angle from the earth surface. It pulsates different reds, yellows, greens, blues, and white lights.It does not make a noise. We do have two airports in Fort Wayne near this object. I personally live near the airport and observe many aircraft and this is nothing like that. My first guess would be a weather balloon admitting an LED light. But we’ve seen at the last three nights and would not make sense for someone to just release a big balloon with an LED light. I live near the airport and observe many aircraft and this is nothing like that. We’ve seen the lights the last three nights and would not make sense for someone to just release a big balloons with an LED outside. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Kentucky Object

Frankfurt –I was taking a picture of a rainbow from the hurricane that was blowing in and something flew into the picture. I don’t know what it was maybe you can shed light on this

Photo was taken on September 16, 2018. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Maryland Lights

Ocean City — My wife, a friend and I were sitting on our balcony at our condo, when my friend observed an orangeish light appear over the ocean. It was a very bright circle shape and would stay illuminated for 2-5 seconds, then fade out. A couple seconds would pass, then illuminate again in the same spot. A couple minutes would pass and it happened again, at a similar location. We tried to figure out if it was a plane or and the circle was way to big to be a plane and silent. After the third appearance. a second one appeared farther to the south doing the same thing but a little lower in the sky. We could see planes flying and their red and blue lights blinking. After about 10 visuals of the objects they stopped appearing. The lights were very bright my cell phone video doesn’t really show the size or brightness of them. In the videos you can’t see the boats lights which were just below on the ocean. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Massachusetts Light

Bellingham – About 8:30 pm my mother, stepfather and I stepped out onto the back porch on September 16, 2018. We noticed an orange orb of light in the southern sky just above the tree line. It was moving towards us. I took out my telescope to view it and quickly realized it was not a drone or a plane or helicopter. After about an hour it stopped at what seemed right above the edge of our yard. We then noticed a white orb of light in the western sky making movements all over the place and after about an hour disappeared. In the meantime the orange orb was making the same type of movements basically staying in the same small area altitude. We watched for hours in amazement. It is 11:07 pm now and it is still out there. I took some pictures through my telescope before coming in for the night

Lawrence — My mother, my two small children and I were out for a walk on September 19, 2018. I looked at the horizon and saw a glowing object flying through the clouds. I took out my phone and started taking pictures. The object appeared to disappear and then reappeared in the same spot, taking the same flight path.

An airplane then flew perpendicular to it and it became very apparent that the object was definitely not an airplane. We continued walking and stopped to talk to some neighbors. When we looked back up, the object was gone. I was excited and nervous at the same time about seeing the object. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Minnesota Circle of Lights

Stillwater — Witness was driving along 36 and Lake Elmo Avenue when he and his girlfriend saw this in the sky.

Witness observed for 4 minutes taking multiple pictures. Then it ascended quickly and was gone.

“No doubt in my mind it was a spacecraft of some kind” witness also positive it wasn’t some reflection or spot lights due to it flying away.mbe

Photo was taken on September 15, 2018. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Missouri Orb

Webb City –This picture was taken on August 31, 2018 at 1:49pm by a friend of mine as she and her sister were driving north on N. Rangeline Road. On September 3, 2018. My friend was the passenger and she was leaning over towards the center of the car to get a picture of heavy storms. She says that neither of them saw anything in the sky. When she pulled the picture up to view it and see if they got a good pic of the clouds they also saw this object. Surprised and they pulled into a parking lot and got out to check the sky but nothing was in the sky then. She shared the pic with me because she knew I have an avid interest in the subject of UFOs and paranormal happenings.

The pic does appear to be elevated in the sky and certainly no kind of reflection. Thanks to MUFON CMS

New Jersey Light

Margate — We came home from dinner on September 15, 2018, and I looked in the sky and said, “What are those four bright lights in the sky all in a straight line?” Then they started to get around and then got back. I thought this was crazy and unusual and asked my daughter to film it. Many lights and shaped cams out of these four lights and then they formed a straight line again. This went on for about ten minutes. We felt dizzy and light after the sighting . And felt very weird, hard to explain. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Oregon Lights

Portland — A few friends of mine were out at night on September 19, 2018, and saw 6 or more large obvious lights in the sky. The general lack of speed they exhibited was strange, usually a plane or a helicopter even when viewed from far away are obviously going from one point to another. These lights didn’t seem to have a particular sense of urgency. The lights themselves seem to be very large balls of light slowly trailing through the sky. The lights were together when they split into 6 separate lights. During the split, they were descending slowly, and stopped at the same time and hovered. They slowly re positioned themselves (either floating up or down) into a straight-ish line.

There is another “unlit” light hovering some distance above the rest of the lights. The general response from the witnesses was disbelief. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Pennsylvania Lights

I was on my porch (2nd. story up on “the Ridge”) looking west and hovering over the PA Turnpike (between Quakertown Exit and Lansdale exit) I kept staring at what I thought was an airplane on September 19, 2018. After other various planes flew thru the area, this one just stayed and made no noise, and refused to do anything other than hover. After about 20 minutes I decided to get my cameras out.
I could not see anything in the viewfinder so I just started shooting while pointed in the direction of the subject. I transferred the files from the SD Card and sat in amazement. One looked like an X-Wing fighter from star wars. Others looked like puffed up Asian dragons from artwork I have viewed over the years. One look like a superhero with arms outstretched flying right for me with a determined expression! I am an artist and retired Professional Photographer. These “CRAFT” are not from local planet. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Worldwide UFO Sightings

Austria Lights

Innsbruck — Unknown lights appeared on the runway of Innsbruck Airport (LOWI) in Austria. The object was stationary, but due to darkness I could not see if it landed or was hovering slightly above the surface. Three lights were arranged linearly and the 4th light was exactly above the third light from the linear row (counted from the left from my perspective). I can exclude any commercial airplane or light aircraft, because I also observed the four lights exactly in the same intensity and shining, in a completely different angle of sight. This would not be possible from a stationary airplane with taxi landing-lights. Additionally no strobes were detected. The lights were present before I recognized them, but 5 minutes after my first sighting a convoy of multiple cars of about ten were heading towards the object and were circling one time around it and then headed back towers the terminal-building. The object was near the end of the runway in western direction. Two pictures from two completely different angles (distance between both viewing point 500 meters). After 20 minutes I decided to drive with my car parallel to the runway to observe the object more clearly, but it disappeared. I didn’t see it disappear, but after 5-6 minutes there were no lights anywhere on the runway. After this I just only saw the car convoy near the terminal building and the runway-lights were switched off with the last landings at 10 pm due to noise regulations. I’m a former employee of the Innsbruck Airport and I never experienced such convoys. I know runway and aircraft-type lights and these were unknown lights. Unfortunately the two photos of the two sighting locations are quite bad. In Reality the 3 linear lights in the row near ground were isolated ball shaped lights and exactly equidistant to each other. The distance of the 4th light to the third of the three lights below were also of the same distance as in the linear row. Thanks to MUFON CMS

 Philippines Triangle

I was in the roof of my house doing a little stargazing when I look over the SE corner of my view on September 19, 2018.
I saw a triangular shape craft that is quite huge that was gliding straight into the most cloudiest part of the horizon. It revealed a transparent triangular shape to me just before it disappeared into some heavier clouds. I think it went there to hide I don’t know. It was like in the movies on how a stealth object has this transparent effect it was like that just before it enters the cloudy area. I saw it flicker a bit while keeping its transparency but what surprises me is the thinner clouds helped exposed the object to me.
I don’t know if anyone else in the Philippines saw it. P.S. do not tell me it’s an Airplane because I know what I saw. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Spain Orb

Valencia  — The 15th of September of 2018 a blue static orb was seen floating above the Parc Benicalap, in the City of Valencia, Spain.

A blue static orb was seen floating in the sky above Parc Benicalap. Thanks to MUFON CMS

UK/ England Kent

Margate Beach — Out walking our dog and did not notice anything at the time. Only noticed the light within the photograph. No editing of the photo has taken place.

Photo was taken on September 15, 2018. Thanks to MUFON CMS

Lancaster — It was just hovering and then when I pulled my phone out to take pictures on April 27, 2018. it started to move weirdly as if trying to avoid my camera. This is the only clear picture I could get. It has no editing to it just the raw picture if anyone can make it clearer then that would be a great help. I first noticed it when I was in my back garden it was a clear day and I just saw it floating. When I first saw it, I immediately thought drone or a plane but it was too high to be a drone and it is not in the shape of a plane. It was just hovering and then when I went to take pictures, it started to move very fast and agile so I could only get one picture. I was mesmerized and being able to take this picture was fascinating as I believe in aliens. Thanks to MUFON CMS

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{ https://nationalufocenter.com/ }

30-09-2018 om 23:02 geschreven door peter  

This Week's Top Space Stories!

Photo Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona 

Photo Credit: IPGP/Labex UnivEarthS/University Paris Diderot - C. Epitalon & S. Rodriguez

Photo Credit: Arianespace

Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force/Public Domain

Photo Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Photo Credit: SpaceNews

Photo Credit: JAXA

8. "White stork" takes off

Photo Credit: NASA

Photo Credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO

30-09-2018 om 22:42 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

30-09-2018 om 21:54 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre Particles Keep Flying Out of Antarctica's Ice, and They Might Shatter Modern Physics

ANITA is designed to hunt cosmic rays from outer space, so the high-energy neutrino community was buzzing with excitement when the instrument detected particles that seemed to be blasting up from Earth instead of zooming down from space. Because cosmic rays shouldn't do that, scientists began to wonder whether these mysterious beams are made of particles never seen before.

Since then, physicists have proposed all sorts of explanations for these "upward going" cosmic rays, from sterile neutrinos (neutrinos that rarely ever bang into matter) to "atypical dark matter distributions inside the Earth," referencing the mysterious form of matter that doesn't interact with light [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]

All the explanations were intriguing, and suggested that ANITA might have detected a particle not accounted for in the Standard Model. But none of the explanations demonstrated conclusively that something more ordinary couldn't have caused the signal at ANITA.

A new paper uploaded today (Sept. 26) to the preprint server arXiv changes that. In it, a team of astrophysicists from Penn State University showed that there have been more upward-going high-energy particles than those detected during the two ANITA events. Three times, they wrote, IceCube (another, larger neutrino observatory in Antarctica) detected similar particles, though no one had yet connected those events to the mystery at ANITA. And, combining the IceCube and ANITA data sets, the Penn State researchers calculated that, whatever particle is bursting up from the Earth, it has much less than a 1-in-3.5 million chance of being part of the Standard Model. (In technical, statistical terms, their results had confidences of 5.8 and 7.0 sigma, depending on which of their calculations you're looking at.)

Breaking physics

Derek Fox, the lead author on the new paper, said that he first came across the ANITA events in May 2018, in one of the earlier papers attempting to explain them.

"I was like, 'Well this model doesn't make much sense,'" Fox told Live Science, "but the [ANITA] result is very intriguing, so I started checking up on it. I started talking to my office neighbor Steinn Sigurdsson [the second author on the paper, who is also at Penn State] about whether maybe we could gin up some more plausible explanations than the papers that have been published to date."

Fox, Sigurdsson and their colleagues started looking for similar events in data collected by other detectors. When they came across possible upward-going events in IceCube data, he said, he realized that he might have come across something really game-changing for physics. [5 Mysterious Particles Lurking Underground]

"That's what really got me going, and looking at the ANITA events with the utmost seriousness," he said, later adding, "This is what physicists live for. Breaking models, setting new constraints [on reality], learning things about the universe we didn't know."

As Live Science has previously reported, experimental, high-energy particle physics has been at a standstill for the last several years. When the 17-mile (27 kilometers), $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was completed on the border between France and Switzerland in 2009, scientists thought it would unlock the mysteries of supersymmetry — the mysterious, theoretical class of particles that scientists suspect might exist outside of current physics, but had never detected. According to supersymmetry, every existing particle in the Standard Model has a supersymmetric partner. Researchers suspect these partners exist because the masses of known particles are out of wack — not symmetric with one another.

"Even though the SM works very well in explaining a plethora of phenomena, it still has many handicaps," said Seyda Ipek, a particle physicist at UC Irvine, who was not involved in the current research. "For example, it cannot account for the existence of dark matter, [explain  mathematical weirdness in] neutrino masses, or the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe."

Instead, the LHC confirmed the Higgs boson, the final undetected part of the Standard Model, in 2012. And then it stopped detecting anything else that important or interesting. Researchers began to question whether any existing physics experiment could ever detect a supersymmetric particle.

"We need new ideas," Jessie Shelton, a theoretical physicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Live Science in May, around the same time that Fox first became interested in the ANITA data.

Now, several scientists not involved in the Penn State paper told Live Science that it offers solid (if incomplete) evidence that something new has really arrived.

"It was clear from the start that if the ANITA anomalous events are due to particles that had propagated through thousands of kilometers of Earth, then those particles were very likely not SM particles," said Mauricio Bustamante, an astrophysicist at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, who was not an author on the new paper.

"The paper that appeared today is the first systematic calculation of how unlikely is that these events were due to SM neutrinos," he added. "Their result strongly disfavors a SM explanation."

"I think it's very compelling," said Bill Louis, a neutrino physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who was not involved in the paper and has been following research into the ANITA events for several months.

If standard model particle created these anomalies, they should have been neutrinos. Researchers know that both because of the particles they decayed into, and because no other standard model particle would even have a fragment of a chance in a million of making it through the Earth.

But neutrinos of this energy, Louis said, just shouldn't make it through the Earth often enough for ANITA or IceCube to detect. It's not how they work. But neutrino detectors like ANITA and IceCube don't detect neutrinos directly. Instead, they detect the particles that neutrinos decay into after smashing into Earth's atmosphere or Antarctic ice. And there are other events that can generate those particles, triggering the detectors. This paper strongly suggests that those events must have been supersymmetric, Louis said, though he added that more data is necessary.

Fox and his colleagues went on to argue that the particles are most likely to be a sort of theoretical supersymmetric particle called "stau sleptons." Stau sleptons are supersymmetric versions of a Standard Model particle called the tau lepton. The "S" is for "supersymmetric" (really). [Sparticles to Neutrinos: The Coolest Little Particles in the Universe]

Louis said that at this stage he thinks that level of specificity is "a bit of a stretch."

The authors make a strong statistical case that no conventional particle would be likely to travel through the Earth in this way, he said, but there isn't yet enough data to be certain. And there's certainly not enough that they could definitively figure out what particle made the trip.

Fox didn't dispute that.

"As an observer, there's no way that I can know that this is a stau," he said. "From my perspective, I go trawling around trying to discover new things about the universe, I come upon some really bizarre phenomenon, and then with my colleagues, we do a little literature search to see if anybody has ever thought that this might happen. And then if we find papers in the literature, including one from 14 years ago that predict something just like this phenomenon, then that gets really high weight from me."

He and his colleagues did find a long chain of papers from theorists predicting that stau sleptons might turn up like this in neutrino observatories. And because those papers were written before the ANITA anomaly, Fox said, that suggests strongly to him that those theorists were onto something.

But there remains a lot of uncertainty on that front, he said. Right now, researchers just know that whatever this particle is, it interacts very weakly with other particles, or else it would have never survived the trip through the planet's dense mass. 

What's next

Every physicist who spoke with Live Science agreed that researchers need to collect more data to verify that ANITA and IceCube have cracked supersymmetry. It's possible, Fox said, that when IceCube researchers dig into their data archives they'll find more, similar events that had previously gone unnoticed. Louis and Bustamante both said that NASA should run more ANITA flights to see if similar upward-going particles turn up.

"For us to be certain that these events are not due to unknown unknowns — say, unmapped properties of the Antarctic ice — we would like other instruments to also detect these sort of events," Bustamante said.

Over the long-term, if these results are confirmed and the details of what particle is causing them are nailed down, several researchers said that the ANITA anomaly might unlock even more new physics at the LHC.

"Any observation a non-SM particle would be a game changer, because it would tell us which path we should take after the SM," Ipek said. "The type of [supersymmetric] particle they claim to have produced the signals of, sleptons, are very hard to produce and detect at LHC."

"So, it is very interesting if they can be observed by other types of experiments. Of course, if this is true, then we will expect a ladder of other [supersymmetric] particles to be observed at the LHC, which would be a complementary test of the claims."

In other words, the ANITA anomalies could offer scientists the key information necessary to properly tune the LHC to unlock more of supersymmetry. Those experiments might even turn up an explanation for dark matter.

Right now, Fox said, he's just hungry for more data.

Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

30-09-2018 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

Mars Could Have Had Underground Life For Millions of Years

By Amber Jorgenson

The surface of Mars, imaged by Curiosity.

(Credit: NASA)

For decades, scientists have been scanning Mars’ surface for signs of ancient life. But by digging a little bit deeper, they’ve come across historic habitable zones in unexpected places.

After expanding their search, a team of researchers found that the Red Planet’s ancient subsurface could have housed microbial life for hundreds of millions of years. By borrowing hydrogen electrons from water, microbes could’ve had enough energy to not only survive underground, but to thrive for miles below the surface. If true, future missions could search areas where the subsurface is now exposed and potentially prove the existence of Martian life once and for all.

The study, led by Brown University researchers and published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was inspired by a curious phenomenon on Earth. Vast communities of underground microbes here live in darkness without access to the Sun’s chemical energy, the sole source of energy for most organisms on the planet. These enterprising bacteria, though, manage to survive by bumming hydrogen electrons from the water molecules that seep into the subsurface, a process that produces enough energy for them to live on. 

Mars obviously doesn’t have the surface water needed to support life nowadays, but with clear signs of historic, flowing water, it likely did. Similar microbes could have theoretically existed there, too.

Unexpected Advantages

Despite harsh conditions, Mars’ extremely thin atmosphere and intense radiation would have actually supported these ecosystems. When radiation hits surface water, it kicks off a process called radiolysis, where water molecules to break down into hydrogen and oxygen. Once the molecules are broken down, microbes can easily use the molecular hydrogen to fuel their existence.

To find out if these underground communities could have existed, the research team looked at three different factors. First, they used data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft’s gamma ray spectrometer to chart abundances of thorium, potassium and uranium in Mars’ crust. These elements give off radiation when they break down, kickstarting radiolysis. They also decay at constant rates, so by calculating their current abundances, they could estimate how much radiation rained down throughout history.

Embedded lake beds and dried up rivers tell us that there was no shortage of water exposed to radiation, but the team still needed to figure out how much of it soaked into the ground. To do so, they used density measurements to see how porous Mars’ crust was, allowing them to estimate how much hydrogen dripped into the subsurface. The last step was to look for underground regions that boasted a comfortable temperature. They used geothermal and climate models to see which areas were warm enough to harbor liquid water, but weren’t so warm that heat from Mars’ core would harm the ecosystem.

Taken with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, the image shows Syrtis Major, a volcanic region that’s exposes Mars’ ancient subsurface. The area is currently being considered as a landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. 

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

Lively Beginnings

After adding up these factors, the researchers found that around 4 billion years ago, the Martian subsurface was soaking up enough hydrogen to energize microbes for hundreds of millions of years. Their model shows that the ecosystems extended several miles into the subsurface and could withstand both warmer and cooler conditions than expected. In fact, thick layers of ice actually trapped hydrogen molecules underground, making extremely cold regions the ideal home for hungry microbes.

“People have a conception that a cold early Mars climate is bad for life, but what we show is that there’s actually more chemical energy for life underground in a cold climate,” said the study’s lead author, Jesse Tarnas of Brown University, in a press statement. “That’s something we think could change people’s perception of the relationship between climate and past life on Mars.”

There are still a lot of factors to take into consideration, though. The study assumes that Martian microbes looked like those on Earth, when they could have behaved completely differently. Plus, whether or not any sort of life has existed on Mars is still unknown. But showing that it would have had enough energy to survive is another hopeful sign of extraterrestrials there.

The only way to prove this theory, though, is to investigate areas where the subsurface is now exposed, like deep meteor impact craters. Luckily, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will soon be heading to the Red Planet, and will use this new data to continue our never-ending search for Martian life.

30-09-2018 om 21:12 geschreven door peter