Here's Why Auroras on Earth Are Different in the North and South

It all comes down to Earth's magnetic tail, which is created by interactions between our planet and the sun. Those interactions begin with Earth's magnetic field, which scientists believe springs from the innards swirlingthrough Earth's core and creating an electrical charge. Magnetic fields — from refrigerators to planets — create invisible magnetic field lines arcing between the North and South Poles that can govern the behavior of material around them.

But Earth's magnetic field isn't the only one out there — the sun also has one, which affects the constant flow of highly charged plasma particles that streams out in every direction. The magnetic field embedded in that stream, called the solar wind, interferes with the one Earth produces, squishing it on the daylit side of Earth facing the sun and stretching it on the nightside facing away from the sun into a tail-like shape.

Magnetic field lines carry through the contorted field, and they aren't fixed in place — they break and reform in dramatic events called reconnections. This phenomenon in the tail is what scientists had thought caused nonmatching northern and southern auroras. (It's the tail that matters for the aurora because that's the side of the magnetic field that's in darkness, and auroras are only visible at night.)

Instead, the team behind the current research realized that the solar wind's magnetic field doesn't always line up precisely with Earth's. When it's skewed, it introduces asymmetry between the North and South Poles into Earth's magnetic field — and that, in turn, causes the mismatch between northern and southern auroras.

Auroras from Space Station

Credit: Tim Kopra/NASA via Twitter (@astro_tim)

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra captured this stunning view of auroras over Earth as seen from his window on the International Space Station on May 4, 2016.

Aurora and the Pacific Northwest

Credit: ESA/NASA

Colorful aural lights dance exquisitely across the Pacific Northwest in this amazing photo from the International Space Station captured in early 2016.

Unusual Aurora Over Canada

Credit: Jeff Williams (via Twitter as @AstroJeff)

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, aboard the International Space Station, tweeted a photo of an aurora over Canada on April 5, 2016.

Aurora Corona and the Moon Over Sweden

Credit: Mia Stålnacke

Astrophotographer Mia Stålnacke sent in a photo of an auroral display alongside the moon on Jan. 23, 2016, taken in Sweden

Tim Peake Tweets Aurora Australis

Credit: ESA/NASA

Tim Peake tweeted an image of the Aurora Australis taken from his vantage point on the International Space Station, April 17, 2016.

So, the researchers gathered simultaneous far-infrared observations of northern and southern lights and tracked how closely the two auroras matched. Then, they added in data about reconnections in Earth's magnetic tail. But when they compared the two sets of measurements, they saw exactly the opposite of what they had expected to see — instead of these dramatic reconnections increasing the asymmetry of auroras, they nudged the auroras back into matching.

Understanding the auroras themselves isn't vital, as auroras are just symptoms of how the sun affects the Earth through a set of phenomena called space weather. But space weather can interfere with navigation and communication satellites and even put power grids out of commission. And scientists are still trying to figure out precisely how space weather works and how they can better predict it. Auroras are just the prettiest phenomenon to start cracking.

The research is described in a paper published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

• Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels.
• Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook.
• Original article on Space.com
  

{ https://www.space.com/ }

30-01-2019 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

NASA Probe Snaps 1st Photos from Just a Mile Above Asteroid Bennu and the View's AMAZING!

30-01-2019 om 00:57 geschreven door peter  

Some scientists are pushing for NASA to make looking for alien technology an official goal

BY LISA GROSSMAN 

WE’RE LISTENING  A radio telescope in Green Bank, W.Va., was the first to listen for signals from intelligent aliens in 1960. Now scientists are using another instrument, the Green Bank Telescope (shown), to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

JOHN M. CHASE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Long an underfunded, fringe field of science, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may be ready to go mainstream.

Astronomer Jason Wright is determined to see that happen. At a meeting in Seattle of the American Astronomical Society in January, Wright convened “a little ragtag group in a tiny room” to plot a course for putting the scientific field, known as SETI, on NASA’s agenda.

The group is writing a series of papers arguing that scientists should be searching the universe for “technosignatures” — any sign of alien technology, from radio signals to waste heat. The hope is that those papers will go into a report to Congress at the end of 2020 detailing the astronomical community’s priorities. That report, Astro 2020: Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics, will determine which telescopes fly and which studies receive federal funding through the next decade.

“The stakes are high,” says Wright, of Penn State University. “If the decadal survey says, ‘SETI is a national science priority, and NSF and NASA need to fund it,’ they will do it.”

SETI searches date back to 1960, when astronomer Frank Drake used a radio telescope in Green Bank, W.Va., to listen for signals from an intelligent civilization (SN Online: 11/1/09). But NASA didn’t start a formal SETI program until 1992, only to see it canceled within a year by a skeptical Congress.

Private organizations picked up the baton, including the SETI Institute, founded in Mountain View, Calif., in 1985 by astronomer Jill Tarter — the inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character in the movie Contact (SN Online: 5/29/12). Then in 2015, Russian billionaires Yuri and Julia Milner launched the Breakthrough Initiatives to join the hunt for E.T. But the search for technosignatures still hasn’t become a more serious, self-sustaining scientific discipline, Wright says.

“If NASA were to declare technosignatures a scientific priority, then we would be able to apply for money to work on it. We would be able to train students to do it,” Wright says. “Then we could catch up” to more mature fields of astronomy, he says.

Wright himself is a relative newcomer to SETI, entering the field in 2014 with a study on searching for heat from alien technology. He was also one of a group to suggest that the oddly flickering “Tabby’s star” could be surrounded by an alien megastructure — and then to debunk that idea with more data (SN: 9/30/17, p. 11).

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

30-01-2019 om 00:41 geschreven door peter  

This shift both prevented the protective magnetic field from collapsing and recharged it

BY  CAROLYN GRAMLING 

 

SOLAR SHIELD  Earth’s magnetic field (illustrated) is powered by circulation of iron-rich fluid in the core. New research suggests Earth’s solid inner core formed about 565 million years ago, saving a weakening magnetic field from collapse.

MARC WARD/SHUTTERSTOCK

Earth’s inner core solidified around 565 million years ago — just in time to not only save the planet’s protective magnetic field from imminent collapse, but also to kick-start it into its current, powerful phase, a new study suggests.

The finding, reported online January 28 in Nature Geoscience, supports an idea previously proposed by simulations that Earth’s inner core is relatively young. It also provides insight into how, and how quickly, Earth has been losing heat since its formation 4.54 billion years ago —key to understanding not only the generation of the planet’s magnetic shield but also convection within the mantle and plate tectonics.

“We don’t have many real benchmarks for the thermal history of our planet,” says Peter Olson, a geophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the new study. “We know the interior was hotter than today, because all planets lose heat. But we don’t know what the average temperature was a billion years ago, compared with today.” Pinning down when iron in the inner core began to crystallize could offer a window into how hot the interior of the planet was at the time, Olson says.

The planet’s iron-nickel core is made up of two layers: a solid inner core and a molten outer core. When that solid inner core formed is a long-standing mystery (SN: 9/19/15, p. 18). “Proposed ages have been anywhere from 500 million years ago to older than 2.5 billion years,” says coauthor John Tarduno, a geophysicist at the University of Rochester in New York.

The interplay of the two layers drives the geodynamo, the circulation of iron-rich fluid that powers the magnetic field. That field, surrounding the planet, protects Earth from being battered by the solar wind, a constant flow of charged particles ejected by the sun. As the inner core cools and crystallizes, the composition of the remaining fluid changes; more buoyant liquid rises like a plume while the cooling crystals sink. That self-sustaining, density-driven circulation generates a strong magnetic field with two opposing poles, north and south, or polarity.

Traces of magnetism in ancient rocks suggest that Earth had a magnetic field as far back as 4.2 billion years ago. That earlier field was likely generated by heat within the planet driving circulation within the molten core. But over time, computer simulations suggest, the heat-driven circulation wouldn’t have been strong enough alone to continue to power a strong magnetic field. Instead, the field began to shut down, signaled in the rock record by weakening intensities and rapid polarity reversals over millions of years. And then, at some point, Earth’s inner core began to crystallize, jump-starting the geodynamo and generating a new, strong magnetic field.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

30-01-2019 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

This shift both prevented the protective magnetic field from collapsing and recharged it

BY  CAROLYN GRAMLING 

 

SOLAR SHIELD  Earth’s magnetic field (illustrated) is powered by circulation of iron-rich fluid in the core. New research suggests Earth’s solid inner core formed about 565 million years ago, saving a weakening magnetic field from collapse.

MARC WARD/SHUTTERSTOCK

Earth’s inner core solidified around 565 million years ago — just in time to not only save the planet’s protective magnetic field from imminent collapse, but also to kick-start it into its current, powerful phase, a new study suggests.

The finding, reported online January 28 in Nature Geoscience, supports an idea previously proposed by simulations that Earth’s inner core is relatively young. It also provides insight into how, and how quickly, Earth has been losing heat since its formation 4.54 billion years ago —key to understanding not only the generation of the planet’s magnetic shield but also convection within the mantle and plate tectonics.

“We don’t have many real benchmarks for the thermal history of our planet,” says Peter Olson, a geophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the new study. “We know the interior was hotter than today, because all planets lose heat. But we don’t know what the average temperature was a billion years ago, compared with today.” Pinning down when iron in the inner core began to crystallize could offer a window into how hot the interior of the planet was at the time, Olson says.

The planet’s iron-nickel core is made up of two layers: a solid inner core and a molten outer core. When that solid inner core formed is a long-standing mystery (SN: 9/19/15, p. 18). “Proposed ages have been anywhere from 500 million years ago to older than 2.5 billion years,” says coauthor John Tarduno, a geophysicist at the University of Rochester in New York.

The interplay of the two layers drives the geodynamo, the circulation of iron-rich fluid that powers the magnetic field. That field, surrounding the planet, protects Earth from being battered by the solar wind, a constant flow of charged particles ejected by the sun. As the inner core cools and crystallizes, the composition of the remaining fluid changes; more buoyant liquid rises like a plume while the cooling crystals sink. That self-sustaining, density-driven circulation generates a strong magnetic field with two opposing poles, north and south, or polarity.

Traces of magnetism in ancient rocks suggest that Earth had a magnetic field as far back as 4.2 billion years ago. That earlier field was likely generated by heat within the planet driving circulation within the molten core. But over time, computer simulations suggest, the heat-driven circulation wouldn’t have been strong enough alone to continue to power a strong magnetic field. Instead, the field began to shut down, signaled in the rock record by weakening intensities and rapid polarity reversals over millions of years. And then, at some point, Earth’s inner core began to crystallize, jump-starting the geodynamo and generating a new, strong magnetic field.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

30-01-2019 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Why the Easter Island statues were built where they were

BY MIHAI ANDREI 

A new study suggests that the mysterious moai statues on Easter Island were placed to mark sources of fresh water.

Image in public domain.

A Polynesian population called the Rapa Nui arrived on Easter Island in 1200 AD. Despite the unpredictable weather and nutrient-poor soil, they established a thriving and industrious culture, leaving behind many impressive artifacts. Most famous among these artifacts are the giant moai: giant basaltic statues scattered across the island.

Although they are still shrouded in mystery, several explanations have been proposed. The most straightforward one is that the moai represent the inhabitants’ gods or ancestors, watching over them. But a new study has a new idea: the statues are marking valuable sources of freshwater.

As if Easter Island wasn’t inhospitable enough, there’s another problem: freshwater. Easter Island is a volcanic high island, consisting mainly of three extinct coalesced volcanoes. While there are freshwater lakes inside the volcano craters, there are no streams or other sources of surface freshwater. This must have been quite a worry for the Rapa Nui people, and the megaliths may have been built in to indicate freshwater, researchers suggest. The relationship isn’t straightforward, however: it’s not that all moai are indicators of freshwater, but everywhere there is some subsurface water source, there’s always moai nearby.

“Our results suggest that ahu locations are most parsimoniously explained by distance from freshwater sources, in particular coastal seeps, with important implications for community formation and inter-community competition in precontact times,” researchers write.

The team analyzed the connection between the moai (and the platforms they were placed on, called ahu) and rock mulch agricultural gardens, marine resources, and freshwater sources — the three most important resources for the Rapa Nui civilization. They didn’t find any connection to the first two, but the third one provided a good fit. The fresh water would pass through the ground into aquifers, seeping into caves as well as emerging around the coast. Controlling these places would have been quite valuable to the natives.

This may mean that, at least in part, the statues were built to indicate territorial domination over a sparse resource.

“What is important about it is that it demonstrates the statue locations themselves are not a weird ritual place — represent ritual in a sense of there is symbolic meaning to them, but they are integrated into the lives of the community,” said Prof Carl Lipo from Binghamton University in New York, who was co-author of the research.

However, not everyone is convinced by this theory. Jo Anne Val Tilburg, an Easter Island expert from the University of California, Los Angeles believes that these freshwater seeps would have been minor resources, so it is highly unlikely that the moai were built in relation to them.

Whatever the case may be, the enigma of the moai and their creators will undoubtedly continue to puzzle us and stir debates for many years to come

The study has been published in PLoS.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

30-01-2019 om 00:15 geschreven door peter  

The Mysterious Genius Who Patented the UFO

Alexander Weygers, a Renaissance man in the mold of the tech industry’s stated ideal, inspired an art dealer to become an acolyte.

Alexander Weygers made numerous detailed drawings of an aircraft called the “Discopter”, a vertical liftoff aircraft that looked very much like what was to be later termed “flying saucer” and other drawings of an American cities specifically flying saucers in San Francisco and as well as a port in Chicago.

He sent these detailed plans to all the branches of the U.S. Military and was eventually told that they were intrigued by the concept and the design of the craft but were not prepared at that time because the war effort superseded its development.

However he did indeed patent the design for the “Discopter” in January 1944 with the U.S. Patent Office and it served as the prototype for other similar aircraft that have been developed up to the present day.

Ashlee Vance visits the dealer whose curiosity about Weygers has evolved into an obsession.

https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

29-01-2019 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

A mysterious and unexplained security breach at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) turned deadly this week, highlighting the serious nature of the Air Force’s secretive desert research facilities which include Area 51. According to a press release issued yesterday, at 5:18 pm local time on January 28, an unidentified male sped through a security checkpoint at the entrance to the site. Both the Nye County Sheriff’s Office and the NNSS Security Protective Force Officers pursued the man in what became a high-speed chase which lasted eight miles.

Eventually, the man came to a stop and exited his vehicle. That’s when things got weird – and dangerous. According to the NNSS, the man got out of his car and began approaching security officials carrying an unknown “cylindrical object.” The man did not respond to officers’ verbal commands to stop, forcing security personnel to open fire. The man was pronounced dead at the scene; no officers were harmed.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal says the FBI is investigating the incident. The Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, is home to the U.S. military’s underground nuclear testing program, weapons development programs, and many nuclear research projects. The infamous Area 51 is a remote detachment of the NSS found just an hour to the east of the main site.

I’m sure you’re wondering the the same thing I am: what exactly was the “cylindrical object” the man was holding when he got out of his car? What would someone want to smuggle into the secretive research facility? The vague way the object has been described in both the press statement and news reports is rather curious. Was this an attempt at sabotage? A foreign intelligence operation gone wrong? Or did the man take a wrong turn fleeing Area 51 with some type of exotic alien material?

While it’s much more probable the object was an empty can of Icehouse or a flashlight, the lack of details released to the public so far leaves the imagination free to wander. Even if this happens to be a case of bad decision making due to mental illness or intoxication, it highlights the deadly seriousness of the many “No Trespassing” signs surrounding Area 51 and other secretive research sites in America’s deserts. No grainy cellphone photo of alleged alien technology or an experimental black triangular drone is worth risking your life.

But seriously: what was the mysterious “cylindrical object” the man was carrying? Why was he trying to get into such a heavily guarded facility? Does this have anything to do with the other Area 51-related revelation this week about secret ‘motherships’ possibly being tested at the site?

Stay tuned.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

29-01-2019 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

UFO LANDT IN ENGELSE ACHTERTUIN ( VIDEO )

Het klinkt natuurlijk als iets dat echt niet kan, maar toch is dit wat er gebeurde in de tuin van een huis in het Engelse Doncaster. 

Een gebeurtenis die veel lijkt op wat een bange Amerikaanse dame enkele dagen eerder filmde in de staat West Virginia.

{ http://niburu.co/ }

29-01-2019 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

UFO LANDT IN ENGELSE ACHTERTUIN ( VIDEO )

Het klinkt natuurlijk als iets dat echt niet kan, maar toch is dit wat er gebeurde in de tuin van een huis in het Engelse Doncaster. 

Een gebeurtenis die veel lijkt op wat een bange Amerikaanse dame enkele dagen eerder filmde in de staat West Virginia.

{ http://niburu.co/ }

29-01-2019 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

Unlike U.S. political party members, Chupacabra fans seem to break down into three groups: those who believe in the traditional Puerto Rican, upright, lizardish kind of bloodsucker; those who believe in the hairless coyote-like Texas kind; and those who put the moniker on any unidentifiable dead creature with fangs in any country. (Actually, U.S. political party members break down too, but it’s a breakdown of the other kind.) A mysterious creature discovered and photographed by a boy in Colombia seems to fall into the third category … but maybe not.

“I arrived and I looked out and then there was something all weird like a dog, so I came and told her aunt see that, and my aunt handed me the cell phone to take pictures.”

Thus begins the strange tale of Joan Sebastian Arboleda Lombana, a boy living in La Sierra, a village in the Magdalena River valley region of the mountainous Department of Antioquia in central northwestern Colombia. The rough googly translation comes from Noticias Caracol TV (see the video report here), which sent a reporter to interview Joan, his aunt and La Sierra locals who were said to be “dismayed” at the appearance of the corpse of such a strange creature. The pictures (way to go, Joan!) support the boy’s description that the beast looked like a cross between an opossum and a bush dog. While opossums are common in the area, bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) – a remote relative of the South American maned wolf and the African wild dog – are an extremely rare canid found mostly in Suriname, Guyana and Peru. Is the bush dog making a comeback in La Sierra?

Bush dog at the Prague Zoo (Wikipedia)

“We came to see and we found an animal that was more or less, 70 centimeters long, had a face or a fox head, and hands that were like a kind of gorilla, like a miquito, then it has us. This strange species is quite impacted.”

La Sierra resident Martin Prada, one of many locals concerned about the mysterious creature, thought (again, a rough Google translation) it looked more like a gorilla or a monkey (miquito). At 70 cm (27.5 inches) in length, gorilla seems unlikely. Why did some residents, as reported by HDB Noticias, think it was a Chupacabra?

“According to versions of some locals, the creepy creature had been hanging around the homes in the area for several days; especially at night … Several barnyard animals disappeared from the homes of this hot Magdalena Medio population, as a victim of this four-legged ‘monster’ and an unpleasant aspect.”

Ah-ha! What other creature sneaks around at night and pilfers pets and barnyard animals? OK, a lot of them do, but this corpse didn’t look like any of the more common ones. It’s also 50% larger than the largest opossums. That was enough to call in Corantioquia, the environmental protection organization that is part of integrated urban water management in Medellín, the largest city in Antioquia. Adriana Molina, deputy director of ecosystems of Corantioquia, looked at the creature and had this to say:

“The corporation has already begun the verification process for the identity of this individual, the invitation is for the entire community to report any anomalous or conflictive situation that may occur with wildlife and to maintain calm in these situations.”

Yep – they took away the corpse and are verifying its identity. Preliminary observations suggest the creature was suffering from advanced dermatitis – a skin condition related to poor diet, bacteria and fungi. That, in addition to the decay, make it look more like the Texas mangy coyote version of the alleged Chupacabra.

Possum or opossum — depending on your political persuasion.

If it’s anything other than an opossum, will they tell the public? It would be nice in a way if it were a bush dog, since that species was just placed on the Near Threatened Species list and this might be a sign it’s surviving and spreading its habitat.

The best part of this story is that Joan got some pictures before the authorities took the creature away. Keep those phones handy and shutter fingers ready and steady — that thing you spot in your garden could be a Chupacabra!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

29-01-2019 om 18:07 geschreven door peter  

America’s favorite secret military base somehow manages to stay in the headlines year after year. Earlier this month, the world’s largest aerospace company Boeing quietly released a series of concept art images which appear to depict some type of unknown, high-altitude “mothership” capable of launching smaller craft while in flight. Even stranger, the images appear to depict the large triangular aircraft sitting on a tarmac at the infamous Area 51. Does this revelation confirm any of the triangle UFO theories that have been floating around for years?

Not yet, anyway. The Boeing concept art images appear to have been discovered and published by aviation blog The Drive. As The Drive’s Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick note, the mountain ranges and landscape in the images seem eerily similar to the landscape at Groom Lake, Nevada where Area 51 is located:

What makes these renderings even more interesting is that they seem to show this combination of exotic aircraft being flown out of Area 51. The hills in the background and the general details shown match up near perfectly with the clandestine flight test location. It’s interesting to think that concept art would include such specific details, especially in an age long before Area 51 was as known as it is today or tools like Google Earth existed. The chances of this being some coincidence seem low. Considering the tech being shown and the fact that these renderings remained unreleased for decades, it does make sense that they would show the system operating at its intended base of operations.

In the images, a massive triangular ‘mothership’ is depicted both in flight and sitting on a landing strip surrounded by desert.  The ‘mothership’ in the images appears to be a high-altitude aircraft capable of launching a separate, smaller spacecraft or aircraft from a special hollow section of its fuselage. Strangest of all, the triangular ‘parasite’ spacecraft in the images should be familiar to anyone who keeps up aerospace and UFO developments: it’s a dead ringer for the long-rumored TR-3B.

If the ship had navigation lights at its corners, it would match the craft described in hundreds of reports of triangular black UFOs around the world.

The TR-3B is an alleged black budget surveillance aircraft built by the US Air Force, believed to exist thanks to dozens of sightings of black, triangular aircraft reported throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and a few grainy photographs. Our own Micah Hanks recently published a terrific look at the triangle UFO phenomenon and the many documented sightings which took place throughout the 1980s – which just so happens the exact same time these Boeing Area 51 ‘mothership’ images were created.

Are these concept images proof of anything? Not exactly. It’s unknown if this project ever came to fruition, although several similar platforms have in recent years been developed which can launch spacecraft from high-altitude ‘mothership’ aircraft. Still, these Boeing images may help further reinforce some people’s suspicions (like my own) that Area 51 isn’t as strange as some make it out to be. If the ‘truth’ about Area 51 is ever disclosed to the public, it will likely be a lot less sensational and strange than we all hope. While many of us hold on to the hope that de-engineered alien spacecraft or grey aliens in massive formaldehyde tanks might be stored away in hangars at the secretive military base, the truth is likely far more banal. Or maybe that’s just what They want us to believe.

Why would Boeing release the images now?

The U.S. military tests all manners of new aircraft and weapons at the highly off-limits base at the Nevada Test and Training Range, and the secrecy is likely in place to keep new defensive capabilities out of the hands of America’s adversaries. It has even been alleged that the alien rumors surrounding Area 51 are a form of counterintelligence designed to muddy the waters and discredit any leaks that do manage to slip out of the top secret facility. Where do these ‘mothership’ images fit in with larger Area 51 narratives? Are they more misinformation, or a hint that the TR-3B might indeed be overhead?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

29-01-2019 om 17:52 geschreven door peter  

Saturn’s rings are arguably one of the most widely recognized features of our solar system. While Saturn isn’t the only planet that has a ring system (Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus also have rings), the sixth planet from the sun does have the most prominent and spectacular rings, visible from Earth on clear nights with the aid of a bit of telescopic magnification.

Back in December, we also learned something interesting about Saturn’s ring system: that it may be much younger than we once thought, having appeared more recently than the dinosaurs.

Luciano Iess of the Sapienza University of Rome told Astronomy.com that “A catastrophic event like a collision looks to me the most obvious explanation, but there may be problems with that too… The origin of the rings has to be put in the broader context of the dynamics of the Saturnian system.” Iess went on to cite colleagues of his “that even [think] the inner moons of Saturn are young, and they are migrating inward.”

Recent astronomical studies helped us determine the youth of Saturn’s rings. Since the physical matter which composes them constitutes fairly low mass, astronomers guess that the rings are between 10 and 100 million years old (Saturn, on the other hand, is believed to be almost 4.5 billion years old). Iess told Astronomy.com that measurements going all the way back to Voyager and Cassini were highly suggestive that the planet’s rings came much later.

Knowing that the most prominent planetary ring system in our celestial neighborhood was a recent addition, it has caused some to ask whether Earth itself might have at one time had rings, too.

This was precisely the idea proposed by Danish astronomer Kaare Rasmussen of the National Museum in Copenhagen in the early 1990s, who argued that in the past 2800 years Earth may have had rings on as many as 16 separate occasions.

According to am April 1991 article in New Scientist by John Gribben, Rasmussen “carried out a survey of all reports of meteorite falls, fireballs and showers of shooting stars from 800 BC to 1750 AD. He then carried out a statistical analysis of the data. He discovered that there were many distinct periods of intense activity.” Based on this, Rasmussen noted that these active periods peaked coinciding with high meteoritic activity, during which time he believed that rings formed as a result of a comet or asteroid being caught in Earth’s orbit. Subsequent decreases in meteoritic activity might have indicated periods of ring stability, followed by a return to activity as particles from the particulate ring were decelerated by Earth’s upper atmosphere and began to shower down upon the Earth.

Some interesting observational data exists from the last couple of centuries that suggests Earth could have had asteroids trapped in its orbit even more recently. In 1907, the June 12 edition of the Edmonton Bulletin featured an article on a colorful character by the name of E. Stone Wiggins, a Canadian astronomer who claimed to have spotted a second moon in orbit around the Earth:

“In 1882,” says Prof. Wiggins, “I discovered another moon. It is now at that point of its orbit nearest the earth… I knew this moon existed because our visible moon showed a disturbing force in her revolutions around the earth, for which astronomers could not account.

“In 1884 I published a letter in the New York Tribune claiming the discovery, giving the evidence of trustworthy persons in Michigan who declared to me that the sun was eclipsed on May 16 of that year, the sky being perfectly cloudless and when our visible moon was in another quarter of the heavens and therefore could not possibly eclipse the sun. This dark moon has an immense carbon atmosphere in which the dun develops little or no light; but it has often been seen by persons who happened to be in the range of incidence of its reflected light.”

It’s not impossible that a fairly large object could enter Earth’s orbit for a period of time, thus resulting in what astronomers have called a “moonlet” (see my article here for more on this), or as Kaare Rassmussen suggested in the 1990s, maybe even a ring system around Earth for a period of time.

At his Bad Astronomy blog, Phil Plait addressed the question of whether a ring system might ever form around Earth, to which he said, “could Earth have rings? Sure!” Plait continues:

“It’s unclear exactly how Saturn (or the other four outer giant planets) got their rings, but there is more than one mechanism to create them. A small moon could get hit by an asteroid or comet, shattering it. An impact on the Earth itself, if it were big enough, could create rings (the impact that formed the Moon billions of years ago may have done just that). That would kinda suck for us, though. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers which may resupply the planet’s A and E rings.”

As Plait points out, at some point in Earth’s past the impact that led to the formation of our Moon might have actually caused Earth to have a ring system, as Rassmussen suggests (although these rings would have existed much earlier than Rassmussen’s estimate of the last 2800 years). So if this is the case, why doesn’t Earth have a ring system now?

The problem with ring systems is that much of their composition is formed from ice particulates. As Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today and co-host of Astronomy Cast explains, “The problem with icy rings is that the Earth orbits too closely to the Sun. There’s a specific point in the Solar System known as the ‘frost line’ or ‘snow line’. This is the point in the Solar System where deposits of ice could have survived for long periods of time. Any closer and the radiation from the Sun sublimates the ice away.”

So Earth’s proximity to the Sun, in other words, makes it physically difficult for icy rings to remain for long periods, as with more distant planets in our solar system.

It’s not impossible that Earth may have had rings at some point in the past, or in the unfortunate event of an asteroid impacting the moon, or even the Earth, that our planet could have rings again someday. In the event that it ever does, let’s just hope it’s not the result of an armageddon-inducing space rock smashing us to bits in the process. In the meantime, if you’ve ever wondered what a ring system around our planet might look like from here on Earth, check out Ron Miller’s conceptual artwork that illustrates this idea.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

29-01-2019 om 17:41 geschreven door peter  

The photographer took some images of a strange beam of light in a clear sky at the shoreline of Lake Nahuel Huapi Bariloche, Argentina on January 24, 2019.

Hours after, while reviewing the photos, the photographer, who has submitted the images to Mufon, noticed in one of the images a UFO and realized that during the short laps between takes, the UFO must have appeared and vanished in a matter of seconds.

First image shows the strange beam of light only.

Second image shows the UFO below the strange beam of light.

Not only a single beam of light in a clear sky is very unusual but a UFO that appears exactly below the beam of light raises many questions.

Where does this beam of light comes from and could it be that the UFO has emerged from it? Or is it something from another world that has been teleported via this ray of light?

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

29-01-2019 om 14:31 geschreven door peter  

Argentina Musician from Los Alfiles Allegedly Photographed UFO at La Banda, Jan 9, 2019, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 9, 2019

Location of sighting: La Banda, Argentina

News Source: 

• https://paranormaltoday.com/musician-from-los-alfiles-allegedly-photographed-ufo-at-la-banda/

This UFO was seen by Francisco “Pancho” Zamudio, a member of the tropical music group Los Alfiles living in La Banda, Argentina. I enlarged the photo as you see above, and yes it does appear to be a disk with a dome top and bottom area. How could he have missed such an event? Very easily since UFOs are capable of flying so fast that the human eye cannot even detect the movement, but the digital eye of the camera is exceptional and capturing everything in its path. Yes, I do believe this to be a UFO. The shape, speed, and the blurred outer edges all indicate that is real. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

“It was on January 9th of this year. I was drinking at home, went out to see the clouds that were taking shape and took some random photos. I wasn’t aware of anything at the time. Just this past Saturday, looking through the images, I noticed a black dot. I sent them to a friend who works on radio and he downloaded them to his computer. Upon zooming in, he discovered this thing, and we were truly startled.”

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

29-01-2019 om 14:05 geschreven door peter  

Awesome UFO Recorded Over Italy From Eyewitness In Car, Jan 28, 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 28, 2019

Location of sighting: Alessano, Italy

 

An eyewitness in Alessano, Italy recorded this UFO while sitting in the passenger side of a car. The UFO seems to move through the sky effortlessly. The object is very big, so big it almost looks as if this object is shooting fast, but thats the cars movement causing that. 

 

The person who uploaded it to Youtube works for the TELA RAMA TV News channel and posts only videos used on their local Italian TV news. So...this did make it on to Italian news. 

 

The object is actually planes size and hovering over a field with a tree and two floors house. Wow, this one is baffling. I couldn't see any line or string holding this object so it does seem to be floating by itself. The video is real, taken of a real object. The only question remains is...what the hell is it? Right now...its an unidentified flying objcct...UFO.

Scott C. Waring

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

29-01-2019 om 14:00 geschreven door peter  

Mile long UFO holes in clouds over Washington state on Jan 28, 2019, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

 

Date of sighting: January 28, 2019

Location of sighting: between cities of Anacortes and Ferndale, Washington state, USA

Source: 

• https://kval.com/news/offbeat/weird-clouds-cause-a-stir-in-anacortes

On Monday many eyewitnesses saw large round openings in the clouds that appeared to be pushed aside, leaving only a rounded hole in the clouds and a lower thin line of clouds at the center. I believe these holes are made by large cloaked UFOs that come very low to scan the residences on the surface below. Did you notice the line of clouds at the center that are pushed lower and spread out as if surround the bottom of an invisible disk?

 

How did I learn that UFOs make hole in clouds? I learned that from a MUFON 80 page report of the famous UFO over O'hare airport back in Nov 7, 2006. It states that dozens of eyewitnesses working for the United Airlines saw the metallic disk sitting there over Gate C at the airport, but below the clouds, then after about two to three minutes, the UFO shot off upward throughout the clouds leaving a hole in the clouds that remained visible for almost 15 minutes. When pilots and experts working for the airline witness such UFOs close up, I listen. 

Scott C. Waring

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

29-01-2019 om 13:59 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious objects deep in space may replace Planet 9 theory

BY ROBBIE TREVELYAN

Scientists have suggested a different explanation of the effects caused by Planet 9, the hypothesised supermassive planet hiding beyond Neptune.

Artist impression of the hypothetical ‘Planet 9’.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

In the last few years, scientists have predicted the presence of a large, hidden celestial body, known as Planet 9, which may be causing disturbances in the outer reaches of our solar system. Now, new research from the Universities of Cambridge and Beirut has suggested something entirely different is out there.

Since the discovery of Neptune in the mid 19th century, there have been predictions of other vast objects concealed farther out in the cosmic gloom. In recent decades scientists have observed strange behaviours in some of the TNOs (Trans-Neptune Objects) orbiting the Sun that have so far evaded explanation.

There are currently 30 TNOs recorded by astronomers, Pluto amongst them. They are minor planetoids residing beyond Neptune and, like Pluto, some of their orbits are distorted by an enigmatic force – in some cases by as much as 30% ‘downwards’. Some TNOs are even moving through space in the opposite direction to the rest. Such phenomena do not correlate with our assumed 8 planet model of the solar system, and has led researchers in a quest for answers.

Recently in 2016, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown proposed a theory that a massive planet, 10 times the size of Earth, was lying concealed in the depths of our solar system. Far beyond Neptune, Planet 9 (or Planet X as termed colloquially) would receive barely any light to reflect, making any detection from Earth extremely difficult. Its considerable bulk would also exert a strong gravitational force, dislodging objects from the Kuiper Belt, warping their orbits, and even causing the Sun to wobble slightly on its axis.

But a new theory published in Astronomical Journal offers an alternative and, as co-author and Cambridge PhD student Antranik Sefilian terms it, a “less dramatic and perhaps more natural” solution.

Sefilian and his colleagues suggest that combined gravitational forces from a rotating, icy disc of smaller objects orbiting the Sun are the cause of much of the distortion observed in the outer solar system.

In a statement, Sefilian explained: “If you remove Planet 9 from the model and instead allow for lots of small objects scattered across a wide area, collective attractions between those objects could just as easily account for the eccentric orbits we see in some TNOs.”

The new study has not been without its opponents. Planet 9’s original theorist, Mike Brown, criticised the idea, highlighting the improbability for a disc of objects to survive within a dynamic solar system for billions of years. In addition, Brown said that “a ring of objects would be much easier to find than a singular planet, yet there is no evidence that such a thing exists.”

Sefilian and his colleagues remain convinced, however, and also alluded to the struggles the team had faced during their investigations.

“When observing other systems, we often study the disc surrounding the host star to infer the properties of any planets in orbit around it. The problem is when you’re observing the disc from inside the system, it’s almost impossible to see the whole thing at once. While we don’t have direct observational evidence for the disc, neither do we have it for Planet 9, which is why we’re investigating other possibilities. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that observations of Kuiper belt analogues around other stars, as well as planet formation models, reveal massive remnant populations of debris.”

However, with the recent discoveries of other dwarf planets, such as the ‘Goblin’, ‘Sedna’ and ‘Farout’ at the edge of the solar system, Sefilian remains open to the prospect of both the icy disc and Planet 9 coexisting.

“It’s also possible that both things could be true – there could be a massive disc, and a ninth planet.”

With more research from astronomers like Sefilian and Brown, hopefully the coming years will shed more light on what exactly lurks around the furthest realms of our solar system.µ

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

29-01-2019 om 00:45 geschreven door peter  

A 'cluster of UFOs' was filmed hovering over the border between the US and Mexico... but the footage has mysteriously disappeared from the internet

• Seven or eight lights were seen dancing above a border control post in Tijuana
• A clip of the incident was posted to Instagram before it was deleted... twice
• The sight was so unusual that border guards even stopped to watch it unfold 

By HANNAH AL-OTHMAN FOR MAILOLINE

Creepy footage showing 'a fleet of UFOs' hovering over the border between the USA and Mexico has mysteriously disappeared from the internet.

The 14 minute-long film showed a group of seven or eight lights dancing above a border control post in Tijuana, Mexico.

The sight was so unusual that border staff even abandoned their posts to watch the 'UFOs' light up the sky.

The clip show cars pulling to a halt and beeping their horns as drivers and passengers watched the objects overhead.

A fleet of UFOs' was filmed hovering over the border between the USA and Mexico

The footage was posted to Instagram, where it quickly racked up more than 30,000 views and 200 comments.

However, the video has since eerily vanished from the internet.

Tyler from UFO monitoring group Secureteam said the clip was later restored to Instagram - before it was removed for a second time.

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He told the Sun: 'These are objects which someone possibly did not want seen on Instagram which is a big red flag. This gives a signal that we may well have something here. 

'At first they are random but towards the end four of them align in a rectangular formation so they can't be balloons.

'Whatever they are even the border control agents are focusing on them.' 

The sight was so unusual that border staff even abandoned their posts to watch 

The border between the USA and Mexico has been a hot news topic recently after President Trump promised to build a wall between that two countries - with Mexico footing the bill. 

He floated a 20 percent tax on imports to lawmakers as a way to pay for the controversial border wall. 

Mexican President Enrqiue Pena Nieto has repeatedly said his country won't pay for the border wall and this week cancelled a meeting with Trump because of the issue.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

29-01-2019 om 00:30 geschreven door peter  

GOOD EGGS

{ https://futurism.com/ }

29-01-2019 om 00:13 geschreven door peter