The tiny object has been given the official name Hippocamp

BY LISA GROSSMAN 

 

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK  A massive collision that left Neptune’s second largest moon, Proteus (as seen in the background of this illustration) with a huge crater may have spawned its smallest moon, Hippocamp (foreground).

NASA, ESA, AND J. OLMSTED/STSC

Neptune’s smallest moon may be a chunk of a neighboring moon that was knocked off by a comet.

© Left: Illustration by Mark R. Showalter, SETI Institute; Right: Image by NASA, JPL

In 1989, Voyager 2 flew by Neptune, right, and spotted six small inner moons, represented in the composite at left. A tiny moon between Proteus and Larissa went undetected at the time, but Mark Showalter discovered the moon in 2013 using the Hubble Space Telescope and has now officially named it Hippocamp. (Image not to scale.)

One of seven moons that orbit closer to Neptune than the planet’s largest moon, Triton, the newly dubbed Hippocamp is just roughly 34 kilometers across, researchers report in the Feb. 21 Nature. The second-largest moon, Proteus, is Hippocamp’s nearest neighbor, orbiting about 12,000 kilometers away.

 “Why would such a small moon be so close to such a big moon?” wondered astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.  He and his colleagues used more than a decade’s worth of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope to find the new moon, which was first reported in 2013 (SN Online: 7/16/13). Bigger moons tend to gobble up small ones as the moons form. Stranger still, the pair was probably even closer in the past, because the physics of their orbits suggests that Proteus is slowly migrating away from Neptune.

Pale gray dot

Neptune has seven inner moons (illustrated here with the planet’s rings), and the smallest now has a name: Hippocamp.

C. CHANG

Source: A.J. Verbiscer/Nature 2019, M.R. Showalter et al/Nature 2019

Showalter thinks Hippocamp is a piece of Proteus that was chipped off by a massive collision with a comet. Proteus has a massive crater, called Pharos, which is so big that the impact that made it nearly broke Proteus apart. The collision could have kicked up a cloud of debris that eventually coalesced into a smaller moon.

“They’re far away now, but they were part of the same object in the past,” Showalter says.

The name Hippocamp references a half-horse, half-fish creature from Greek mythology, which pulled a chariot for the god Poseidon (the Roman Neptune). All of Neptune’s moons have names related to the sea in Greek and Roman mythology.

That suits Showalter, who is a scuba diver. “The true story is, I’m very fond of sea horses,” he says.

---

Editor’s note: This story was updated February 20, 2019, with a new artist’s illustration of Hippocamp.

{https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

22-02-2019 om 01:37 geschreven door peter  

22-02-2019 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

10 Scientifically Possible Extraterrestrial Life-Forms

ROY KURAOKA

It’s a question that has grabbed the attention of humanity since long before history has been recorded. What life exists outside of this little ball that we call Earth? Whether we’re talking about the gods of Olympus or the Klingons of Star Trek, it is a theme that has appeared consistently throughout all of human history.

As science expands our knowledge of the universe every year, we half expect the news that extraterrestrial life has been found. But what if we’ve been looking in all the wrong places?

Science predicts many examples of counterintuitive forms of life. While impossible on Earth, they could very well exist elsewhere in the universe. So, without further ado, here are the top 10 scientifically possible extraterrestrial life-forms.

10. Silicon-Based Life

Silicon is a molecule whose structure and chemical properties are remarkably similar to the properties of carbon—the element on which most life on Earth is based. An important part of life as we know it is the ability of carbon to form complex chains of atoms and molecules sufficiently large to contain biological programming such as DNA.

Silicon, also commonly used in computer chips, is the closest that humanity has ever come to designing their own intelligent system. It would have the potential to organically form its own version of DNA under the right circumstances.

Additionally, there are examples on Earth of organisms using silicon in biological structures, specifically in a form of algae known as diatoms. They are responsible for the usage of over six billion metric tons of silicon each year in Earth’s oceans as well as the production of almost 20 percent of the planet’s oxygen.^[1]

As a result, it is likely that silicon might exist as a stage of early life on other planets, converting their atmospheres into oxygen and getting them ready for more advanced life later on.

9. Arsenic-Based Life

Although it seems counterintuitive that one of the most iconic poisons on Earth has a basis in forming life, science suggests that it is entirely possible for arsenic to be incorporated into complex biomolecules.

The argument for arsenic in life-forms stems from its chemical similarity to phosphorus, a staple part of DNA in Earth life. Some studies suggest that arsenic may have once been a part of the DNA in early life on Earth, taking the place in DNA that phosphorus does now.

In an early stage of life before microbial activity was able to leech phosphorus from rocks in the ocean, arsenic would have been far more available to organisms living near hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean.^[2]

Although evidence suggests that phosphorus is a more efficient chemical than arsenic in advanced life, the poisonous element would likely be good enough for early, simple forms of life. Creatures made of this substance may lurk in the depths of alien oceans.

8. Ammonia-Based Life

Water is an essential part of all Earth life. Our bodies use the liquid as a solvent, which is necessary for almost all chemical reactions that create energy and sustain functions. This is seen in humans and all the way down to the smallest microbes.

But what if there was an alternative to water? Recent science suggests that there is.

For life to exist in a substance other than water, it would be necessary for it to either have a large temperature range at which it is liquid or exist on a planet with little, if any, temperature change over the course of its year. Water exists in a liquid form between 0 degrees Celsius (32 °F) and 100 degrees Celsius (212 °F), a range of 100 degrees Celsius (180 °F).

Ammonia is liquid between -77.7 degrees Celsius (-107.86 °F) and -33.3 degrees Celsius (-27.94 °F), a relatively large range of 44.4 degrees Celsius (79.92 °F). While one might think that such temperatures would be too cold to sustain life, it is likely that the reactions and processes necessary for life could still exist, albeit at a slower speed.^[3]

As such, organisms using ammonia rather than water as a chemical solvent would likely live longer but metabolize and evolve more slowly than water-based life.

7. Methane-Based Life

There are some environments in which methane would be far more prevalent than water. Saturn’s moon Titan is a prominent example.

According to a computer model, life which relies on methane would be able to exist in extremely cold areas as well as regions entirely without oxygen. The model revealed that a cell wall could be constructed that would work in liquid methane at -180 degrees Celsius (-292 °F).

Along with the fact that cell membranes could be created with nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen molecules, which are known to exist in Titan’s oceans, this function means that simple organisms could exist in the frozen depths of methane oceans.^[4]

As with ammonia-based organisms, life in methane oceans would inherently be paced much slower than life on Earth. Slow evolution and metabolism would occur due to the frigid temperatures necessary to maintain the ocean of liquids.

6. Carbon-Based Life

Carbon-based life-forms are the only type which we, being carbon-based ourselves, know anything about. Thus, we’re sure that hundreds of planets exist within the potentially habitable zones of their stars. These planets would be able to support life as we know it with oxygen, liquid water, and even the chemicals and reactions necessary to jump-start life.

Additionally, carbon-based life is the only type that we are sure exists, as evidenced by our own planet.

This isn’t to say that carbon-based life on other planets would look at all like Earth’s. Through evolution, it is possible for extraterrestrial carbon-based life to take on a dramatically different form by adapting to fit its environment.

Just look at the massive number of life-forms that exist on Earth. They live everywhere from frigid oceans to the mouths of active volcanoes and fault lines. The existence of organisms on Earth in such extreme environments is proof that it is entirely possible for this kind of life to exist on a wide variety of other planets, including some that we would consider uninhabitable for humans.^[5]

5. Hybrid Life

If creatures could hypothetically evolve using an entirely different basis for life than that on Earth, why couldn’t they combine multiple methods? For example, life could be based primarily in silicon, contain elements of carbon or arsenic, and use ammonia as a solvent.

As previously mentioned, some life-forms on Earth incorporate silicon structures into their cells. So why not take it a step further? If an organism evolved on a planet with a relative abundance of multiple elements that could be used in the processes of life, why not take those two and make them into a composite whole?

Silicon and carbon can bond with each other as well as silicon and oxygen, carbon and oxygen, and silicon and fluoride. So it is possible for these molecules to react and form complex chains that would store and transmit information in a manner similar to DNA.

This could also work if a planet had a biosphere with a subset of creatures which used an element such as carbon as their base and another subset which used a different element such as silicon. Rather than a creature being based in two different elements, the biosphere as a whole could contain two different elemental bases for life.^[6]

4. Plasma-Based Life

This one truly falls into the realm of science fiction.

By modeling conditions that are possible in space, a 2007 study found that plasma and dust can function in a way that may qualify as life. They may even form microscopic double helix strands of solid particles through the polarization of plasma and dust. Sound familiar?

Even more fascinating, the study found that these strands can undergo changes such as those associated with organic molecules, specifically DNA. They can divide, copy, and even evolve as less stable strands break apart and more stable ones endure.^[7]

These life-forms could exist as chilling entities formed of nonorganic materials in the void between stars inside massive dust clouds or in plasma or dust rings surrounding stars. Through continued evolution, it is entirely possible for such clouds to one day achieve sentience.

3. Celestial Life

Although science does not currently suggest that stars or galaxiesthemselves could form life, it does indicate that life with organic compounds can form outside of a home planet with the help of nearby stars and star structures.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, organic compounds have been detected in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. Complex organic molecules such as methanol, dimethyl ether, and methyl formate, all of which are essential in organic life, were detected in two nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This suggests that given time and the right circumstances, these compounds could eventually form into self-replicating molecules that would become the basis of life in such nebulae. Later, they could create more complex biological structures. As they would evolve without the basic function of gravity such as on Earth, we have no idea what these creatures might look like.^[8]

2. Panspermia

A popular theory is that life propagates through the universe through planetary ejection caused by large impacts on previously populated planets. This theory states that life can be distributed by dust, debris, asteroids, and comets carrying microorganisms from other planets.

For panspermia to be plausible, the organisms must be able to survive intense forces and extremely hot and cold temperatures for extended durations. This is due to the inherent forces involved in an asteroid impact, the heat from friction with a planet’s atmosphere, and the extended time when the organism is in transit through space—potentially thousands or millions of years.^[9]

Organisms like that exist on Earth already. These extremophiles can resist extreme cold and heat as well as UV rays and intense forces. Although they are among the most basic known forms of life, they have an unparalleled ability to survive conditions that would kill most other organisms.

Thus, it is entirely plausible that life could have spread throughout the universe via asteroid impacts and the extremophiles that were carried on these alien asteroids.

Even if life was based on the extremophiles from another planet, the simplistic nature of these organisms makes it unlikely that they would evolve into anything that looked like the more complex creatures on the original planet. This is due to the different traits necessary to survive on the two planets.

1. Not At All

Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that we are the only planet in the universe that has life. Due to the vastness of space and the limit that light speed imposes on intergalactic travel, it may be impossible for us to ever discover other life or even determine if it exists at all. In the observable universe, we have not found any concrete evidence that life does or has ever existed on other planets.

With that being said, the universe is only about 13.8 billion years old. While this may seem like a long time, we have no way of knowing how old the universe will become. Perhaps we are the first planet to evolve life, with many others to follow in the future.

We estimate that the universe’s heat death (a state in which there is no longer any free thermal energy) will occur somewhere in between 1 and 100 trillion years. In the worst-case scenario, we are only 1.38 percent of the way through the universe’s expected life span. At best, we are about 0.01 percent of the way there. That is a lot of time for life to happen.^[10]

Still, we can’t help but wonder if our signals will ever be received by someone or something out there or if they will just shoot forever through the cold, dark void of space.

{ http://listverse.com/ }

22-02-2019 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

'No cause for alarm, Captain!': NASA confirms mysterious blue light spotted in InSight photos by actor William Shatner is just a lens flare, as the robotic lander plays cup-and-ball on Mars - PART I

• InSight played Martian game of cup-and-ball over the weekend as it attempted to stow its grapple instrument 
• The InSight lander placed its seismometer closer to the ground to better hear faint Marsquakes days prior
• The InSight lander deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars around the end of December
• NASA says instruments have been positioned to lowest point yet for the best possible listening opportunity

By CHEYENNE MACDONALD  and MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

It might be some time before NASA’s InSight lander starts churning out data, but the new Mars explorer is steadily trucking on with its preparations.

A new animation shared by the space agency shows InSight getting its grapple instrument in place, in a process that looks much like the age-old cup-and-ball game.

InSight has spent the last two months slowly setting up its instruments and conducting equipment health assessments ahead of its mission to listen for underground marsquakes.

In the meantime, the lander’s social media account has attracted the attention of many space enthusiasts – including Star Trek actor William Shatner, who questioned the source of a peculiar blue light that has appeared in some of the photos.

Scroll down for video 

A new animation shared by the space agency shows InSight getting its grapple instrument in place, in a process that looks much like the age-old cup-and-ball game. The grapple is one of the many instruments that will help InSight collect unprecedented data about the red planet

‘After a few tries, I’ve successfully stowed by grapple, by grabbing a small restraint mounted on my arm,’ the InSight Twitter account shared this weekend.

‘Sort of a Martian twist on the classic cup-and-ball game.’

An animation posted alongside the update shows the claw-like gripper chasing around a small ball before finally catching it.

The grapple is one of the many instruments that will help InSight collect unprecedented data about the red planet.

InSight’s Twitter updates sparked curiosity on social media last week when actor William Shatner noticed a blue light in one of the animations.

The lander’s social media account has attracted the attention of many space enthusiasts – including Star Trek actor William Shatner, who questioned the source of a peculiar blue light that has appeared in some of the photos

But, NASA says there’s nothing unusual (or alien-related) about the dancing light.

‘Just a bit of lens flare as the sun dips low on the horizon,’ NASA explained on Twitter. ‘(Both photos were taken shortly before sunset.) No cause for alarm, Captain!’

Earlier this month, the InSight lander leaned in for a better listen of Mars’ underground tremors. The robotic explorer placed its seismometer on the surface at the end of last month, and is now getting even closer ‘for a better connection with Mars.’

This will help its instruments pick up fainter signals that may otherwise have been missed. 

Days prior, InSight leveled out its seismometer and adjusted the internal sensors ahead of lowering everything down toward the ground.

NASA’s InSight lander is leaning in for a better listen of Mars’ underground tremors. The robotic explorer placed its seismometer on the surface at the end of last month, and is now getting even closer ‘for a better connection with Mars.’ Before and after images show its instrument at its lowest position yet

INSIGHT'S THREE KEY INSTRUMENTS

The lander that could reveal how Earth was formed: InSight lander set for Mars landing on november 26th

Three key instruments will allow the InSight lander to 'take the pulse' of the red planet:

Seismometer: The InSight lander carries a seismometer, SEIS, that listens to the pulse of Mars. 

The seismometer records the waves traveling through the interior structure of a planet. 

Studying seismic waves tells us what might be creating the waves. 

On Mars, scientists suspect that the culprits may be marsquakes, or meteorites striking the surface. 

Heat probe: InSight's heat flow probe, HP3, burrows deeper than any other scoops, drills or probes on Mars before it. 

It will investigate how much heat is still flowing out of Mars. 

Radio antennas: Like Earth, Mars wobbles a little as it rotates around its axis. 

To study this, two radio antennas, part of the RISE instrument, track the location of the lander very precisely. 

This helps scientists test the planet's reflexes and tells them how the deep interior structure affects the planet's motion around the Sun.

‘It’s always good to be centered and balanced,’ the InSight Twitter account shared.

The lander also released the slack in its cable to keep it from fluttering around in the wind.

Now, NASA says the instruments have been positioned to the lowest point yet for the best possible listening opportunity.

‘My seismometer has now crouched down to its lowest level, for a better connection with Mars,’ the InSight Twitter account posted this week. 'Faint signals are easier to hear if you keep your ear close to the ground.’

The InSight lander deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars around the end of December. 

Images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, after it was lifted onto the surface by the lander's robotic arm. 

It will record the waves traveling through the interior structure of the planet, and could help explain mysterious 'marsquakes' scientists believe occur regularly.  

At the time, NASA said the lander war performing flawlessly, and was ahead of schedule.

New images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, after it was lifted onto the surface by the lander's robotic arm. It will record the waves traveling through the interior structure of the planet, and could help explain mysterious 'marsquakes' scientists believe occur regularly. This was the first time a science instrument had ever been placed onto the surface of another planet.

WHAT WILL THE SEISMOMETER DO? 

'InSight's timetable of activities on Mars has gone better than we hoped,' said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 

'Getting the seismometer safely on the ground is an awesome Christmas present.'

The InSight team has been working toward deploying its two dedicated science instruments onto Martian soil since landing on Mars on Nov. 26.  

Engineers tested the commands for the lander, making sure a model in the test bed at JPL deployed the instruments exactly as intended. 

Scientists also had to analyze images of the Martian terrain around the lander to figure out the best places to deploy the instruments.

On Tuesday, Dec. 18, InSight engineers sent up the commands to the spacecraft. 

On Wednesday, Dec. 19, the seismometer was gently placed onto the ground directly in front of the lander, about as far away as the arm can reach — 5.367 feet, or 1.636 meters, away).

'Seismometer deployment is as important as landing InSight on Mars,' said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt, based at JPL. 

'The seismometer is the highest-priority instrument on InSight: We need it in order to complete about three-quarters of our science objectives.'

NASA InSight

✔@NASAInSight

Whew – winding down after a long day, but I’ve done it: I’ve placed my seismometer on the surface of Mars! With SEIS, I’ll be able to listen in for marsquakes and help reveal the heartbeat of

 #Mars. http://go.nasa.gov/2QGBeYX 

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The seismometer allows scientists to peer into the Martian interior by studying ground motion — also known as marsquakes.  

'Having the seismometer on the ground is like holding a phone up to your ear,' said Philippe Lognonné, principal investigator of SEIS from Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and Paris Diderot University. 

'We're thrilled that we're now in the best position to listen to all the seismic waves from below Mars' surface and from its deep interior.'

In the coming days, the InSight team will work on leveling the seismometer, which is sitting on ground that is tilted 2 to 3 degrees. 

The first seismometer science data should begin to flow back to Earth after the seismometer is in the right position.

'We look forward to popping some Champagne when we start to get data from InSight's seismometer on the ground,' Banerdt added. 

'I have a bottle ready for the occasion.' 

Meanwhile, the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), which does not have its own separate instrument, has already begun using InSight's radio connection with Earth to collect preliminary data on the planet's core. 

Not enough time has elapsed for scientists to deduce what they want to know — scientists estimate they might have some results starting in about a year. 

NASA also recently has finally pinpointed the exact landing location of its new Mars explorer, thanks to a powerful camera on its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

While the space agency knew InSight had landed within an 81-mile-long (130 km) ellipse on the red planet, there was no way to determine exactly where it touched down within this region.

Now, a series of images captured this week by MRO's HiRISE camera have confirmed that the lander, heat shield, and parachute all sit within 1,000 feet of each other on a lava plain called Elysium Planitia. 

NASA has finally pinpointed the exact landing location of its new Mars explorer, thanks to a powerful camera on its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. While the space agency knew InSight had landed within an 81-mile-long (130 km) ellipse on the red planet, there was no way to determine exactly where it touched down within this region

In the images released today by NASA, InSight and its parts appear as bright teal specks on rust-colored landscape.

But in reality, this is only a trick of the light.

'Light reflected off their surfaces causes the color to be saturated,' NASA explains.

'The ground around the lander appears dark, having been blasted by its retrorockets during descent. Look carefully for a butterfly shape, and you can make out the lander's solar panels on either side.' 

Just days ago, NASA's new InSight lander snapped its first selfie from the red planet, giving the mission team (and the rest of the world) a good look at its solar panels and deck now that it's settled in.

InSight also sent back the first complete view of the 14-by-7-foot swath of land that will soon serve as its 'workspace.' 

In the images released today by NASA, InSight and its parts appear as bright teal specks on rust-colored landscape. But in reality, this is only a trick of the light

A series of images captured this week by MRO's HiRISE camera have confirmed that the lander (red dot), heat shield, and parachute all sit within 1,000 feet of each other on a lava plain called Elysium Planitia. Previously, the space agency only knew they'd landed within an 81-mile ellipse (blue)

Each of the new images is a mosaic of several captures stitched together.

While the selfie, captured by the robotic arm, is a composite of 11 pictures, the workspace view includes 52 individual photos.

This is allowing scientists to get a good look at the area well before InSight starts putting down its instruments and digging into the ground.

'The near-absense of rocks, hills, and holes means it'll be extremely safe for our instruments,' said InSight's Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

'This might seem like a pretty plain piece of ground if it weren't on Mars, but we're glad to see that.'

NASA has confirmed the landing sites for InSight, its parachute, and other components thanks to new images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 

InSight previously sent back the first complete view of the 14-by-7-foot swath of land that will soon serve as its 'workspace,' indicated in the blue crescent. The team says it looks 'extremely safe'. Its parachute, back shell, and heat shield all landed about 1,000 feet away

Even Mars robots act like tourists every once in a while. NASA's new InSight lander has snapped its first selfie from the red planet, giving the mission team (and the rest of the world) a good look at its solar panels and deck now that it's settled in

Over the last week or so, InSight has sent back the first of its observations – including a clip of light passing over the surface, and recordings of Martian winds.

All of this comes as the lander and the team behind its operations prepare for it to begin work in the next few months.

For now, however, InSight is taking baby steps.

The lander flexed its 6-foot-long arm this week, snapping images of the terrain directly in front of it.

'By carefully swinging my arm out in front of me, I'm starting to get a better look at the ground in front of me where I'll be doing my work', the Nasa InSight account tweeted.

'Meanwhile, kind of hypnotized by the play of light and shadow on my arm'.  

'By carefully swinging my arm out in front of me, I'm starting to get a better look at the ground in front of me where I'll be doing my work', the Nasa InSight account tweeted this week. 'Meanwhile, kind of hypnotized by the play of light and shadow on my arm'. This effect can be seen in the clip above

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22-02-2019 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

'No cause for alarm, Captain!': NASA confirms mysterious blue light spotted in InSight photos by actor William Shatner is just a lens flare, as the robotic lander plays cup-and-ball on Mars - PART II

'By carefully swinging my arm out in front of me, I'm starting to get a better look at the ground in front of me where I'll be doing my work', the Nasa InSight account tweeted this week. 'Meanwhile, kind of hypnotized by the play of light and shadow on my arm'. This effect can be seen in the clip above

The data collected by InSight's Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) in the months before it's moved onto the ground will eventually be used to cancel out background noises as it works to detect marsquakes

Just days prior, NASA revealed the InSight lander captured the sound of a Martian 'dust devil' during its first days on the red planet.

According to the space agency, this is the first time we've ever heard Martian winds.

The low rumble detected by InSight's sensors are estimated to be blowing between 10 to 15 mph (5 to 7 meters a second) from northwest to southeast – and, the recordings are within the range of human hearing.  

NASA says the sounds recorded on December 1 line up with dust devil streaks observed in the landing area.

The vibrations were recorded at a very low pitch, though those with sharp ears will be able to hear it as is, using headphones or subwoofers.

To make it clearer, NASA boosted the pitch by two octaves, making it audible on laptops and mobile devices.

The space agency shared a series of high-resolution photos captured this week. InSight will soon begin snapping images of the terrain directly in front of it, so the team can select the best location to drill down. The solar panel that will help power the machine is pictured

While InSight didn't set out to record Martian winds, specifically, the team says this type of data collection comes with the territory.

The lander detected wind vibrations with two of its sensors: one designed to measure air pressure, and with a seismometer on the deck.

'Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat,' says Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

'But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves.'

According to the InSight team, the two different instruments recorded the noise in different ways.

While the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Subsystem's air pressure sensor recorded the vibrations directly, the seismometer picked up vibrations caused by the wind passing over the lander's solar panels.

The data collected by InSight's Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) in the months before it's moved onto the ground will eventually be used to cancel out background noises as it works to detect marsquakes.

Its short period (SP) silicon sensors can detect vibrations with frequencies of up to 50 hertz, which sits at the lower range of human hearing, NASA says.

'The InSight lander acts like a giant ear,' said Tom Pike, InSight science team member and sensor designed at Imperial College London.

'The solar panels on the lander's sides respond to pressure fluctuations of the wind.

'It's like InSight is cupping its ears and hearing the Mars wind beating on it. When we looked at the direction of the lander vibrations coming from the solar panels, it matches the expected wind direction at our landing site.'

InSight touched down in a region known as Elysium Planitia. Its location can be seen in the map above, not far from the landing site of the 2012 Curiosity mission, the last NASA probe to land on Mars

NASA's InSight lander has finally removed the lens cover from its cameras, allowing the robotic explorer to take its clearest pictures yet of its new home

The team has released both a raw, unaltered audio sample of the seismometer recording and a second version that's been raised two octaves to make it easier to hear.

For the latter, the APSS sample was sped up by a factor of 100.

According to the experts, the source of the sound is pretty straightforward; vibrations detected by the instruments are much like the air pressure changes you hear when a flag whips around in the wind.

'That's literally what sound is — changes in air pressure,' said Don Banfield InSight's science lead for APSS from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

'You hear that whenever you speak to someone across the room.'

Read more:

• NASA InSight (@NASAInSight) on Twitter

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22-02-2019 om 00:24 geschreven door peter  

InSight lander detects mysterious dips in air pressure on Red Planet (and shares Martian weather forecast)

 BY TIBI PUIU 

NASA’s InSight lander arrived on Mars in late 2018 tasked with the mission of studying the planet’s geology. Its main instrument is a seismometer which the probe will soon use to listen to marsquakes. However, the probe is also equipped with sophisticated meteorology gear like a highly sensitive air pressure sensor that is already revealing some unexpected surprises.

The Martian surface is very thin — less than one percent of Earth’s surface pressure — but it’s enough to accommodate weather and significant air pressure differences that cause the soil to slightly tilt and rumble. Therefore, InSight’s air pressure sensor data is essential to the probe’s missions since it calibrates the seismometer.

InSight’s mission is unlike that of any spacecraft we’ve ever sent to Mars. All of our past probes have studied the planet’s environment above ground, but InSight is focused on what happens beneath the surface by listening to ‘marsquakes’. By studying these slight seismic waves, scientists want to determine what makes up the planet’s mantle and core. Basically, InSight will study seismic waves as they pass through the Red Planet, using that information as a sort of ultrasound to find out what is lurking underneath the crust.

While the seismometer isn’t operational yet, NASA scientists have been busy studying data from other sensors, including those on temperature and air pressure. Some interesting discoveries include the presence of gravity waves, the displacement of a fluid from its position of equilibrium. These are not to be confused with gravitational waves, which are disturbances in the curvature (fabric) of spacetime, and most commonly during the evenings. And in the last 72 hours, researchers measured infrasound waves with a period of only one-hundredth of a hertz over a period of 100 seconds — that’s several octaves well below the range of human hearing. According to a Forbes report, the infrasounds may be caused by a meteor crashing into the red planet’s atmosphere, a landslide, or airflow over an underlying stable local atmosphere.

The most surprising finding is a strange pattern in the air pressure data, which shows surface pressure dipping slightly twice a day, at around 7 AM and 7 PM local time. Ars Technica reports that NASA has ruled out causes linked to the sensor or heating source.

Scientists think that this feature may be due to some atmospheric wave generated by the sunrise and sunset on Mars. Alternatively, downslope air flow passing by irregular topography might lead to brief atmospheric changes.

Perhaps this anomaly may be important in answering some questions regarding the formation of dust devils on Mars. These low-pressure whirlwinds can spin at up to nearly 60 miles an hours and reach colossal heights of 10 kilometers.

A dust storm ultimately sealed the fate of the iconic Opportunity rover, which was officially declared defunct last week. Most importantly, these atmospheric disturbances could threaten human lives when astronauts finally arrive on Mars. Before any boots touch Martian soil, NASA wants to understand what are the minimum winds required to lift dust off the surface in order to forecast dust storms and dust devils.

On a different note, NASA now also has an updated page where you can monitor the weather around InSight’s landing site at Elysium Planitia. This week temperatures varied between -17°C and -10°C (3°F and 15°F) during the day and hovered around -94°C (-140°F) during the night. 

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 23:23 geschreven door peter  

“What is clear is that it is a cylindrical object of two meters in length. No doubt it is not part of a terrestrial technology so it could be a sort of robotic probe programmed to monitor what happens on our planet.”

We’ll let you draw your own conclusions after watching videos that surfaced on YouTube recently – the first showing a high-speed cylindrical UFO and the second showing night-vision images of what appear to be orbs exiting from a hole or cave in the ground near where the first was taken in La Rioja in northern Spain. The source claims there are more. Let’s see if the next one is worth waiting for.

(Watch the first video here.)

The videos come from YouTube channel Verdad Oculta (Hidden Truth) and the first was published on January 25, 2019. Taken by drone, it shows something flying by the camera at a high speed that most people would initially consider to be an insect. However, Verdad Oculta’s analysis puts it as being too big and too fast to be a bug and speculates that it could be “a new type of UFO that takes off from an extraterrestrial base hidden somewhere in Spain.” That’s an awfully big stretch from this one video that again, most would say is a bug or possibly CGI. Some comments refer to a “Utah drone video” which appears to be this one (see it here) posted on January 12 showing a similar UFO that similarly could be a bug or CGI.

Inspired by the excitement said to have been generated by the video (over 1 million views – not too shabby), Inexplicada reports this week that another crew of investigators led by Nacho Rojo met with the authors of the original video and visited the UFO site. There they found “La Grieta” (the Crack), a “vast” cavern “20 meters in length,” which mean either a diameter (big) or a circumference (not so big) of 65 feet which the authors were now saying was the origin point of the UFO. Not seeing anything during the day (but picking up some nice drone shots), this team set up infrared night vision cameras and … well, here’s what they said:

“(We captured) something no one was prepared to see. We couldn’t believe it. Not just one UFO, but two, and they crossed each other’s path in the sky. These are anomalies that shine like stars in a linear travel path, but they are not airplanes,” concludes the researchers, adding that “this is the first video-program of all the material we have, and believe me, the best is still to come.””

(Watch the latest video here.)

While not jumping to any conclusions, Nacho Rojo says “many have questioned the veracity of the recordings and many believe there is no extraterrestrial base. Our research points out the truly extraordinary nature of that place.”

Could these be something other than alien UFOs? The websiteplanetanovosti.com says this:

“According to experts, it could be orbs – energy entities from another dimension. The human eye can not notice these objects, while the equipment is under force. Orbs most often appear around similar dips. For example, they “chose” the Cave of the Swallows in Mexico. People who jump into such holes and shoot it on video, often notice mysterious lights on the recordings.”

As of this writing, there don’t seem to have been any more videos released and no reports of Spanish UFO investigators climbing into (or disappearing in) “La Grieta.” That’s usually not a good sign. Let’s hope the investigations continue (we’ll try and keep an eye out for them) and someone gets better evidence one way or the other. The orbs angle may bear more fruit than the alien base.

Aliens? Orbs? CGI? Something else? Are these alleged sightings being blown way out of proportion?

They can’t all be bugs … can they?

Bug? Org? Something else?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

21-02-2019 om 22:22 geschreven door peter  

Now that the CIA has placed a trove of its dirty laundry online for all to see, all sorts of strange chapters of the intelligence agency’s past are beginning to be revealed. Since 2017, journalists and amateurs alike have been poring over the CIA’s CREST database in search of the truth about the many dark, twisted research projects and activities the Central Intelligence Agency has gotten into over the years.

Already, some interesting and somewhat unexplained things have been found. Earlier this month, files were discovered showing the CIA hunted the elusive Yeti and a mysterious “metallic disc” in the Nepalese Himalayas, while another set of files appeared to depict unexplained shadow people with curious numbers stamped on them. Who knows what else may be waiting to be discovered in the CREST databases?

This week, American government watchdog site Muckrock found an interesting set of documents outlining the CIA’s interest in and fears of psychic abilities. Many of the files describe experiments into telekinetic abilities conducted throughout the U.S., Europe, and the USSR, including experiments involving famous psychic Uri Geller. In many of these experiments, the files note, individuals were able to “evidence a new form of energy that moves and perhaps alters matter.” The documents claim that British scientists witnessed objects appearing or disappearing during some of these tests, leading to CIA fears that enemy psychics might create “poltergeist phenomena” in order to terrify and confuse their adversaries’ leadership with psychic attacks.

This aspect of the CIA’s research into possible uses of psychic phenomena is well-documented by our own Nick Redfern and others, but these documents show that the CIA’s fears went even deeper, involving worries that its greatest adversary at the time was developing psychic abilities that could be used as weapons which could cause “a massive change which will alter the direction, time, space and energy-matter relationship of our world.” Yikes.

According to these files, the CIA began tracking Soviet research into parapsychology in the 1970s. While some CIA analysts believe the KGB’s research may have been a counterintelligence ruse designed to confuse American spies, many elements of America’s intelligence agencies took the threat of Soviet psychic weapons seriously. Some analysts even feared that if enough Soviet psychics were combine their powers, they could potentially cause mass destruction with their minds:

With the above scientific speculation and laboratory experiments in mind, a weapon or weapons could be theorized. […] If we see awareness in a psychic framework and you concentrate ten individuals in one area – all of whom are evidencing disruptive telekinetic phenomena – do you cause a chain reaction, causing much matter to reverse direction and sink back into a sea of energy or be displaced in time and space? Could such a ‘critical mass’ affect a whole city?

Could such a psychic weapon exist? Have any actually been deployed? Would we know it if they were? Perhaps the “disruptive telekinetic phenomena” and mind manipulation mentioned in these files could explain our recent shift into a bizarre dystopian timeline.

While these files are a tantalizing glimpse behind the veil of government secrecy, I firmly believe that the really secret, spooky stuff will never see the light of day or was never documented on paper at all. Still, these CREST files are beginning to show that the many conspiracy theories and allegations made about the CIA’s paranormal research over the years are perhaps more true than we realize.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

21-02-2019 om 22:12 geschreven door peter  

Yep, that probably is the strangest title I have ever applied to one of my articles. Back in 2005, I did some filming for a TV show on the world’s most famous UFO event. Yeah, you know the one: the desert, little bodies, 1947. That one. Roswell, New Mexico. Anyway, for some odd reason that I don’t think was ever really explained to me, the company chose to do the filming high in the mountains of Mexico. I actually wondered afterwards if they had mistaken Mexico for New Mexico. But regardless of the reasons behind the shoot-location, Mexico it was. And, for effect no doubt, the filming was done outside a small astronomical observatory that sat high in the mountains.

As the crew set up their equipment, I wandered around, looking for exotic lizards and a bar and something cold and potent to drink. Well, not long before we started filming, an American man – in his 50s or early 60s – strolled past, saw the cameras being set up, and engaged us in conversation. When he heard we there to film a show for a new mystery-based series, he asked – in totally casual terms – something like: “Oh, is it about the pterodactyl?” The what???!!! Yep, a pterodactyl. That got me much more interested than bloody Roswell ever could. It may surprise many to know that for absolutely years numerous reports of creatures sounding suspiciously like pterosaurs have surfaced from various parts of the worlds. Controversial? Of course!

Pteranodon

Consider the following: From 1982 to 1983, a wave of sightings of such a creature – presumed extinct for million of years – occurred in an area called the Pennines, also known as the “backbone of England.” It’s a story that, in much lengthier fashion, can collectively be found in Jenny Randles’ excellent 2002 book, Supernatural Pennines and in issue 9 of UFO Brigantia, a much-missed magazine of the 1980s and 1990s and which was edited and published by Andy Roberts.

There are also longstanding reports of sightings of such creatures in Papua New Guinea. Locally, the beasts are known as Ropen. Unlike the huge pterodactyls of yesteryear, today’s Ropen appears to be a scaled-down equivalent of its ancient ancestor. Its wingspan is often described as being in the region of four to six feet, which is not large for a pterosaur, since some of them were immense creatures. That does not stop today’s alleged equivalents from being formidable predators, however. By all accounts the Ropen has a mouth filled with vicious-looking fangs, a tail that is reptilian in appearance, and is a beast that can fly at fantastic speeds.

Back to the story…

So, I asked the man for more information. He explained he worked in the tourism industry and had heard – some two months earlier – a story of a visitor to the area who claimed to have seen a huge, leathery-looking flying monster only mere feet from where we were filming. I asked the man how he knew the exact location, and he replied along the lines of: “The guy said it was right above the observatory in the hills.” Which was exactly where we were filming. He proceeded to point to the direction of the mountains in which the monstrous creature disappeared. The man knew no more, went on his way, and I tried to think of something new and worthwhile to say for the cameras about Roswell. But to be filming a documentary on Roswell outside an astronomical observatory above which a pterodactyl was supposedly seen only mere months earlier was just plain surreal. I suppose I should not have been surprised though. I have come to learn over the years that there’s very little in this game that isn’t surreal!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

21-02-2019 om 21:54 geschreven door peter  

Future Moon colonists could produce water from regolith and sunlight

 BY ALEXANDRU MICU

Future moon settlers could produce all the water they need — by capturing solar winds.

Image via Pixabay.

Streams of charged particles propelled from the surface of the sun (known as ‘solar wind’) slam into the Moon’s surface every day. It’s not a gentle process — these particles reach speeds in excess of 450 kilometers per second (nearly 1 million miles per hour) — but it does enrich the lunar surface with the building blocks of water, a new study reports.

Water from a stone

“We think of water as this special, magical compound,” said William M. Farrell, a plasma physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, one of the study’s co-authors. “But here’s what’s amazing: every rock has the potential to make water, especially after being irradiated by the solar wind.”

The team ran a computer simulation to see what chemical changes take place in lunar rocks under the effect of solar winds.

Solar wind is basically a flow of protons. It continually blasts the Moon’s surface, breaking the bonds among molecules in regolith — lunar soil — pulling apart the atoms of silica (SiO2, basically sand) and iron oxides found within the majority of the Moon’s soil. Some of these protons also grab onto electrons in the lunar surface, producing hydrogen atoms. These atoms then work their way up through the regolith leeching the released oxygen. Together, hydrogen and oxygen make the molecule hydroxyl (OH), which is two-thirds of the water (H2O) molecule.

The findings should help further our goal of sending humans up to the Moon to establish a permanent presence there, says Orenthal James Tucker, a physicist at Goddard who led the research.

“We’re trying to learn about the dynamics of transport of valuable resources like hydrogen around the lunar surface and throughout its exosphere, or very thin atmosphere, so we can know where to go to harvest those resources,” he explains.

The research drew on infrared measurements performed on the lunar surface by several spacecraft — including NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and India’s Chandrayaan-1. These readings offered us insight into the chemistry of the lunar surface, all of them finding evidence that water or its components — hydrogen and hydroxyl — were present in the regolith.

Exactly how such compounds wound up on the moon, however, was still a matter of debate. It was possible that they arrived on the back of meteorites impacting its surface, or that these impacts initiated the chemical reactions that created hydrogen, hydroxyl, and water. Tucker’s simulation, which traces the life cycle of hydrogen atoms on the Moon, supports the solar wind hypothesis.

“From previous research, we know how much hydrogen is coming in from the solar wind, we also know how much is in the Moon’s very thin atmosphere, and we have measurements of hydroxyl in the surface,” he says. “What we’ve done now is figure out how these three inventories of hydrogen are physically intertwined.”

The findings also helped us understand why spacecraft have found fluctuations in the amount of hydrogen in different regions of the Moon. All the hydrogen atoms created by solar wind bombardment eventually escape into space (since it’s much less dense than all other compounds). However, hydrogen tends to accumulate predominantly in the Moon’s colder areas since it gets energized by sunlight, making it escape much faster.

“The whole process is like a chemical factory,” Farrell said.

A key implication of the findings, Farrell said, is that every exposed body of silica in space — from the Moon down to a small dust grain — has the potential to create hydroxyl and thus become a chemical factory for water.

• The paper ” Solar Wind Implantation Into the Lunar Regolith: Monte Carlo Simulations of H Retention in a Surface With Defects and the H 2 Exosphere” has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

{https://www.zmescience.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 20:34 geschreven door peter  

A ‘virgin’ fish named Mary got pregnant without having sex

 BY TIBI PUIU

Stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) make babies without having sex. Like most other fish, the female lays unfertilized eggs which the males later fertilize with sperm in the nest. But somehow, one such female got pregnant and produced offspring through an emergency C-section. The female, aptly named Mary, shows that evolution is fluid and that nature doesn’t always play by the rules.

“We were astounded at what we found when we examined Mary in our lab in the Outer Hebrides. She looked like an ordinary egg-bound fish so we couldn’t believe it when we found she had almost completely developed embryos inside her ovaries. This is pretty much unheard of in an egg laying species. The embryos were perfectly healthy, not deformed in any way, and most have gone on to live a normal adult lifespan,” Dr. Laura Dean, a researcher at the University of Nottingham and lead author of the new study, said.

This isn’t the first time that scientists have come across developing embryos inside unfertilized egg-laying fish. Previously, only two such cases were known to science and both also involved stickleback fish. This most recent case is even more striking because this time, the embryos survived and many of the pups grew into adults that are still alive today.

Researchers found Mary while surveying egg-bound sticklebacks in Scotland — and she wasn’t in great shape. She was swollen with her young and very close to dying. Researchers euthanized Mary with drugs and then opened her up to extract the eggs. A total of 56 eggs hatched and survived to adulthood inside a laboratory aquarium. Twenty of these individuals are still alive today, three years later, the authors wrote in the journal Scientific Reports. 

Stickleback males don’t just contribute sperm. They have an active parenting role, helping eggs develop by fanning them with their fins for two weeks until they hatch. But it seems like the environment inside Mary was good enough to ensure healthy embryo development.

“Although this almost accidental find revealed a vanishingly rare phenomenon, it might help us to understand a really important change that has happened throughout the tree of life,” Andrew MacColl, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Nottingham in England, said in a statement. “Most animals lay eggs, but some (including almost all mammals, but few fish) retain their eggs inside and give birth to live young. Although this appears to be a difficult thing to achieve in evolution, this one little fish seems to have got there almost by itself.”

As to how Mary got pregnant in the first place, that’s a mystery that might never be solved. Researchers thought that perhaps Mary had cloned herself or that maybe she was a hermaphrodite with both male and female sex organs. However, the authors ruled these two possibilities out since genetic testing showed that the offspring had versions of genes that could only have come from a father.

What probably happened is that Mary strayed by a nest where a male had just recently ejected sperm to fertilize normal eggs. Some of that sperm must have traveled up Mary’s egg tube, fertilizing some of the un-laid eggs inside her.

Researchers are now planning to go the site where they found Mary, hoping the catch similar specimens. Some fish, such as guppies pupfish, are livebearers and this ability may have evolved independently. In this regard, Mary may offer researchers with a glimpse of how such an evolutionary leap might occur.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 20:27 geschreven door peter  

The Most impressive UFO sighting of the last decades over area 51

For decades, a US military installation located approximately 161 kilometers north of Las Vegas has been one of the greatest secrets on the planet. We are talking about Area 51, a strange place where supposedly prototype tests of military spy planes are carried out, although it also has a certain relationship with extraterrestrials.(UFO sighting Area 51)

But in August 2013, secret information about  Area 51 was finally declassified. The documents made references to Area 51 and detailed how the mysterious installation served as evidence for the CIA, the US Air Force and the aerospace company Lockheed. Even these documents included a map confirming their exact location. However, he mentioned absolutely nothing about experiments or extraterrestrial technology. This “revelation”It caused an earthquake in the conspiracy community, which publicly denounced how the government of the United States had eliminated this information in the disqualified documents thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA for its acronym in English). But the reclassification did not prevent news and publications from continuing to spread, as in Area 51, tests were made with aircraft created with extraterrestrial technology.(UFO sighting Area 51)

As expected, the US government did not confirm any of that. Fortunately, and thanks to the Internet, we can already enjoy evidence that shows how Area 51 is much more than a simple military installation. As a recently published video, it clearly shows a UFO at an incredible speed near Area 51. And for many, it is the best sighting of the last decades.(UFO sighting Area 51)

The incredible UFO of Area 51

The drone pilots Sam Chortek and Jimmy Chappie were in the US city of Beaver, Utah, near Area 51, with the intention of filming an extensive video for a documentary. But when they reviewed the images, they discovered that they recorded something more than the simple landscape.(UFO sighting Area 51)

In the video you can clearly see a strange silver-colored object that suddenly appears from a mountain and passes in front of the drone. It moves at a speed so fast that the shape of the object seems to deform, which makes it difficult to identify it.

According to the OVNI File portal , this incident occurred in October 2016, and both Chortek and Chappie decided not to make it public. But they have changed their minds, since earlier this year they contacted Huffington Post journalist Brian Hanley , who normally covers content related to politics. After watching the video, he was so impressed with the UFO sighting that he shared it on his YouTube channel.

“Normally I cover politics, but when Sam Chortek and Jimmy Chappie came to see me with this exclusive material, I had to change the story,” explains Hanley. “This video has never been seen by anyone until now.”

And after its publication in social networks, many users said that it is one of the best videos of UFOs, not only of the last decades, but also of history . Some experts in the field have considered that it has a saucer shape, others consider that it seems to change shape, but it is clear that it takes a second to leave behind the mountain and then pass in front of the drone, so its speed oscillates between 750 and 800 kilometers per hour.(UFO sighting Area 51)

Although the skeptics have another opinion about the strange unidentified flying object. Because airspace near or over Area 51 is used for test flights and training missions, it could be an experimental aircraft. Sometimes the aircraft can be strange, maybe even not identifiable.

Skeptics point out that many UFO sightings near Area 51 are secret aircraft training exercises, both manned and unmanned. The other possibility offered by “non-believers” is that it is an image generated by a computer program or an insect. Although, as noted by the experts of the UFO File , it can be clearly seen that the mysterious object turns and performs impossible movements , ruling out that it is an insect.

It is a really impressive video, and certainly the strange object does not look like any known aircraft and no insect. And if we discard the possibility that it is a computer generated image, we are facing one of the best UFO videos in history. Now we only need to know your opinion.

Is it the best UFO video in history? Or do you have another explanation?

SOURCE:https://infinityexplorers.com

{ http://bestusanews.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 18:25 geschreven door peter  

VIDEO. “Het leek op een soort condoom”: geheimzinnig wezen van tien meter doemt op uit de diepte -  HLN.be

Bron: KameraOne

Voor de kust van Cape Brett, bij het Nieuw-Zeelandse Noordereiland, filmde duiker Ben Laurie (21) een enorm wezen van maar liefst tien meter lang. “Het leek op een soort condoom of buis die dreef in het getij”, vertelt Laurie. “Een deel van mij wilde dichterbij en het aanraken, maar ik was ongerust dat het mogelijk giftig was, dus ik hield afstand.”

Het bleek een pyrosome die opdoemde uit de diepte. Die bestaat uit honderden tot duizenden manteldieren die samengehouden worden in een gelatine-achtige cilindrische of conische structuur. De wezens zijn zelden te zien omdat ze doorgaans heel diep leven.

Bekijk ook:

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

21-02-2019 om 18:08 geschreven door peter  

Waterval verandert in ‘vuurval’ door wonderlijk natuurfenomeen - HLN.be

Bron: KameraOne

Honderden fotografen en natuurliefhebbers trekken dezer dagen naar Yosemite National Park in de Amerikaanse staat Californië, want daar is deze week de zogenaamde “firefall” te bewonderen. Tussen december en april ontstaat langs de berg El Capitan een tijdelijke waterval door smeltende sneeuw. Als die waterval in februari al stroomt, zorgt de ondergaande zon voor een lichtspektakel met een bijzonder effect. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

21-02-2019 om 17:53 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers hebben ontdekt waar stenen Stonehenge vandaan komen - HLN.be

Bron: Antiquity, The Washington Post

De blauwe hardsteen – genoemd naar de blauwgrijze kleur – zou uit twee steengroeven komen in het westen van Wales en over een afstand van maar liefst 290 kilometer versleept zijn. Daarvoor werden houten sledes gebruikt, die voortgetrokken werden door teams van sterke mannen.

Lees ook

Vanwaar komen menselijke resten in Stonehenge? Belg lost Brits mysterie op van 100 jaar oud

Werktuigen

Chemische studies hadden eerder al aan het licht gebracht dat de stenen ergens uit de Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire moesten komen omdat dat type gesteente alleen daar te vinden is, maar de precieze plaats was nog niet ontdekt. Tot nu dus.

Archeologische opgravingen in 2014 en 2016 brachten 5.000 jaar oude houtskool en stenen werktuigen aan het licht in de steengroeven van Carn Goedog en Craig Rhos-y-felin. Op sommige plekken was het houtskool vermengd met modder en stenen om platformen te vormen, die gebruikt werden om massieve blokken op te laden.


Het uitgraven gebeurde rond 3.000 voor Christus – 5.000 jaar geleden dus – uit gesteente dat miljoenen jaren geleden gevormd was door grote blokken versteend magma die in de loop der eeuwen afsleten. Het uitgraven zou overigens vrij eenvoudig gegaan zijn. (lees hieronder verder)

Het gesteente had al de vorm van verticale zuilen, die door breuken gescheiden werden. In de breuken werden wiggen gedreven, waarna de stenen er met behulp van touwen en eenvoudig werkgerei konden worden uitgehaald als een losse tand. Met lasso’s rond de bovenkant werden de gevaartes van bovenuit neergelaten. De blokken van bijna 2 meter hoog en 2 tot 4 ton zwaar werden vervolgens op de sledes geladen en weggesleept.

De blokken werden in Salisbury Plain gebruikt om de binnenste ring van Stonehenge te vormen. De structuren van twee verticale stenen met daarbovenop een horizontale werden errond gezet. Dat zou 500 jaar later gebeurd zijn. En de zandstenen zouden een meer lokale origine gehad hebben. Waar die precies vandaan komen, is nog niet duidelijk.

Mensen

Opmerkelijk: de mensen die begraven zijn in Stonehenge kwamen waarschijnlijk uit dezelfde regio als de stenen. De resten bevatten namelijk isotopen uit de buurt van de steengroeven in Wales.

Volgens auteur en archeoloog Michael Parker Pearson van het University College Londen zou het monument een symbool geweest zijn dat de Britse stammen moest verenigen tijdens een periode dat het economisch en demografisch slecht ging. “Het zal gemeenschappen samengebracht hebben die uit elkaar aan het groeien waren”, zegt hij. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

21-02-2019 om 17:41 geschreven door peter  

A few months ago, NASA held a conference on ways to detect artificial “technosignatures” of alien life, byproducts of civilization like radio waves, pollutants, and garbage. They seem to be taking the search for extraterrestrials seriously and have announced the creation of a new department dedicated to the search for alien life.

The department, called the Center for Life Detection Sciences (CLDS), is composed of scientists from inside NASA and from outside institutions including Georgetown University and Georgia Tech. The goal of CLDS is, in their words, to answer the question “are we alone?” CLDS principle investigator Tori Hoehler says:

“We now have the scientific and engineering expertise to address this profound question with the clarity of scientific evidence — and we have a great community of scientists ready for that grand challenge.”

Acknowledging that alien life probably won’t look like a spacier version of life on Earth, the CLDS says it aims to investigate all possibilities of alien life, noting that extraterrestrial life may not look like anything we would even recognize. According to Hoehler:

“The search for life beyond Earth cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.

To give ourselves the best shot at success, we need to develop tools and strategies that are tailored to detecting life in the unique conditions of other worlds, which are very different not only from Earth but also from each other.”

Another CLDS investigator, Sarah Stewart Johnson of Georgetown University, defines the goal of her team as finding “life as we don’t know it.” It’s good to know that scientists are finally coming to grips with the idea that alien life might be far weirder than we can imagine. That’s a long ways from the earlier attempts at contact that included things like launching a gold record into space with an avant-garde sound collage on it, hoping that it made sense.

That weird alien life may be closer than we think too. Recent surveys of the planets and moons in our solar system have shown enticing leads in the search for life. The subsurface oceans of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter are the most likely candidates, but other work has shown that there may still be life on Mars, or even on the boiling hot surface of Venus.

The Center for Life Detection Sciences will start small, with only a few teams to lay the groundwork, but they say that as the project matures, more scientists from broader fields will be added.

NASA is still operating the SETI project which scans the skies for radio waves of unknown extraterrestrial origin. Alien radio waves have been in the news again lately as the second anomalous “fast radio burst” was observed coming from the same source in January of this year. The website TechnoSearch archives the data from SETI and is open to the public and allows users to submit their own searches and keep the data updated.

It seems NASA is actually invested in the search for alien life. Perhaps they have some leads they haven’t shared with the public yet. Or perhaps it’s all just a red-herring. Either way it’s exciting to be living in a time when the search for alien life is treated seriously. Who knows, we might get a picture of a weird space whale sometime in the near future.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

21-02-2019 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Some cases within the world of cryptozoology, UFOlogy, and the paranormal have managed to become almost legendary in their fields. These are the rockstar cases that seem to have defied all attempts to dispute or debunk them, refusing to die and managing to live on and even transcend mere eyewitness reports to become legendary. One such case that is as well known and persistent as it is mysterious is that of a very strange creature that appeared one evening in a small U.S. town amid stories of a UFO landing, and would go on to catapult itself into the annals of great cases of the paranormal.

The setting for this very bizarre tale is the small rural town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia. It is a quiet town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, where everyone knows each other and not much typically happens, but on September 12, 1952, all that would change, and the peace would be disrupted by a world changing event for them. On this evening, at around 7:15 PM, brothers Edward and Fred May were outside playing a friendly game of football when they were surprised to see what looked like a pulsating, blazing ball of fire go streaking across the sky to come down and seemingly crash in some hilly woods at a nearby farm owned by a G. Bailey Fisher.

Not quite believing what they had just witnessed, the excited boys ran to the house of a neighbor named Kathleen May, to whom they breathlessly told of what they had seen. May gathered up a flashlight and called together a group of people composed of local children Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver, as well as 17-year-old West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, to go investigate the area where the strange ball of fire had gone down, along with Lemon’s dog. As they followed the beam of the flashlight out into the night past the dancing, flickering trees they still had no idea what they were dealing with or what to expect out there, and there was a sense of apprehension and even fear as they stumbled along up a hill on the farm. Little did they know that things were about to get very bizarre indeed.

When they reached the top of the wooded hill they could see through the trees what seemed to be a pulsating red light, and they were overcome by a sudden, nauseating metallic stench that they would later describe as a “pungent mist.” In the meantime, the dog snarled and barked before retreating with its tail between its legs, leaving them stabbing about in the darkness with the flashlight beam, searching for whatever it was that he chased the animal away. As they peered through the darkness trying to make out just what the light ahead was and what lie out there in the gloom, they could see glinting in the light of the flashlight what looked like the shining eyes of some nocturnal animal, but it soon became apparent that this was no animal any of them had ever seen before.

The mysterious eyes seemed to be set within a massive humanoid figure standing around 10 feet tall, with a round, fiery red face with glowing yellow eyes set within it, framed in some sort of hood or cowl shaped like “the ace of spades” embedded with flickering lights, and possessing small clawed hands, and a dark green, possibly black cylindrical body with what appeared to be folds upon it like some sort of draped fabric or molded metal, the whole of which was wreathed in some mist or fog. None of them got much of a chance to examine it for too long, because after a few moments whatever the entity was emitted “something between a hiss and a high-pitched squeal,” and then glided right towards them with a “thumping, throbbing noise” to send the terrified witnesses running for their lives down the hill, dropping the flashlight in the process to send them into near total darkness. Upon returning home they would all experience severe nausea, swelling of the throat, and even convulsions, compared with the symptoms of mustard gas by the doctor who examined them.

The next day, local law enforcement checked out the site of the purported incident, but were unable to find any corroborating evidence for anything the group said they had seen. There was no trace of any pulsing light, no sign of the creature or its odiferous stench, and nothing at all to suggest anything out of the ordinary. That was the official consensus, but of course word got out and it was not long at all before the media was stoking the fires of UFO rumors by claiming that signs of a landing, such as “skid marks” and an “odd, gummy deposit,” as well as strange pieces of a plastic like material, had been found at the scene by a reporter named A. Lee Stewart, Jr., and it was also discovered that numerous people in the area had also seen an object streak across the sky on the night in question. The case took off as a real UFO landing, and the media went with it, splashing it all over newspapers as various UFO enthusiasts and paranormal investigators descended on the area as well, including esteemed Fortean writers Gray Barker, Ivan T. Sanderson, and John Keel arriving to investigate.

Various strange accounts began to come out of the woodwork at the time, such as one woman who claimed to have seen the same monster that had been described just a few weeks before, and another witness who said that her house had reverberated and been shaken by some mysterious force on the night in question. Another report came from a couple who claimed that just hours after the original sighting they had been driving down the highway when they had noticed a horrible metallic smell and been assaulted with what felt like an electrical charge, before witnessing an otherworldly reptilian creature float across the road in front of them.

There were other odd accounts as well. Mrs. May would claim that the day after the incident she had been approached at her home by two mysterious men who said they were reporters and had asked to be shown the site, after which they would emerge from the trees with strange oily stains on their clothes. In later years even more strange accounts would surface, such as a commander of the West Virginia National Guard named Captain Dale Leavitt, who in the 1990s would say that he had examined the area with 50 Air Force personnel after the “crash” and find an oily substance and a mysterious “6m circle of depressed grass.”

There would also turn out to have been numerous other sightings of UFOs on the night of September 12 across several states. Indeed, in an account compiled by investigator Frank Feschino, Jr. in 2004, there would be hundreds of reports of unidentified flying objects and landings reported on from the same night as the incident. Adding to all of this were the odd physical symptoms reported by the witnesses and their doctors, as well as the subsequent strange death of the dog who had been with them, which allegedly began vomiting uncontrollably and dropped dead for no clear reason. All things told, the weird incident sparked UFOmania in the small rural town, and many were convinced that what had been seen was an actual alien spacecraft landing and its unearthly occupant. Indeed, Ivan T. Sanderson was sure that this was the case, and that the numerous other UFO reports from the same time frame implied perhaps a whole fleet of the objects passing the area.

In the years after the Flatwoods encounter the original witnesses would stick by their story, insisting on what they had seen, and it became one of the most famous alien encounters in the annals of the paranormal. So what was it they saw out there? What was that light, the noxious odor, and indeed that looming, glowing eyed beast? What connection did this have to the lights that so many people saw shooting across the sky on that same exact evening? Just what is going on with the case of the Flatwoods Monster? That depends a lot on who you ask.

A very persuasive skeptical argument is that the whole mysterious event is the result of a unique convergence of a mixture of misidentification and coincidence. In this theory the light, or lights as the case is often described, was perhaps a meteor, which was mistakenly thought to have crashed behind that wooded hill by the witnesses. There were indeed many people who reported the light seen as not a UFO, but as a meteor, so perhaps the witnesses saw this celestial event and jumped to a different conclusion. They then warily went up that dark hill in a state of fear, the atmosphere made more ominous by a blanket of fog that was covering the area at the time. In this state of dread, they saw one of the three aircraft warning hazard beacons in the area visible from that hill, and considering the meteor they had seen mistook it for a UFO.

But what about the horrible monster they saw, you ask? The skeptical take on it is that this was no monster at all, but rather a large barn owl perched atop a high branch. In the murky darkness, with fear pervading the air and low visibility and that sinister light visible through the trees, the witnesses misidentified the owl and its perch as being part of a single entity. The owl, just as startled as the witnesses, had then flown off past them into the night, letting out one of the bird’s distinctive shrill cries in the process. In their panic and surprise, the witnesses had mistaken it for an alien entity flying towards them, sending them running. Many of the features of a barn owl match up with the description of the creature, and looking at artistic representations comparing the monster and an owl it is easy to see the similarities, especially considering that they had only seen it fleetingly for a few moments in dim lighting before fleeing in terror.

This all seems to make sense so far, but then we are left to ask just what about the other evidence found, such as the oily residue and the strange track marks? Some have pointed out that these tracks could have been caused by a tractor that was in the area at around the time of the sighting, the oil perhaps leaking from it, or even from the truck of a local man who had gone driving through hoping to see the creature. The foul odor had been suggested as being exuded by a type of grass native to the area with a distinctive smell. And the negative physical symptoms are claimed by skeptics to have been simply caused by deep fear and over exertion. Skeptic Joe Nickell wrote a whole deconstruction of the case for the Skeptical Enquirer, which you can read here, and it is so convincing that even many paranormal researchers and UFOlogists have conceded that this is probably what actually happened.

Joe Nickell’s sketch comparing a barn owl and the alleged “monster”

It certainly seems to be open and shut when looking at all of the clues and evidence that this may have just been one big misunderstanding seen through the lens of anxiety and fear, later sensationalized by the media and embellished with countless books and articles in the lore of the paranormal. Yet there are many who think that the case is far from solved, pointing out that there are still aspects that don’t fit in neatly with the skeptical theory, such as the pulsing quality of the “meteor” and the fact that a whole group of people saw the creature and maintained that it was no owl.

Whatever the answer may be, whether this was some alien entity or the product of misidentification and overactive imaginations, the tale of the Flatwoods Monster still gets plenty of play in paranormal circles, and is still talked about and debated to this day. It has become such a legendary case that the town of Flatwoods has a museum dedicated to the creature and an annual weekend festival to commemorate it called “Flatwoods Days,” which features live music, and food and craft vendors. There is even a sign on the road leading into town that reads “Welcome to Flatwoods / Home of the Green Monster,” so it seems that whatever the Flatwoods Monster was or wherever it went, it has been ingrained in the town’s culture and in the world of Forteana, and in a sense is here to stay.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

21-02-2019 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Case 4: Two possible cloaked flying saucers photographed by plane passenger over Alberta

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

21-02-2019 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

UFO Attack: Five Extraterrestrials Petrified 23 Russian Soldiers

23 Russian soldiers lost their lives during a UFO attack in Siberia. The CIA declassified report describes this event as a “horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze”.
The frightful information was one of the many published online by the CIA. Chiefly, it involves a horrible event about a UFO alien attack which turned into stone 23 Russian soldiers.

This infamous report, created on March 27, 1993, is a translation of a report from the Ukrainian newspaper Ternopil vechirniy.

Namely, this newspaper claims that after Mikhail Gorbachev lost his leadership, many KGB files ended up in CIA.

Among them, allegedly there was a 250-page portfolio on the strange UFO attack. The report included pictures and witness statements as well.

The declassified CIA report which indeed contains shocking claims.

The report explains how a low flying saucer rose up a military unit in Siberia. One of the Russian soldiers fired a missile in the air, which shut it down.

It said: “Five short humanoids with large heads and large black eyes got out.”

There were two other soldiers, among the other 23, who survived the incident. They described that after the UFO got down, five eerie creatures blended into a huge glowing ball that buzzed and fizzed.
Following this, there was a huge explosion which petrified 23 Russian soldiers who were curiously observing the shocking event.

The report said: “The KGB report goes on to say that the remains of the ‘petrified soldiers’ were transferred to a secret research institution near Moscow.”

Experts strongly believe that an unknown source turned the whole living structure of the soldiers into stone.
A CIA representative stated: “If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case.”

However, we have to admit one thing. If this is true than extraterrestrials own technology that goes beyond our imagination.

And while there are certainly many doubts regarding the report, one of the biggest enigmas is why the CIA held a translation of the Ukrainian newspaper report.

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 01:28 geschreven door peter  

Military Computer Hacker Proves A “Space Force” Existed Long Before Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s presidency has been one of the best opportunities for the collective to see into how politics has been working all of these years. Regardless of what you think of him, he’s an outsider who has threatened the interests of many powerful bodies like the pharmaceutical companies, and other corporations that control federal regulatory agencies like the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

He’s legalized hemp, appears to be taking action steps to combat sex trafficking, and is trying his best to pull out of Syria. The American empire has always enforced their will on other countries for ulterior motives, and have, for decades, used lies in order to infiltrate foreign lands and governments for their own purposes. It’s not just America, it’s the entire Western Military-Industrial Complex, the ‘powers that be’ who completely control nations.

To some extent Trump may be compromised and compelled to play a part in that agenda, but so far it seems he’s been a disruptor more than anything. This is why mainstream media is constantly jumping on every opportunity to vilify him. If you think he has been widely criticized because he is truly ‘racist’ or ‘sexist,’ you may be missing the boat.  This post from Richard Dolan right after the 2016 election is still one of the best explanations as to why Donald Trump continues to be incessantly disparaged by mainstream media.

Trump Sought To Create An Independent Space Force

The creation of a ‘Space Force’ announced by Trump several months ago is another great example of how Trump is making waves with the established order.

Prior to Trump announcing it, the House Armed Services Committee voted to break off the United Air Force Space Command from under the US Air Force, leading to the creation of a new independent branch called the US Space Corps. It would be the first new military branch created in the U.S. since 1947, and would make America the only nation with a branch of military publicly known to be dedicated solely to space.

A lot of work and planning was put into this shift in power over the space command. As Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces stated, “This is an issue the subcommittee has studied for months and I can’t even tell you how many meetings with space experts and leaders [Democratic Rep.] Jim [Cooper] and I have had on this subject.”

It’s Not Independent Yet

However, recent developments that are now making their rounds around the internet state that Trump is expected to sign an order that directs the Defense Department to establish a U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces, but remaining within the Department of the Air Force.

Previously, Trump had stated that the ‘Space Force’ would be a new division alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. However, it seems things have changed and the desire to wrest this unit away from the Air Force has failed–for now. As Space News points out:

The Pentagon is wrapping up a legislative proposal and budget request for fiscal year 2020 that it will submit to the White House for approval. The proposal recommends creating a Space Force with its own four-star chief of staff and a civilian undersecretary of space under the umbrella of the Department of the Air Force. This setup, however, is only a “first step toward a future military department for national security space,”

says a draft of Space Policy Directive-4. A copy of the draft labeled “predecisional” was reviewed by SpaceNews.

Time will tell if Trump will actually be able to establish a Space Force as its own military department in the future.

The Secret Space Program

While this would be the first known government department to be solely devoted to space, it’s important to note that the United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, but its existence was hidden until the mid 1960’s. Even more secretive is the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years.

Not all information is made public, especially when it comes to space activities. This was made clear by the Pentagon’s recent disclosure of a secret program that they were running to track unidentified flying objects in and around our atmosphere. The cost of this program was $22 million, but deeper research into black budget programs reveals that they have been taking in multiple trillions of dollars. This is not debatable. You can read more about that and examine the sources here and here.

It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief know nothing about.

– Paul Hellyer, Ex Canadian Defense Minister

You can read more about that and the latest updates on ‘mainstream UFO disclosure’ in an article I published about it here approximately 8 months ago.

Strange happenings in space came to light more than a decade ago, when the largest military computer hack ever was made known to the public. A man by the name of Gary McKinnon was charged with causing $700,000 dollars worth of damage to government computer systems. He hacked the Pentagon, Department of Defense and Air Force computers. Gary faced extradition to the United States for 10 years, but was eventually given other punishments. His story was receiving mainstream media attention, and perhaps an extradition would have brought unwanted attention to what Gary found. As with most disclosures, Mainstream Media focused on the crime rather than the provocative information that was discovered.

According to Mckinnon, he found a list of “non-terrestrial off-world officers” of rank. He was unable to tell what department of the military they represented. He also found multiple pictures of UFOs and lists of “fleet-to fleet transfers” of materials from ship to ship. You can watch an interview with Gary in this article we published years ago.

Dealing With Extraterrestrials

One of the main reasons for developing a ‘space force,’ and to keep a ‘secret space program’ is, in my opinion, to deal with the extraterrestrial/UFO phenomenon. These ‘secret’ agencies within our government have been quite involved with this phenomenon, while at the same time, for decades, they’ve been actively engaged in concealing by subversion and ridicule.

Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” 

- Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source)

Unfortunately the actual protocols, according to Paul Hellyer, are often to ‘shoot first and ask questions after.’ There is a lot of evidence for this. Dr. David Clarke is an investigative journalist, reader and lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in England, who was also the curator National Archive UFO project from 2008–13. He uncovered files that reveal the UK was “desperate to capture this technology – wherever it came from – before the Russians or the Chinese got hold of it first.” You can read more about that here.

According to Hermann Oberth, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, “flying saucers are real and…they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.” (source 1)(source 2)

There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations. That it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.” 

– Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)

Below is an excellent lecture by Richard Dolan that elaborates upon the idea I’m referring to above. This issue/topic goes far beyond Donald Trump and what we are spoon-fed by mainstream media. Transparency left this world long ago, and it’s slowly returning as more people start to become aware that all is not as it’s been presented to us. This shift in thinking alone is contributing to changing our human experience from one of secrecy to one of transparency. If you’d like to read more articles about the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon, you can visit the disclosure section of our website and sift through them, they’re all archived there.

The Takeaway

What we are seeing here is a battle between powers within the US Government to control space. Prior to Trump’s arrival, it seems (based on my research), that the secret space program was in the hands of the Deep State. What we’ve observed here at CE is that Donald Trump, and those he works with, seem to be in somewhat of a battle with this Deep State, which would explain his disclosure and initiation of a space force, when it’s quite clear that one has already been in existence.

The realization that we are not alone has huge implications and the disclosure of this information would leave no aspect of humanity untouched.

{ https://www.collective-evolution.com/ }

21-02-2019 om 01:13 geschreven door peter