'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Possible Air Date, Plot, Other Story Details Unveiled

25-03-2019 om 14:46 geschreven door peter  

Is science fiction the cause of mysterious lights seen at night in Delamere Forest?

Is science fiction is the cause of mysterious lights seen at night in Delamere Forest?

PEOPLE living in and around Delamere Forest have been puzzled by the appearance of strange, eerie lights among the trees.

They could be forgiven for think that the forest was the sight of a UFO encounter - and they would not be far wrong.

The forest is increasingly being used as a location for films and television - including a BBC adaptation of War of the Worlds and a new Netflix series called The Stranger.

Photo: Lee Cartwright

The dense forest has recently been used as a backdrop for dramatic scenes of an alien invasion for the latest adaptation of H G Wells classic War of the Worlds.

The Peter Harness' three-part adaptation the sci-fi classic will be screened on BBC One later this year.

And more recently, a car chase was filmed for The Stranger, a series due to be shown on Netflix later this year starring Hannibal and The Hobbit actor Richard Armitage.

Few details are available about the eight-episode series, based on Harlan Coben’s novel, but the synopsis from Netflix reads: “ A secret destroys a man’s perfect life and sends him on a collision course with a deadly conspiracy in this shocking thriller.

“Adam Price has a good life, two wonderful sons, and a watertight marriage - until one night a stranger sits next to him in a bar and tells him a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne.

“Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, and realises that if he doesn’t make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives — it will end them.”

One resident of Station Road said weird sightings were becoming more common in the forest.

He said: There's a weird chunky looking prop with bright lights attached to it, suspended from a really high crane arm, above white gate car park and its mega bright. It lit up my house through the windows yesterday. I've not heard any noises or anything though."

The lights certainly piqued residents' curiosity.

Posting in the Delamere and Oakmere Facebook group, Jacqui Brooks asked: "What are the giant lights on the skyline over far side of the forest for?"

Sarah Evans said: "We have wondered every morning/evening...query aliens abduction of locals, building, concerts..can tell kids the truth now?"

Ellen Piercy replied: "Nah, stick with the aliens story, MUCH more exciting."

Others described the filming as "exciting" and "very, very bright".

The forest has become popular with television and film producers, with episodes of ITV drama Cold Feet filmed there recently.

Residents have been told filming is permitted until 1am.

{ https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/ }

25-03-2019 om 14:32 geschreven door peter  

UFO Over Berlin Airport Moves Out Of Way Of Jet, March 6, 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 6, 2019

Location of sighting: Berlin, Germany

Source: MUFON #99333

 

Here is an interesting report from MUFON today. A person took some photos and noticed a UFO two of the photos. What looks like a ring UFO may be one solid craft with the top center having a dark tinted dome window area on it. The UFO moves it position when it notices the passenger jet approaching it. This makes me think there is a possibility of the UFO having shown up on airport radar. The UFO itself was probably hovering over Berlin Brandenburg Airport for a few minutes before it was forced to move out of the path of a jet. 

 

When you compare the size of the jet, lets say for comparisons sake its a 747 which is 76.3 meters long. Then this UFO is 30% the diameter of the jet, making the UFO 22.89 meters across. Notice how the UFO takes on the color of the sky behind it? Its tying to go unnoticed. The ships outer hull reflects the colors around it.

 

A lot of UFOs have been recorded over Airports over the years. I guess anything that flies has the newest and highest tech for safety reasons and that makes it worth investigating by aliens. 

Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

 

Eyewitness states: 

Round object found in the sky after taking photo from the TV tower in Berlin.

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

25-03-2019 om 13:54 geschreven door peter  

Mind Blowing Structures On Earths Moon In NASA Photo, March 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: March 25, 2019
Location of discovery: Earths Moon
Source NASA photo: 

• https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS15-P-9583
  
  

Sure some of you have heard about my discovery of the Yoda face on Earths moon a few years ago, (Click here to see Yoda post) but did you know there is so much more there? Its true, but to see the structures there, you must follow my instructions below. 

1. Go to URL and lift photo from site to desktop. 
2. Open photo on desktop. 
3. Goto tools bar at top (IOS mac). Then hit size. 
4. Change size, enlarge until photo is 10MB. Then close photo. 
5. Now Open photo in any photo program and add contrast like its going out of style...that means a lot. 
6. Now save photo and start searching it for structures, you will have to use zoom and have to look carefully. 

You need to do this because NASA added too much light to the photo on purpose in order to cause many of the ares of the photo to appear as white/grey and unclear. Thus bring it back into the proper light and focus creates the original photo as it was first taken. 

You will notice that the aliens built the structures square partitions. Much like remaking a house and moving the parts to the location to create it. This may be proof that the structures were created somewhere else, then brought to the moon to put together. 

Do not do this if you are sensitive. It might be overwhelming to suddenly go from believing to knowing. I do not mean to frighten anyone, but only to bring the truth to light. I actually found this several weeks ago, but hesitated till now to publish it. I was worried some people may panic. The biggest fear is not aliens attacking earth, its that they exist when science says they should not. It causes the person to call into question everything they ever learned in school, church, TV, from friends...and how aliens must have already influenced the direction humanity is currently traveling without anyone ever knowing. Its a bit deep of a plunge, but it must be taken. I did, I remember that day well. Thats why I never say I believe in aliens...it sounds like I have doubt, but I don't. I know they exist. 
Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

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

25-03-2019 om 13:50 geschreven door peter  

The Navy Plans to Put HELIOS Laser Weapon on Destroyer by 2021

HELIOS will be capable of downing drones and “burning boats”.

By Kyle Mizokami

LOCKHEED MARTIN

Pew-pew-pew is coming soon-soon-soon.

The U.S. Navy plans to put a laser weapon on a warship by 2021. The High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system, or HELIOS, is a defensive weapon system designed to burn boats and shoot down unmanned drones. The weapon will go to sea with a guided missile destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet in two years' time, the Navy says.

The service placed an order for HELIOS in January 2019. The $150 million contract, awarded to Lockheed Martin, calls for the company to deliver two systems. According to a company press release, one will go to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing. USNI News says the Navy will install the other on a Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.

HELIOS is a 60-kilowatt laser system, meaning it has twice the power of the AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System, or LaWS installed on the USS Ponce in 2014. HELIOS is billed as a weapon that can burn small speed boats of the type Iran deploys in armed swarms, and can torch unmanned aerial vehicles out of the sky. Alternately—and perhaps to avoid an international incident—HELIOS can simply “dazzle” a UAV’s electro-optical sensors, damaging them and preventing them from performing their mission.

Here’s a simple example of this theory, in which a laser used during tattoo removal damages a digital camera sensor:

HELIOS has a long-range intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. While LockMart doesn’t spell out the details, we can surmise that the aiming system for the laser weapon/dazzle is probably capable of high-definition, high-powered digital magnification, allowing a ship fitted with it to closely watch nearby threats.

Many weapons already deployed on U.S. Navy warships, including the Phalanx close-in weapon system and the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM), have a similar capability against small boats and drones as HELIOS while also being capable of taking on larger, faster aircraft and missiles. Range is also comparable.

Where a laser weapon like HELIOS shines, literally, is its ability to fire a theoretically unlimited number of shots using the destroyer’s onboard electrical generation systems. Phalanx, on the other hand, is limited to 20 to 30 seconds of continuous firing, while RAM is limited to 21 missiles aboard the Mk. 49 Guided Missile Launching System.

HELIOS is not a quantum leap above existing systems, but then again, early guns like the matchlock were in some ways inferior to the bow and arrow. Eventually, as firearms technology progressed, the gunpowder gun progressed to the point where it was clearly superior. As laser weapons become more powerful, they could quickly become much more effective than conventional gun and missile weapons.

Read more at USNI News

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

25-03-2019 om 01:07 geschreven door peter  

Archaeologist debunks alien influence, other conspiracy theories in archaeology

Have you heard the one about the aliens and the pyramids? Or what about the technologically advanced but tragically lost city of Atlantis?

Chances are that most of us have encountered at least one such story—a tale that tries to explain the past in a way that can sound scientific, but in doing so ignores the evidence and methods of science.

Why is this alternative archaeology so popular? And how do we tell fact from fiction?

Assistant Professor Matthew Peeples, co-director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change's Center for Archaeology and Society and an archaeologist of the Southwest U.S., is no stranger to the weirder side of his field. He has investigated false claims and has even been accused of covering up the truth.

For Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month, he sat down to discuss the background on these conspiracy theories, including one surrounding a petroglyph at the nearby Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Question: What are some examples of outrageous archaeological narratives in pop culture?

Answer: Probably the biggest out there involves the notion that intelligent alien life visited human populations in the ancient past and either influenced or directed the development of human cultures. This idea is pervasive in science fiction going back to early 20th-century authors like H.P. Lovecraft, but has gained popularity in more recent years through a deluge of books and TV shows like "Ancient Aliens."

These ideas are not supported by scientific evidence, but they've become so prevalent that many people believe there must be something to them. To use the Great Pyramids in Egypt as an example, archeologists have clearly shown how these structures fit in a broader tradition of smaller stone structures and earlier attempts at pyramid construction. The building technology is impressive, but we don't need to invoke aliens to explain it.

Another popular notion is that professional archaeologists themselves are actively hiding the truth about the past. I've personally had people accuse me of being part of a widespread cover-up or conspiracy. This trope shows up again and again in pop culture through shows like "The X-Files" or "Stargate." In reality, archaeologists love to test and retest each others' ideas about the past using new data and discoveries, which is what pushes the science forward.

Q: What are the myths surrounding the Deer Valley petroglyphs?

A: I wasn't aware of this until visitors at the preserve asked about it, but there was a mention of Deer Valley in a book published in the 1970s claiming to show evidence of Europeans visiting North America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus or the Viking colonization of Newfoundland.

The book featured drawings of rock art from throughout North America supposedly depicting boats from various places in ancient Europe and the Near East. One, from the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, was said to depict a Punic sailing vessel along with the words "the ship" in Iberian Punic.

I worked with a group of honors students in my "Frauds, Myths and Mysteries" class to track down this claim and assess it. It took us quite a while to locate the petroglyph in question, largely because the drawing bore little resemblance to the actual petroglyph. We took high-resolution photos and made a 3-D model of the petroglyph, and we were able to show that the features that made both the supposed inscription and ship "convincing" were either exaggerated or were absent in the actual petroglyph (which archaeologists had previously suggested may have been a butterfly).

Q: When did conspiracy theories like these first come about? And why are they still popular today?

A: False archaeological claims like these have a really long history. There are accounts of a supposed discovery of the tomb of King Arthur and Guinevere by monks at Glastonbury Abbey in 1191, shortly after the abbey was burned in a massive fire. The story attracted a lot of pilgrims who funded the reconstruction of the church, but more recent archaeological work has shown that the pre-Christian cemetery dated many centuries later than would be expected were there truth to this story. Most historians now chalk this up to a publicity stunt by the abbey. There are even similar references to such claims going back to at least the second century A.D.

I think these claims are still popular today for a number of reasons. First, there is a lot of money to be made from selling pseudoscientific ideas to the public, as is evidenced by the numerous books and TV shows that keep popping up. A lot of these ideas are also tied to nationalism and various other kinds of group identities. People have a desire to claim that their ancestors were the first to arrive in a new land or develop some advanced technology, claims that have even been used to justify war and invasion.

Q: How do archaeologists separate plausible arguments from pseudoscience? What are the challenges in that?

A: Archaeology is all about the systematic and scientific study of human societies based on the stuff they leave behind in context. A lot of pseudoscientific ideas attempt to put on the trappings of science by using the jargon but completely ignore the scientific process of formal observation and evaluation. Plausible arguments need to be supported by evidence rather than simply asserted, and the methods and data used should be made available for scrutiny.

Be suspicious if someone is making conspiratorial claims that scientists' lack of acceptance for their ideas is about suppression of the truth. Relying on high-quality, peer-reviewed sources will also ensure that people with the relevant expertise have had a chance to vet the work. I'm a fan of a set of tools Carl Sagan published as a "baloney detection kit," which are a series of questions you can ask yourself about a given claim to help you fortify yourself against falling for pseudoscientific claims.

Q: Where can the public look for accurate archaeological information?

A: If you're interested in archaeology here in Arizona, there are a lot of excellent groups and organizations you could get involved with. The Arizona Archaeological Society has chapters throughout the state that offer talks, tours and even opportunities to work on archaeological projects. There are also nonprofits like Archaeology Southwest in Tucson that provide high-quality information for non-specialists on the archaeology of the region.

 Explore further: Archaeologists must avoid prehistoric Brexit parallels – they encourage twisted readings of the past

{ https://phys.org/ }

25-03-2019 om 00:57 geschreven door peter  

2020 Mars Helicopter Could Open Alien Skies to Exploration

By Mike Wall 

The little craft's demonstration mission could lead to big things.

The 4-lb. Mars Helicopter will travel to the Red Planet with NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020.

(Image: © NASA/JPL)

A few brief hops in the Martian air two years from now could help open alien worlds to an entirely new kind of exploration.

An autonomous mini-helicopter will fly with NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission, which is scheduled to launch in July of that year and land on the Red Planet in February 2021. 

The bantam chopper is a stripped-down technology demonstration, and it will make a maximum of five short sorties in the Martian atmosphere. Success in this pioneering work would be a big deal, extending the reach of humanity's robotic explorers, which are currently restricted to the surfaces of alien worlds or the dark realms far above them.

• Related: NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures (Gallery)

"We envision helicopters opening doors to new types of exploration on Mars," Håvard Grip, flight-control and aerodynamics lead for the Mars Helicopter, said Wednesday (March 20) during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group.

One day, more-advanced versions could serve as scouts for rovers or explore the Red Planet on their own, added Grip, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, which are both in Pasadena. 

"In the future, we could imagine doing things like [engaging in] regional exploration using multiple helicopters or going to inaccessible areas or biologically sensitive areas using small helicopters," he said.

The Mars Helicopter weighs 4 lbs. (1.8 kilograms) and has a body about the size of a softball. It carries a range of avionics and communications gear, a small solar panel, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, "survival heaters" to keep its electronics warm through the frigid Martian night, and a navigation camera.

The helicopter doesn't have any science instruments, but it is outfitted with a high-resolution color imager.

"That's, so to speak, the payload," Grip said. "That's what we [use to] take pretty pictures and send them back to Earth."

The helicopter will travel to Mars attached to the belly of the car-size 2020 rover, which will hunt for signs of ancient Red Planet life and collect and store samples to return to Earth in the future, among other tasks. 

• Related: The Search for Life on Mars: A Photo Timeline

A month or two after the rover lands on the Red Planet, the chopper will drop down and hit the dirt itself. The little vehicle will then make a series of short flights, each of which will last about 90 seconds and reach a maximum altitude of 16.5 feet (5 meters) or so, Grip said.

These sorties will be made between 330 feet and 3,300 feet (100 to 1,000 m) away from the rover — far enough away to pose no collision danger, but close enough to be in communications range. (The helicopter will talk to its handlers on Earth via the rover.)

Success would be quite an achievement, considering that the Martian atmosphere is just 1 percent as dense as that of Earth at sea level. Cruising just above the Martian surface is equivalent to flying at an altitude of 100,000 feet (30,000 m) here on Earth, more than twice as high as any helicopter has ever gotten. (The handicap imposed by the thin air is only partially offset by the Red Planet's lower gravity, which is 38 percent that of Earth, Grip said.)

To generate enough lift, the Mars Helicopter sports two stiff rotors that measure 3.9 feet (1.2 m) long — pretty much as big as the team could make them, Grip said. And the rotors will spin at 2,400 revolutions per minute, about 10 times faster than the blades of a chopper on Earth, mission team members have said.

The team has put this design through its paces many times in Mars-like conditions here on Earth, Grip said. Indeed, the little craft is pretty much ready to go.

"The flight model is built and more or less tested," Grip said.

The ultimate test, of course, will come on Mars.

"The Mars Helicopter's initial flight will represent that planet's version of the Wright brothers' achievement at Kitty Hawk and the opening of a new era," Susan Gorton, manager of NASA's Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology project, which has been working with the Mars Helicopter team, said in a statement last week. 

"For those of us whose research revolves around all things related to flight, that would be a remarkable, historic moment," Gorton added.

Such historic moments may not be limited to Mars' skies. NASA is considering launching a quadcopter lander to Titan, Saturn's huge, haze-enshrouded moon. This mission, called Dragonfly, would fly from spot to spot on Titan, investigating the complex chemistry occurring on the potentially life-supporting moon.

Dragonfly is one of two finalists for a mid-2020s launch slot under NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-cost missions. The other contender is a comet sample-return mission called CAESAR. NASA is expected to announce its selection later this year.

The Mars Helicopter and Dragonfly teams have not collaborated to date, Grip said.

• Mars 2020: The Red Planet's Next Rover
• How NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Will Work (Infographic)
• NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Is Unique. And So Is Its Paint Job.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

25-03-2019 om 00:42 geschreven door peter  

UFO Community Versus Science – When Science Meets Faith In The UFO

24-03-2019 om 23:58 geschreven door peter  

24-03-2019 om 23:43 geschreven door peter  

IT’S OFFICIAL. HUMANS ARE GOING TO MARS. NASA HAS UNVEILED THEIR MISSION.

Humanity has been fascinated by Mars since long before we stepped foot on the Moon. Our planetary neighbor has been the subject of innumerable works of sci-fi and inspired countless dreams of adventure and exploration. Now, after decades of determination, research, and scientific breakthroughs, we’re finally ready to do it: humans are going to Mars. Really.

Last year President Trump issued a mandate for NASA: get people to Mars by 2033. One week later, NASA responded with its most detailed plan to date for reaching the Red Planet, and it details five phases along the road to Mars.

We’re in Phase 0 now, conducting tests at the International Space Station (ISS) and developing partnerships with private space companies. Phase I will span 2018 to 2025 and will include the launch and testing of six SLS rockets. Those rockets will deliver components of the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), a new space station to be built near the Moon to serve astronauts en route to Mars.
After that, Phase II will launch the Deep Space Transport (DST) tube toward the lunar station in 2027, and in 2028 or 2029, astronauts will inhabit the tube for more than 400 days. 

In 2030, Phase III will see the DST restocked with supplies and the Mars crew via SLS rocket. Phase IV, of course, will be the trip itself in 2033. That means we’re just a scant 16 years away from reaching a goal that has eluded every generation that came before us.

Completing the mission within their budget will be a challenge for NASA. That budget is currently about .5 percent of the total U.S. budget. For comparison, it was more than four percent during the Apollo Moon missions.

The mission to Mars includes obstacles beyond budget — keeping astronauts healthy and reasonably happy on the journey is chief among them. Without stopovers between Earth and Mars, astronauts will need to port everything they need with them, including air, food, and water, for a round-trip duration of two or three years.

Mental health is likely to be a concern for Mars astronauts, too, as they will essentially be sealed into the space tube for years at a time, with no ability for an emergency return once they leave Cislunar space. NASA’s HI-SEAS isolation experiment has shown promising results, but it is likely that the journey won’t be possible for everyone.

NASA also has competition in the race to get to Mars. Both Boeing and SpaceX hope to get there first, with SpaceX setting the lofty goal of arriving in 2022.

Ultimately, though, we all benefit from the friendly competition in the race toward Mars and the creative solutions it will almost certainly generate. If private companies work out some of these human challenges before NASA can, the agency can build on their experiences and spend its budget and efforts on other problems. In the end, the goal of putting humans on Mars will have been reached, irrespective of which organization crosses the finish line first.

{ http://www.physics-astronomy.com/ }

24-03-2019 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

NASA may send smallsat mission to giant asteroid Pallas

Pallas, third largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and the second such object to be discovered, by the German astronomer and physician Wilhelm Olbers on March 28, 1802. The asteroid was named after Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Pallas is 512 kilometers (318 miles) in diameter, somewhat smaller than 4 Vesta. It is likely a remnant protoplanet. The asteroid's orbit is unusually high in inclination to the plane of the asteroid belt, and its eccentric orbit is nearly as large as that of Pluto, making Pallas almost inaccessible to spacecraft.

NASA won't make the final decision on funding this mission until mid-April. The so-called Athena mission will be competing with 11 other SmallSat and CubeSat mission proposals, according to Arizona State University planetary scientist Joseph O’Rourke, Athena’s principal investigator, reports Forbes.

If the mission is approved, it will follow in the path of the Dawn Mission that explored two other giant objects in the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres. The Dawn Mission ended last year.

"Pallas is really the only other object in the main asteroid belt that's like Vesta and Ceres … not just an asteroid, but a protoplanet, a real world," said O'Rourke, reports Space.com. "I see this as a way to go do a lot of the same science that Dawn did, but at a dramatically cheaper price, and Pallas is the sort of place that might be worth sending a much bigger mission to someday."

Athena would hitch a ride with Psyche Mission

If selected, Athena would launch in August 2022, riding piggyback along with the NASA Psyche Mission. Psyche is a very interesting mission in its own right. It will explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid,16 Psyche. 16 Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid and is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet.

"We would race Psyche to Mars, use Mars as a gravity assist, and then catch Pallas," O'Rourke said. The Pallas flyby would come about a year after the launch.

Psyche is one of the ten most massive asteroids in the asteroid belt. It is over 200 kilometers (120 miles) in diameter and contains a little less than 1 percent of the mass of the entire asteroid belt.

A protoplanet is a large planetary embryo that originated within a protoplanetary disc and has undergone internal melting to produce a differentiated interior. Vesta is also a protoplanet. On January 4, 2017, the Psyche mission was chosen along with the Lucy mission as NASA's next Discovery-class missions.

{ http://www.digitaljournal.com/ }

24-03-2019 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

NASA May Send a Smallsat Mission to the Giant Asteroid Pallas

By Meghan Bartels 

If selected, the mission would launch in August 2022, riding piggyback with NASA's Psyche mission that is bound for an asteroid made nearly entirely of metal. "We would race Psyche to Mars, use Mars as a gravity assist, and then catch Pallas," O'Rourke said. The Pallas flyby would come about a year after the launch.

During the maneuver, Athena would take an extremely precise measurement of just how massive Pallas is and snap a bunch of images of the asteroid, which scientists could then use to piece together how water and impacts may be shaping its surface. "There's hints on the ground that it might have bright spots like Ceres," O'Rourke said, referring to features Dawn scientists believe may represent salty patches on that asteroid's surface. "So it could potentially be a place with a lot of interesting chemistry going on."

With a price tag about a tenth the size of the $467 million Dawn mission, and a single flyby instead of long-term visits, Athena likely won't produce as comprehensive a package of science results as the Dawn mission has. But it should be enough to begin to understand this little-known world, according to O'Rourke. "This mission is going to pluck a lot of the low-hanging fruits scientifically," he said. "Hopefully, it will showcase the fact that we're beginning a new era of planetary exploration," in which cheap probes can precede flagship missions.

The Athena team would also post all its images soon after downloading them from the spacecraft. "In fact, one of my biggest worries about the mission is that the mission team will get scooped on the science," O'Rourke said. "Everyone will be able to make our discoveries right along with us, so we'd better be ready to bang out some papers."

NASA's decision, whether it chooses Athena or not, will come just a few months after the first tiny satellites to venture beyond Earth's orbit proved just how valuable small spacecraft can be to planetary scientists. Two cubesats the size of bread boxes hitchhiked with NASA's Mars InSight lander as the Mars Cube One (MarCO) mission. The little satellites captured stunning images of the Red Planet and in November, they acted as communications relays, saving scientists from hours of agony about whether the main spacecraft had touched down safely.

Athena would be larger — the size of a miniature refrigerator and about 400 lbs. (180 kilograms) — but would still represent a new mindset for planetary science, one that relies on dramatically less complicated spacecraft than traditional missions.

"I think the asteroid belt is a really great target for smallsats because there are so many targets that are interesting, we're not going to send these half-billion-dollar-plus missions to every single one," O'Rourke said. "So we have to get good at building these small flight systems that are versatile and can be used to explore."

•  Success of Tiny Mars Probes Heralds New Era of Deep-Space Cubesats
•  Photos: The Changing Bright Spots of Dwarf Planet Ceres
•  Photos: Dwarf Planet Ceres, the Solar System's Largest Asteroid

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

24-03-2019 om 22:10 geschreven door peter  

Why Nuclear Fusion Is Always 30 Years Away

By Nathaniel Scharping

Nuclear fusion has long been considered the “holy grail” of energy research. It represents a nearly limitless source of energy that is clean, safe and self-sustaining. Ever since its existence was first theorized in the 1920s by English physicist Arthur Eddington, nuclear fusion has captured the imaginations of scientists and science-fiction writers alike.

Fusion, at its core, is a simple concept. Take two hydrogen isotopes and smash them together with overwhelming force. The two atoms overcome their natural repulsion and fuse, yielding a reaction that produces an enormous amount of energy.

But a big payoff requires an equally large investment, and for decades we have wrestled with the problem of energizing and holding on to the hydrogen fuel as it reaches temperatures in excess of 150 million degrees Fahrenheit. To date, the most successful fusion experiments have succeeded in heating plasma to over 900 million degrees Fahrenheit, and held onto a plasma for three and a half minutes, although not at the same time, and with different reactors.

The most recent advancements have come from Germany, where the Wendelstein 7-X reactor recently came online with a successful test run reaching almost 180 million degrees, and China, where the EAST reactorsustained a fusion plasma for 102 seconds, although at lower temperatures.

Still, even with these steps forward, researchers have said for decades that we’re still 30 years away from a working fusion reactor. Even as scientists take steps toward their holy grail, it becomes ever more clear that we don’t even yet know what we don’t know.

The first plasma achieved with hydrogen at the Wendelstein 7-X reactor. Temperatures in the reactor were in excess of 170 million degrees Fahrenheit.

(Credit: IPP)

For Every Answer, More Questions

The Wendelstein 7-X and EAST reactor experiments were dubbed “breakthroughs,” which is an adjective commonly applied to fusion experiments. Exciting as these examples may be, when considered within the scale of the problem, they are only baby steps. It is clear that it will take more than one, or a dozen, such “breakthroughs” to achieve fusion.

“I don’t think we’re at that place where we know what we need to do in order to get over the threshold,” says Mark Herrmann, director of the National Ignition Facility in California. “We’re still learning what the science is. We may have eliminated some perturbations, but if we eliminate those, is there another thing hiding behind them? And there almost certainly is, and we don’t know how hard that will be to tackle.”

We will almost certainly get a better perspective on the unknown problems facing fusion sometime in the next decade when an internationally-backed reactor, intended to be the largest in the world, comes to fruition. Called ITER, the facility would combine all we have learned about fusion into one reactor.

It represents our current best hope for reliably reaching the break-even point, or the critical temperature and density where fusion reactions produce more power than is used to create them. At the break-even point, the energy given off when two atoms fuse is enough to cause other atoms to fuse together, creating a self-sustaining cycle, making a fusion power plant possible.

Perhaps inevitably, however, ITER has fallen prey to setbacks and design disputes that have slowed construction. The U.S. has even threatened to cut its funding for the project. It is these sorts of budgetary and policy hesitations that could ensure we continue saying fusion is 30 years away, for the next three decades.

In the face of more immediate challenges, from health epidemics to terrorism, securing funding for a scientific long bet is a hard sell. A decades-long series of “breakthroughs” that lead only to more challenges, compounded by pervasive setbacks, have diluted the fantastic promise of a working fusion reactor.

What Exactly Is Fusion?

Reliably reaching the break-even point is a twofold problem: getting the reaction started and keeping it going. In order to generate power from a fusion reaction, you must first inject it with sufficient energy to catalyze nuclear fusion at a meaningful rate. Once you have crossed this line, the burning plasma must then be contained securely lest it become unstable, causing the reaction to fizzle.

To solve the issue of containment, most devices use powerful magnetic fields to suspend the plasma in midair to prevent the scorching temperatures from melting the reactor walls. Looking something like a giant doughnut, these “magnetic containment devices” house a ring of plasma bound by magnetism where fusion will begin to occur if a high enough temperature is achieved. Russian physicists first proposed the design in the 1950s, although it would be decades before they actually achieved fusion with them.

A magnetic confinement fusion device, the Wendelstein 7-X, under construction.

(Credit: IPP)

To create a truly stable plasma with such a device, two magnetic fields are required: one that wraps around the plasma and one that follows it in the direction of the ring. There are currently two types of magnetic confinement devices in use: the tokamak and the stellarator.

The differences between the two are relatively small, but they could be instrumental in determining their future success. The main disparity in their design arises from how they generate the poloidal magnetic field — the one that wraps around the plasma. Tokamaks generate the field by running a current through the plasma itself, while stellarators use magnets on the outside of the device to create a helix-shaped field that wraps around the plasma.

According to Hutch Neilson of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, stellarators are considered more stable overall, but are more difficult to build and suffer from a lack of research. Tokamaks, on the other hand, are much better understood and easier to build, although they have some inherent instability issues.

At the moment, there is no clear winner in the race between the two, as neither appears to be close to the “holy grail.” So, due to lack of a victor, researchers are building both.

“There is a lack of a solution at this time, so looking at two very realistic and promising configurations for closing that gap is the responsible thing to do,” says Neilson.

One of five sections that comprise the outer vessel of Wendelstein 7-X, photographed during production. 

(Credit: Wolfgang Filser/IPP)

Currently, the largest fusion reactor in the world is the Joint European Torus (JET), a tokamak based in England and supported by the European Union. JET was commissioned in the 1970s and first came online in 1983 and successfully produced plasma, the first step in achieving fusion.

With a series of upgrades beginning in the late 1980s, JET became the world’s largest fusion generator, and currently holds the record for the most energy produced in a fusion reaction at 16 megawatts. Even so, it has not yet reached the break-even point.

ITER Offers a Way

To reach this all-important milestone, we will likely have to wait for ITER.Latin for “the way,” ITER will be the largest and most powerful fusion generator in the world, and is expected to to cross the break-even point. ITER is projected to produce 500 MW of power with an input of 50 MW, and be able to hold plasma for half an hour or more. That’s enough energy to power roughly 50,000 households.

Based on the tokamak design, the project is the result of a collaboration between the European Union and six other countries, including the U.S., that have pooled resources and expertise to build a reactor that is expected to be the gateway to useable fusion energy.

One of the cables used to create the toroidal magnetic field within ITER.

(Credit: ITER Organization)

One of the main issues facing current generators is one of size, says Duarte Borba, a researcher at EUROfusion, and ITER will attempt to overcome this shortfall. As reactors get larger, they become more stable and can achieve higher temperatures, the two key factors in creating fusion.

ITER is meant to be the successor to JET, and will take the technology developed there and apply it on a much larger scale. This includes JET’s tungsten and beryllium divertors, which capture energy in the reactor, as well as the capability to fully control the system remotely. ITER will also use superconducting magnets to create its magnetic field, as opposed to ones made of copper, according to Borba.

Such magnets will reduce the amount of energy consumed by the device and will allow for longer, more sustained plasma production. JET can currently only produce plasma in bursts, as it cannot sustain the high levels of energy use for very long.

Collaboration Is Key

The most important development made by JET and implemented with ITER may not even be scientific, but rather bureaucratic in nature, says Borba. As a project supported by multiple nations, JET forged the path for organizing and implementing a large-scale, decades-long project.

With a projected price tag of $15 billion and a daunting shopping list of complex components, ITER could only exist today as a collaborative effort. Each of the member nations contributes researchers and components, with the hope that the potential benefits will be shared by all.

An illustration showing which countries are responsible for manufacturing various parts of the ITER reactor.

(Credit: ITER Organization)

However, the democratic nature of ITER has significantly slowed down its construction. The goal is to have all of the parts arrive at the same time, but allocating each part to a different country brings in political and economic variables that throw the timing off. When ITER first received formal approval in 2006, it was slated to first achieve fusion in 2016, a date which has since been pushed back at least 10 years. Issues with component construction and design disagreements have been blamed for the delays.

A Worldwide Effort

To achieve a fusion power plant capable of addressing our energy needs, ITER alone is still not enough, according to Neilson. Even though it represents a significant advancement in reactor design, ITER isn’t the end game for fusion research.

If everything goes to plan, ITER will pave the way for another reactor, called DEMO, which will expand the technologies perfected by ITER to an industrial scale, and hopefully prove that nuclear fusion is a viable source of energy.

In the meantime, the new crop of fusion reactors appearing around the world will continue to play crucial roles in the chase for fusion. Far from being redundant, their supplemental research will attack the problem from different angles.

While ITER addresses the issue of scale, fusion projects in Asia are attempting to hold on to plasmas for longer and longer as they probe the benefits of superconducting magnets, Neilson said. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Wendelstein 7-X is pushing the boundaries of the stellarator design, possibly sidestepping issues of stability entirely. Nuclear fusion research has been a mild success in terms of international cooperation, with a growing number of countries determined to contribute their own piece of the puzzle.

Today, there are nuclear fusion experiments operating in the U.S., Germany, United Kingdom, India, France, Japan and several other countries. More reactors are being planned or are currently under construction. Even with the surge of interest, it’s still not enough, says Neilson.

“For a problem as dense and challenging as fusion, you want to have many more experiments trying out different parts of the problem than we actually have,” says Neilson.

More Than a Scientific Problem

Ultimately, the question may be one of funding. Multiple sources said they were confident that their research could progress faster if they received more support. Funding challenges certainly aren’t new in scientific research, but nuclear fusion is particularly difficult due to its near-generational timescale. Although the potential benefits are apparent, and would indeed address issues of energy scarcity and environmental change that are relevant today, the day when we see a payoff from fusion research is still far in the future.

Our desire for an immediate return on our investments dampens our enthusiasm for fusion research, says Laban Coblentz, the head of Communication at ITER.

“We want our football coaches to perform in two years or they’re out, our politicians have two or four or six years and they’re out — there’s very little time to return on investment,” he said. “So when somebody says we’ll have this ready for you in 10 years, that’s a tough narrative to tell.”

In the U.S., fusion research receives less than $600 million in funding a year, including our contributions to ITER. This is a relatively small sum when compared to the $3 billion the Department of Energy requested for energy research in 2013. Overall, energy research represented 8 percent of the total funding the U.S. gave out for research that year.

“If you look at it in terms of energy budgets, or what’s spent on military development, it’s not really a lot of money that’s going to this,” says Thomas Pedersen, division head at the Max-Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik. “If you compare us to other research projects, it seems very expensive, but if you compare it to what goes into oil production or windmills or subsidies for renewables, its much, much less than that.”

The JET reactor, as seen from above.

(Credit: EUROfusion)

Pedersen looks at fusion research in terms of expected inputs and gains. Research into solar and wind power may be relatively cheap, but the payoff pales in comparison to a working nuclear fusion generator.

Always 30 Years Away

However, the finish line has been visible for some time now, a mountaintop that seems to recede with every step forward. It is the path that is obscured, blocked by obstacles that are not only technological, but also political and economic in nature. Coblentz, Neilson and Borba expressed no doubts that fusion is an achievable goal. When we reach it however, may be largely dependent on how much we want it.

Soviet physicist, Lev Artsimovich, the “Father of the Tokamak” may have summed it up best:

“Fusion will be ready when society needs it.”

{ http://discovermagazine.com/ }

24-03-2019 om 18:22 geschreven door peter  

24-03-2019 om 18:03 geschreven door peter  

John Emeigh

BUTTE – Many people believe UFOs visit Earth from other planets far, far away. A Montana Tech professor believes UFOs are much closer to home.

“The phenomenon may be our own distant descendants coming back through time to study us in their own evolutionary past,” said Michael P. Masters.

Could UFOs be time travelers from our own future ? 

Image Credit: PD Max Pixel

Masters writes about this theory in his newly released book, “Identified Flying Objects.” With a doctorate in anthropology from Ohio State University, Masters uses science to explain why people who report close encounters with aliens always describe them the same way.

“The extra-tempestrial are ubiquitously reported as being bipedal, upright-walking, five fingers on each hand and foot, bi-lateral symmetry that they have two eyes, a mouth a nose, they can communicate with us in our own languages,” said Masters.

Masters understands this study may be considered fringe science, but he defends the research in the book.

“I stand by the product. I’m happy to talk about it with anyone. It’s written for my academic peers as much as it is for anyone in the UFO community,” he said.

Here’s the point in the story where the journalist makes a flippant comment about little green men to show he doesn’t take it that seriously, but the U.S. Defense Department spent $22 million investigating the UFO phenomenon, and that’s why Dr. Masters believes it’s time scientists take a serious approach to the study of this phenomenon.

“The hope is we can begin a new dialogue, get past some of the stigma and not have to defend this as science because it is very scientific as well,” said Masters.

Masters has been on several radio and television programs here and abroad to discuss his book. He will appear on the national radio show Coast to Coast next week.

{ https://kxlf.com/ }

24-03-2019 om 17:40 geschreven door peter  

24-03-2019 om 17:33 geschreven door peter  

While it hasn’t happened yet, at least one politician in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington – an alleged hotbed of Bigfoot sightings – is pushing for Sasquatch to be named the official State Cryptid, making it the first to carry that title in the U.S. Jealous? New Jersey, shouldn’t the Jersey Devil be the first? Michigan – how about the Dogman? West Virginia – isn’t Mothman more worthy of this honor? How about the rest of you? New Hampshire – why not replace that tired old slogan with ‘Live Free With a Wood Devil’? Do you even know what your state’s most popular cryptid is? Now there’s help. A new map of the U.S. lists the most famous cryptids and mythical creatures in each state, along with illustrations to help seekers and public relations people identify them for possible official state honors.

(Credit:

https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/)

The American Bestiary map and project was commissioned by CashNetUSA and is well-researched and fair — eliminating clear hoaxes and awarding multi-state cyrptids (Bigfoot, for instance) to the state with the most references. The information on each creature (and ins some cases, aliens) includes links for more details. The artwork is creative, informative and fun. While some are well-known, even outside the paranormal world, the map is giving others some much-deserved attention. For example:

(Credit:

https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/)

“According to the legend there’s a fairly straightforward explanation for Sink Hole Sam, Kansas’s aquatic answer to the exogorth from Star Wars; it’s just a foopengerkle… whatever that is. Locals have speculated that the eel-like creature had been living in a prehistoric underground cavern that had filled with water from a sinkhole. This flooding allowed the creature to finally escape. Fishermen reported seeing something that was 15 feet in length and as round as an “automobile tire.””

(Credit:

https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/)

“Despite having far more terrifying features than any self-respecting monster actually needs, the Snallygaster remains popular three centuries after it was first spotted; it even has a guest role in the Harry Potter universe. Early settlers told tales of a demonic, bird-like creature with a metallic beak filled with teeth. In 1909, locals reported seeing a bird-like monster with; “enormous wings, a long-pointed bill, claws like steel hooks and an eye in the center of its forehead”.”

(Credit:

https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/)

“What happened to Sam Harris? Sightings of a previously unseen pig-man shortly after the teenager’s disappearance on the Halloween of 1951 conjure just two alternatives: either young Harris transformed into a pigman, or a preexisting pigman ate him. Whatever happened to Sam; years after his disappearance, some high school students reported a monster emerging from the woods. It walked like a man, but was covered in white fur, and had a pig’s face.”

(Credit:

https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/)

“The carrot-headed aliens who visited a pair of night-fishermen on the Pascagoula River in a glowing egg-shaped spaceship may just have been symptoms of the witness’s hunger. Or they might have been robots; either way, they’ve not returned, having apparently been satisfied by the experiments they conducted on the two perfectly sober men. The fishermen claimed they heard a “zipping” sound and saw a glowing object hovering above the ground. Then three robot like aliens, that were just over 5 feet tall, exited from the craft.”

There’s 46 more stories and illustrations awaiting you at :

• https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-famous-mythical-creature-of-every-us-state-illustrated/.

Check them out.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

24-03-2019 om 17:13 geschreven door peter  

Friday Futures: the sea as fuel, DNA as a computer

Welcome to Friday Futures, our weekly guide to the latest visions of The Future from around the web. This week: the sea could be the best source of fuel; levitation by light; AI and science; DNA as a computer; DNA regenerates limbs.

1. The oceans could be the real source of renewable fuel

The ocean may soon be a valuable source of renewable energy.

A team of scientists at Stanford have figured out a way to make hydrogen fuel out of saltwater. The discovery could open up the world’s oceans as a potential source of energy.

Source: Stanford University

2. Can we levitate objects using light alone?

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) say they’ve found a way to levitate and propel objects using only light — though, for the time being, the work remains theoretical. 

Light Levitation

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) say they’ve found a way to levitate and propel objects using only light — though, for the time being, the work remains theoretical.

They hope the technique could be used for “trajectory control of ultra-light spacecraft and even laser-propelled light sails for space exploration,” according to a paper published in the journal Nature Photonics Monday. That means no fuel needed — just a powerful laser fired at a spacecraft from back on Earth.

Optical Tweezers

The Caltech scientists devised the so-called “photonic levitation and propulsion” system by designing a complex pattern that could be etched into an object’s surface. The way the concentrated light beam reflected from the etching causes the object to “self-stabilize,” they say, as it attempts to stay inside the focused laser beam.

The first breakthrough that laid the groundwork for the new research were the development of “optical tweezers” — scientific instruments that use a powerful laser beam to attract or push away microscopic objects. The big downside: they can only manipulate tiny objects at only microscopic distances.

Ognjen Ilic, post-doctoral scholar and first author of the new study, puts the tweezer concept and its limitations in much simpler terms: “One can levitate a ping pong ball using a steady stream of air from a hair dryer,” he said in a statement. “But it wouldn’t work if the ping pong ball were too big, or if it were too far away from the hair dryer, and so on.”

From Micrometers To Meters

In the paper, the Caltech researchers argue that their light manipulation theoretically could work with an object of any size, from micrometers to spaceship size.

Though the theory is still untested in the real world, the researchers say that if it pans out, it could send a spacecraft to the nearest star outside our solar system in just 20 years.

“There is an audaciously interesting application to use this technique as a means for propulsion of a new generation of spacecraft,” said Harry Atwater, professor at the Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science. “We’re a long way from actually doing that, but we are in the process of testing out the principles.”

READ MORE: Levitating objects with light [Caltech]

More on light levitation: Japanese Researchers Unveil Tiny, Floating “Firefly” Light

3. What is the relationship between 5G and space?

4. AI is becoming really good at science

The Square Kilometer Array, a radio telescope slated to switch on in the mid-2020s, will generate about as much data traffic each year as the entire internet. 

Read more…

5. DNA molecules can be programmed as computers

Computer scientists at Caltech have designed DNA molecules that can carry out reprogrammable computations, for the first time creating so-called algorithmic self-assembly in which the same “hardware” can be configured to run different “software.”

 Read more…

6. And can regenerate limbs, maybe

Harvard researchers say they’ve identified a “DNA switch” enabling animals to regrow entire portions of their bodies — a finding that, with a few important caveats, could pave the way to helping human lost limb regeneration. 

Read more…

7. An explanation of CRISPR that makes sense!

8. And of course, the dating app based on the contents of your fridge

The first time John Stonehill was invited back to his girlfriend’s house, he headed straight for the refrigerator. It was stainless steel with a water and ice dispenser.

 Read more…

(Compiled by Alex Leslie, edited by John C. Tanner)

{ https://disruptive.asia/ }

24-03-2019 om 16:55 geschreven door peter  

We take light for granted and often forget just how weird and powerful the sometimes-wave, sometimes-particle is. Never mind that our entire existence is dependent on light, there’s a whole host of other wacky applications that science is only beginning to get get a grasp on. For example, new research from the California Institute of Technology has apparently found a way to levitate macro-scale objects using noting but light. Scientists at Caltech say that, once implemented, this technology would allow a spacecraft to surf its way on a beam of light to the nearest planet outside our solar system in as little as 20 years.

The new research is only theoretical at this point, but it builds off decades of previous work using light to manipulate very small objects. The first so-called “optical tweezers,” which use the radiative pressure of focused light beams to manipulate nano-scale objects, led to the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics. The principle is more or less the same, but but there’s a big difference between moving microscopic objects microscopic distances, and launching interstellar spacecraft. Ognjen Ilic, postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and author of the new paper, says:

“One can levitate a ping pong ball using a steady stream of air from a hair dryer. But it wouldn’t work if the ping pong ball were too big, or if it were too far away from the hair dryer, and so on.”

The key to the new research is in creating nano-scale reflection patterns on the surface of the objects to be levitated. By giving the surface of the object the right pattern it will interact with the light beam in such a way that it will continually spin itself back into the beam of light, creating a feedback loop of sorts with the radiative pressure of light all the way to another star system. While previous theoretical concepts for light sails relied on incredibly powerful lasers to do the heavy lifting, this method would encode the objects surface with what it needs to stay stable, and would work with a light source even millions of miles away.

Of course, this is still theoretical. They haven’t started building light sails yet, and actual real world demonstrations will be needed. Still, it’s pretty exciting. Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Caltech says:

“We have come up with a method that could levitate macroscopic objects. There is an audaciously interesting application to use this technique as a means for propulsion of a new generation of spacecraft. We’re a long way from actually doing that, but we are in the process of testing out the principles.”

It probably won’t look like this.

If it works, this technology would allow starships to travel at close to the speed of light and would open up a whole new realm of possibilities for the future of sustained interstellar travel. Just think, we’ve spent so much time lighting stuff on fire, trying to squeeze out the little bit of propulsion we could from it, when all we really needed was a big flashlight.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

24-03-2019 om 16:35 geschreven door peter  

What do magnetic and glassy impact-related spherules, nanodiamonds, carbon spherules, biomass burning, and anomalous levels of platinum and chromium in ancient sediment layers all have in common?

Here’s a hint: it involves a controversial theory about an ancient cataclysmic event… and one that is gaining new support, after an international team of scientists found compelling new evidence for its cause in South America. 

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis contends that around 12,800 years ago, a disintegrating comet or asteroid led to an impact event—or maybe several—along with possible airbursts which resulted in widespread fires and climate changes identified in relation to the Younger Dryas Climate Event.

Proponents of the theory also believe climate changes occurring at this time may have been a contributing factor in megafaunal extinctions, along with existing evidence of human predation, which began to occur several thousands of years ago. However, archaeological evidence also seems to indicate that human populations were affected at the same time; presumably a result of the same environmental changes.

Evidence for large scale climate changes related to these proposed impacts or air bursts had been found already on several continents. However, a new study titled “Sedimentary record from Patagonia, southern Chile supports cosmic-impact triggering of biomass burning, climate change, and megafaunal extinctions at 12.8 ka,” argues that features remarkably similar to existing North American sites associated with the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) were found at the South American archaeological and paleontological site of Pilauco Bajo.

According to the new paper’s extract:

“In the most extensive investigation south of the equator, we report on a ~12,800-year-old sequence at Pilauco, Chile (~40°S), that exhibits peak YD boundary concentrations of platinum, gold, high-temperature iron- and chromium-rich spherules, and native iron particles rarely found in nature.”

As I noted elsewhere in relation to the new Chilean discoveries, “The significance of the platinum concentrations and other metallic signatures at the Chilean site presents another unique identifier, with relevance to previous studies that located an anomalous abundance of the rare earth metal at several YDB sites, as well as within ice core samples from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Christopher R. Moore, Ph.D. of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, who contributed to the recent Chilean study, was the lead author of a paper published in Scientific Reports in 2017 which first identified this platinum anomaly.”

UC Santa Barbara geology professor emeritus James Kennett, also a co-author on the new paper, says at least one of the discoveries made at Pilauco, Chile, was unique to the site. Kennett was particularly interested in an abundance of chromium found in the YD boundary at the new location, since it is an element that is not commonly found at similar sites located in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, Kennett told UC Santa Barbara’s The Current that “volcanic rocks in the southern Andes can be rich in chromium,” which he and other scientists conducting research on the site felt could explain the prevalence of the material.

“Thus, the cometary objects must have hit South America as well,” Kennett concludes. The paper appeared on March 13 in Scientific Reports and can be viewed online here.

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis remains controversial, largely due to the fact that its deterrents feel that the Younger Dryas can be explained more simply as a climate event unto itself. Critics primarily argue that meltwater from the glaciers at the end of the Pleistocene spilled into the Atlantic as global temperatures began to naturally warm, causing a cooling effect that disrupted ocean currents that led to further cooling prevalent throughout the Northern Hemispheres. Further, it has been noted that periods of cold reversal similar to the Dryas appear in the geological record toward the end of past ice ages as well; it seems unlikely that a cosmic impact event would occur at the end of every ice age.

Nonetheless, the accumulation of new evidence over the last few years makes the once unlikely theory of a cosmic impact 12,800 years ago now something worthy of a second look. Hence, the question is perhaps not so much one of “where is the evidence,” but instead who is willing to look at it?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

24-03-2019 om 16:22 geschreven door peter