The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
01-04-2019
NASA's Orion Capsule Emergency Abort System Checks Its Attitude in Test
NASA's Orion Capsule Emergency Abort System Checks Its Attitude in Test
The attitude control motor for the Orion capsule goes through its first test.
An emergency motor designed to steer future NASA Orion capsule crewmembers to safety ignited during a recent 30-second test and produced over 7,000 lbs. of thrust, according to the space agency.
The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is currently slated to sit atop the Space Launch System (SLS), a superheavy-lift launch vehicle that could one day bring humans back to the moon. The evolving project might even bring the first crew to Mars. For now, Orion will travel on SLS, but there's a possibility it will fly atop a commercial carrier, instead, for its first test flight around the moon — Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) — if SLS won't be ready for the June 2020 flight.
No matter the vehicle, Orion needs a backup plan if the rocket malfunctions upon exiting low Earth orbit. To prepare for a worst-case scenario, propulsion engineers need to have a keen awareness of the three dimensionality of a launch. So, having the right attitude is important.
Attitude is the orientation of a spacecraft in three-dimensional space. It's an element that's essential to navigation, and errors in precision have been known to cause mission failure, like the case of Europe's Schiaparelli Mars lander.
"This test was the first in a series of evaluations aimed at qualifying the attitude control motor for crewed missions," NASA officials said in an agency statement March 25.
The eight valves that recently lit up at the Northrop Grumman facility in Elkton, Maryland, are part of the attitude control motor that could orient the Orion crew capsule and guide its trajectory moving away from the rocket in case of an emergency. Rather than just speeding up faster than the rocket accelerating below it, the eight valves around the motor's cylindrical body would jettison the crew off to one side and away from a dangerous situation.
The Orion abort attitude control motor fires during a test at Northrop Grumman's facility in Elkton, Maryland.
Elishabet Lato, propulsion engineer at Northrop Grumman, and astronaut Randy Bresnik of Expedition 52/53 to the International Space Station, spoke during a Facebook Live event on March 20 to explain the Orion Launch Abort System attitude control motor test.
Each valve is positioned on one-eighth of the cylindrical body, and depending on which direction they need to take, the valves will ignite in milliseconds as hot gas comes out each of those valves to pivot Orion in the opposite direction, according to Lato.
If launch is successful, the Launch Abort System won't be needed any longer. In that case, it would be discarded by the launch vehicle so the spacecraft doesn't have to use its propellant to push unnecessary weight as it continues on its journey.
NASA tested Orion's crew module uprighting system off the coast of North Carolina in March 2018.
NASA also reported that the crew module uprighting system (CMUS), which ensures the Orion capsule re-enters Earth right side up, underwent testing last week off the coast of North Carolina, agency officials said in the statement.
More than 100 UFOs sightings reported in NY last year
More than 100 UFOs sightings reported in NY last year
More than 100 UFOs sightings reported in NY last year
More than 100 UFO sightings were reported in New York last year to the National UFO Reporting Center. The center, based in Davenport, Wash., says it makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports. “Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author’s own words.”
“We hope that this information will prove to be useful to the general public and the UFO community at large.” Whether or not you believe these reports, the New York state UFOs are worth a look. In all, there were 103 UFO reports from the state in 2018.
Many mention triangular-shaped objects or groups of objects, blinking lights, hovering objects and either saucer-shaped or cigar-shaped craft.
The majority of sightings happened after dark, but one student spotted an object while taking a test on the morning of April 17 in Burnt Hills.
“I was sitting in class and looked out of my class window and noticed a small egg-shaped object made of metal. It was floating above my school, but since I was taking a test I didn’t point it out.”
The National UFO Reporting Center site indicates whether anyone checked out the report (some are labeled “hoax?”) or view video or photos.
A sighting from Route 88 near Richmondville, Schoharie County, in July mentioned a semi truck with trooper and military escort: “On the flatbed was a craft that resembled a somewhat flattened bullet, with the back end flatter and 3 or 4 round things inside the back end for possible propulsion or exhaust function. no windows. no wings.”
The center noted: “Nice illustration provided by witness. We suspect that the object probably was some type of military platform.”
And then there’s the report that begins, “please keep me anonymous we just want to know if we are safe.”
“My son and sister witnessed a creature at 3:20 in the morning while letting dog out.they came in running and screaming.they said the thing was 7-8 feet tall grey green elongated head, no genitals and when they startled it it ran at an impossible speed covering over 150 in two seconds and was out of sight.”
A 2017 study by Chapman University in California found that 35 percent of Americans believe that aliens have come to Earth in the ancient past; 23 percent believe aliens are still visiting in modern times.
The National UFO Reporting Center said it has recently seen a high volume of prank calls on its hotline, “typically dozens per day … we suspect that the same problem may spill over to the stream of incoming written reports.”
However, it said, “there are, nevertheless, many excellent reports, submitted by anonymous parties, that deserve a reader’s attention, so a anonymous report is not necessarily unreliable.”
Attribution:Jim Shay and Teresa Buckley - Timesunion
Video – The Moon is Artificial and I Can Prove It: Alien Observatory
Video – The Moon is Artificial and I Can Prove It: Alien Observatory
No doubt you’ve heard some of the completely unexplainable stories about the moon. There are the enigmatic structures that made front-page news of major new publications… but were then dismissed from all media, and even photo-shopped out of photos. There are the strange “lunar wave” videos of recent years, which seem to show the moon’s image actually jumping – as though it were a projected hologram; and.. you only need to search YouTube to see hundreds of entirely credible videos of strange lights, flurries, and unidentified flying aircraft departing and landing on the surface of the moon. Yet, the US supposedly quit landing on the moon in 1973, was our every scientific question answered? Why are these credible testimonies ignored… or dismissed? Could there be more to that ball in the sky than meets the eye
If you research the moon, you might be surprised. Its reference in ancient history, its perfect geometrical symmetry, astronaut testimonies, all seem to point to only one logical conclusion: that our moon is most likely a hollowed out structure, and an artificial satellite, that was intentionally placed into Earth’s orbit only a few hundred thousand years ago – and that the advanced engineers accomplished this intending not only to influence the Earth’s biology but to oversee and control her inhabitants.
A supernova explosion flung out a super-dense, whirling stellar core, sending it streaking across space at almost 2.5 million mph (4 million km/h) with a glowing trail 13 light-years long in its wake.
Researchers tracked the stellar core, called a pulsar, using NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) astronomical observatory. The pulsar is about 6,500 light-years from Earth and was first discovered in 2017 by a citizen science project, Einstein@Home. It is moving fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in just 6 minutes — 5 times faster than the average pulsar moves, and faster than 99 percent of pulsar speeds previously documented by researchers. Scientists described the pulsar as a cosmic "cannonball" in a NASA statement.
"Thanks to its narrow dart-like tail and a fortuitous viewing angle, we can trace this pulsar straight back to its birthplace," Frank Schinzel, a researcher at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico, said in the statement. "Further study of this object will help us better understand how these explosions are able to 'kick' neutron stars to such high speed."
The pulsar J0002+6216 streaks away from the bubble-like supernova remnant CTB 1. This composite image combines radio, visible light and infrared data. CTB 1, if viewed in the night sky, would appear to be the size of a full moon.
Pulsar J0002+6126 was likely flung from the system after its predecessor star's supernova, eventually surpassing the expanding shell of gas and dust also released in the explosion, officials said in the statement. The object's long tail, which can be detected in radio wavelengths, comes from shockwaves as it travels through interstellar gas and dust, called the interstellar medium.
The pulsar flashes regularly, its jets of gamma-rays sweeping by Earth 8.7 times per second as it spins. The research team took advantage of its regularity to measure the object's precise speed and direction.
"The longer the data set, the more powerful the pulsar timing technique is," Matthew Kerr, a co-collaborator on the discovery and a researcher at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, said in the statement. "Fermi's lovely 10-year data set is essentially what made this measurement possible."
The supernova explosion that initially propelled the pulsar likely occurred about 10,000 years ago; the object has travelled 53 light-years away from the epicenter of the blast. After about 5,000 years, the pulsar shot past the shell of gas and debris, which was slowed even more by the interstellar medium. The researchers are unsure how the supernova kickstarted the pulsar's flight; one explanation, officials said in the statement, could be that a dense patch of matter formed during the star's collapse and lasted long enough to tug the stellar core toward it.
Future observations with the VLA, the NSF's Very Large Baseline Array and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory may shed more light on the pulsar's swift exit.
The new work was presented at an American Astronomical Society meeting in California and has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Missiles shot from California'sVandenberg Air Force Basesuccessfully destroyed an airborne target Monday (March 25) as part of a U.S. missile defense test, military officials said.
The target was an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, about 4,000 miles (6,440 kilometers) from Vandenberg.
During the test, sensors in space, on the ground and at sea helped guide two ground-based interceptors (GBI) fired from Vandenberg. The first interceptor destroyed the target, a re-entry vehicle, while the second one searched the remaining debris for other threatening objects. Since there were no re-entry vehicles in the debris, the second missile hit the next "most lethal object" in the wreckage and also destroyed it, U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials said in a statement.
A threat-representative ICBM target launches from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands March 25, 2019 in this long-exposure photo. It was successfully intercepted by two ground-based interceptor missiles launched from California.
One of two Ground-Based Interceptors launches from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to destroy an ICBM target launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 25, 2019.
The 'lead' Ground-based Interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019, in the first-ever salvo engagement test of a threat-representative ICBM target. It was the first of two missiles launched to intercept an ICBM target vehicle by the Missile Defense Agency.
The 'trail' Ground-based Interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019. The remnants of a plume from a second launch in the salvo can be seen at right.
This infrared image shows the successful destruction of a threat-representative ICBM target by two long-range Ground-based Interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019. The salvo missile intercept was the first of its kind.
A final infrared image of the successful intercept of a threat-representative ICBM target by two long-range Ground-based Interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., March 25, 2019.
"This was the first GBI salvo intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target, and it was a critical milestone," Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, director of the MDA, said in the statement. "The system worked exactly as it was designed to do ... The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat."
A first-ever test March 25, 2019 saw two ground-based interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile target launched from a separate test site.
Officials added in the statement that they are evaluating the system performance to get more information, but everything received so far shows that the test "met requirements."
This is the latest in a series of tests testing examining how the United States would respond to ICBM threats. One possible nation that could be threatening is North Korea, which has conducted its own tests and said in the past that the United States is among the nations it hopes to destroy.
#NASA reports earth suffered a near miss in December as a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the#Bering Sea, close to #Russia‘s Kamchatka Peninsula. The meteor travelling at over 20 miles per second, exploded with the force of more than 10 times (173 kilotons) the strength, of the #atomic blast which obliterated #Hiroshima ending World War II.
A spokesperson for NASA, Lindley Johnson, NASA’s #planetary defence official told BBC.UK that “a fireball this big is only expected about two or three times every 100 years,” the actual extraterrestrial rock exploded 25.6km above the Earth's surface and over water, and this is why people did not see the explosion. Furthermore, the #meteor entered the earth's atmosphere at a very steep trajectory of seven degrees making it hard to see with the naked eye.
This is not the first time that the #Kamchatka Peninsula has witnessed such an extraterrestrial event such as this, just six years ago Chelyabinsk in Russia suffered an even greater meteor explosion 40% higher than this latest event and that one happened over land, so the fireball was noticed by many people.
Authors note: If it were not for US Air Force #military#satellites which picked up the event before reporting it to NASA no one would have been the wiser. However, the area where the space rock entered the earth's atmosphere is used by civilian #airlines for some of their essential routes so NASA is hoping some of the pilots who may have witnessed the event, will come forward.
FIRST LOOK The first image from the Event Horizon Telescope may show that the black hole at the center of our galaxy looks something like this simulation.
BRONZWAER, DAVELAAR, MOSCIBRODZKA AND FALCKE/RADBOUD UNIVERSITY
We’re about to see the first close-up of a black hole.
TheEvent Horizon Telescope,a network of eight radio observatories spanning the globe, has set its sights on a pair of behemoths: Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, and an even more massive black hole 53.5 million light-years away in galaxy M87 (SN Online: 4/5/17).
In April 2017, the observatories teamed up to observe the black holes’ event horizons, the boundary beyond which gravity is so extreme that even light can’t escape (SN: 5/31/14, p. 16). After almost two years of rendering the data, scientists are gearing up to release the first images in April.
Here’s what scientists hope those images can tell us.
What does a black hole really look like?
Black holes live up to their names: The great gravitational beasts emit no light in any part of the electromagnetic spectrum, so they themselves don’t look like much.
But astronomers know the objects are there because of a black hole’s entourage. As a black hole’s gravity pulls in gas and dust, matter settles into an orbiting disk, with atoms jostling one another at extreme speeds. All that activity heats the matter white-hot, so it emits X-rays and other high-energy radiation. The most voraciously feeding black holes in the universe have disks that outshine all the stars in their galaxies (SN Online: 3/16/18).
A CAMERA THE SIZE OF EARTH How did scientists take a picture of a black hole?
Science News explains.
The EHT’s image of the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A*, also called SgrA*, is expected to capture the black hole’s shadow on its accompanying disk of bright material. Computer simulations and the laws of gravitational physics give astronomers a pretty good idea of what to expect. Because of the intense gravity near a black hole, the disk’s light will be warped around the event horizon in a ring, so even the material behind the black hole will be visible.
And the image will probably look asymmetrical: Gravity will bend light from the inner part of the disk toward Earth more strongly than the outer part, making one side appear brighter in a lopsided ring.
Does general relativity hold up close to a black hole?
The exact shape of the ring may help break one of the most frustrating stalemates in theoretical physics.
The twin pillars of physics are Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which governs massive and gravitationally rich things like black holes, and quantum mechanics, which governs the weird world of subatomic particles. Each works precisely in its own domain. But they can’t work together.
“General relativity as it is and quantum mechanics as it is are incompatible with each other,” says physicist Lia Medeiros of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Rock, hard place. Something has to give.” If general relativity buckles at a black hole’s boundary, it may point the way forward for theorists.
Since black holes are the most extreme gravitational environments in the universe, they’re the best environment to crash test theories of gravity. It’s like throwing theories at a wall and seeing whether — or how — they break. If general relativity does hold up, scientists expect that the black hole will have a particular shadow and thus ring shape; if Einstein’s theory of gravity breaks down, a different shadow.
Medeiros and her colleagues ran computer simulations of 12,000 different black hole shadows that could differ from Einstein’s predictions. “If it’s anything different, [alternative theories of gravity] just got a Christmas present,” says Medeiros, who presented the simulation results in January in Seattle at the American Astronomical Society meeting. Even slight deviations from general relativity could create different enough shadows for EHT to probe, allowing astronomers to quantify how different what they see is from what they expect.
CONSIDERING ALL POSSIBILITIES Physicists expect black holes to follow Einstein’s rules of general relativity, but it might be more interesting if they don’t. This computer simulation shows one possibility for how a black hole would look if it behaved unexpectedly.
Do stellar corpses called pulsars surround the Milky Way’s black hole?
Another way to test general relativity around black holes is to watch how stars careen around them. As light flees the extreme gravity in a black hole’s vicinity, its waves get stretched out, making the light appear redder. This process, called gravitational redshift, is predicted by general relativity and was observed near SgrA* last year (SN: 8/18/18, p. 12). So far, so good for Einstein.
An even better way to do the same test would be with a pulsar, a rapidly spinning stellar corpse that sweeps the sky with a beam of radiation in a regular cadence that makes it appear to pulse (SN: 3/17/18, p. 4). Gravitational redshift would mess up the pulsars’ metronomic pacing, potentially giving a far more precise test of general relativity.
“The dream for most people who are trying to do SgrA* science, in general, is to try to find a pulsar or pulsars orbiting” the black hole, says astronomer Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Va. “There are a lot of quite interesting and quite deep tests of [general relativity] that pulsars can provide, that EHT [alone] won’t.”
Despite careful searches, no pulsars have been found near enough to SgrA* yet, partly because gas and dust in the galactic center scatters their beams and makes them difficult to spot. But EHT is taking the best look yet at that center in radio wavelengths, so Ransom and colleagues hope it might be able to spot some.
“It’s a fishing expedition, and the chances of catching a whopper are really small,” Ransom says. “But if we do, it’s totally worth it.”
ONE OF MANY? The pulsar PSR J1745-2900 (left in this illustration) was discovered in 2013 orbiting roughly 150 light-years from the black hole at the center of the galaxy. That’s too far to use it to do precise tests of general relativity, but astronomers hope that the pulsar’s existence means the Event Horizon Telescope will find many more even closer to the black hole.
RALPH EATOUGH/MPIFR
How do some black holes make jets?
Some black holes are ravenous gluttons, pulling in massive amounts of gas and dust, while others are picky eaters. No one knows why. SgrA* seems to be one of the fussy ones, with a surprisingly dim accretion disk despite its 4 million solar mass heft. EHT’s other target, the black hole in galaxy M87, is a voracious eater, weighing in at about 2.4 trillion solar masses. And it doesn’t just amass a bright accretion disk. It also launches a bright, fast jet of charged subatomic particles that stretches for about 5,000 light-years.
“It’s a little bit counterintuitive to think a black hole spills out something,” says astrophysicist Thomas Krichbaum of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. “Usually people think it only swallows something.”
Many other black holes produce jets that are longer and wider than entire galaxies and can extend billions of light-years from the black hole. “The natural question arises: What is so powerful to launch these jets to such large distances?” Krichbaum says. “Now with the EHT, we can for the first time trace what is happening.”
EHT’s measurements of M87’s black hole will help estimate the strength of its magnetic field, which astronomers think is related to the jet-launching mechanism. And measurements of the jet’s properties when it’s close to the black hole will help determine where the jet originates — in the innermost part of the accretion disk, farther out in the disk or from the black hole itself. Those observations might also reveal whether the jet is launched by something about the black hole itself or by the fast-flowing material in the accretion disk.
Since jets can carry material out of the galactic center and into the regions between galaxies, they can influence how galaxies grow and evolve, and even where stars and planets form (SN: 7/21/18, p. 16).
“It is important to understanding the evolution of galaxies, from the early formation of black holes to the formation of stars and later to the formation of life,” Krichbaum says. “This is a big, big story. We are just contributing with our studies of black hole jets a little bit to the bigger puzzle.”
The first close-up observations by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft of its target, asteroid Bennu, reveal new details that pose a bigger challenge than scientists expected to the mission’s objective of collecting a sample of the asteroid.
The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft reached Bennu on December 3, 2018, after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km). For the past three months, OSIRIS-REx has been investigating Bennu at close range, beginning to search for an ideal site to collect a sample, and getting to know the asteroid in much greater detail.
While the spacecraft’s observations have confirmed many of the measurements obtained by ground-based observations, recent findings have revealed that Bennu is a more challenging target than the mission was originally designed for.
Bennu’s surface is rockier than expected, creating challenges for the team whose mission is to scoop up a sample of pristine material and return it to Earth in 2023.
The OSIRIS-REx team developed its sampling strategy around what they knew about Bennu when they designed the mission. They anticipated plentiful patches of relatively smooth surface with gravel and pebbles less than 1 inch in size that extend over at least 55 yards (50 meters). Instead, the spacecraft observed only a small number of regions, each between 5.4 and 22 yards (5 and 20 m), that are devoid of large boulders that pose a hazard to the spacecraft when it touches down to collect its sample.
This trio of images was taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on February 25, 2019, in orbit around Bennu, about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) from the asteroid’s surface. The images show a wide shot and 2 close-ups of a region in Bennu’s northern hemisphere.
Instead of having the equivalent of half a football field to navigate in, the spacecraft will have to operate within the confines of sampling sites that are half the size of a basketball court or smaller.
High-resolution images made with the OSIRIS-REx cameras reveal a surface packed with more than 200 boulders larger than 33 feet (10 m) in diameter and many more that are 3 feet (1 m) or larger. The largest boulder measures 63 yards (58 m) across.
Bennu is very dark
OSIRIS-REx measurements also confirm that Bennu is one of the darkest objects in the solar system, reflecting only 4 percent of sunlight. One of the surprises turned out to be a larger-than-expected variability in surface albedo, the proportion of light reflected by a surface. In other words, Bennu’s surface features vary greatly from one another with respect to their brightness. The high variability in albedo presents a challenge for the laser of the spacecraft’s lidar system, designed to guide the sample acquisition approach.
This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 19, 2019, was created by combining 2 images taken on board the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
In another strange discovery, OSIRIS-REx observed plumes of particles being energetically ejected from the surface of Bennu. It’s the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface.
The OSIRIS-REx team first spotted the particle plumes in images while the spacecraft was orbiting Bennu at a distance of about one mile (1.61 km). The mission team did a safety assessment and concluded the particles did not pose a risk to the spacecraft. The team continues to analyze the particle plumes and their possible causes. Read more about the discovery from NASA.
Dante Lauretta is OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lauretta said in a statement:
The discovery of plumes is one of the biggest surprises of my scientific career. And the rugged terrain went against all of our predictions. Bennu is already surprising us, and our exciting journey there is just getting started.
The size of asteroid Bennu, which is 1,614 feet (492 meters) wide, compared with the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower in this NASA image.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was only 15 miles (24 km) from asteroid Bennu – on December 2, 2018 – when it captured the 12 high-resolution images that make up this mosaic. The mosaic shows features as small as 20 feet (6 meters)
Image via NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.
Bottom line: New findings about asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx mission.
The Space Telescope’s sharp imaging provided detail on activity from active asteroid Gault, which is now known to be spinning on its axis so fast that material on its surface at times flies off into space.
A Hubble Space Telescope view of asteroid 6478 Gault, showing 2 narrow, comet-like tails of debris. The bright streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars.
Image via NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)/SpaceTelescope.org.
Asteroids are typically solid rocky or metallic bodies; comets are fragile, icy bodies that sometimes sprout tails when they come near the sun. But some asteroids have been found to appear comet-like, in that they also have tails. Scientists said on March 28, 2019, that they used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe such an asteroid, called 6478 Gault. Clear images from the telescope provided researchers with new insight into this asteroid’s unusual past, they said. They now believe that Gault is self-destructing slowly, which is the reason for its two narrow, comet-like tails of debris. Each tail is evidence of an active event that released material into space. Why is it self-destructing? The reason is thought to be its unusually fast spin on its axis.
The team’s results have been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewedAstrophysical Journal Letters (preprint here).
Astronomers have known about asteroid Gault for some time. It was discovered in 1988. The object is 2.5 to 5.5 miles (4 to 9 km) wide, and it’s located in the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers said in a statement:
… the recent observation of two debris tails is the first indication of the asteroid’s instability. This asteroid is one of only a handful to be caught disintegrating by a process known as a YORP torque. When sunlight heats an asteroid, the infrared radiation that escapes from its warmed surface carries off both heat and momentum. This creates a small force that can cause the asteroid to spin faster.
If this centrifugal force eventually overcomes gravity, the asteroid becomes unstable. Landslides on the object can release rubble and dust into space, leaving behind a tail of debris, as seen here with asteroid Gault.
Astronomers estimate that among the 800,000 known asteroids that occupy the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, YORP disruptions occur roughly once per year. From the Hubble observations, researchers inferred that the release of material from the asteroid took place in short episodes lasting from a few hours to a couple of days. They commented:
The direct observation of this activity by the Hubble Space Telescope has provided [us] with a special opportunity to study the composition of asteroids. By researching the material that this unstable asteroid releases into space, [we] can get a glimpse into the history of planet formation in the early ages of the solar system.
Follow-up observations have been made by various ground-based telescopes, and, these astronomers said:
These data were used to deduce a two-hour rotation period for Gault, which is very close to the critical speed at which material will begin to tumble and slide across the asteroid’s surface before drifting off into space.
Astronomer Jan Kleyna of the University of Hawaii – lead author of the new paper – commented:
Gault is the best ‘smoking-gun’ example of a fast rotator right at the two-hour limit. It could have been on the brink of instability for 10 million years. Even a tiny disturbance, like a small impact from a pebble, might have triggered the recent outbursts.
Astronomer Olivier Hainaut of the European Southern Observatory in Germany explained:
This self-destruction event is rare. Active and unstable asteroids such as Gault are only now being detected by means of new survey telescopes that scan the entire sky, which means asteroids such as Gault that are misbehaving cannot escape detection any more.
Bottom line:Hubble Space Telescope sharp imaging has provided valuable detail on activity from active asteroid Gault, which is now known to be spinning on its axis so fast – about every two hours – that material on its surface at times flies off into space.
Devon Island in the Arctic is one of Earth’s most Mars-like places. NASA is there, training scientists and testing technologies for future Mars exploration. Now Google has joined in, to bring Devon Island’s Mars-like wonders to you.
Here’s one of the Mars-like wonders of Devon Island in the High Arctic, featured in Google’s new documentary short on the NASA Haughton-Mars Project. This earthly canyon – called Astronaut Canyon by scientists – was carved by glaciers and resembles some of the tributary canyons to Ius Chasma on Mars.
A crewed mission to Mars might be a long way off, but researchers are busy preparing, nonetheless. One of the best ways to prepare is by training scientists and testing new technologies in some of the most Mars-like locations on Earth, simulating the experience as much as possible.
On March 25, 2019, the Mars Institute and the SETI Institute jointly announced a new partnership between Google and NASA’s Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) to further the goal of human Mars exploration and the public’s understanding of it. Their focus is Devon Island in Nunavut, Canada, in the Arctic. Devon Island is one of the most Mars-like places that can be found on Earth and the single largest continuous area of barren rocky polar desert on Earth. The announcement was accompanied by the release of new public outreach products including Street View imagery; a Google Earth guided tour highlighting the Mars-like geology of Devon Island (Chrome browser needed); and a documentary short captured at NASA’s Haughton-Mars Project with a Google Pixel 3. Want an example? Highlights from Google Street View include:
The new Google Earth guided tour of Devon Island and NASA’s facilities there is called Mars on Earth. It illustrates – via factual narrative – how Devon Island is similar to the “magnificent desolation” of Mars. Please note that Google Earth is optimized for Google’s Chrome browser and might not work with other browsers.
According to Pascal Lee, director of NASA HMP at Ames Research Center:
We are excited about this new partnership with Google on the Haughton-Mars Project and about the data products being released. They allow us to share with the world some of the Mars-like wonders of the site and the fieldwork that we do.
Devon Island (Inuit: Tatlurutit) is an island in Canada and the largest uninhabited island on Earth. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada.
Aerial view of the Haughton-Mars Project Research Station and surrounding desolate terrain on Devon Island.
Image via Mars Institute.
Closer aerial view and map of Haughton-Mars Project Research Station.
Image via Mars Institute.
Google captured its images in August 2018, when it took part in HMP’s 2018 summer field campaign as a new Education and Public Outreach partner.
The team also produced a 10-minute documentary called “Mars On Earth: A Visit to Devon Island,” filmed in HD using a Google Pixel 3 smartphone. The film provides an overview of the activities at Haughton-Mars Project Research Station (HMPRS) over a 10-day period. Also included in the documentary are flight tests and science application studies of NASA’s Mars Electric Reusable Flyer (MERF), an experimental aircraft for Mars exploration being developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. As Katja Minitsenka, leader of the Google team, noted:
We were very humbled by the opportunity to get a glimpse into the work planetary scientists are doing on Devon Island. Now we are thrilled to share the results of our time on the world’s largest uninhabited island with Google users.
Watch the film here:
According to Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute:
This new partnership between Google and the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, one of many groundbreaking research projects at the SETI Institute, is a beautiful example of how private industry and nonprofits can come together to advance science, exploration, education and public outreach. Stay tuned for more in the near future.
The Haughton-Mars Project, by the way, is based at Devon Island’s Haughton Crater – a 12-mile-wide (20-km-wide) meteorite impact crater – and surrounding terrain. A leading international Mars analog field research project, HMP has conducted numerous field studies during its 22-year history.
Locations like Devon Island, or the Atacama Desert in Chile, are about the closest one can get to Mars-like extremely dry conditions on Earth, with little to no vegetation, rainfall or other moisture. As such, they are ideal places to conduct experiments and prepare for future human missions.
Map of Devon Island with location of Haughton Crater.
Image via NASA/HMP/Pascal Lee.
A K10 Black rover doing a site survey in Haughton Crater.
Image via Matt Deans/NASA.
Testing of analog pressurized rovers at Haughton-Mars Project Research Station on Devon Island. Left: field test with robotic arm. Right: test of rover equipped with two EVA suit ports for astronauts.
Image via Mars Institute.
Comparison of similar canyons on Devon Island and Mars. Left: Astronaut Canyon on Devon Island. Right: Ius Chasma on Mars.
Image via Mars Institute.
Bottom line: The partnership between NASA and Google provides new and innovative ways to not only advance testing for human exploration of Mars, but also to share that adventure with the public at large.
A look at why some scientists are calling for an international ban of autonomous killer robots.
Dozens of scientists, health care professionals and academics have written a letter to the U.N. calling for an international ban of autonomous killerrobots, saying recent advances in artificial intelligence "have brought us to the brink of a new arms race in lethal autonomous weapons."
The letter, which has been signed by more than 70 health care professionals and was put together by the Future of Life Institute, states that lethal autonomous weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and despots, lower the barrier to armed conflict and "become weapons of mass destruction enabling very few to kill very many."
"Furthermore, autonomous weapons are morally abhorrent, as we should never cede the decision to take a human life to algorithms," the letter continues. "As healthcare professionals, we believe that breakthroughs in science have tremendous potential to benefit society and should not be used to automate harm. We therefore call for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons."
In addition to the letter, a study written by Dr. Emilia Javorsky posits that recent advances by a number of countries working on lethal autonomous weapon systems "would represent a third revolution in warfare," following gunpowder and nuclear weapons.
The effort put forth by the Future of Life Institute follows a 2018 pledge from more than 2,400 individuals from companies and organizations around the world. Those from Google DeepMind, the European Association for AI and University College London and others said they would “neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.”
Past concerns
Others have raised concerns to the U.N. as well about the benefits and costs of killers robots. Experts from several countries met in August 2018 at the Geneva offices of the U.N. to focus on lethal autonomous weapons systems and explore ways of possibly regulating them, among other issues.
In theory, fully autonomous, computer-controlled weapons don’t exist yet, UN officials said at the time. The debate is still in its infancy and the experts have at times grappled with basic definitions. The United States has argued that it’s premature to establish a definition of such systems, much less regulate them.
Some advocacy groups say governments and militaries should be prevented from developing such systems, which have sparked fears and led some critics to envisage harrowing scenarios about their use.
In 2017, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other leading artificial intelligence experts called on the United Nations to issue a global ban on the use of killer robots, which includes drones, tanks and machine guns. “Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close,” Musk and 115 other specialists from around the globe wrote in the letter.
Research firm IDC expects that global spending on robotics and drones will reach $201.3 billion by 2022, up from an estimated $95.9 billion in 2018.
Over the years, several luminaries, including Musk, legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and a host of others have warned against the rise of artificial intelligence.
In September 2017, Musk tweeted that he thought AI could play a direct role in causing World War III. Musk's thoughts were in response to comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said that "who becomes the leader in this sphere [artificial intelligence] will be the ruler of the world."
In November 2017, prior to his death, Hawking theorized that AI could eventually "destroy" humanity if we are not careful about it.
Bizarre geheime CIA-stukken over verloren beschavingen op aarde openbaar gemaakt. Wat mogen wij niet weten?
Bizarre geheime CIA-stukken over verloren beschavingen op aarde openbaar gemaakt. Wat mogen wij niet weten?
Recentelijk heeft de CIA een document vrijgegeven over verloren beschavingen op aarde en catastrofes die vele duizenden jaren geleden hebben plaatsgevonden, en die ervoor hebben gezorgd dat ze zomaar ineens van de aardbodem verdwenen.
Het document geeft antwoord op de vraag waarom ons verleden is omgeven door zoveel mysterie en onzekerheden.
In het vrijgegeven document, dat 57 pagina’s telt, wordt ook gesproken over Atlantis.
Grote raadsels
Het oorspronkelijke stuk bestond uit ruim 200 pagina’s, maar de CIA heeft er slechts een aantal geopenbaard. Het is niet bekend waarom het grootste deel nog altijd geheim is.
De auteur stelt in het stuk dat de Piramide van Gizeh in Egypte, Paaseiland, Tiahuanaco en Baalbek grote raadsels zijn.
Anno 2019 kunnen we nog altijd niet met zekerheid zeggen hoe de Piramide van Gizeh is gebouwd en met welk doel.
Verloren continent
In de drie grote piramides zijn geen mummies gevonden en daarnaast bevatten ze geen hiërogliefen. Sterker nog: nergens in Egypte zijn hiërogliefen gevonden die verwijzen naar een piramide.
Duizenden jaren lang was de Piramide van Gizeh het hoogste bouwwerk op aarde.
In het document wordt verder gesteld dat Paaseiland ooit deel uitmaakte van een verloren continent genaamd Mu, dat grotendeels is gezonken na een catastrofe.
Meer dan 1000 ton
Ook de enorme stenen in Baalkbek komen aan bod. De monolithische steunmuren van de stad in Libanon werden gebouwd met stenen die meer dan 1000 ton wogen.
In een steengroeve in de buurt van de stad ligt een nog grotere steen, die nog zwaarder is.
Volgens wetenschappers is Baalbek gebouwd door de Romeinen, maar die beschikten niet over de technologie om zulke zware stenen van de grond te tillen.
Was koningin Nefertiti niet afkomstig van deze aarde? Dit is wat egyptologen erover zeggen
Was koningin Nefertiti niet afkomstig van deze aarde? Dit is wat egyptologen erover zeggen
In 1922 werd de sarcofaag van koning Toetanchamon ontdekt. Men sprak van één van de belangrijkste archeologische ontdekkingen aller tijden.
Bijna een eeuw later bleek dat er meer zit achter de laatste rustplaats van de koning dan je zou denken.
In 2015 ontdekte egyptoloog Nicholas Reeves iets opvallends: twee verborgen openingen die verbonden zijn met de grafkamer van Toetanchamon.
Nefertiti
Reeves vermoedt dat één van de openingen leidt naar de tombe van koningin Nefertiti, de vrouw van farao Achnaton.
Dan rijst de vraag waarom de tombe van Nefertiti verborgen is achter die van koning Toet.
Volgens sommigen is de reden dat Nefertiti niet afkomstig was van deze aarde.
Langwerpige schedel
“Het is onbekend wie de ouders van Nefertiti waren,” zegt schrijver Erich von Däniken in het televisieprogramma Ancient Aliens. “Op afbeeldingen staat ze afgebeeld met een langwerpige schedel.”
Hij wees erop dat de Egyptische goden ook van deze langwerpige schedels hadden en volgens oude geschriften ‘soms de aarde verlieten en soms weer terugkeerden naar de aarde’.
Buitenaards
Misschien waren de ouders van Nefertiti buitenaards, aldus Von Däniken.
“Koning Achnaton en zijn vrouw zagen er volstrekt anders uit dan andere Egyptische koningen,” merkte egyptoloog Ramy Romany op.
Hij voegde toe dat Achnaton altijd werd afgebeeld met een langwerpige schedel.
New Linda Moulton Howe Something Huge Has Been Discovered in Antarctica
New Linda Moulton Howe Something Huge Has Been Discovered in Antarctica
Underground in Antarctica they have found doors up-to 18 feet thick, made of rock hard basalt. Even though they weigh many tonnes they can open with just the touch of a finger.
On the back of these doors are the symbol of the black sun. The interior was heated to around 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit (20-22 Celsius), and was also lighted by a lime green source projected from the ceiling and floor.
He did not see any heating or lighting equipment, which added to the mystery of the buried structure. Only part of the structure has been uncovered so far by the archaeological teams, with the rest buried under the ice and extending far below.
Some discoveries change everything. Most just explain a lot. A few explain a LOT. The latter is the case of a new discovery in North Dakota – a killing field formed perhaps no more than hours after the event that caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago … the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula and created the Chicxulub crater. Fossils found in what was once an inland sea show that the dinosaurs and other creatures there died in a rain of glass crystals formed when molten particles tossed skyward cooled and fell to the ground. And if that didn’t kill them, the seismic waves did. Is this the best picture ever of the day the Cretaceous Period ended? The day the K-T boundary was formed? The day the dinosaurs stood still?
“This is the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found associated with the K-T boundary. At no other K-T boundary section on Earth can you find such a collection consisting of a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which died at the same time, on the same day.”
In an interview published in the University of California Berkeley News, Robert DePalma, curator of paleontology at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History in Florida and a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, explained how his very first career dig in the summer of 2013 triggered the interest that kept bringing him back to North Dakota to slowly reveal that the Hell Creek Formation — a fossil cornucopia of preserved remains of fish, tree trunks, conifer branches, dead mammals, mosasaurs, insects, Triceratops, dinoflagellates, ammonites and more — was created within 24 hours of the impact that created Chicxulub and ended Cretaceous. That day is described in “Prelude to Extinction: a seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota,” to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It’s like a museum of the end of the Cretaceous in a layer a meter-and-a-half thick.”
Mark Richards, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus and provost and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, and Walter Alvarez, the UC Berkeley Professor who is credited with coming up with the extinction-causing asteroid over 40 years ago, were brought in by DePalma to analyze this layer of history. (Photos and videos of the site and the researchers can be viewed here.) The key to linking it to the Chicxulub impact was perfectly-preserved beads of glass called tektites that blanketed the creatures to the point that they appeared in the gills of fossilized fish. These beads did more than fall – they were propelled from the sly at up to 200 miles-per-hour.
A meteor impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur, the first victims of Earth’s last mass extinction event. The death scene from within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota. (Graphics and photos courtesy of Robert DePalma)
Fossilized fish piled one atop another, suggesting that they were flung ashore and died stranded together on a sand bar after the seiche withdrew.
Walter Alvarez and Robert DePalma at the Tanis outcrop in North Dakota.
Tektites, 1 millimeter spheres of glass, recovered from the Tanis fossil bed.
Robert DePalma excavating at the Tanis fossil site in North Dakota.
Fish carcasses and two logs tossed together by the seiche created by seismic waves from the meteor impact.
A perfectly preserved fish tail from Tanis deposit.
“You can imagine standing there being pelted by these glass spherules. They could have killed you.”
Run!
This is the most well-preserved example of death by tektites in the world and funnels of them in perfect shape were found buried in the ground. How did that happen? That was the second key discovery, according to DePalma.
“Tsunamis from the Chicxulub impact are certainly well-documented, but no one knew how far something like that would go into an inland sea. When Mark came aboard, he discovered a remarkable artifact — that the incoming seismic waves from the impact site would have arrived at just about the same time as the atmospheric travel time of the ejecta. That was our big breakthrough.”
Instead of a single tsunami, the area was hit with seismic waves called seiches that we now know were created far from the impact. Richards described the scene on that day 66 million years ago:
“The seismic waves start arising within nine to 10 minutes of the impact, so they had a chance to get the water sloshing before all the spherules (small spheres) had fallen out of the sky. These spherules coming in cratered the surface, making funnels — you can see the deformed layers in what used to be soft mud — and then rubble covered the spherules. No one has seen these funnels before.”
These layers of fossils, tektites and sediment are topped by a coating of iridium, a metal rarely found on Earth because it comes from … you guessed it … asteroids and comets. No matter where you dig around the world, when you hit the 66 million years ago mark, you find a layer of iridium that has come to be called the K-T or K-Pg boundary when Cretaceous ends and the Tertiary or Paleogene Period begins.
And now we know that the best place to see how the whole thing happened, including definitive proof that dinosaurs were still alive moments before the Chicxulub impact, is not in the Gulf of Mexico but in North Dakota.
Members of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) gathered in Paris last week to talk about aliens and what they came up with is quite interesting to say the least. They mentioned that although researchers have been searching the skies for many decades, there is a lack of actual evidence proving that aliens exist.
Since there are billions of stars surrounding us, we’ve never heard any communication from extraterrestrials and this where the Fermi Paradox comes in, which is the contradiction between the lack of evidence that extraterrestrials exist and the high probability that they do in fact exist.
There are many theories as to why we haven’t had any contact with aliens, such as they’re sleeping, or they’re not around anymore. But one theory in particular was discussed in Paris last week by the METI researchers and it’s that maybe we have been quarantined by the extraterrestrials. They suggested that we may be in a type of cage like we’re in some kind of galactic zoo.
Florence Raulin Cerceau, who is the METI director as well as an astrobiologist, explained, “This puzzle of why we haven’t detected extraterrestrial life has been discussed often,” adding, “But in this workshop’s unique focus, many of the talks tackled a controversial explanation first suggested in the 1970s, called the ‘zoo hypothesis’.” METI president Douglas Vakoch weighed in by saying, “Perhaps extraterrestrials are watching humans on Earth, much like we watch animals in a zoo.”
The zoo hypothesis was first presented by MIT researcher John Ball in a 1973 paper. He wrote, “Extraterrestrial intelligent life may be almost ubiquitous,” adding, “The apparent failure of such life to interact with us may be understood in terms of the hypothesis that they have set us aside as part of a wilderness area or zoo.” He later wrote in another research paper, “ETI may be discreetly and inconspicuously watching us but not dabbling.”
In 2016, Josh Hrala told ScienceAlertthat while the zoo hypothesis does assume that aliens exist, perhaps the reason why they’re not interacting with us is because they don’t want to have any influence on our society and they just want to keep observing us from far away.
The zoo hypothesis is one of many theories involving alien life, but it’s definitely an interesting hypothesis to consider. “It seems likely that extraterrestrials are imposing a ‘galactic quarantine’ because they realize it would be culturally disruptive for us to learn about them,” stated researcher Jean-Pierre Rospars from the Institut national de la recherche agronomique and who attended the METI workshop.
Whether we’re in some sort of galactic zoo or not, it would still be very exciting and life-changing if we could somehow receive any type of communication from extraterrestrials, or even solid proof that they do in fact exist.
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Bizarre Secret Files Released on Lost Ancient Human Civilizations
Bizarre Secret Files Released on Lost Ancient Human Civilizations
A recently declassified document discussed the topic of lost ancient human civilizations, and cataclysms that occurred on earth thousands of years ago – causing them to vanish from the earth and without explanation.
Thus answering the question of why there is so much mystery and unanswered questions involving our true ancient past. The creator of this document also states that the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, Easter Island, Tiahuanaco, and Baalbek are ancient Enigmas.
The lost city of Atlantis is also mentioned in the declassified files.
Welcoming our new overlords of any kind is becoming more than just a funny meme … it may be a warning that their arrival could be happening faster than we can perceive, comprehend … or stop. That seems to be the case if the overlords are artificially intelligent robots as the tech news media this week brings stories of AI robots reproducing, evolving and reciting bible verses to humans based on data collected to determine what their spiritual needs at the moment might be. Robots controlling what you pray for? Will they stop you from praying for less robots?
Wired reports this week on research in the field of evolutionary robotics being conducted at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam by computer scientist Gusz Eiben. Ebsen uses simple AI robots with simple “genomes” that define what their color will be. He then has them “mate” via connections and combine their genomes. Like in humans, he programmed the connection and combination to have flaws that can cause mutations in the “offspring.” The end result?
“One parent is fully green, and the other parent is fully blue. Then the child has some modules that are blue and some that are green, but the head is white. That’s not what we put in—it’s a mutation effect.”
Obviously, negative or flawed mutations would not be the goal. Programmers of evolutionary robots would design them to combine their strongest “genes” or characteristics to produce a baby bot with the best of both robot parents. With computers powering their intelligence and decision-making, this “evolution” could result in combinations not foreseen by human engineers. Additionally, what humans may see as genetic flaws may have uses that the AI determines to be valuable.
Everything will be OK as long as humans tightly control the algorithms … right? Research scientist David Howard, who recently published a framework for evolutionary robotics in Nature Machine Intelligence, proposes a scenario where scientists developing robots for exploring jungles do it by sending robots out into jungle to learn for themselves.
“What we’d do is get lots of small robots that are quite simple and cheap to make. We’d send them out, and some of them would do better than others.”
By “do better than others,” Howard means make it back to the lab in one piece. Those that do would be allowed to “mate” and create the next generation of bots to send out into the jungle again and repeat the process. What could possibly go wrong?
Where did every bot-ty go?
“From the Gospel according to Matthew. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Sage advice, you say? Would you feel the same way if you knew it was an AI robot’s response to your concern? In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Gabriele Trovato, a roboticist and assistant professor at Waseda University in Japan, introduces SanTO, a 17-inch-tall robot equipped with a microphone, sensors and a facial recognition-enabled camera. Trovato developed SanTO with a specific purpose in mind (view photos of SanTO here):
Roboticist Gabriele Trovato designed SanTO, a robot shaped like a figurine of a Catholic saint, to provide comfort and assistance to the elderly.
A woman interacts with SanTO at a nursing home in Siegen, Germany.
PHOTO: GABRIELE TROVATO
Built from the body of an automated-teller machine, the BlessU-2 robot can communicate in seven languages and offers several different types of prayers, such as those focused on tradition or renewal.
PHOTO: DIANA LOEFFLER
“Religion has evolved through history, from oral tradition to written tradition to press and mass media. So it’s very reasonable to think that AI and robotics will help religion to spread out more.”
Although Trovato was warned by religious officials that SanTO should not offer biblical interpretations, it comes close by making decisions which text to recite by interpreting the needs of the person it is working for based on the questions asked and cues picked up by the facial recognition system. Isn’t that counseling and teaching using biblical quotations?
Robots are reproducing, evolving and “spreading the word” of religious texts. Perhaps when we worry about our eventual takeover by the robot overlords, we should less concerned about the “over” and fret more about the “lord” part.
Archaeologists have discovered over 100 ancient inscriptions that were carved into the rock at Wadi el-Hudi, which is where the Egyptians mined amethysts in ancient times. They also found 14 stele (which are inscriptions that are carved on a slab of stone or pillar) and 45 ostraca (which are inscriptions that are written on pottery pieces).
While tests are currently being conducted on the findings, archaeologists have already concluded that several of the inscriptions were from approximately 3,900 years ago (a time period known as the “Middle Kingdom”), and several of the ostraca were from around 2,000 years ago (approximately the same time that Egypt was taken over by Rome).
Egypt
During the Middle Kingdom time period in Egypt, the pharaohs discovered that Wadi el-Hudi was an excellent source for amethysts and started mining it. “They were bringing it back and making it into jewelry and doling it out to their elite and their princesses,” Kate Liszka, who is the director of the Wadi el-Hudi expedition, told Live Science.
Although other scholars previously surveyed Wadi el-Hudi, many of the inscriptions were overlooked. “The site is just so full of inscriptions behind every boulder and around every wall that they missed a lot of them,” Liszka stated. In order to find new inscriptions, the team is using 3D modeling, photogrammetry, and reflectance transformation imaging (RTI).
The team hopes that the inscriptions will answer many of the mysteries surrounding Wadi el-Hudi, such as whether or not the miners were being forced to work against their free will. “I don’t know if I’m excavating a legitimate settlement where people were treated well or if I’m excavating a prison camp,” explained Liszka.
Amethyst
Some of the inscriptions indicate that there were groups of soldiers who were staring down at the miners while they worked, which makes researchers wonder whether the soldiers were keeping a watchful eye on the miners to make sure they were working hard, or if they were just protecting them.
Dating back around 3,900 years, this site at Wadi el-Hudi houses a settlement in a valley between two hills and an amethyst mine.
Credit: Photo courtesy Wadi el-Hudi Expedition
One of more than 100 inscriptions that were recently discovered by researchers at Wadi el-Hudi.
Credit: Photo courtesy Wadi el-Hudi Expedition
Another unanswered question is how the miners got access to water since the closest well was 1.9 miles away from them. And since it’s very possible that the well wasn’t even in use at that time, the Nile River was around 18.6 miles away.
Researchers also found a 3,400-year-old stela which had the name Usersatet written on it, who was viceroy of Kush in southern Egypt. What’s so mysterious about the finding is that no mining was being conducted at Wadi el-Hudi during that time, leaving it completely abandoned, so why did someone bring it 18.6 miles throughout the desert in order to leave it there? Hopefully with more research being done there, some of these questions may eventually be answered.
Deadly blizzard, UFO or...? Prosecutors travel to Dyatlov Pass to solve 60yo Mystery
Deadly blizzard, UFO or...? Prosecutors travel to Dyatlov Pass to solve 60yo Mystery
Located in the Ural Mountains, the remote patch of wilderness became infamous in paranormal lore after a 1959 incident where a group of hikers were found dead in the Ural Mountains under unclear circumstances.
Despite a contemporaneous investigation by Russian officials and subsequent decades of study from independent researchers, the cause of the strange event has never been fully determined.
Back in 2008 an unnamed individual reportedly stumbled upon an intriguing piece of metal while visiting the area and was only recently confirmed after an expedition finally made their way out to the specific location to both see the object for themselves and to bring it back to civilization to be studied.
And now Russian prosecutors conducted a week-long expedition in March to re-open a probe in to the mysterious Dyatlov Pass case.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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