Everyone’s favorite 60-sided balls have been found in the interstellar space between stars. While the finding may not be Nobel Prize-worthy like the discovery of the original 60-atom molecules also known as Buckminsterfullerene, it’s significant in helping to identify what’s in the mysterious medium between stars and what else it might hold. Does this mean extraterrestrials play soccer (OK, football)?

“Combined with prior, ground-based observations … our Hubble Space Telescope spectra place the detection of interstellar [buckminsterfullerene] beyond reasonable doubt.”

It wasn’t as easy as it sounds in that simple explanation from the article announcing the discovery in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Physicist Martin Cordiner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center led the research, which began with using the Hubble Telescope’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) to examine the interstellar medium (ISM) between them. ISM is made of diverse absorption bands of extremely diffuse and relatively unknown matter (also called diffuse interstellar bands or DIB) that are visible in spectra ranging from visible light to near infra-red. Scientists have previously been able to determine they’re not made of stellar matter but they’ve only been able to detect molecule composed of three atoms. However, a two-year observation (2016 to 2018) of the ionization of light as it passed through the ISM led to an unexpected HUGE discovery.

A buckyball or Buckminsterfullerene is a fullerene (a form or carbon) composed of 60 carbon atoms in a round structure made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons (causing it to resemble a soccer ball) with a carbon atom at each vertex of each polygon. That shape also resembles a geodesic dome, which is why its discovers in 1985 named it after architect and futurist Buckminster Fuller, who popularized it in many of his architectural designs. In case you missed it, a buckyball is composed of 60 atoms – that’s 57 more than the biggest atoms found in interstellar matter to date.

“Currently, the leading theory is that they form as a result of carbon chemistry in the warm envelopes of dying stars, such as Red giants.”

When asked by Forbes how the buckyballs got there, Cordiner waxed poetic about the “warm envelopes of dying stars” – the residue left after a Red giant star exhausts its supply of hydrogen and carbon atoms are pushed to its surface in a process called a dredge-up, allowing them to appear in its spectrum. It seems natural rather than accidental that at least some of these carbon molecules would be the complex Buckminsterfullerenes – and now there’s proof.

“The confirmation of interstellar [buckminsterfullerene] represents a breakthrough in our understanding of chemical complexity in the diffuse interstellar medium [..] bringing a new understanding of the types of molecules that may be responsible for the remaining (unidentified) diffuse interstellar bands.”

What does all of this mean? For now, it confirms that what looks like a void between stars is actually teeming with large molecules in diffuse interstellar bands. While not as entertaining as diffuse heavy metal bands, finding buckyballs in-between stars is still a big deal.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-04-2019 om 15:52 geschreven door peter  

Since the dawn of warfare as we know it today, humans have been using animals as tools of war. Elephants, horses, and other pack animals have been used to carry loads for thousands of years, while fiercer predators like dogs and lions have at times been used to inflict damage on enemies. Later, as human communication media shrank in the early 20th century, we began using animals like pigeons or dogs to carry messages for us through areas where human soldiers could not travel. Given that animals have always been an integral part of human existence, it’s natural they would be a part of warfare, too

More recently, there have been allegations that some nations have previously used or are still using animals as spies. Dolphins, in particular, have indeed been used for bomb detection and marine reconnaissance thanks to their high degree of intelligence and cooperation with humans.

Soviet Navy training a dolphin in the port of Sevastopol.

While this particular use of dolphins has stayed relatively obscure, a new report published by The Guardian this week highlights the military use of aquatic mammals – this time whales – and may suggest that some of them may have gotten loose of their training grounds or were turned loose into the ocean years ago. What would happen if these highly-trained animals did indeed escape back into the wild? Isn’t this how the Planet of the Apes reboot started?

According to The Guardian, fisherman in the small Norwegian fishing village of Inga have in recent weeks been harassed by a mysterious white beluga whale wearing an unidentified harness or apparatus of some kind. The whale reportedly attacks the fishermen’s boats, rubbing itself against their boats in an attempt to remove the strange harness attached to it. The fishermen claim the whale appears to deliberately seek out their boats before engaging in the anomalous behavior. 

Beluga whale

The harness the whale wears appears to have been made to carry a camera or some other type of equipment – or maybe a weapon. Pictures posted by Norwegian news site NRK show a strange metal object recovered with the harness, which was eventually cut off by fishermen. To make things stranger, some fishermen have even gotten close enough to inspect the harness device the whale is wearing and say it bears the words “Equipment” and “St. Petersburg.” Norwegian biologists have contacted marine biology laboratories in Russia for answers, but all of them seem to want to point the finger at the Russian Navy and deny all knowledge.

As it turns out, Russia’s Navy along with the Murmansk Sea Biology Research Institute carried out a research program during the height of the Cold War which attempted to train beluga whales to guard entrances to ports or underwater bases and attack any intruders who came close. Could this be one of those long-lost whales?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-04-2019 om 15:44 geschreven door peter  

David Bowie may have inspired many dreams and plans to search for life on Mars, but it appears Russia has been listening to a Lady Gaga songs and are preparing to build a Rocket #9 to take off to the planet Venus where a cosmonaut or robotic equivalent will ask the Goddess of love or some other life form to please take me to your leader. Lady Gaga can do that? Well, yes, plus a new look at old television photos from Russia’s past Venus missions which have convinced scientists that they’re looking at evidence of life on the cloudy planet. Is it wearing a seashell bikini?

“This conclusion follows from the results of the processing of archival data of a television (TV) experiment performed on the surface of Venus during the Soviet missions “Venus” in 1975-1982. One of the main was a TV experiment to study the surface of the planet. In situ tv study the surface of Venus remains an experiment, still not repeated. Unique archival data were processed using new methods, which significantly improved their detail. As a result of a new analysis of TV images obtained in the Venus missions, up to 18 hypothetically living objects were discovered.”

Model of a Venera lander

The Soviet Union’s Venera (Venus) space program sent eight missions to its namesake, each orbiting the planet and dropping a lander, most of which made it to the surface intact and sent back data and black-and-white “television” pictures before the intense heat destroyed them. Analysis of those pictures was limited to the technology and knowledge of the time, which seems to be why they were set aside for decades until researchers from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences like Leonid Ksanfomaliti picked them up again and took a more modern look. What they saw in those photos, according to their study published in the journal “Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk,” has them excited about new missions.

“The contours of these objects resemble those of earthly creatures, such as those of a lizard, a scorpion and a mushroom. The supposed life forms changed their location in the different images, had remarkable sizes and differed from the surrounding geological formations.”

“Pareidolia!”, not “Aliens!”, is the obvious response to this from those who have seen images from the Moon, Mars and other planets that look like animals and vegetables but turn out to be minerals. However, the study’s authors propose an alternative hypothesis based on the drastic differences between these objects and their immediate surroundings.

“Objects have a noticeable size and may indicate the existence of life on Venus in physical conditions that are radically different from those on earth. Earth life is based on the aquatic environment. At temperatures of 460 degrees C water cannot exist in liquid form at the landing sites of the landing vehicles.”

Depiction of a Venera lander on Venus

In other words, Venus is one of those places where life won’t look like life on Earth because of its chemical mix and lack of water. Despite the fact that the objects in the photos resemble Earth creatures and plants, they say the next missions should throw out all preconceived notions (and pareidolian assumptions) and look for something completely different (perhaps they can get Monty Python to consult).

So, it’s not the shape so much as the movements which have these scientists excited about the possibility of life on Venus. Future missions (Russia is planning one as soon as 2025) should look for a large plain to drop the lander in, test for non-carbon (nitrogen perhaps) forms of life and watch for movement.

Sounds exciting, although giant mushroom-eating scorpions would make a better song or movie.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-04-2019 om 15:31 geschreven door peter  

What If A Mega-Tsunami Hit The East Coast Of The United States?

• Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Someday a giant meteor will slam into the Atlantic Ocean, and the colossal tsunami that is produced will wipe out most of the people that are living along the east coast.  In 1998, a big Hollywood movie entitled “Deep Impact” imagined what such an event would look like, and scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before it takes place.  And since 39 percent of all Americans live in a county that directly borders a shoreline, we are in an extremely vulnerable position.  Let’s just hope that what I am talking about in this article does not happen any time soon.

Earlier today I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, and I came across a video entitled “What If A Mega-Tsunami Hit The United States”.

If you know me well, then you probably know that this is a hot button issue for me, and so it definitely got my attention.

And it must be a hot button issue for a lot of other people as well, because it has already been viewed more than 3.5 million times.

I did some digging around, and I found an accompanying article for the video.  According to that article, someday a wall of water 3000 feet high could come racing toward us at 620 miles per hour…

In six hours, you, your government, and 124 million other people across 14 states will be tested by the greatest disaster to ever hit the U.S. East Coast. A great wave, 1000 meters tall (3280 ft.), moving towards you at 1000 km/h (620 mph), and that’s only the beginning.

Boston, New York, Philly, D.C., Miami. All underwater. And you?

Of course the size of the tsunami would all depend upon the size of the event that caused it.

According to scientists at the University of California at Santa Cruz, if a giant meteor suddenly slammed into the Atlantic Ocean it could potentially create a tsunami with a wall of water as high as 400 feet…

If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

Either way, we are talking about death and destruction on a scale that is hard to imagine.

Once a meteor hit, there would be a race against time to get away from the massive wall of water rapidly approaching the east coast.  The creators of the Facebook video that I just mentioned envision that everyone would have “6 hours of advance notice”…

The death toll would be staggering; the economic impact, easily costing billions, if not trillions of dollars. It will take decades to rebuild, and yet, is it wrong to suggest that we might’ve gotten off easy?

How much worse would it have been without the 6 hours of advance notice? That’s right, you owe a big thank you to these supersmart buoys monitoring the coast, keeping you safe and dry, so that you can rest easy, and keep watching ‘What If.’

Sadly, the truth is that we would probably get very little warning.  For example, if a giant meteor were to splash down near Puerto Rico, the amount of time before impact would be extremely limited.  You could try to get in your car and outrace the wall of water coming at you at 620 miles per hour, but of course the highways would be jammed with other people trying to get out as well.

In a worst case scenario, tens of millions of people would die, and all of our east coast cities would essentially be destroyed.

You may not spend much time thinking about such a thing, but I find it very interesting that NASA is currently simulating a similar scenario…

NASA is going to be using a simulation of an “asteroid apocalypse” in order to help the space agency prepare for the cataclysmic event. And they are taking it seriously, as disaster planners from FEMA will join NASA for a dress rehearsal of doomsday.

International partners, including the European Space Agency (ESA), will also be a part of the simulation. The drill is said to be a “tabletop exercise” that will simulate just how a planetary asteroid emergency would play out in real time.

And NASA has good reason to be concerned, because our planet is apparently “in the midst of an epic asteroid surge”…

NASA’s been running these simulations for years, and with good reason: Earth, as it happens, is in the midst of an epic asteroid surge compared to the relative peace and quiet the planet experienced many millions of years ago.

When unexpected space rocks do appear on our scopes, sometimes we only get hours’ notice of their existence before they streak past. While the chances of a catastrophic impact are exceedingly slim, we’re nonetheless unprepared for surprise asteroid strikes, which is why NASA is continually working on plans to help improve our NEO detection and mitigation capabilities.

We truly do live in very strange times, and they are going to get a whole lot stranger.

A single moment in time can change everything.  Most people assume that NASA knows about all of the big rocks that could potentially slam into our planet, but that is not true at all.  According to one estimate, approximately 17,000 large near-Earth objects remain undetected.  But since they are “undetected”, the truth is that nobody knows the real number.

Meteors go whizzing by us all the time, and NASA doesn’t discover a lot of them until they are already past us.

In reality, we are sitting ducks, and someday our luck will finally run out.

• About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, The American Dream Blog and The Truth. You can follow him on Twitter right here

Source: 

• http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/what-if-a-mega-tsunami-hit-the-east-coast-of-the-united-states

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 15:03 geschreven door peter  

High Level Security Officers Overheard Discussing Alien Presence, They're Here

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 14:33 geschreven door peter  

Star Made from a Disrupted Dwarf Galaxy

Stars retain the materials of their birthplace. Some stars are made of the residue of material from dwarf galaxies passing larger galaxies.

Small stellar systems like dwarf galaxies are suggested to be the main building blocks of our Galaxy. However, it is unclear how many and what kind of stars in our Galaxy are originated from satellite dwarf galaxies.

This is a star accreted from a disrupted dwarf galaxy.

Credit: Chinese National Astronomy

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 14:28 geschreven door peter  

Video:Two Mysterious Skulls Discovered in the mountains of the Caucasus region of Adygea

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 14:10 geschreven door peter  

Video:The Russians conducted an experiment similar to that of Philadelphia??

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 13:53 geschreven door peter  

Statue on Mars and in Egyptian Tomb (Videos)

These images from Mars will take your breath away: alien picture taken?
Alien head or vulgar rock ..

People always argue about the existence of aliens. NASA in the near or distant past, has published an interesting series of photographs, which definitely worth a look!

Scientists, explorers and various researchers are constantly trying to find out if life is found elsewhere in the universe. Many times we can observe different objects that resembled a UFO or other cosmic object.

The existence of life is currently investigating most of the planet Mars, where scientists continually probe and examine the surface. Over the last year managed to take a number of photographs from which we bring you the most interesting in the gallery.

This is on the rocks, stones or cameras really picture taken lizard, creature resembling a woman or alien? See this for more than an interesting collection of photos from Mars and make your own opinion ….

SOURCE : https://dailymysteries.com/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

30-04-2019 om 13:41 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Atmospheric Wave passing Jupiter Twice

Filming Jupiter at 3:05am Irish time April 8th 2017 from north of Dublin. A wave like this has been observed many times passing the moon by other astronomers, like Crrow777.

Crrow777 states: "We see in the jet wash what we see in boat wakes. Two wakes tied together with no independent wave period or offset.

Both waves remain locked and identical and lack the sharp edge we see in what is called lunar wave - which are not locked and all have different periods and speed - even within the same capture."

An interesting and mysterious phenomenon in space and till now nobody knows what these waves are.

  

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

30-04-2019 om 13:25 geschreven door peter  

UFO Hunting in Death Valley, USA

UFO & Alien Investigators. Our mission is to document evidence of the UFO phenomenon and alien visitation through work in the field.

30-04-2019 om 13:17 geschreven door peter  

Meteorite impacts are squeezing water from the moon

BY MIHAI ANDREI

Small meteorite impacts are releasing water from the Moon’s subsurface, a new study finds. Researchers now believe that a small amount of water can be found beneath the lunar surface, dating from the early days of the satellite’s evolution.

This oblique view of the Moon’s surface was photographed by the Apollo 10 astronauts in May of 1969.

When the Apollo missions brought back samples from the moon, researchers analyzed them and found that the moon was formed without any native water. However, a decade ago, trace amounts of water were discovered in the lunar non-polar areas, and recent observations by Cassini, Deep Impact, Lunar Prospector, and Chandrayaan-1 indicate the existence of an active water cycle on the Moon. In addition, an enhanced concentration of hydrogen, which seems to indicate larger water ice deposits in the permanently shadowed craters of the poles was detected by the Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer (LPNS).

Researchers have attributed the origin of the water to solar wind and meteorites, but even so, it’s unclear why the water appears on the lunar surface in some places. In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers propose a new cause for this: meteorites.

The lunar water cycle as proposed in the study. The cycle relies on a desiccated layer overlaying hydrated soils. Hydrogen from solar wind is the main source of water production. Synthesized water diffuses vertically, and can be sequestered in the hydrated layer or lost at the surface.

Image credits: Benna et al / Nature Geoscience.

Researchers led by NASA’ Mehdi Benna found that the timing of 29 water releases is associated with the Moon encountering known meteorite impacts. The study also suggests that a very small amount of water is pervasive in the lunar subsoil, where it was preserved from early in the Moon’s history. When meteorites whack the lunar surface, the impact brings out some of this water.

“We show that water release from meteoroid impacts is indicative of a lunar surface that has a desiccated soil layer of several centimetres on top of uniformly hydrated soil. We infer that the Moon is currently in the process of losing water that was either delivered long ago or present at its formation.”

According to their calculations, the uniformly present at concentrations up to about 0.05%. However, the water pushed outside is lost and never recovered by the moon. Researchers estimate that a total of 200 tonnes of water are lost every year.

These findings may lay the groundwork for future investigation into the origin and fate of water on the Moon, and might also be useful in the potential establishment of a human colony on the moon.

The study “Lunar soil hydration constrained by exospheric water liberated by meteoroid impacts” by Benna et al. has been published in Nature Geoscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0345-3

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

30-04-2019 om 01:18 geschreven door peter  

The US Navy is drafting new guidelines for pilots to officially report “unidentified aircraft” or “unidentified flying objects” (UFOs), which may help destigmatize the process of informing the service about such encounters.

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated airspace in recent years," the Navy said in a recent statement to Politico. 

CC0

UFO or Secret US Aircraft? Woman FILMS Mystery 'Craft' Flying Over San Antonio

Thus, it said, "the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

According to the US Navy, highly trained military personnel and pilots have had enough encounters with UFOs to warrant officially reporting them in a systematic and formal way.

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFOs for the British government, told Sputnik Wednesday that he "welcomes these new guidelines," which should "make it easier for US Navy pilots and other military personnel to report UFOs."

• 

  Nick Pope

  @nickpopemod

  US Navy drafting new guidelines for reporting UFOs. I support this bold and long-overdue move, which should address the current under-reporting problem. Whatever one believes about the phenomenon, it raises defense, national security and air safety issues.

  https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/us-navy-guidelines-reporting-ufos-1375290 …

  332

  2:33 AM - Apr 24, 2019

  

  U.S. Navy drafting new guidelines for reporting UFOs

  The service says it has also "provided a series of briefings by senior Naval Intelligence officials as well as aviators who reported hazards to aviation safety."

  politico.com

  140 people are talking about this

​"Many years ago, the United States Air Force had the policy lead for this subject and ran a program called Project Blue Book," Pope explained, referring to a series of studies of UFOs conducted by the US Air Force starting in 1952. The project was eventually terminated in 1969, because the US government decided that UFOs were "no longer of any interest." However, the sightings continued, and pilots had nowhere to report them, Pope noted.

"Over the years, a culture developed where pilots — military and civilian alike — would see UFOs, but where many of these sightings went unreported, because of the perception that the government wasn't interested, and because pilots feared they wouldn't be believed, that they might be ridiculed, and that their state of mind might be questioned, leading to them being grounded or losing their jobs," Pope explained.

Despite the fact that Project Blue Book was terminated, the Defense Intelligence Agency continued to investigate UFOs between 2007 and 2012, unbeknownst to the public. The research, which cost around $25 million, was funded by the Department of Defense under its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and was made public in 2017 after a Freedom of Information Act request by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

"We now know that despite the termination of Project Blue Book, the US government was still interested and that investigations were continuing, but without the media and the public being told. The Pentagon's AATIP initiative, for example, investigated several such cases. Three declassified videos of US Navy F-18 jets chasing UFOs were made public in December 2017, when the existence of AATIP was first revealed," Pope told Sputnik. 

© PHOTO : PIXABAY

‘That's Awesome': Mysterious UFO Spotted Flying Near Las Vegas (LISTEN)

The video footage released in 2017 showed a 2004 encounter between two US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets and an unknown object. In the recording, the fighter pilots attempt to intercept the unidentified object, described as having "no obvious wings or tails." The pilots were unable to intercept the mysterious aircraft Sputnik previously reported.

In 2017, the New York Times also reported that even though the Pentagon shut down its hush-hush program to study UFOs in 2012, it continues to investigate UFOs brought to its attention by servicemembers.

"We still don't know if these objects are foreign military aircraft or drones, or something else. But pilots see them, radar operators track them, and now the US Navy wants to make sure it acquires as much data on this phenomenon as possible. I strongly support this new initiative. Any nation wants to ensure the territorial integrity of its airspace. If there's something in our skies, we want to know what it is. Whatever people believe about UFOs, there are defense, national security and air safety issues here," Pope added.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

30-04-2019 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

US Navy admits that UFOs have been spotted near top secret military facilities

Jasper Hamill

Footage of a ‘Tic Tac’ UFO recorded by US Navy pilots in 2004

The US Navy has sensationally admitted that UFOs have been spotted near military facilities.

It has received ‘a number of reports’ of unidentified aircraft travelling into protected airspace over military ranges, which means land owned by the American armed forces.

Defence chiefs are so concerned that they have ordered the development of a new process to report and record mysterious sightings of ‘unauthorised’ and ‘unidentified aircraft’.

The announcement comes after details of a secret research drive called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) have slowly leaked into the public domain over the past two years.

As well as investigating advanced technology like wormholes, anti-gravity and laser weapons, the project probed ‘unexplained aerial phenomena’.

A drawing of a strange experimental aircraft released in a patent document filed by the US Navy

• MORE: The US Navy secretly designed a super-fast futuristic aircraft resembling a UFO, documents reveal

One of the most famous incidents revealed during the exposure of AATIP took place in 2004 when pilots on the USS Nimitz Carrier Group were outmanoeuvred by ‘Tic Tac’ crafts moving so quickly they did not appear to obey the laws of physics.

In a statement given to Politico, the Navy said: ‘There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years.

‘For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.

‘As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft.’

The UFOs which are likely to have been investigated by the Navy are not necessarily sent by aliens.

Luis Elizondo, the ex-Pentagon staffer who headed up AATIP, told Politico the aircraft ‘don’t have a tail number or a flag — in some cases not even a tail’.

‘What happens in five years if it turns out these are extremely advanced Russian aircraft?’ he asked.

These drawings of what appears to be a space plane were produced by Boeing as long ago as the 1980s

(Picture: Boeing)

• MORE: Did Boeing secretly test a mysterious UFO space plane above Area 51?

Nick Pope, former UFO investigator for the Ministry of Defence, told Metro that the move was ‘bold and long overdue’.

‘As I know only too well from my experience having investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, there’s chronic under-reporting of UFOs in the military pilot community, as well as in the commercial airline pilot community,’ he continued.

‘That’s because people fear they won’t be believed, they worry about ridicule, and – above all – they’re scared that some psychologist might question their state of mind, resulting in them being grounded.

Whatever one believes about the true nature of the UFO phenomenon, they’re being seen by pilots, tracked on radar systems and sometimes captured on film. 

‘Whether you’re a sceptic or a believer, whether you think these things are Russian or Martian, it’s time to lose the pop culture baggage associated with UFOs.

‘It’s time to have a mature, informed debate about the phenomenon and acknowledge what those of us who’ve looked at this from within government already know, namely that there are important defence, national security and air safety issues at stake here.’

We asked Pope why the US Navy is involved rather than the Airforce.

He replied: ‘The UFO issue can be toxic and the US Navy may well face criticism for this move. There may be political fallout, and this new initiative is likely to spark all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories. Interestingly, this might just be one of those rare instances where the conspiracy theories turn out to be true.

‘For years, there have been rumours that it’s the Navy and not the Air Force that has the policy lead on UFOs. It sounds counter-intuitive. The US government’s old UFO program, Project Blue Book, was run by the United States Air Force. In the UK, the MoD’s UFO project had lots of cases involving the Royal Air Force, but very little from the Royal Navy.

‘But the rumours persist, and when the story broke about the Pentagon’s AATIP program, it was three videos of US Navy jets chasing UFOs that made headlines all around the world. So it doesn’t surprise me to see the US Navy leading the way here. There’s always been inter-service rivalry, and President Trump’s Space Force aspirations have added a new dimension to this.

‘A new space race is underway, and the US Navy clearly wants to be at the heart of it.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

30-04-2019 om 00:45 geschreven door peter  

Footage of a ‘Tic Tac’ UFO recorded by US Navy pilots in 2004

This UFO was briefly caught on camera flying next to a military plane by US pilots

The decision to make these new guidelines for UFO sightings has been made in response to recent reports of unidentified flying objects.

In a statement given to US news outlet Politico, the US Navy said: "There have been a number of reports of unauthorised and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years.

"For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.

"As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalising the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognisant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

A few years ago, a leaked report from the Pentagon revealed that a supersonic UFO shaped like a Tic Tac sweet had stalked a US Aircraft carrier for days before vanishing into thin air.

Some of the pilots said that the aircraft could make itself invisible as it travelled next to them.

The craft was described by one of the pilots mentioned in the report as "solid white, smooth, with no edges... uniformly coloured with no nacelles, pylons or wings", and looked like "an elongated egg or Tic Tac".

The incident happened over a couple of days in November 2004 but the video footage of the flying object was not revealed to the public until December 2017.

Pilots who witnessed the incident reported that they picked up the presence of 8 to 10 objects in their radar equipment on November 10, 2004.

Sceptics think that the sighting could be explained by equipment malfunction or human error.

Retired Pentagon official Luis Elizondo once ran a secret Pentagon program for investigating UFOs until it was reportedly shut down in 2012.

He told Politico that government personnel were often encouraged not to report sightings, making this new admission from the US Navy even more groundbreaking.

Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, told us: "This bold new initiative on the part of the US Navy is clearly aimed at de-stigmatising the UFO issue.

"I know from my own experience of having run the MoD's UFO project that fear of being ridiculed or disbelieved, and worries about adverse career consequences means many pilots - military and civil alike - simply don't report these things.

"This new move gives official sanction for pilots, radar operators and other military witnesses to come forward and report what they see. I strongly support this policy change and hope we can do the same thing in the UK."

A drawing of a strange experimental aircraft released in a patent document filed by the US Navy

In other space news, a bomb was recently launched towards an asteroid during a Japanese space mission and scientists have now released breathtaking footage of the spectacle.

Nasa is aiming to send the next man and the first woman to the icy South Pole of the moon by 2024.

And, the space agency has recorded the sound of a ‘Marsquake’ for the first time.

Do you believe in aliens? Let us know in the comments...

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/ }

30-04-2019 om 00:25 geschreven door peter  

Life May Have Evolved Before Earth Finished Forming

Artist’s concept showing a young sun-like star surrounded by a planet-forming disk of gas and dust.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

The energy source on early planetesimals, such as Murchison's parent body, came from the radioactive decay of aluminum-26, she explained. The heat flowing through some planetesimals' interiors was intense enough to melt the objects completely, which is certainly not conducive to the emergence of life. 

But other bodies would have melted only partially, from the inside out, so they would eventually sport a metallic core, a magma-ocean mantle and a rocky, primitive crust. Such planetesimals would have had extremely hot interiors but frigid surfaces, Elkins-Tanton said. Waves of heat radiating from the depths would have spurred the release of fluids such as liquid water, driving that material up toward the surface.

Such processes may have created habitable environments beneath the planetesimals' rocky surfaces. And these environments likely lasted for relatively long stretches.

For example, modeling work performed by Elkins-Tanton and West, who's now at the California-based company Metis Technology Solutions, suggests that small planetesimals — those up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) wide — could have supported liquid water underground for about 15 million years. 

And an earlier study Elkins-Tanton conducted with Ben Weiss and Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that larger bodies could have remained wet for even longer — perhaps 50 million years or so.

It's unclear if this window is long enough for life to get going, Elkins-Tanton stressed. That's because we don't know how long that window has to be. "I'm going to bravely assert that we really have no idea," she said.

For example, the earliest unambiguous signs of life on our 4.5-billion-year-old Earth date to about 3.8 billion years ago. But some scientists have presented evidence that microbes already had a foothold here by 4.1 billion years ago. And at this same Breakthrough Discuss meeting, biochemist Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida argued that life actually emerged 4.36 billion years ago. (Only at that time was Earth's atmospheric chemistry right for the first organisms, RNA-based microbes, to evolve, Benner said in his talk.)

To be clear, Elkins-Tanton and West aren't arguing that Earth life actually did originate on planetary building blocks — just that this idea is worthy of consideration. And the new work is preliminary; the Breakthrough Discuss talk marked the first time Elkins-Tanton formally presented the idea to her planetary-science colleagues. 

She said she hopes the work spurs further discussion and research about the origin of life and its possible dispersal throughout the solar system.

"This is meant to be just a kind of a thought problem for us all to consider," Elkins-Tanton said. "Could life actually have arisen on planetesimals? Could there be evidence for life in meteorites that we have not known to look for? And if this is so, how could they have been spread through the solar system — and many, many unanswerable implications of that possibility."

The idea that life has spread from body to body throughout the solar system is not a new one, of course. For example, Benner and others have suggested that Earth life may actually have originated on Mars and traveled here aboard a rock liberated from the Red Planet by an asteroid or comet strike. 

And some researchers have even posited that life may have come to Earth from another star system, perhaps aboard a wandering comet.

• Earth Quiz: Do You Really Know Your Planet?
• Moon-Forming Smashup May Have Paved the Way for Life on Earth
• Life Among the Stars? Tiny Interstellar Probes May Test 'Panspermia' Idea

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/ }

29-04-2019 om 23:45 geschreven door peter  

How an Asteroid Flyby in 2017 Is Helping NASA Defend Earth from Armageddon

29-04-2019 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

29-04-2019 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

The far side of the moon sees its share of sunlight. With all due respect to Pink Floyd, the moon’s far side is dark only in the sense that it’s mysterious. Here’s why.

The far side looks a lot like the near side.

Image via NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

By Wayne Schlingman, The Ohio State University

Looking up at the silvery orb of the moon, you might recognize familiar shadows and shapes on its face from one night to the next. You see the same view of the moon our early ancestors did as it lighted their way after sundown.

Only one side of the spherical moon is ever visible from Earth – it wasn’t until 1959 when the Soviet Spacecraft Luna 3 orbited the moon and sent pictures home that human beings were able to see the “far side” of the moon for the first time.

Comparison of humanity’s first glimpse of the lunar far side and the same view thanks to LRO data 50 years later.

Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

A phenomenon called tidal locking is responsible for the consistent view. The Earth and its moon are in close proximity and thus exert significant gravitational forces on each other. These tidal forces slow the rotations of both bodies. They locked the moon’s rotation in sync with its orbital period relatively soon after it formed – as a product of a collision between a Mars-sized object and the proto-Earth, 100 million years after the solar system coalesced.

The moon’s orbital period and rotational period are the same length of time.

Now the moon takes one trip around the Earth in the same amount of time it takes to make one rotation around its own axis: about 28 days. From Earth, we always see the same face of the moon; from the moon, the Earth stands still in the sky.

The near side of the moon is well studied because we can see it. The astronauts landed on the near side of the moon so they could communicate with NASA here on Earth. All of the samples from the Apollo missions are from the near side.

Buzz Aldrin descends from the lunar module to the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969.

Image via NASA.

Although the far side of the moon isn’t visible from our vantage point, and with all due respect to Pink Floyd, it is not accurate to call it the dark side of the moon. All sides of the moon experience night and day just like we do here on Earth. All sides have equal amounts of day and night over the course of a single month. A lunar day lasts about two Earth weeks.

With modern satellites, astronomers have completely mapped the lunar surface. A Chinese mission, Chang’e 4, is currently exploring the Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon — the first such mission ever landed there. Researchers hope Chang’e 4 will help answer questions about the crater’s surface features and test whether things can grow in lunar soil. A privately funded Israeli mission, Beresheet, started as a mission to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize. Despite crashing during an attempted landing earlier this month, the Beresheet team still won the Moon Shot Award.

Being shielded from civilization means the far side of the moon is “radio dark.” There, researchers can measure weak signals from the universe that would otherwise be drowned out. Chang’e 4, for instance, will be able to observe low-frequency radio light coming from the sun or beyond that’s impossible to detect here on the Earth due to human activity, such as TV and radio broadcasts and other forms of communication signals. Low-frequency radio peers back in time to the very first stars and the very first black holes, giving astronomers a greater understanding of how the structures of the universe began forming.

Arrows indicate position of Chang’e 4 lander on the floor of the moon’s Von Kármán crater. The sharp crater behind and to the left of the landing site is 12,800 feet (3,900 meters) across and 1,970 feet (600 meters) deep.

Image via NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

Rover missions also investigate all sides of the moon as space scientists prepare for future human missions, looking to the moon’s resources to help humanity get to Mars. For instance, water – discovered by NASA’s LCROSS satellite beneath the moon’s north and south poles in 2009 – can be broken up into hydrogen and oxygen and used for fuel and breathing.

Researchers are getting closer to exploring the moon’s polar craters, some of which have never seen the light of day – literally. They are deep and in just the right place to never have the sun shine onto the crater floor. There are certainly dark parts of the moon, but the whole far side isn’t one of them.

Wayne Schlingman, Director of the Arne Slettebak Planetarium, The Ohio State University

• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: What is on the far side of the moon?

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

29-04-2019 om 22:55 geschreven door peter  

Eccentric UFO Welcome Center in SC waits for space aliens, but settles for random tourists

By Andrew J. Whitaker awhitaker@postandcourier.com

Joseph “Jody” Pendarvis looks out from the top of his UFO Welcome Center on Monday, September 10, 2018, in Bowman. While looking in the sky, Pendarvis points into the distance and says you never know what you may see out there. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

By Andrew Whitaker awhitaker@postandcourier.com

BOWMAN — Charleston Highway is the main road through the center of this small town about an hour from Charleston along Interstate 26. There isn’t a stoplight, just a few stop signs.

A once-thriving dairy community in Orangeburg County, Bowman now has just under 1,000 residents. These days, what brings a lot of people to this tiny outpost is the UFO Welcome Center, built by Jody Pendarvis over the past 25 years to greet aliens, should they decide to visit South Carolina. 

Pendarvis’ neighbor Devontay Turkvant said he has lived across from the UFO Welcome Center for two years now.

“I grew up on the other side of Bowman and knew all about it my entire life,” Turkvant said. “People are really into this. With the solar eclipse there were a ton of people watching it in his yard.” 

Bowman Country Store manager Sonya Patel said people come into the store and ask about the welcome center, wanting to go inside.

“Jody does come in now and then to play his lotto,” she said.

The land where the gas station is on was once owned by Pendarvis’ grandparents, who also had 52 acres of farmland in town.

Mike Mack, a resident of Bowman, was sitting outside the store recently, watching customers go in and out.

“I went up once,” he said of the welcome center. “I thought it would have buttons and lights, but it just had wires dangling in it. I think he’s still building it.” 

Built from the ground up

A sign near the outside entrance of the welcome center reads, “Space People Only. Enter at Own Risk, Danger.”

As you walk in the narrow hallway entrance, a visitors’ registry is presented next to a few American flags, a television remote and a toilet. The book asks you to write down your name and what planet you’re from.

The ceiling boards are covered in exposed wires and cables that are intertwined throughout the whole welcome center. Staircases take you to a dome-shaped room at the top, where dozens of pie plates are used as porthole windows. From there, you can look out for any signs of UFOs in the sky or see Jody sitting in front of the TV flipping through to a channel playing old episodes of “Star Trek.”

Rafa Key, 7, and her mother, Danielle Key, were headed back to Charleston from a concert in Charlotte when Rafa saw a billboard that that said “UFO Welcome Center tilt right Bowman.” Jody paid for it himself.

Wearing her Magic Space T-shirt, Rafa’s face lit up as she explored the welcome center’s different rooms and windows. 

“She loves everything with spaceships or planets,” her mom said.  

As Rafa and her mother left the welcome center, another car pulled up.

Andrew Bowman and his fiancee, Ashley Amstutz, were driving back home to Akron, Ohio, from Gainesville, Fla., when they saw the sign. They took a few cellphone photos, exchanged a few words with Pendarvis and went on their way.

This is a typical day for the UFO Welcome Center. The billboard has helped bring in curious travelers since it went up in May 2018.

The welcome center began as an office space outside of Pendarvis’ trailer. It sprung up without a diagram or any plans, just a place where he could work. He used plywood and material he found from his grandparents’ property or that was discarded around town. 

“I walked into town hall and applied for a building permit and got an application to run for mayor,” he said. “I got 41 votes.” 

On a recent Monday, Pendarvis parked his spray-painted truck next to the UFO Welcome Center with two large wooden planks in the back. He was just getting back from the out-of-town hardware store for supplies to add support beams to the 16-foot-tall, 46-foot-wide welcome center. After unloading, he went straight to his circular saw and cut the wood to fit precisely along the walls. He has been continually adding onto the structure since he first started it in 1994.

An eccentric passion project

Bowman Mayor Marion Glenn said he wants to make the UFO Welcome Center more of a true town welcome center.

“I have been trying to persuade him for years to have something more attractive inside and out. I want to have people come in and look at it, with different drawings and things that promote the town. It could show where town hall is and where families could come and take pictures.”

Pendarvis is indifferent about it and said he will hand it over once he’s gone, but for now it’s Jody’s Welcome Center.

Former Fire Chief Ethel Sue Davis isn’t a fan of the center.

“It’s an eyesore. I’m surprised one of the hurricanes hasn’t knocked it over yet.”

To Pendarvis, it all just rolls off his back.

“The day I went into town hall for a building permit I also got an application to run for mayor,” Jody Pendarvis said, referring back to 1994 when he first constructed what is now known as the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman. He first started to build an office space outside of his trailer without any diagram or plans but then changing it to a welcome center for aliens. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

By Andrew Whitaker awhitaker@postandcourier.com

Maggie Sanford of Orangeburg met Jody when he struck up a conversation with her at Waffle House, where she works. She has known about the welcome center since it was first built.

Photos: UFO Welcome Center a destination in Bowman for 25 years

Joseph ‘Jody’ Pendarvis, 68, a local celebrity started building on his property in 1994 what is now known as the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, South Carolina. 

{https://www.postandcourier.com/ }

29-04-2019 om 22:42 geschreven door peter