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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
14-05-2019
A Giant Hole in the Martian Atmosphere Is Venting All Its Water into Space
A Giant Hole in the Martian Atmosphere Is Venting All Its Water into Space
Before this slow process dried out the planet, Mars may have been covered by a vast ocean. This illustration shows how the planet may have looked billions of years ago.
Credit: NASA/GSFC
There's a hole in the Martian atmosphere that opens once every two years, venting the planet's limited water supply into space — and dumping the rest of the water at the planet's poles.
That's the explanation advanced by a team of Russian and German scientists who studied the odd behavior of water on the Red Planet. Earthbound scientists can see that there's water vapor high in the Martian atmosphere, and that water is migrating to the planet's poles. But until now, there was no good explanation for how the Martian water cycle works, or why the once-drenched planet is now a dry husk.
The presence of water vapor high above Mars is puzzling because the Red Planet has a middle layer of its atmosphere that seems like it should be shutting down the water cycle altogether. [Mars-like Places on Earth]
"The Martian middle atmosphere is too cold to sustain water vapor," the researchers wrote in the study, which was published April 16 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
So how is water crossing that middle-layer barrier?
The answer, according to computer simulations in the current study, has to do with two atmospheric processes unique to the Red Planet.
On Earth, summer in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemispheres are pretty similar. But that's not the case on Mars: Because the planet’s orbit is much more eccentric than Earth’s, it’s significantly closer to the sun during its southern hemisphere summer (which happens once every two Earth years). So summers on that part of the planet are much warmer than summers in the Northern Hemisphere.
When that happens, according to the researchers' simulations, a window opens in Mars' middle atmosphere between 37 and 56 miles (60 and 90 kilometers) in altitude, allowing water vapor to pass through and escape into the upper atmosphere. At other times, the lack of sunlight shuts down Martian water cycles almost entirely.
Mars is also different from Earth in that the Red Planet gets frequently overtaken by giant dust storms. Those storms cool the planet's surface by blocking light. But the light that doesn't reach Mars' surface instead gets stuck in the atmosphere, warming it and creating conditions better suited to moving water around, the scientists' simulations showed. Under global dust-storm conditions, like the one that enveloped Mars in 2017, tiny particles of water ice form around the dust particles. Those lightweight ice particles float into the upper atmosphere more easily than other forms of water, so during those periods more water move into the upper atmosphere.
Dust storms can move even more water into the upper atmosphere than the southern summers, the researchers showed.
Once the water passes through the middle boundary, the researchers wrote, two things happen: Some of the water drifts north and south, toward the poles, where it's eventually deposited. But ultraviolet light in the upper atmosphere can also sever the bonds between the oxygen and hydrogen in the molecules, causing the hydrogen to escape into space, leaving the oxygen behind.
This process could be part of the story of how a once-drenched Mars has ended up so dry in its current epoch, the researchers wrote.
Like a grape that wrinkles to produce a raisin, the moon is shrinking day by day as it interior cools. In the process, the lunar crust breaks, producing thrust faults — a type of fault where ground from one section of the crust is pushed up over an adjacent section. Now, scientists have used images NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and seismic data from the Apollo missions, finding that the moon’s shrinkage is also producing moonquakes around these thrust faults.
This prominent thrust fault is one of the thousands discovered on the moon by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). New research suggests that these faults may still be active today, producing moonquakes.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/Smithsonian.
A shocking study
Since 2009, the LRO mission identified more than 3,500 thrust faults on the moon. Some of these images showed evidence of landslides and boulder falls at the slopes of thrust faults, also known as scarps. These features appeared relatively bright in the images, suggesting that they were produced recently. Normally, weathering darkens material on the moon’s surface in time. What’s more, the constant rain of micrometeoroids should have erased these tracks, suggesting that they are relatively fresh.
In the 1960s and 1970s, astronauts placed fiveseismometerson the moon’s surface. The Apollo 11 seismic instrument listened for rumbles in the moon’s crust for only three weeks, but subsequent missions recorded 28 moonquakes. These were very shallow quakes ranging in magnitude from 2 to 5. To Nicholas Schmerr, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this data looked very similar to that of earthquakes produced by tectonic faults.
Schmerr and colleagues superimposed the epicenters for moonquakes recorded by Apollo-era seismometers with LRO imagery of thrust faults. They found that at least eight of the moonquakes matched almost perfectly with scarps, suggesting that they were produced by genuine tectonic activity, rather than processes deep within the moon’s interior or from asteroid impacts.
“We found that a number of the quakes recorded in the Apollo data happened very close to the faults seen in the LRO imagery,” Schmerr said in a statement. “It’s quite likely that the faults are still active today. You don’t often get to see active tectonics anywhere but Earth, so it’s very exciting to think these faults may still be producing moonquakes.”
The authors used their model to produce “shake maps” based on predictions of where the strongest shaking should occur, given the size of thrust faults. Six of moonquakes occurred while the moon was at or near its apogee, which is the point where the moon is farthest away from Earth. This suggests that tidal forces from Earth’s gravity stress the moon’s crust, making fault generation more likely.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view of the Taurus-Littrow valley. You can see a lunar fault cutting across it.
Credit: NASA.
“We think it’s very likely that these eight quakes were produced by faults slipping as stress built up when the lunar crust was compressed by global contraction and tidal forces, indicating that the Apollo seismometers recorded the shrinking moon and the moon is still tectonically active,” said Thomas Watters, lead author of the research paper and senior scientist in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
These stunning findings could have a huge impact on how scientists view the moon from now on. They suggest that the moon may still be tectonically active and raise questions regarding its evolution. According to the leading lunar formation theory, the moon formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago after a planetary-sized body collided with early Earth. Many believe that any internal heat the moon might have had must have escaped a long time ago due to its small size relative to Earth. These new findings, however, suggest that there might still be some “steam” left to blow. Somehow, the moon managed to remain tectonically active after 4.51 billion years — and we don’t know how yet.
And considering Jeff Bezos’ recent grand plans for establishing a human presence in the solar system, including the moon, these new findings published inNature Geosciencesuggest that we ought to prepare for quakes, besides the numerous other perils.
“For me, these findings emphasize that we need to go back to the moon,” Schmerr said. “We learned a lot from the Apollo missions, but they really only scratched the surface. With a larger network of modern seismometers, we could make huge strides in our understanding of the moon’s geology. This provides some very promising low-hanging fruit for science on a future mission to the moon.”
NASA officials presented an updated budget request to the US Congress this Monday. The agency is requesting an additional $1 billion in funding for their upcoming 2024 Moon mission, dubbed the Artemis Mission.
Image via Pixabay.
In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, who was the namesake of the program that sent 12 American astronauts to the Moon between 1969 and 1972. It’s only fitting then that NASA would christen the mission aiming to take man back to the moon after her name. But, as often was the case with Greek gods, there is drama afoot.
Funding request
“This additional investment, I want to be clear, is a downpayment on NASA’s efforts to land humans on the Moon by 2024,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says.
NASA’s original plan was to carry out the moon return mission in 2028, but Vice-President Mike Pence announced in March that the current administration wants to push those plans for 2024. This way, the mission would line up with a possible second term for President Trump. The present budget revision is intended to bring the Agency’s funds up to speed with the new deadline.
The ball, however, is firmly in Congress’ court — they will have to decide whether to back up the Trump administration on the new timeline or not. New York Times writes that NASA’s original budget for the 2019 fiscal year (which ends on Sept. 30) is $21.5 billion strong. The president’s original budget request for the 2020 fiscal year aimed to cut this sum by $500 million; if Congress greenlights the new budget request, this will effectively increase NASA’s 2020 budget by $1.6 billion.
That money is definitely needed. Bridenstine says NASA needs the extra $1.6 billion to pay for the new ground and space vehicles needed to carry out the Artemis mission on the revised deadline. Around $651 million is earmarked for the Space Launch System (SLS), the new large rocket NASA is developing, and the Orion capsule that would take astronauts to the moon and other deep-space destinations. The rest, around $1 billion, will fund the development of a commercial landing system to help take astronauts to the moon’s surface. NASA also plans to scale back and delay plans for Gateway, an outpost in orbit around the moon, to limit costs until Artemis.
The final costs of Artemis will likely be much higher, with Bridenstine calling the current request a “down payment.” When asked how much the new mission would cost in total, he quipped to a reporter: “I would love to tell you that.”
However, there are some concerns that NASA can pull off the mission on its accelerated timeline. Spacefaring isn’t exactly something you want to rush, and there have also been issues with the development of the SLS (being carried out by Boeing). Hopefully, some quick cash is all NASA needs to iron out these issues.
Ik heb nog nooit iets zo snel zien vliegen. Turkse piloot filmt UFO tijdens vlucht (bekijk hier de beelden)
Ik heb nog nooit iets zo snel zien vliegen. Turkse piloot filmt UFO tijdens vlucht (bekijk hier de beelden)
Ik heb nog nooit iets zo snel zien vliegen, zei piloot van Turkish Airlines Atilla Senturk.
Op 10 mei zag hij tijdens een vlucht van Istanbul naar Keulen een mysterieus object door de lucht schieten.
De piloot maakte er beelden van met zijn mobiele telefoon, die hij op social media plaatste.
Ongelooflijk hoge snelheid
“We zagen een ongelooflijk helder object op grote hoogte,” zei hij. “Het was geen satelliet of ster.”
“Het verdween met ongelooflijk hoge snelheid,” vervolgde hij. “In ongeveer een seconde doorkruiste het object de horizon.”
“Het bevond zich heel dicht bij ons en was zeer helder,” aldus Senturk.
Vliegende schotel
Ook bemanningsleden Efsun Selin Sezer en Ozgur Erdas waren getuige van het verschijnsel. Het is niet bekend wat zij hebben gezien.
Een andere piloot, Selahattin Sivri, zei dat hij een vliegende schotel had gezien.
Reusachtig ei
Sivri, die in februari kwam te overlijden, zei dat hij in oktober 1989 tijdens een vlucht van Zürich naar Antalya een rood, blauw, groen en wit gekleurd object zag ter grootte van een huis.
Het had volgens de piloot de vorm van een reusachtig ei.
Bekijk ook onderstaande beelden, gemaakt door Senturk:
HOEVEEL MENSEN HOUDEN HUN MOND DICHT OVER BUITENAARDSE ONTVOERING?
HOEVEEL MENSEN HOUDEN HUN MOND DICHT OVER BUITENAARDSE ONTVOERING?
Als je beseft dat je meestal wordt uitgelachen als je iemand vertelt dat je een ufo hebt gezien, hoe zit het dan met ontvoeringen?
Hoeveel mensen, en dan met name jongeren, zouden er wel niet zijn die gewoon hun mond dicht houden over wat ze hebben meegemaakt?
Een lezer, een dame, die met jongeren werkt, zond ons het volgende bericht (dank!):
Zijn er volwassen personen die van jongeren tussen de 12 t/m 16 jaar te horen krijgen dat ze te maken hebben gehad met ufo ontvoeringen in Nederland?
Ik begeleid jongeren. Het volgende kwam mij vandaag ter ore in een groepsgesprekje.
Dit is wat ik vandaag kreeg te horen:
Start: Onderwerpen in dit groepsgesprekje zoals, vermoeidheid, dromen, nachtmerries, slaapwandelen passeerde de revue.
Eén van de jongeren vertelt plotseling en heel serieus het volgende.
De jongen: “Ik heb wel eens te maken gehad met een ufo in de nacht”.
Ik: Nodig hem uit om verder te vertellen en neem dit serieus.
De jongen zegt: “Ik lag in mijn bed ’s nachts”.
“Boven mij verscheen een grote ronde rode platte schijf”.
“Ik werd omhoog gestraald. Ik kwam in de ufo terecht”.
“Ik heb de binnenkant van de ufo gezien”.
“Verschillende wezens stonden om mij heen. Ze hadden grote ronde ogen en ze bekeken mij. Vertelt dan dat hij allerlei onderzoeken moest ondergaan”.
Zegt letterlijk: “Toen ze me niet meer nodig hadden werd ik op dezelfde manier naar beneden gegooid als dat ik werd opgestraald. Ik kwam met een klap in mijn bed terecht”.
Dan nog het volgende:
Kortgeleden, een paar dagen terug heb ik een soort droom gehad waar in er in het heelal een hele grote platte schijf hing. De bovenkant had de 7 kleuren van de regenboog. Dat kon ik zien omdat de platte schijf eerst schuin in de lucht hing. Ik kon dus de kleuren patronen/volgorde daardoor zien. De onderkant was van een zwaar soort metaal. Dit metaal had te maken met de aantrekking kracht van de Aarde. Het was gemaakt van de zelfde structuur die de aardkern heeft. Deze metalen schijf zorgt er voor dat de mensen ( net als in een computer worden geprogrammeerd ). Dit deden ze met straling en afstemming ( de kleuren ) op het energie veld van de mensen.
Toen ze ( wie weet ik niet ). In de gaten kregen dat ik het opmerkte moest ik maken dat ik weg kwam. Wat is er gaande ( in het heelal? ). Voor deze ( soort droom ) heb ik een andere ( soort droom gehad ) een paar weken terug.
Waarin een immens groot driehoekige metalen vliegtuig/ufo over complete woonwijken/continenten en steden heen vloog. Dit vliegtuig was van precies dezelfde metaal soort als dat ik in de zojuist beschreven ( soort droom ) heb beschreven.
Zijn er mensen die dit soort ervaringen misschien in een zelfde periode tijdens de slaap als ik hebben gehad?
Dus vanaf 3 weken geleden. In de periode van half april, tot aan 7 mei 2019?
Mochten jullie dit willen plaatsen. Dan heel graag anoniem.
Ik heb eerdere artikelen aan jullie toegezonden. Deze zijn geplaatst in 2014 en 2015. Ik heb een ander e-mail adres dan in het jr 2014/2015 omdat ik per 1 januari 2016 naar een andere woonplaats buiten af ben verhuist. Misschien is het voor jullie wel interessant om de artikelen die ik in 2014 en 2015 naar jullie heb toegezonden en die zijn geplaatst door te lezen.
Ik las je antwoordt gisteren, en kreeg de ingeving om jullie attent te maken op deze 2 artikelen die zijn ingezonden door mij. Als ik de ervaringen die toen zijn ingezonden er op na lees. Zijn er interessante overeen komsten met de 2 laatste recente ervaringen in de zogenaamde ( dromen ) die ik jullie deze week heb toegestuurd. Misschien kan je deze artikelen of de linkjes in een mogelijk artikel meenemen? Als je onder aan leest lijkt de ( informatie uit de zogenaamde droom ) de programmatie ( computer d.m.v. intunen kleuren veld mensheid ) door middel van de metalen schijf op de ervaring die ik in 2015 heb gehad ). Alleen nu was er 1 verschil ( ik moest mij uit de voeten maken toen werd opgemerkt wat ik in het heelal waarnam in de laatste ( zogenaamde droom ).
Mijn doel is dat meer mensen zich bewust worden van bepaalde zaken die zo op het eerste gezicht niet zichtbaar zijn. Maar wel degelijk bestaan, en invloed uitoefent op de fysieke wereld. En waarvan een bepaalde groep blijkbaar liever niet wil dat het openbaar wordt. Niet alles is wat het lijkt.
Ik ben de 50 gepasseerd en heb heel erg lang te maken gehad met ernstig misbruik, en heel veel verschillende testen vooral in de nacht tot aan een bepaalde periode in mijn leven.
Er is een bepaalde uitgekozen groep mensen die met extreem ernstig misbruik te maken hebben gehad. Deze mensen raken alles wat dichtbij hoort te staan kwijt. Alles wat dicht bij hen staat, en wat hen lief is moet weg. Alles wat hen lief is, daar wordt doorheen gewerkt zodat er een vreemd soort van conflicten ontstaan. Drugsgebruik, en uithongeren zijn een paar van die zaken die ingezet worden. Deze mensen raken 100% geïsoleerd. Als je alles en iedereen kwijt raakt, dan ben je kwetsbaarder. Ik weet heel zeker dat doel bewust misbruik wordt ingezet om een bepaalde groep mensen te isoleren. En dat er vooral in de slaap/droom staat, testen worden uitgevoerd.
Deze groep mensen worden tot op het bod getest. Het zijn mensen die een bepaald soort begaafdheid hebben. Ze worden van jongs af aan uitgekozen, in bepaalde families geboren ( trauma gerelateerd ). En krijgen het dan ook flink voor de kiezen. Dit allemaal om te voorkomen dat bepaalde technologie en/of bepaalde geheimen aan het licht komen of word doorzien.
Er gaat een enorme kracht uit van deze mensen. Het doel is om deze kracht te ondermijnen, en op angst gebaseerde zaken in stand te houden. waardoor deze mensen in een soort sluimer toestand blijven. Velen worden toch wakker ondanks de ghemtrails, ondanks gemanipuleerd voedsel, ondanks bepaalde technologie die wordt ingezet. Dit wilde ik nog kwijt.
Met name de volgende zin in dit artikel raakte mij. " Het voelde alsof er een computer programma op mij werd losgelaten (op afstand via de linker kant van mijn brein) ". Als je de ( zogenaamde droom, afgelopen week ) die hoogstwaarschijnlijk helemaal geen droom is geweest leest . Dan ervaar ik nagenoeg hetzelfde maar dan op een iets meer collectief niveau. Er staat namelijk: Deze metalen schijf zorgt er voor dat de mensen ( net als in een computer worden geprogrammeerd ). Dit deden ze met straling. Dus, grote groepen mensen worden getest. Ze ( wie weet ik niet ). Wensen niet dat dit openbaar wordt gemaakt. Of dat er mensen zijn die dit waarnemen/doorzien. De mensen die een bepaalde soort begaafdheid hebben krijgen het dan ook flink voor de kiezen, om te voorkomen dat bepaalde technologie word doorzien. Dat liet de zogenaamde droom heel goed zien. Ik schrijf namelijk (dat ik moest maken dat ik weg kwam).
I took a boat through 96 million black plastic balls on the Los Angeles reservoir to find out why they’re there. The first time I heard about shade balls the claim was they reduce evaporation. But it turns out this isn’t the reason they were introduced. Huge thanks to LADWP for arranging this special tour for me. Next time let’s put the GoPro on the submersible!
The balls are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) which is less dense than water so they float on the surface of the reservoir even if they break apart. They are 10cm (4 inches) in diameter and contain about 210ml of water. So the main reason they are on the reservoir is to block sunlight from entering the water and triggering a chemical reaction that turns harmless bromide into carcinogenic bromate.
This effect occurs with prolonged exposure to bromate so regulators insist that levels be kept below 10 microgram per liter on average over a 12 month period.
Stanton Friedman, a respected nuclear physicist, and UFO researcher passed away yesterday evening in Toronto, Canada. An official announcement by his family has been made to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation earlier today.
Friedman was born in July of 1934 and resided in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Friedman completed his degree in Physics from the University of Chicago and worked for various companies including General Electric and General Motors. A well-respected scientist, Friedman belonged to several academic organizations including the American Nuclear Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Friedman in 2013 receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award.
(Image courtesy of Open Minds)
In 1970, Friedman made a splash in the UFO community when he began to investigate the UFO phenomenon full time. Speaking at countless conferences, authoring several books and over 80 articles on “flying saucers,” Friedman became a household name in the study of UFOs. He often drew the ire of the skeptical community and was even the target of the infamous debunker Phillip Klass. Somewhat of a legendary story in the UFO community, Klass entered into a monetary bet with Friedman regarding the typeface of the famous MJ-12 documents. Klass offered Friedman $100 for every legitimate document he could find with the same typeface, and in a brilliant move, Friedman provided Klass with fourteen such examples. Klass, begrudgingly, sent Friedman $1000 (the other $400 never materialized).
Friedman continued his work into the phenomenon and made many friends in the UFO community. Science writer and UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski was friends with Friedman, and often opened his home to the man when he visited Winnipeg. Friedman, known to be quite economical, would often crash on Rutkowski’s couch instead of staying in a hotel room.
Friedman and Rutkowski in 2001.
(Image courtesy of C. Rutkowski)
In an interview with Mysterious Universe, Rutkowski expressed his sadness at the loss of one of Ufology’s most legendary figures,
He was a mentor and will be missed. One of the last “nuts and bolts” Ufologists, who was not afraid to take on skeptics and jaded media.
In an outpouring of support on social media, many of his colleagues and friends have offered their condolences, memories, and fondness for Friedman and his family. The UFO community has lost an important figure, and more importantly, a role model.
UFO Over East London, South Africa On May 13, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Over East London, South Africa On May 13, 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Location of sighting:East London, South Africa Date of sighing:May 13, 2019 Source:MUFON #100257 This is from South Africa, the city of East London near the Indian Ocean. Not England! I just reported about a UFO on Google Earth that was deleted just last week and am reporting another so soon. Anyways, this is a difficult one to determine because there is a powerful light below shining up from the ground. So it could be a reflection of light, especially if taking a photo through a window. But this UFO does seem to have some solid appearance to it. This is a hard one guys. So I made a video of it so you can decide for yourselves. Scott C. Waring
Organic Life In Space On NASA Photo, May 2019, UFO Sighting News.
Organic Life In Space On NASA Photo, May 2019, UFO Sighting News.
What happens when life forms show up on NASA SOHO satellite and astronauts Melvin Leland and John Glenn both concur that they saw organic life forms in space? Well, let me show you more. This photo of life forms flying or swimming past the SOHO satellite lens was sent to me by a Facebook friend Holly. She found the amazing photo with not one, but five organic creatures moving past the lens of the SOHO satellite on May 4, 2019 at 16:30. The photo is remarkable, because two of the organic life forms are touching eachother...comforting each other to assure each that they are not alone. A bond of friendship is there. At he location that they touch, notice that when I added contrast, a rectangle appears there. That is the area that they pressed together at...touching. If a creature needs contact with others to feel comfortable...then there is some degree no matter how small of intelligence. Scott C. Waring-Taiwan
While searching for the source of methane on Saturn’s large moon Titan, researchers found a completely unexpected corridor of methane ice wrapping nearly halfway around the moon.
Three orientations of Titan’s globe. The icy corridor is mapped in blue.
Image via Caitlin Griffith/UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
A research team has discovered huge ice feature on Titan while trying to understand where Saturn’s largest moon gets all of its methane.
Like Earth,Titanhas rain, seas and a surface of eroding organic material. However, on Titan it is methane, not water, that makes up the raindrops and fills the lakes.
A team of scientists searching for the source of Titan’s methane discovered something unexpected – a long corridor of ice that wraps nearly halfway around Titan, making it over 4,000 miles (6,400 km) long.
Caitlin Griffith is a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and lead author on the paper published April 29, 2019, in the peer=reviewed journal Nature Astronomy. Griffith said in a statement:
This icy corridor is puzzling, because it doesn’t correlate with any surface features nor measurements of the subsurface.
Saturn’s largest moon Titan as seen by the Cassini spacecraft.
Titan is the only object in the solar system other than Earth that is known to have liquid rain. On Titan it’s methane rain, not water, which fills the huge lakes that exist on the moon’s surface. Scientists aren’t sure where Titan’s methane comes from. There is no obvious source, except the evaporation of methane from the polar lakes. But Titan’s lakes contain only one-third of the methane in Titan’s atmosphere.
One theory is that the methane could be supplied by subsurface reservoirs that vent methane into the atmosphere. Prior studies of Titan indicate the presence of what looks like a cryovolcano – an ice volcano that erupts slurries of volatile compounds such as water or methane instead of lava.
The research team set out to study the composition of Titan’s surface, analyzing images from the NASA Cassinimission’s flybys of Titan, partly hoping to find subtle small cryovolcano candidates. They analyzed half of Titan’s surface and none were detected, but, in a surprise discovery, came across the ice feature. The researchers wrote:
Titan’s global ice feature presents a puzzle. Ice-rich terrains in other areas of Titan occur only in local regions excavated by craters or exposed by erosion, suggesting that cryovolcanism, if active, is currently not widespread.
Researchers say the presence of the ice corridor raises the question of whether tectonic processes might have been involved in Titan’s formation. Griffith said:
Given that our study and past work indicate that Titan is currently not volcanically active, the trace of the corridor is likely a vestige of the past. We detect this feature on steep slopes, but not on all slopes. This suggests that the icy corridor is currently eroding, potentially unveiling the presence of ice and organic strata.
Bottom line: Researchers have discovered an enormous ice corridor that wraps almost halfway around Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
More than 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, vast sheets of ice receded, scarring and causing massive cracks to appear on the bridge between North and South America. At that time, the land bridge was known to have been inhabited by fearsome beasts; now new evidence shows these prehistoric beasts included giant ‘wolf-like carnivores’ and the ‘largest bear’ ever to have walked on planet Earth.
‘10,000 BC’ was a 2008 American epic adventure film set in prehistory. It told the adventures of a prehistoric tribe ofmammoth hunters. After its world premiere on February 10, 2008 in Berlin, although it was an immediate box office hit, the film became regarded by professional critics as one of the worst films of the year. The Sunday Times review section noted that the film was “archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms.” But now it would appear this movie was based firmly in reality!
A diver in the Hoyo Negro pit, holding a Protocyon jaw and vertebrae.
At the bottom of an underwater cave in Mexico archaeologists have discovered an ancient graveyard including the skeletons of ancient sloths, sabretooth cats, cougars, elephant-like gomphotheres, bears, and dog-like animals. According to the researchers’ new paper, published in Biology Letters , they have recovered the skull of an enormous short-faced bear ( Arctotherium wingei ) and remains of a wolf-like dog known as Protocyon troglodytes.
Furthermore, in 2007, researchers even found “two human skeletons dating to more than 12,000-years-old.” These are now thought to be two of the “oldest human skeletons ever found in the Western hemisphere” and they inform experts that our ancestors once lived alongside giant ground sloths, towering bears, and fierce wolf-like carnivores.
Arctotherium wingei and Protocyon troglodytes from Hoyo Negro.
The remarkable discoveries were made in the Hoyo Negro pit (Spanish: blackhole) in the Sac Actun cave system on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula . Researchers have described it as “an underworld of exquisitely preserved fossils” naturally formed from limestone in the Late Pleistocene. It is thought that animals fell nearly 60 meters (200 feet) into the death pit and when the melting glaciers filled the pit the remains became a permanent installation.
This large-scale archaeological project is being financially support by a consortium including INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), National Geographic Society, the ETSU Center of Excellence in Paleontology, the Archaeological Institute of America, and DirectAMS and Strauss Family Fund. Among the bones recovered by scientists over the past 12 years, the team of US and Mexican researchers were most impressed by the remains of a giant bear and a wolf-like creature .
Divers in the expansive underwater cave of Hoyo Negro, Tulum, Quintana Roo.
While having been collected several years ago, both giant species were misidentified until now. But it’s not only the awe inspiring size of these two skeletons that is fascinating scientists, it’s the fact that they are causing anthropologists to redress their theories about ancient animal populations in South America .
How so? Up until their correct identification, scientists were convinced that the short-faced bear and wolf only populated the southern aspects of the South American continent, “more than 2,000 kilometers away.”
When Did these Prehistoric Beasts Travel Such Vast Distances?
Lead author and paleontologist from the East Tennessee State University, Blaine Schubert, told reporters at Live Science , “The whole previous record of this particular type of bear is just known from a few localities in South America, and those are fragmentary remains.” And having come from almost no knowledge of this bear, the scientists now have what is being called “the best record of this type of bear from the Yucatán of Mexico.”
Trying to account for how the bear and wolf got as far north as Mexico, scientists refer to “many cross-over events between North and South America.” Another possibility being proposed by the authors is that having walked all the way south, during or after the last full glacial event between 35,000 and 12,000 years ago, they returned northwards to the region of the cave. The scientists wrote, “We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included Homo sapiens.”
When 10,000 BC was released in 2008 critics at Variety wrote: “10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.” However, in April 29, 2008 the movie had grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide, which was said to be “dead money.” Now, it appears the movie was a really, really expensive archaeological lesson.
Top Image:A diver holds the skull of an ancient bear known as an Arctotherium. It is one of the species of “prehistoric monsters” found in an underwater Yucatan cave. Source: Copyright Roberto Chavez-Arce
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
Fossils of Giant Prehistoric Beasts Discovered in Underwater Ice Age Death Cave
More than 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, vast sheets of ice receded, scarring and causing massive cracks to appear on the bridge between North and South America. At that time, the land bridge was known to have been inhabited by fearsome beasts; now new evidence shows these prehistoric beasts included giant ‘wolf-like carnivores’ and the ‘largest bear’ ever to have walked on planet Earth.
‘10,000 BC’ was a 2008 American epic adventure film set in prehistory. It told the adventures of a prehistoric tribe ofmammoth hunters. After its world premiere on February 10, 2008 in Berlin, although it was an immediate box office hit, the film became regarded by professional critics as one of the worst films of the year. The Sunday Times review section noted that the film was “archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms.” But now it would appear this movie was based firmly in reality!
A diver in the Hoyo Negro pit, holding a Protocyon jaw and vertebrae.
At the bottom of an underwater cave in Mexico archaeologists have discovered an ancient graveyard including the skeletons of ancient sloths, sabretooth cats, cougars, elephant-like gomphotheres, bears, and dog-like animals. According to the researchers’ new paper, published in Biology Letters , they have recovered the skull of an enormous short-faced bear ( Arctotherium wingei ) and remains of a wolf-like dog known as Protocyon troglodytes.
Furthermore, in 2007, researchers even found “two human skeletons dating to more than 12,000-years-old.” These are now thought to be two of the “oldest human skeletons ever found in the Western hemisphere” and they inform experts that our ancestors once lived alongside giant ground sloths, towering bears, and fierce wolf-like carnivores.
Arctotherium wingei and Protocyon troglodytes from Hoyo Negro.
The remarkable discoveries were made in the Hoyo Negro pit (Spanish: blackhole) in the Sac Actun cave system on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula . Researchers have described it as “an underworld of exquisitely preserved fossils” naturally formed from limestone in the Late Pleistocene. It is thought that animals fell nearly 60 meters (200 feet) into the death pit and when the melting glaciers filled the pit the remains became a permanent installation.
This large-scale archaeological project is being financially support by a consortium including INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), National Geographic Society, the ETSU Center of Excellence in Paleontology, the Archaeological Institute of America, and DirectAMS and Strauss Family Fund. Among the bones recovered by scientists over the past 12 years, the team of US and Mexican researchers were most impressed by the remains of a giant bear and a wolf-like creature .
Divers in the expansive underwater cave of Hoyo Negro, Tulum, Quintana Roo.
While having been collected several years ago, both giant species were misidentified until now. But it’s not only the awe inspiring size of these two skeletons that is fascinating scientists, it’s the fact that they are causing anthropologists to redress their theories about ancient animal populations in South America .
How so? Up until their correct identification, scientists were convinced that the short-faced bear and wolf only populated the southern aspects of the South American continent, “more than 2,000 kilometers away.”
When Did these Prehistoric Beasts Travel Such Vast Distances?
Lead author and paleontologist from the East Tennessee State University, Blaine Schubert, told reporters at Live Science , “The whole previous record of this particular type of bear is just known from a few localities in South America, and those are fragmentary remains.” And having come from almost no knowledge of this bear, the scientists now have what is being called “the best record of this type of bear from the Yucatán of Mexico.”
Trying to account for how the bear and wolf got as far north as Mexico, scientists refer to “many cross-over events between North and South America.” Another possibility being proposed by the authors is that having walked all the way south, during or after the last full glacial event between 35,000 and 12,000 years ago, they returned northwards to the region of the cave. The scientists wrote, “We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included Homo sapiens.”
When 10,000 BC was released in 2008 critics at Variety wrote: “10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment.” However, in April 29, 2008 the movie had grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide, which was said to be “dead money.” Now, it appears the movie was a really, really expensive archaeological lesson.
Top Image:A diver holds the skull of an ancient bear known as an Arctotherium. It is one of the species of “prehistoric monsters” found in an underwater Yucatan cave. Source: Copyright Roberto Chavez-Arce
Discovery of 16,000-year-old Footprint That Could Change the History of the Americas
Discovery of 16,000-year-old Footprint That Could Change the History of the Americas
There are some discoveries that can change the way that we think about history. Archaeologists in Chilebelieve that they have made one such discovery. They have uncovered a human footprintthat is approximately 15,500-16,000 years old. It is the earliest evidence yet found of humans in theAmericas. The imprint has the potential to change how we believe the continent was settled and who were its first inhabitants.
The imprint was found at the late Pleistocene period archaeological site of Pilauco, which according to phys.org “where scientists have been digging since 2007.” The Pilauco site had also yielded evidence of extinct elephants and horses and is located in the Chilean city of Osorno some 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Santiago, the capital of Chile.
The Pleistocene footprint is the oldest surviving human footprint in the Americas.
The footprint was found in 2010, near a modern house, by “a student at the Universidad Austral of Chile” according to Reuters. While the impression may appear to be clearly a human footprint, the scientists were cautious, as it could have been an animal’s tracks which had become misshapen and elongated over-time. It is believed that the imprint was buried under three feet of residue, which preserved it for posterity.
The Irish state broadcaster RTE reports that ‘”it took years for paleontologist Karen Moreno and geologist Mario Pino to reliably confirm that the print was human.” It was only established by carrying out footprint tests with people and this proved that the imprint was human. These also established that it was made by a “barefooted adult human who was of 'light body weight’” according to the Daily Mail .
Based on foot printing tests they conducted, scientists think the print comes from a straight down step. The diagram shows the different type of prints that could be made with different angles and pressure.
It is believed that the footprint is of a man who weighed 155 pounds (70 kilograms) and according to phys.org, was “of the species Hominipes modernus, a relative of Homo sapiens .” This was established by ichnologicaly, that is by the scientific examination of the traces found in the sediment. Ichnologists comparing the mark with other traces were able to establish that it was H. modernus.
To establish if the Pleistocene footprint was human and how it was made, scientists performed foot printing tests on soil at different soil moisture levels and with different foot angles and pressures.
Scientists were able to date the find by using radiocarbon dating techniques that analyzed organic plant material near where the print was located and established that it was approximately 15,600 years old. This made it according to RTE, the “oldest footprint found in the Americas.” While other prints have been unearthed, none are as old as the one found in the city of Osorno. It seems that the site was occupied by humans for some time as footprints dated a thousand years later have also been uncovered.
The Daily Mail reports that “this was the first evidence of humans in the Americas older than 12,000 years.” Previously it had been believed that the first inhabitants of the continent arrived from Siberia via the Bearing Straits some 10,000 years ago. This discovery is challenging the idea that Clovis Man, a paleo-Indian culture was the first to settle the continent.
Archeologist working on site of the location were Pleistocene footprint was discovered.
According to Plos One , the find provides evidence of “the colonization of northern Patagonia” in the late Pleistocene period . The footprint is supporting evidence found at the Monte Verde , Chile, that this region in the extreme south of the Americas was colonized much earlier than thought. This, in turn, is supporting the so-called coastal migration model. This holds that the first settlers to inhabit the Americas migrated by following coastlines and may suggest that Pacific Islanders were the first to settle on the continent.
The impression and its surrounding sediment has been removed from the Osorno site and is now stored in a specially regulated environment. It has cracked somewhat as the moisture in the soil has dried but the impression is still distinct. The print could be put on display at some later date, but this depends on the state of the traces.
Top image:Region close to where the Pleistocene footprint was discovered. Source: Matyas Rehak / Adobe
SPACEX’S STARLINK SATELLITES COULD MAKE SPACE A MINEFIELD
SPACEX’S STARLINK SATELLITES COULD MAKE SPACE A MINEFIELD
NASA/VICTOR TANGERMANN
DAN ROBITZSKI
Watch Your Step
On Wednesday, SpaceX plans to launch its firstbatch of Starlink satellites, an artificial constellation intended to beam down high-speed internet service from orbit.
It’s an aspirational mission, but there’s an unfortunate downside, according to Scientific American. The satellites could also, in a worst-case scenario, trigger a deadly cascade of space debris known as “Kessler syndrome,” which would fill space with so many hazards that humans are effectively trapped on Earth.
“The worst case is: you launch all your satellites, you go bankrupt, and they all stay there,” European Space Agency researcher Stijn Lemmens told the magazine. “Then you have thousands of new satellites without a plan of getting them out of there. And you would have a Kessler-type of syndrome.”
Mind The Gap
SpaceX proactively took steps to avoid cluttering the skies with even more potentially dangerous space junk — SpaceX plans to launch the Starlink network to a lower altitude that most other satellites that orbit the Earth.
Over time, that number will only climb — it will take thousands of years for the Starlink satellites to be pulled back down into the Earth’s atmosphere where they’ll safely incinerate upon re-entry, per SciAm. And in the meantime, according to the MIT Technology Review, proposed mega-constellations like Starlink will result in 67,000 potential collisions per year.
“This is something we need to pay attention to,” Glenn Peterson, the Aerospace Corporation engineer who calculated the 67,000 annual collision rate, told SciAm. “We have to be proactive.”
A strange light was spotted in the background of a NASA live feed of the ISS, with some quick to point to alien activity. The orb in the background appears to be pulsating, with UFOlogists claiming it is “proof” that extraterrestrials are monitoring astronauts on board the ISS. Prominent alien hunter Scott C Waring said NASA was attempting to hide the evidence.
Mr Waring wrote on the website ET Database: “The UFO seems curved on the top and sides,but flat on its bottom.
“The close up in the video shows its colour changing as it moves past the space station slowly.
“This video is over six minutes and shows some serious close ups of a UFO that NASA does not want you to see.
“This is absolute proof that aliens have a high interest in the space station and how the astronauts on board are dealing with the unique environment of space.”
ALIEN PROOF? UFO ‘seen monitoring International Space Station’ - shock claim
(Image: GETTY)
Conspiracy theorists often look for signs of extraterrestrial activity in official NASA videos and live streams.
But scientists who have worked for the space agency in the past have a much simpler explanation for all of the bizarre UFO sightings reported.
According to former NASA engineer James Oberg, most UFO sightings are nothing more than “space dandruff” floating in front of cameras.
The 'UFO' was seen pulsating
(Image: ET DATABASE)
These specks of dandruff can be anything from bits of chipped paint drifting aimlessly in zero gravity, flakes of ice or ISS insulation that has broken off.
He said: “I’ve had enough experience with real spaceflight to realise that what’s being seen in many videos is nothing beyond the ‘norm’ from fully mundane phenomena occurring in unearthly settings.”
Mr Oberg argued the human brain is not wired to make sense of these tiny objects floating above Earth.
ONE WAY TO FIND ALIENS WOULD BE TO SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL RINGS OF SATELLITES: CLARKE BELTS
ONE WAY TO FIND ALIENS WOULD BE TO SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL RINGS OF SATELLITES: CLARKE BELTS
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When it comes to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the Universe, there is the complicated matter of what to be on the lookout for. Beyond the age-old question of whether or not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe (statistically speaking, it is very likely that it does), there’s also the question of whether or not we would be able to recognize it if and when we saw it.
Given that humanity is only familiar with one form of civilization (our own), we tend to look for indications of technologies we know or which seem feasible. In a recent study, a researcher from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) proposed looking for large bands of satellites in distant star systems – a concept that was proposed by the late and great Arthur C. Clarke (known as a Clarke Belt).
The study – titled “Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt” – was conducted by Hector Socas-Navarro, an astrophysicist with the IAC and the Universidad de La Laguna. In it, he advocates using next-generation telescopes to look for signs of massive belts of geostationary communication satellites in distant star systems.
This proposal is based in part on a paper written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945 (titled “Peacetime Uses for V2“), in which he proposed sending “artificial satellites” into geostationary orbit around Earth to create a global communications network. At present, there are about 400 such satellites in the “Clarke Belt” – a region named in honor of him that is located 36,000 km above the Earth.
This network forms the backbone of modern telecommunications and in the future, many more satellites are expected to be deployed – which will form the backbone of the global internet. Given the practicality of satellites and the fact that humanity has come to rely on them so much, Socas-Navarro considers that a belt of artificial satellites could naturally be considered “technomarkers” (the analogues of “biomarkers”, which indicate the presence of life).-
As Socas-Navarro explained to Universe Today via email:
“Essentially, a technomarker is anything that we could potentially observe which would reveal the presence of technology elsewhere in the Universe. It’s the ultimate clue to find intelligent life out there. Unfortunately, interstellar distances are so great that, with our current technology, we can only hope to detect very large objects or structures, something comparable to the size of a planet.”
In this respect, a Clarke Exobelt is not dissimilar from a Dyson Sphere or other forms of megastructures that have been proposed by scientists in the past. But unlike these theoretical structures, a Clarke Exobelt is entirely feasible using present-day technology.
Graphic showing the cloud of space debris that currently surrounds the Earth.
Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/JSC
“Other existing technomarkers are based on science fiction technology of which we know very little,” said Socas-Navarro. “We don’t know if such technologies are possible or if other alien species might be using them. The Clarke Exobelt, on the other hand, is a technomarker based on real, currently existing technology. We know we can make satellites and, if we make them, it’s reasonable to assume that other civilizations will make them too.”
According to Socas-Navarro, there is some “science fiction” when it comes to Clarke Exobelts that would actually be detectable using these instruments. As noted, humanity has about 400 operational satellites occupying Earth’s “Clarke Belt”. This is about one-third of the Earth’s existing satellites, whereas the rest are at an altitude of 2000 km (1200 mi) or less from the surface – the region known as Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
This essentially means that aliens would need to have billions more satellites within their Clarke Belt – accounting for roughly 0.01% of the belt area – in order for it to be detectable. As for humanity, we are not yet to the point where our own Belt would be detectable by an extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). However, this should not take long given that the number of satellites in orbit has been growing exponentially over the past 15 years.
Based on simulations conducted by Socas-Navarro, humanity will reach the threshold where its satellite band will be detectable by ETIs by 2200. Knowing that humanity will reach this threshold in the not-too-distant future makes the Clarke Belt a viable option for SETI. As Socas-Navarro explained:
“In this sense, the Clarke Exobelt is interesting because it’s the first technomarker that looks for currently existing technology. And it goes both ways too. Humanity’s Clarke Belt is probably too sparsely populated to be detectable from other stars right now (at least with technology like ours). But in the last decades we have been populating it at an exponential rate. If this trend were to continue, our Clarke Belt would be detectable from other stars by the year 2200. Do we want to be detectable? This is an interesting debate that humanity will have to resolve soon.
An exoplanet transiting across the face of its star, demonstrating one of the methods used to find planets beyond our solar system.
Image Credit: ESA/C. Carreau
As for when we might be able to start looking for Exobelts, Socas-Navarro indicates that this will be possible within the next decade. Using instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), scientists will have ground-based and space-based telescopes with the necessary resolution to spot these bands around exoplanets.
As for how these belts would be detected, that would come down to the most popular and effective means for finding exoplanets to date – the Transit Method (aka. Transit Photometry). For this method, astronomers monitor distant stars for periodic dips in brightness, which are indications of an exoplanet passing in front of the star. Using next-generation telescopes, astronomers may also be able to detect reflected light from a dense band of satellites in orbit.
“However, before we point our supertelescopes to a planet we need to identify good candidates,” said Socas-Navarro. “There are too many stars to check and we can’t go one by one. We need to rely on exoplanet search projects, such as the recently launched satellite TESS, to spot interesting candidates. Then we can do follow-up observations with supertelescopes to confirm or refute those candidates.”
In this respect, telescopes like the Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Telescope (TESS) will still serve an important function in searching for technomarkers. Whereas the former telescope is due to retire soon, the latter is scheduled to launch in 2018.
While these space-telescopes would search for rocky planets that are located within the habitable zones of thousands of stars, next-generation telescopes could search for signs of Clarke Exobelts and other technomarkers that would be otherwise hard to spot. However, as Socas-Navarro indicated, astronomers could also find evidence of Exobands by sifting through existing data as well.
“In doing SETI, we have no idea what we are looking for because we don’t know what the aliens are doing,” he said. “So we have to investigate all the possibilities that we can think of. Looking for Clarke Exobelts is a new way of searching, it seems at least reasonably plausible and, most importantly, it’s free. We can look for signatures of Clarke Exobelts in currently existing missions that search for exoplanets, exorings or exomoons. We don’t need to build costly new telescopes or satellites. We simply need to keep our eyes open to see if we can spot the signatures presented in the simulation in the flow of data from all of those projects.”
Humanity has been actively searching for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence for decades. To know that our technology and methods are becoming more refined, and that more sophisticated searches could begin within a decade, is certainly encouraging. Knowing that we won’t be visible to any ETIs that are out there for another two centuries, that’s also encouraging!
Robots and artificial intelligence may be just what we need to meet the denizens of the ocean floor, a new study reports.
Image via Pixabay.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has an important role to play in helping us understand the large variety of species living on the ocean floor, new research from the University of Plymouth reports. Such systems could finally allow marine researchers to push past the efficiency bottleneck created by human users analyzing recordings from the depths of the sea.
Davy Jones’ locker
“Autonomous vehicles are a vital tool for surveying large areas of the seabed deeper than 60m [the depth most divers can reach],” says PhD student Nils Piechaud, lead author on the study. “But we are currently not able to manually analyse more than a fraction of that data.”
“This research shows AI is a promising tool but our AI classifier would still be wrong one out of five times, if it was used to identify animals in our images.”
The new study analyzed the effectiveness of a computer vision (CV) system in taking over the role of humans in analyzing deep-sea images. All in all, the team found, such as system is around 80% accurate in identifying various animals in images of the seabed but can be up to 93% accurate for specific species if enough data is used to train the algorithm. The authors say that such results suggest CV could soon be routinely employed to study marine animals and plants. In such a case, it would lead to a major increase in data availability for conservation research and biodiversity management, they add.
“But we are not at the point of considering it a suitable complete replacement for humans at this stage,” Piechaud notes.
The team used Google’s Tensorflow, an open access library, to teach a (pre-trained) neural network to identify individuals of deep-sea species found in images taken by autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). One of these AUVs, known as Autosub6000, was deployed back in May 2016 on the north-east side of Rockall Bank, UK, and collected over 150,000 images in a single dive. Around 1,200 of these images were manually analyzed, containing 40,000 individuals of 110 different kinds of animals (morphospecies), most of them only seen a handful of times.
Manual annotation ranged from 50 to 95% on this dataset; however, it was very slow. And, as you guessed from that ‘ranged’ part, it was quite inconsistent across different teams and work intervals. The automated method reached around 80% accuracy, approaching the performance of humans with a clear speed and consistency advantage. The software worked particularly well for certain morphospecies. For example, it correctly identified a type of xenophyophore 93% of the time.
So should we just use it instead of marine biologists? Well, the authors of this present study don’t think that would be a good idea. The study makes a case for automated systems working in tandem with marine biologists, not replacing them. The AIs could greatly enhance the ability of scientists to analyze the data before them.
And combining the ability of high-tech AUVs to survey large areas of the seabed, the fast data-crunching ability of AI, and expertise of marine biologists together could massively speed up the rate of deep-ocean exploration — and with it our wider understanding of marine ecosystems.
“Most of our planet is deep sea, a vast area in which we have equally large knowledge gaps,” says Dr Kerry Howell, Associate Professor in Marine Ecology and Principal Investigator for the Deep Links project.”
“With increasing pressures on the marine environment including climate change, it is imperative that we understand our oceans and the habitats and species found within them. In the age of robotic and autonomous vehicles, big data, and global open research, the development of AI tools with the potential to help speed up our acquisition of knowledge is an exciting and much needed advance.”
The paper “Automated identification of benthic epifauna with computer vision” has been published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most unique creatures, and the Moa is definitely one of them.
Artistic depiction of moas.
Image credits: Heinrich Harder.
When Michael Johnston took his dogs aout for a walk, he wasn’t expecting much — it was a day like any other, a walk like any other. Because it was “quite a ripper” of a day, he decided to also go for a swim with the dogs, in a nearby swimming hole. But what he found there was amazing: a set of moa footprints from millions of yers ago, offering a rare glimpse into how life was in New Zealand before the ice age.
The stars aligned perfectly to allow Johnston to make the discovery. Not only did he need to be in the right place, but the imprints had been exposed by significant flooding in the area last year. They probably wouldn’t have survived another rainfall event.
“I’m amazed at the luck of finding them – catching it in this very brief window between being exposed and being scoured out, and then that somebody happened to be fossicking around and went for a swim and noticed them. If any one of those things hadn’t happened, we would never have known they were there, and it makes you wonder how many other moa prints are buried or destroyed, or no-one knows they’re there.”
Image credits: Otago Museum / Kane Fleury.
Moas were large, flightless birds, endemic to New Zealand, whose demise was decided the moment humans laid foot on the island. When New Zealand’s first settlers arrived, there wasn’t much in the way of food — except for some remarkable flightless birds. New Zealand has developed a unique and isolated ecosystem, with almost no native mammals. Because of this lack of mammals, the avian life has thrived and developed in ways which would just not be possible in other parts of the world. They had almost no predators, so flying was essentially renounced — large birds were trotting carelessly on the ground, sometimes not even being aware what a predator is. So when humans entered the scene, they found large flightless birds that were extremely easy to hunt.
Under normal circumstances, the moas would have continued their carefree existence. They were simply too large to be hunted by the island’s normal fauna. But after the Maori settled New Zealand, they were extinct within a century.
Paleontologists from the Otago Museum are now working to extract the footprints from the clay and place them in a museum, where they can be better studied and hopefully provide more information about these birds.
In less than a century, humans have managed the ignoble feat of raising atmospheric CO2 levels by more than 100 parts per million (ppm). Like every year, weather stations are measuring new record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and according to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now over 415 ppm, which is higher than at any point during the existence of our lineage.
Eric Holthaus✔@EricHolthaus
This is the first time in human history our planet's atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2.
Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago.
We don't know a planet like this.
Keeling_Curve✔@Keeling_curve
415.26 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in air 11-May-2019 http://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ … First daily baseline over 415ppm
Some believe that global warming, which is responsible for at least 1ºC (1.8ºF) of warming compared to pre-Industrial Age levels, has already triggered an irreversible feedback loop that will see much of the polar ice sheets melt. Whatever the case, the effects of man-made climate change are sorely felt around the world now. The Arctic, which warms twice as fast than the global average, lost nearly one million square kilometers (620,000 square miles) of winter sea ice cover since 1979 — that’s an area twice as large as Texas. Heat waves and droughts are more common and every new year seems like it’s the warmest on record.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been measuring atmospheric carbon since 1958 when the program was started by the late Charles David Keeling. The famous, constantly updated graph that shows the accelerated rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, known as the Keeling Curve (shown above), is named after him.
The latest recorded figure, which stands at 415.26 ppm of CO2, is unprecedented in millions of years. The last time this happened, during the Pliocene Epoch, the Arctic was covered in trees and global sea levels were 25 meters higher than today.
Keeling_Curve✔@Keeling_curve
Comment from Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps CO2 Program: “The average growth rate is remaining on the high end. The increase from last year will probably be around three parts per million whereas the recent average has been 2.5 ppm....” 1/2
The year’s increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has been partly fueled by El Niño conditions — changes in the sea-surface temperature of the tropical Pacific Ocean. This warms and dries tropical ecosystems, reducing their uptake of carbon, and exacerbating forest fires. However, the main factor responsible for the upward trend is, by far, the burning of fossil fuels.
According to a 2017 study, if the world continues on this business as usual route, by 2050 CO2 levels could rise beyond anything the Earth’s atmosphere has seen in the last 50 million years (600ppm). That’s not a death sentence in and of itself — life has flourished in those conditions before — but the shift is too fast and brutal for animals to adapt. A lot of today’s species will find it difficult (if not impossible) to adapt to those conditions in such a short time. As for humans, climate change threatens communities through rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather, heat waves, and food shortages.
All the signs are pointing to an impending disaster if we don’t do something about it. This means moving to zero-emission energy generation as fast as possible. But that’s not enough — we also need to increase carbon capture and sequestration by planting more forests and developing new technologies that can safely lock excess carbon from the atmosphere.
The notion that the climate change we’re experiencing today is mainly driven by a natural climate cycle is silly and not rooted in scientific reality.
Het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds. Volgens een onderzoeker kunnen we hier leven vinden op Mars
Het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds. Volgens een onderzoeker kunnen we hier leven vinden op Mars
Er zijn allerlei aanwijzingen dat er ooit leven heeft bestaan op Mars. Ruimtesondes en Marsrovers hebben daarnaast nog maar een heel klein gedeelte van de rode planeet bestudeerd.
Het is goed mogelijk zich ergens op de planeet leven schuilhoudt, stelde onderzoeker Michael Finney tijdens een recente conferentie.
We weten dat er ooit enorme oceanen waren op Mars, die mogelijk wemelden van leven.
Nog steeds
Finney gelooft dat er waarschijnlijk nog steeds leven is op de planeet.
“Als er vier miljard jaar geleden leven was op Mars, is er nu nog steeds leven op Mars,” legde hij uit. “Er is niets gebeurd op Mars wat het leven volledig heeft uitgeroeid.”
“Als er dus leven was op Mars, heeft het zich wellicht verplaatst, of heeft het zich enige tijd verscholen onder de grond, maar het is er waarschijnlijk nog steeds.”
Water
Onderzoekers die Mars bestuderen hebben ontdekt dat er aardig wat ijs in de poolgebieden kan worden gevonden. Ook is een groot ondergronds meer ontdekt op de planeet.
Op aarde kunnen bepaalde diersoorten in de meest extreme omstandigheden overleven.
Aangepast
Zo zijn micro-organismen bestand tegen extreem hoge temperaturen en kunnen ze lange tijd zonder water.
Het is goed mogelijk dat levensvormen zich hebben aangepast om onder het Marsoppervlak te kunnen overleven.
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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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