Here we are – expecting our scientists to be working on finding extraterrestrials and developing ways to deal with them. Turns out they’re not doing too well on the second part … in fact, they’re asking the public for help in coming up with things to say should they meet an alien or get a credible “send us more information” signal from another planet. What do WE know? We can’t even deal with spam phone calls or strangers at the front door!

If we discover a signal from extra-terrestrial intelligence, would you:
– not care much about it
– just follow the news
– comment or interact on social media about this topic

That’s one of the questions on the “A Message From Afar” questionnaire put together by the UK Seti Research Network(UKSRN) and the Berkeley SETI Research Center for the Royal Society’s summer science exhibition. Martin Dominik, an astronomer at the University of St Andrews, told The Guardian:

“There is absolutely no procedure enshrined in international law on how to respond to a signal from an alien civilization. We want to hear people’s views. The consequences affect more people than just scientists.”

Really? We’re the people who can’t agree on climate change, Brexit and a whole host of other really important things that aren’t nearly as important as what to say to space aliens when they call or show up unannounced. It’s the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. and everyone who’s seen the best movie ever release on this weekend – “Independence Day” – knows we’re not good at dealing with visitors.

Never visit that planet if you see fireworks

What would you consider a credible source?
– main news channels
– direct quotes from expert scientists
– official government statements
– all other sources

That “all other sources” category includes social media, which is where most people actually get their news – real, unreal and surreal. Dr. John Elliott, a reader in intelligence engineering at Leeds Beckett University, says the global SETI community would announce any bona fide alien signal immediately. Really? Is that such a good idea when no one knows who to believe and conspiracy theories are accepted before the truth?

If we discovered simple life rather than a signal from extra-terrestrial intelligence, would you find that
– less interesting
– similarly interesting
– more interesting

Seriously? You already know the answer to that. If we can defeat it, we will. If we can eat it, we will. If we can make money off of it, we will. If we can use it as a weapon, we will. Someone will always be “interested” – it just depends on their motivation. The problem is, everyone has a different one – which gets even scarier on an international level. When was the last time all world leaders agreed on anything, let alone passed a binding law on it?

What would it tell about our existence?
What does it mean to be human?

Those last two questions are from the introduction to the questionnaire. Perhaps these SETI researchers already know the answer to these – they just want some solid evidence to convince the higher-ups that we’re too screwed up to deal with space aliens and perhaps, despite the recent groundswell of demands for full disclosure, we need a solid and unified plan for dealing with first contact.

One final thought. Are we putting the cart in front of the robot horse? A recent study of data from the 1,300 closest stars found no signs of life whatsoever. Perhaps we should work on some other urgent projects so the first thing we say to extraterrestrials is not:

“Please excuse the mess.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-07-2019 om 21:13 geschreven door peter  

We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens.

Let’s see them aliens indeed. I hope you’re like me and are already practicing your Naruto run, because we’re doing it: we’re going to gather up tens of thousand of people and run right past the guards at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and storm Area 51 before they can catch or shoot all of us. Who’s with us?

 A Facebook user by the name of SmyleeKun and the group “Shitposting cause im in shambles” created the event, titled Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us. The event is set to take place on September 20, 2019 at 3am. Attendees will meet at the Area 51 Alien Center in Amargosa Valley, Nevada before proceeding to Area 51 itself. Well, attempting to proceed, anyway.

The last time sometime tried to speed past the armed guards at the site, it didn’t go so well. In January, a man was shot by both the Nye County Sheriff’s Office and the NNSS Security Protective Force Officers after he led them on an 8-mile high speed chase while attempting to drive into the Nevada National Security Site carrying a still unidentified cylindrical object. How will things turn out when thousands of people show up at once?

As of now, 53,000 people have pledged to storm Area 51. Of course, that means they simply clicked “Going” on their social media whatnots, so take that figure with a grain of salt. Still, what would happen if let’s say just 9-10% showed up? Would the Nye County Sheriff’s Office and the NNSS Security Protective Force shoot everyone? Just a few? A couple dozen? Hopefully, non-lethal means of deterrent could be used instead. Remember those “sound cannons” Canadian police unveiled during the G20 protests in Toronto back in 2010? Who knows what kinds of spooky gizmos the guards at that place may possess.

Will anyone actually show up, or is this a case of trolling or slacktivism at its finest? Judging by the fact that discussion and photos associated with the Facebook event are mostly crude jokes and memes featuring Randy Quaid from Independence Day, I have low hopes for this one. Still, I hope it actually happens – and even if it doesn’t, it certainly makes you wonder what would happen if a huge crowd could ever actually manage to coordinate an attempt to see what’s really in those hangars. Can a Facebook event make it happen?

Let’s see them aliens.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-07-2019 om 21:03 geschreven door peter  

The 17-minute grainy black and white video that appeared to show three government pathologists in full-body hazmat suits examining and dissecting a pale, potbellied alien corpse that was found at the Roswell UFO crash in 1947 may in fact be authentic.

The “alien autopsy tape” was released in 1995 after Ray Santilli claimed to have received the video in 1992 from a retired cameraman with the U.S. military. He ended up selling the alien video to several television stations in 33 different countries. It was only when another filmmaker named Spyros Melaris admitted that the two had faked the entire video that the world finally relaxed after much fear and paranoia consumed the world when they believed that an autopsy was being conducted on an actual alien.

However, there’s now a new twist that indicates that the footage was in fact real. A leaked 2001 memo was supposedly sent to aerospace billionaire Robert Bigelow from physicist Eric Davis that alleges a former CIA scientist named Kit Green was “briefed three different times during and after his tenure at the CIA on topics relevant to UFOs and the Roswell Incident Alien Autopsy”.

It is believed that the leaked information originated from late astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s archives. Part of the memo read, “After Kit left the CIA he was called into the Pentagon by a person in uniform.” It went on to say, “This person showed Kit the alien autopsy photos and reports, etc…” That’s when, in 2001, Kit evaluated the information and gave his professional opinion on what he had been briefed on. Apparently, the evidence that was shown to Kit was of the same corpse that was seen in the 1995 video footage from Santilli.

The final summary of Kit’s evaluation read, “The Alien Autopsy film/video is real, the alien cadaver is real, and the cadaver seen in the film/video is the same as the photos Kit saw at the 1987/88 Pentagon briefing.” An even more shocking revelation is that Kit admitted that alien forensic tissue and organs were being kept at Walter Reed-Armed Forces Institute for Pathology Medical Museum located in Washington, D.C.

While there is still much speculation and confusion on whether the video is in fact real, several top UFO researchers are backing the film and they include Linda Moulton Howe, Grant Cameron, and Richard Dolan.

“Those words from Dr. Kit Green about the authenticity of the six-fingered, six-toed human dissected after retrieval from a 1947 UFO crash, it is confirmation that the Santilli film video is real,” stated Moulton Howe in a video.

A video, as well as pictures, of the “alien autopsy tape” can be seen here.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-07-2019 om 20:45 geschreven door peter  

CIA Scientist Admits ‘Fake’ Roswell Alien Autopsy Video Is Real In Leaked Memo

By Inigo Monzon 

A year after a filmmaker admitted that he faked the infamous “Roswell Alien Autopsy” video, a leaked memo revealed that a scientist from the CIA confirmed that the contents of the footage were actually real. The scientist noted that the alien cadaver featured in the video was authentic.

The original alien autopsy video was obtained by British businessman Ray Santilli in 1992. He got it from a retired U.S. military cameraman while looking for archive footages of Elvis Presley. Shortly after, Santilli sold the clip to various TV stations, which then sparked a public frenzy regarding the existence of aliens.

Although the footage has been regarded by UFO enthusiasts as the definitive proof of extraterrestrial beings, its authenticity was debunked in 2018 after filmmaker Spyros Melaris came forward to confess that he directed and produced the video.

According to Melaris, the footage was shot at a house in North London. He admitted that he used animal organs and a foam sculpture of an alien for the cadaver.

Even though the video was already debunked, new information suggested that it was actually real according to a leaked memo sent by physicist Eric Davis of the National Institute for Discovery Science to the organization’s founder Robert Bigelow.

According to The Sun, which was able to obtain photos of the memo, the document was leaked via email to British UFO investigator Philip Mantle. It was believed to have originated from the archives of former NASA astronaut and ufologist Edgar Mitchell.

The memo, which was sent on March 23, 2001, focused on the professional evaluation of the “Roswell Alien Autopsy” video by a CIA scientist known as Kit Green.

In the document, Green confirmed that the cadaver featured in the video was real and it was the same one that was shown in the photos revealed during his briefings with Pentagon from 1987 to 1988. He also hinted where the samples allegedly taken from the cadaver may have been stored.

“Kit said that the alien forensic tissues could hypothetically be located at Walter Reed – Armed Forces Institute for Pathology (WR-AFIP) Medical Museum, which is not open to the public and requires a security clearance to get in,” Davis stated in the memo.

Melaris has not yet released a statement addressing the contents of the memo and how the document relates to his short film.

An illustration of an alien.

 Photo: Pawel86/ Pixabay 

{ https://www.ibtimes.com/ }

05-07-2019 om 20:42 geschreven door peter  

Dr. Michael Salla talks about the US Air Force Secret Space Program – Shifting ET Alliances and Space Force, the Reptilian and Nordic Alien Alliances and the breakaway German colony in Antarctica.

Many thought provoking and serious topics that are desperately important in the human race moving forward as a civilization in these mysterious times we are facing.

The Reptilian and Nordic Alien Alliances and there role in the cosmic scale of things.

The alliances are utilizing highly advanced technologies including the black triangles (TR3B) to help achieve some of their agendas.

He also discusses some of the Global Players agendas and their alliances with these extraterrestrials and the Secret agreements with a breakaway German colony in Antarctica (the Fourth Reich) and different extraterrestrial groups in the 1950’s.

(The German breakaway colony in Antarctica consisted mainly of scientists and other important persons who were directly involved in the Nazi Germany aviation program which included the Foo Fighters, The NAZI UFOs and for example the Horten Ho 229, a flying wing.

That aircraft , the Horten Ho 229 – might be a footnote in aviation history, but it was due to its aerodynamic secrets so far ahead of its time. Apart from the question where these technologies came from, it is said that NAZI Germany has moved these technologies to Antarctica, too, see Operation Highjump.)

Images: The Horten Ho 229.

Dr. Salla states how the United States has been ran by the Fourth Reich especially NAZI ideologies since World War 2 and how the US Airforce was deceived by the Deep State and the Sinister Fourth Reich which eventually led to the switching of alliances to Human Looking Extraterrestrials (The Nordics).

Later on in the interview Dr. Salla talks about the coming Moon missions and how that correlates with the Alien Alliances agendas that are at play on this global stage.

  

05-07-2019 om 20:14 geschreven door peter  

Alien Dome In Front Of Curiosity Rover! Will It Enter The Dome? July 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 1, 2019
Location of discovery: Mars
Source photo: 

• https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-

images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/02454/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_615351848EDR_F0761666NCAM00298M_.JPG

This is the most recent photo from the Mars rover. This ancient dome on Mars has stood the test of time. I have reported this dome when it was further away, but never before have we seen it so close as now. Its reflective smooth surface sows that it was built to reflect the heat and keep the interior cool. It looks like the NASA rover is driving in this direction, so lets keep our fingers crossed. We may see an entrance or ancient writing on its walls when close. 
Scott C. Waring

{  https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

05-07-2019 om 19:54 geschreven door peter  

UFO Divides Into Two Over Military Base In United Kingdon On Video, June 30, 2019, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: June 30, 2019
Location of sighting: Alconbury, UK

Watch this video and see an orb the rises and falls over a Air Force base in the UK. When the orb defends it suddenly divides into two and then rises up. I think it flew low when releasing the other orb to hide it from the people around, but lucky for us, someone was recording very close to its location. The second orb seems to stay low and soon moves out of sight. The first orb cloaks and disappears in the blue sky. Very strange. It could be a secret military drone project being worked on or it could be an alien craft checking out the military base to size them up. 
Scott C. Waring

Eyewitness states: 

My brother and his wife and children spotted this crazy orb UFO which would split in two while looping for a number of minutes, over RAF Alconbury.

{  https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

05-07-2019 om 19:52 geschreven door peter  

Huge Bird Flying On Mars In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: June 2018

Location of sighting: Mars sol 2446

Source: 

• https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=NRB_614635188EDR_S0760988NCAM00595M_&s=2446

This flying bird on Mars was found by Marcelo Irazusta who has a Youtube channel called Sandra Elena Andrade (click to go to). Marcelo actually found a bird flying across the surface of Mars captured last week by the Curiosity rover! This is impossible, and yet, there it is...captured in a photo on a NASA website. 

 

The curiosity rover has a 13 minute delay from the time they push the keys on Earth to the time rover gets it, so if this is a large bird, then it was taken by accident and was probably not in that are for long. Of course it could be a UFO. Aliens like to use nature to inspire their structures and ships. But it looks like a soaring eagle...which if thats true, may mean one of two things...either animals exist on Mars or...and I hate this idea, but it needs to be considered...the rover might not be on mars at all, but on Devon island in Canada. Devon is a desolate island area with only a hand full of people and NASA has gone there many times to test the rovers in a environment similar to Mars. 

Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

05-07-2019 om 19:31 geschreven door peter  

LightSail 2 Sends Back 1st Signals from Its Solar-Surfing Test Flight

By Doris Elin Salazar 

The little craft launched atop SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket late last month.

Artist's concept of LightSail 2 above Earth.

(Image: © Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society)

The space advocacy organization The Planetary Society recently confirmed that its LightSail 2 spacecraft has sent its first signals home from space. 

The roughly 11-lb. (5 kilograms) cubesat is designed to prove that solar sailing is a feasible way of keeping satellites moving. Fuel is a costly and heavy commodity, and if LightSail 2 can prove that the solar-powered technique works well, perhaps future missions into the deep reaches of the solar system and beyond can be propelled by the charged particles released by the sun.

The project launched into space last week (June 25) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy megarocket. On Tuesday (July 2), the bread-loaf-size LightSail 2 experiment left Prox-1, its carrier vehicle. LightSail 2 will ultimately open up its ultrathin four-panel sail to achieve a surface area about the size of a boxing ring.

• Related: What to Expect When LightSail 2 Launches into Space

But before that can happen, the Planetary Society team needed confirmation that the spacecraft itself was healthy. That message came on July 2, as the spacecraft was passing over the satellite's mission control at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The signals came from LightSail 2's recently deployed radio antenna, which began transmitting status data and a call sign in the form of morse code, according to LightSail 2 officials.

"We're all very happy — after years of preparation, we are flying an operational spacecraft!" Bruce Betts, LightSail program manager and Planetary Society chief scientist, said in a statement.

More data from LightSail 2 will be retrieved tonight (July 3) when it flies over Georgia Tech, where students built Prox-1.

Once the cubesat deploys its solar sail early next week, the rays from the sun will give LightSail 2 a gentle push. The goal is to observe LightSail 2 over the course of a month to see if it shifts in its orbit by a measurable amount, according to The Planetary Society officials. That will help demonstrate that solar sailing is an effective satellite-propulsion technique.

LightSail 2 isn't the first craft to do such work. For example, Japan's IKAROS probe demonstrated solar sailing in interplanetary space in 2010. 

• Sailing on Sunbeams: Planetary Society's LightSail 2 to Soar Higher Than Space Station
• LightSail Spacecraft Snaps Solar Sail Selfie in Space (Photo)
• Ikaros: First Successful Solar Sail
• Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter @salazar_elin.
• Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

05-07-2019 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

NASA's Artemis Program

By Adam Mann 

Reference Article: Facts about NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon.

Artist’s concept of a future moon landing carried out under NASA's newly named Artemis program. The space agency is working to return men and send the first women to the lunar surface by 2024, as has been directed by the White House.

(Image: © NASA)

NASA's Artemis program is an effort to place astronauts on the lunar surface and develop an ongoing presence there. The program's name is derived from Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and twin sister to Apollo, whose namesake program first brought crews to our natural satellite 50 years ago. 

The Artemis program is a renaming of several earlier activities NASA was already undertaking to return humans to the moon. These were mandated by President Trump's Space Policy Directive 1, which tasked the agency with focusing on missions to the moon. Earlier this year, vice president Mike Pence set an ambitious deadline to land humans at the lunar south pole by 2024. 

On May 14, 2019, these endeavors were given the new moniker Artemis. Jim Bridenstine, the space agency's administrator, told reporters on the day of the announcement that the name represents the program's goal of inclusion, referencing the fact that NASA intends to land the first woman on the moon under its current plans.

"I have a daughter who is 11 years old, and I want her to be able to see herself in the same role as the next women [who] go to the moon see themselves in today," Bridenstine said.

What the Artemis project includes

Under Artemis' umbrella are several components. First is the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a station around the moon that would extend humanity's presence in space and provide a platform for scientific experiments and jaunts to the lunar surface. 

The Gateway would be carried into lunar orbit by the agency's Space Launch System (SLS), a gigantic new rocket NASA is developing. Four-person crews would access the station using the Orion deep-space capsule and remain for 30 to 90 day stints. 

Part of the Trump administration's push towards the moon includes an enlarged role for private aerospace firms, which are intended to develop hardware and potentially kick-start a lunar economy. NASA has awarded $45.5 million to 11 U.S. companies, including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to develop landers that can take astronauts to the moon's surface.

Nine smaller businesses have also been contracted to deliver robotic spacecraft to our natural satellite in order to collect data and conduct research there. Some have taken an interest in mining lunar resources such as water, which can be split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen and converted into rocket fuel. 

How much will Artemis cost? 

How many of these impressive plans will actually see fruition is difficult to tell at this point. Cost estimates are still being refined and the overall price tag of Artemis remains unknown. The Apollo program's budget ended up being a total of $23.6 billion in 1973 dollars, according to NASA, the equivalent of more than $136 billion today. That means each Apollo moon landing cost around $22.6 billion in 2019 dollars. President Trump has recently sought an addition $1.6 billion for the Artemis program, on top of the $21 billion already allocated to NASA, but has yet to get the money approved by Congress.

Additional resources: 

• Read more about how the Artemis program is going so far, according to NASA. 
• Learn more about NASA's moon to Mars plan.
• Read about NASA's first moon missions under the Apollo program.  

{ https://www.space.com/ }

05-07-2019 om 00:47 geschreven door peter  

Infrared view of seas and lakes in Titan’s northern hemisphere, taken by Cassini in 2014. Sunlight can be seen glinting off the southern part of Titan’s largest sea, Kraken Mare. Scientists now think that “bathtub rings” around the edges of the seas and lakes are composed of organic crystals.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho/AGU 100.

Saturn’s moon Titan is the only other body in the solar system besides Earth known to have liquids on its surface. These rains, rivers, lakes and seas look very much like those on Earth, but are composed of liquid methane and ethane (hydrocarbons) instead of water. Now, scientists have found another way in which they might differ from their earthly counterparts: the shorelines of the lakes and seas might be encrusted with “bathtub rings” composed of organic crystals not found on Earth.

The new research was published in a new paper and presented on June 24 at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon 2019) in Bellevue, Washington.

From the new paper:

We have discovered a third molecular mineral that is stable in the same conditions present on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn. This molecular mineral is made up of acetylene and butane, two organic molecules that are produced in Titan’s atmosphere and fall down onto the surface. We call these ‘molecular minerals’ because they behave just like minerals do here on Earth, but instead of being made up of things like carbonates or silicates, they are made up of organic molecules. The two previous molecular minerals we discovered were made up of benzene and ethane, and acetylene and ammonia. This most recent one is probably much more abundant on Titan’s surface, as both acetylene and butane are believed to be very common there. In particular, we think the ‘bathtub rings’ around Titan’s lakes might be made up of this material, because acetylene and butane both dissolve well in liquid methane and ethane compared to other molecules.

Artist’s concept of a hydrocarbon lake on Titan as seen from the ground.

Image via Steven Hobbs (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia/NASA).

The intriguing results come from laboratory tests where Titan-like conditions were recreated. The scientists found compounds and minerals that do not exist on Earth, and one co-crystal was made of solid acetylene and butane, which do exist on Earth, but only as gases. Titan is so cold, however, that acetylene and butane will freeze solid and combine to form crystals.

So how did the scientists create Titan-like conditions in a laboratory on Earth? Titan is extremely cold, about -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-179 degrees Celsius), so they used a custom-built cryostat, an apparatus that keeps things cold. Titan’s atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, like Earth’s, so next they filled the cryostat with liquid nitrogen. But they needed the nitrogen to be a gas, like on Titan, so they warmed the chamber slightly. Methane and ethane were then added, which are also very common on Titan. They are both in liquid form on the moon, in the rain, rivers, lakes and seas. The result was a hydrocarbon-rich “soup.”

Map of Titan’s seas and lakes in the northern hemisphere.

Image via JPL-Caltech/NASA/ASI/USGS/EarthSky.

The surface of Titan as seen by the Huygens lander in 2005. Huygens found damp sand when it landed near an evaporated riverbed. The liquid was methane/ethane, but the “rocks” turned out to be composed of solid water ice.

Image via ESA/NASA/University of Arizona/EarthSky.

Benzene crystals were the first to be seen forming in this soup. Benzene is found in gasoline on Earth and is a snowflake-shaped molecule made out of a hexagonal ring of carbon atoms. But something else surprising happened in the simulated Titan conditions: the benzene molecules rearranged themselves in such a way that they allowed ethane molecules inside them, creating a co-crystal. The researchers also later discovered an acetylene and butane co-crystal as well, which is thought to probably be more common on Titan.

It is the acetylene and butane co-crystals that likely create the bathtub rings – evaporated minerals – around the edges of the lakes and seas. The minerals would be dropped out on the surface as the liquid hydrocarbons started to evaporate. Some lakes were seen on Titan by the Cassini spacecraft when they were full of liquid, and at other times when they had partially evaporated. This evaporation process is similar to how salts can form crusts around the edges of lakes and seas on Earth.

The bathtub rings on Titan are suspected to exist based on evidence from Cassini, but haven’t been fully confirmed yet, as noted by Morgan Cable at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

We don’t know yet if we have these bathtub rings … It’s hard to see through Titan’s hazy atmosphere.

An acidic salt lake south of Beacon, West Australia. The salt encrustations around its edges are thought to be similar to the bathtub rings around the edges of lakes and seas on Titan.

Image via Suzanne M. Rea/ResearchGate.

Titan’s rivers, lakes and seas, mostly near the north pole, give this moon an eerily Earth-like appearance. There is also methane rain and massive sand dunes near the equator, like in deserts on Earth, but composed of hydrocarbon particles. The thick, hazy atmosphere obscures the ground from view from above, but Cassini was able to use use radar to see surface features. The Huygens probe, part of the Cassini mission, also sent back the first-ever photos from Titan’s surface in 2005, showing an evaporated riverbed with “rocks” composed of solid water ice. Beneath all of that, out of view, is a subsurface water ocean. Titan may look a lot like Earth in many ways, but in terms of composition, it is a distinctly alien world.

Unfortunately, Cassini’s mission ended in late 2017, so further observations of the bathtub rings will have to wait until a future mission returns to Titan. Probes that could float or swim in one of the lakes or seas have been proposed, but are still just on the drawing boards right now. However, NASA’s new Dragonfly mission, just officially announced last week, will send a drone-like rotorcraft to fly through Titan’s skies, making numerous landings at different locations of interest. Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2026 and land in 2034. Exciting!

Bottom line: By simulating Titan’s conditions in a laboratory on Earth, scientists have found that unusual forms of organic crystals may create bathtub rings around the edges of the moon’s lakes and seas.

Source: The Acetylene-Butane Co-Crystal: A Potentially Abundant Molecular Mineral on Titan

Via AGU 100

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

05-07-2019 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

How should we respond to alien contact? Scientists ask the public

Steven Spielberg’s film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. On Monday the UK Seti Research Network will launch a survey of public attitudes towards alien contact.

Photograph: C5 TV

Scientists searching the universe for aliens to conduct survey of the public for views on first contact

Scientists wrestling with the delicate issue of how to respond should humanity ever be contacted by an alien civilisation have hit on a radical idea: a survey that asks what the public would do.

Members of the UK Seti Research Network (UKSRN) are to launch what they believe will be the largest ever survey of public attitudes towards alien contact on Monday at the Royal Society’s summer science exhibition.

The views they gather will help them shape plans for an international protocol that sets the ground rules on how organisations should share news of any signals that are detected; what sense can be made of them; and how, if at all, humans might reply.

“There is absolutely no procedure enshrined in international law on how to respond to a signal from an alien civilisation,” said Martin Dominik, an astronomer at the University of St Andrews. “We want to hear people’s views. The consequences affect more people than just scientists.”

Beyond sending probes to other planets in the solar system, the search for alien life has largely focused on listening for complex radio signals from outer space with the world’s most powerful telescopes. Last month, astronomers on the Breakthrough Listen project announced they had heard nothing after eavesdropping on more than 1,000 star systems within 160 light years of Earth.

But Dominik points out that with 300bn stars in the Milky Way alone, Breakthrough Listen has barely begun the mammoth task of scanning the cosmos for life elsewhere. “If there were tens of quintillions of other civilisations like ours evenly distributed in the Milky Way, the Breakthrough Listen project would not have heard a thing,” he said.

Dr John Elliott, a reader in intelligence engineering at Leeds Beckett University, said the global Seti community would announce any bona fide alien signal immediately. But in an era of social media that would spark a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories that leave people utterly confused about the truth, he said.

The problem is that while scientists might quickly realise that an intercepted signal was complex enough to be broadcast from an advanced civilisation, it might take weeks or months to understand, if it can be deciphered at all. Any signal could easily be electromagnetic noise from equipment or a snippet of a terrestrial broadcast that leaked into space, unintended for such distant ears

“We can’t rely on there being a Rosetta stone [an ancient Egyptian stone tablet that enabled hieroglyphs to be read], or some great decipherment crib, in the signal. It could be an image or simply junk,” Elliott said. “It will take time to understand and if that work starts to drag out and there is nothing new we can say, the information vacuum will be filled with speculation,” he said. “Conjecture and rumour will take over.”

The survey will help scientists work out how best to provide reliable information but also what should be done if it seems only polite to respond to an interstellar missive. The late Stephen Hawking warned that humans would do well not to alert alien civilisations to life on Earth, but other researchers disagree.

Later this year, an organisation called Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Meti) International plans to beam signals into space containing references to the periodic table of elements. They will not be the first attempts to contact ET. In 1974, scientists at the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico sent a radio message about life on Earth to a group of stars 25,000 light years away. Given how baffling the message will be to many humans in the 21st century, it is unclear what any recipient will infer from it.

“It makes sense to create a legally binding framework that is properly rooted in international law,” Dominik said. “I’m completely comfortable with taking the whole thing above the level of scientists. If there are public consequences of replying and sending out messages that is a political decision and not one to be taken by scientists.”

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

04-07-2019 om 23:51 geschreven door peter  

Pentagon Eyes Military Space Station

The fact that the Defense Innovation Unit is even considering the idea of a space station in orbit is a pretty big deal -- and an even bigger deal if it grows over time to accommodate a human crew.

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit wants options for an unmanned orbital outpost to support space experiments and operations — a logistics hub that might even grow, DIU’s solicitation suggests, to a larger manned space station.

DIU, which is charged with tapping non-traditional commercial companies for innovative technologies to meet Pentagon needs, issued a solicitation last week that gives interested vendors until July 9 to propose a “solution… for a self-contained and free flying orbital outpost.” The platform is to support “space assembly, microgravity experimentation, logistics and storage, manufacturing, training, test and evaluation, hosting payloads, and other functions.”

While the near-term requirements are obviously aimed at prototyping an autonomous, robotic mini-space station to house experimentation, the “future desired capabilities” listed in the solicitation are much farther reaching. They include the capability to dock with unmanned and manned spacecraft and, even more surprisingly, “human rating.”

Human-rating is short-hand for a set of requirements developed by NASA and the Federal Aviation Authority (which licenses launch and re-entry of commercial spacecraft) to ensure the safety of astronauts aboard a spacecraft. These include things like special insulation to protect crew from extreme temperatures and radiation.

Even though the concept may be a long shot in DoD thinking, the fact that DIU is even considering the idea of a military presence in orbit is a pretty big deal. The idea will no doubt will be controversial if significant funding starts pouring into exploring it.

While the 1967 Outer Space Treaty technically does not prevent a military space station, manned or unmanned, it does prevent military operations and bases on celestial bodies such as the Moon or asteroids. It also guarantees freedom of “peaceful” use of outer space for all. US adversaries, as well as many allies, already are nervous about US intentions in space as the Congress debates President Donald Trump’s Space Force proposal. So the thought of space-based American troops is likely to raise concerns.

Before anyone gets too excited about a future US version of Star Trek’s Deep Space Nine, the baseline requirements for Orbital Outpost — including an 80 kilogram payload capacity and and internal volume of 1 meter cubed — are not even close to being able to accommodate humans.

“The thing is too small, 1 m cubed, and low power to do anything remotely human-rated,” said one space scientist.

One Air Force space official agreed, adding “I think the kicker is the 0 to 1 atmosphere pressurization. If DIU will accept vacuum or near vacuum, it won’t be able to support life at all, without some extensive upgrades. In short, this platform would be small, dark, cold, and without any life support!”

Indeed, Col. Steve Butow, director of DIU’s Space Portfolio based in Silicon Valley, says that DIU’s chief interest is in autonomous and robotic capabilities on orbit. “In short, we are casting a wide net for commercial solutions that can meet the basic needs described in the first part of the solicitation (autonomous/robotic, etc),” he told me in an email today.

He noted: “With respect to on orbit manufacturing, our DoD Partners are more interested in the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’.  Many of the autonomous capabilities proposed in supporting on-orbit manufacturing have dual use applications for national security and defense. One example of that is logistics.”

There are a number of commercial companies that have been exploring on-orbit assembly and manufacturing, including 3-D printing — primarily for future commercial uses and for NASA.

NASA since 2017 has hosted a 3-D printer aboard the International Space Station (ISS) made by commercial startup Made in Space. Made In Space didn’t return an email asking for comment by publication time.

NASA also is sponsoring a number of on-orbit experiments such as the Tethers Unlimited’s Refabricator payload, recently launched as part of DoD’s Space Test Program-2 mission (STP-2) on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. The Refabricator “combines a plastic recycling system with a 3D printer to enable astronauts to recycle plastic waste into high-quality 3D printer filament, and then use that filament to fabricate new parts, medical implements, food utensils, and other items that the astronauts need to maintain their spacecraft and perform their missions,” according to the company’s website.

Rob Hoyt, CEO of Tethers Unlimited, said his company intends to bid for Orbital Outpost, and is currently working to align DIU’s interests with the company’s own interests. “We are working on a modular approach to start out small and address some of those opportunities, and that then can be built up over time by adding more modules,” he said. Tethers Unlimited’s products largely target small satellites and cross a wide range, from software-defined radios to a small robotic arm.

Further, there are 28 corporate members involved in Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) CONFERS consortium developing industry best practices for on-orbit servicing activities. These firms range from established space players like Airbus to startups such as UK-based Effective Space that intends to use drones to help satellites station-keep (maintain their orbital parameters after fuel has run out.)

William Bolton, head of marketing and business development for Altius Space Machines, a Colorado-based startup that is part of the CONFERS consortium, said his firm is “evaluating” whether to bid or not for Orbital Outpost, given that the company has not traditionally looked at DoD as a customer. Still, as Altius is developing satellite servicing vehicles, interfaces and hardware, Bolton said the call for proposals is interesting.

On the other hand, Butow said DIU also didn’t want to cut off possible interest from vendors with “non-traditional or disruptive approaches” to the Orbital Outpost effort. He explained: “We know that a number of companies are working on solutions that may dock or interface with the International Space Station. … We simply did not want to exclude any of those solutions if one proves viable for our needs.”

NASA on June 21 issued a request for proposals (RFI) calling for habitable modules that can attach to the ISS and provide accommodations for tourists, or other commercial activities such as manufacturing or biotechnology experiments.

For example, companies that might be interested in Orbital Outpost could include Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing a number of inflatable habitats for use in orbit and on the surface of the Moon. Bigelow’s BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) docked with the ISS in 2016, and will remain on orbit until 2020. 

However, several military space experts cautioned that habitat concepts like Bigelow’s B330 would most likely be way too expensive for DIU’s small purse. The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2020 budget request included $29 million and change for DIU. Human rating of spacecraft is not an easy or cheap endeavor — as both SpaceX and Boeing have discovered in their (delayed) efforts to get their spacecraft certified by NASA to carry astronauts to the ISS.

Bigelow did not return a call requesting comment by publication time.

Still, the solicitation lists human rating among its “desired future capabilities” (emphasis mine) that could be “available as options for initial or future implementation.” This does not seem to indicate simply that these are ‘what-the-hell’ options, but capabilities someone in DoD might actually want. Further, there is a cadre of futuristic space thinkers who long have been arguing that a military presence on-orbit will be needed as commercial activities such as asteroid mining and space-based manufacturing become economically viable businesses.

Peter Garretson, former director of Air University’s forward-thinking Space Horizons Task Force, tells me: “If private citizens will be in space, then it makes sense for uniformed guardians to follow…and perhaps help lead and enable that desired future by retiring risk.”

Other interesting capabilities on that list include several that suggest the possibility of military space stations in farther-out orbits such as geosynchronous orbit or even in cislunar space, including:

• Servicing or re-provisioning to extend flight operations for a longer duration
• Orbit transfer
• Radiation hardening for beyond LEO applications

While just a few years ago, anyone proposing any military activities in cislunar space would have been giggled out of town, the future-oriented Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper has talked about doing cislunar space object tracking and former director of the Space Defense Agency (SDA) Fred Kennedy had developed an architecture that also included cislunar object tracking and even potential weapons-carrying Advanced Maneuvering Vehicles for rapidly “delivering effects” all the way out to the Moon. (Although the future of that proposed architecture is now in question following Kennedy’s departure and a likely re-think of priorities by DoD Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin who oversees SDA.)

A May 30 study on the US space industrial base by AFRL and DIU (of which Butow was an author) says that in the mid- to long-term (5 years and beyond) military activities will be driven by the “need to expand the locations and operations of critical assets into cislunar space to limit adversaries’ abilities to detect and attack these assets and to enhance ours and our adversaries ability to apply force through, from and in space;” and by the need “to establish the required infrastructure to return and establish a permanent US presence on the Moon and beyond.”

According to the DIU solicitation, bidders for the Orbital Outpost award will have to demonstrate that they can put their prototype station concept in LEO “within 24 months of award and have guidance, navigation and control for sustained free-flight operations. Favorable characteristics include modularity and scalability.”

While it does not provide a funding level, it does note that the Orbital Outpost effort will be multi-phased. The first phase will include engineering and design work. The subsequent phases will focus on the fabrication and test of the prototype, based upon the availability of fiscal year 2020 funding.

So marines patrolling space-launch corridors from an orbiting station, or airmen suiting up to repair spacecraft docked at a cislunar service station, are probably a long way off — but maybe they’re not just science fiction.

{ https://breakingdefense.com/ }

04-07-2019 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

Les Québécois demeurent les champions de l'observation d'ovnis

04-07-2019 om 23:01 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers proberen portaal naar nieuw universum te openen - HLN.be

Bron: The Independent, NBC

Fysicus Leah Broussard is hoopvol over de apparatuur die ze samen met haar collega’s heeft ontwikkeld en die ze deze zomer zullen testen. Volgens haar zouden de experimenten kunnen leiden tot een glimp van een parallel universum of, hoe zij het noemt, ‘spiegelmaterie’. Het universum zou op vele manieren identiek zijn aan het onze, met onder andere spiegelpartikels, spiegelplaneten en misschien zelfs spiegelleven. De onderzoekers inspireren zich voor deze testen op een aantal afwijkende resultaten uit de jaren 90 die tot nu toe onverklaard zijn gebleven.

Abnormale resultaten

In de jaren 90 van de vorige eeuw probeerden enkele fysici de tijd te meten die neutronen nodig hadden om in protonen te breken nadat ze verwijderd waren van de nucleus van een atoom. Twee verschillende experimenten leidden echter tot twee verschillende snelheden. Hoewel het verschil tussen beide proeven slechts negen seconden bedraagt, breken wetenschappers zich nog altijd het hoofd over een mogelijk antwoord.

Antwoord in parallel universum

Om een verklaring te vinden voor de abnormale waarnemingen, wil Leah Broussard deze zomer dus een reeks experimenten uitvoeren waarmee ze denkt een antwoord te vinden in een parallel universum. Als Broussard en haar team het bestaan van een spiegelwereld kunnen bewijzen, zou het tijdsverschil tussen beide experimenten verklaard kunnen worden: er zijn twee levenslopen van neutronen en het is mogelijk dat één procent van de neutronen de grens tussen onze wereld en de spiegelwereld oversteekt voor die de grens terug oversteken en een proton voortbrengen. Dit zou de lichte vertraging in het tweede experiment motiveren.

Experiment

Om een parallel universum waar te nemen willen ze aan het Oak Ridge met de nieuw ontwikkelde apparatuur een stroom subatomaire deeltjes door een 15-meter lange buis sturen langs een krachtige magneet en richting een ondoordringbare muur. Aan de andere kant van die muur staat een neutronendetector. Als alles goed gaat, en als het universum meewerkt, zouden enkele van die deeltjes in spiegelversies van zichzelf moeten veranderen. Hierdoor zouden ze door de tunnel en door de muur moeten raken. Als dat gebeurt, heeft Broussard als eerste bewijs geleverd voor een spiegelwereld die naast de onze bestaat.

“Nogal gek”

Broussard zelf noemt haar experiment “nogal gek”, het bestaan van parallelle universa lijkt namelijk recht uit een sciencefictionfilm te komen. Toch beweert ze dat het experiment niet zo moeilijk is en volgens haar zelfs redelijk voor de hand liggend. Ze beseft toch ook de impact van dit onderzoek. Als ze ook maar één spiegelpartikel weet waar te nemen, verandert volgens haar alles.

peter2011

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

04-07-2019 om 22:24 geschreven door peter  

04-07-2019 om 21:55 geschreven door peter  

04-07-2019 om 21:50 geschreven door peter  

JE HEBT GEEN NASA NODIG OM BUITENAARDS LEVEN TE ONTDEKKEN ( VIDEO )

We weten zo langzamerhand dat er zich veel meer dingen in de ruimte, al dan niet onder een dome, afspelen dan ons wordt verteld. 

Het vertrouwen in leugenachtige organisaties zoals NASA schiet ook niet echt op, maar er zijn ook andere manieren.

Gemakkelijk is het dan ook niet, maar toch zijn er enkele dingen die je zelf zou kunnen doen om meer te weten te komen. 

Steeds vaker zien we beelden opduiken van bijvoorbeeld de maan die gemaakt zijn vanaf de aarde door amateurs met sterke telescopen. 

Met een dergelijke telescoop kan je al dingen ontdekken die NASA voor ons verborgen houdt zoals gebouwen op de maan. 

Een voorbeeld daarvan is de volgende foto:

De opname is gemaakt door een man die via Youtube zijn bevindingen deelt met het publiek en bekendstaat onder de naam BruceSeesAll. 

Nu zal Bruce echt niet alles zien, maar hij ziet wel veel en volgens Scott Waring is deze man uiterst betrouwbaar en kun je ervan uitgaan dat wat hij laat zien echt is. 

Deze man observeert de maan regelmatig en heeft dan ook al heel wat fantastische opnames gemaakt zoals oook te zien in de volgende video. 

Waarmee dan ook weer voor de zoveelste keer is bewezen dat buitenaards leven bestaat en in dit geval op onze maan. En bovenal, dat dit ook te ontdekken is door ons gewone mensen. 

Een andere manier om bijzondere dingen te zien in de ruimte is het maken van foto’s. 

Wij ontvingen het volgende bericht en foto’s van een lezer (dank!). De foto’s zijn dinsdagavond gemaakt. 

Ik heb deze foto gisteren gemaakt om ongeveer half elf het is de heldere ster Venus waarschijnlijk pal zuidelijk ten opzichte van Arnhem zijn met splinternieuwe camera gemaakt van NIKON Een P900 

ik heb dit nooit eerder gezien wat vinden jullie ven deze foto s ik was erg onder de indruk hoop vanavond op meer ik heb nu ongeveer 20 foto s ik stuur of foto van ongeveer half tien is de ufo ook wazig zichtbaar kijk maar goed .links onderin donkerder vlek ook wisselt het steeds van vorm zo lijkt het.

Het lijkt alsofer een onbekend object voor Venus langs vliegt. Het enige probleem is uiteraard dat je geen enkel idee hebt hoe hoog dit object vliegt en of het zich überhaupt in de buurt van Venus bevindt. 

Het lijkt ook niet op een vogel die voor de camera langs vliegt of een ander te herkennen object. Mocht iemand een idee hebben wat die stip voor Venus zou kunnen zijn, laat ons weten. 

En voor diegenen die zelf willen proberen mooie opnames met telescoop of camera; laat het ons weten als er iets bijzonders te zien is.

{

04-07-2019 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

Scientists spot the highest energy particles EVER: Photons from the Crab Nebula emitted from a dying star’s violent death break previous record

• The distant supernova remnant energises photons in collisions with electrons
• A Tibetan array spots particle showers in the atmosphere caused by the photons
• The record-breaking photons had energies that ranged between 100–450 TeV
• Results may help experts learn exactly how photons can have such vast energies

By IAN RANDALL FOR MAILONLINE

Physicists have detected the highest-energy light ever recorded, coming from the Crab Nebula, the remains of a supernova, around 6,500 light years from the Earth.

Researchers in Tibet used enormous detectors to pick out the particle showers created by these gamma rays as they hit particles in the Earth's atmosphere.

With energies of 100–450 trillion electron volts, the photons are around 69 times more energetic than the highest-powered particles in the Large Hadron Collider.

Scroll down for video

Physicists have detected the highest-energy light ever recorded, coming from the remains of a supernova — the Crab Nebula, pictured — that lies around 6,500 light years from the Earth

The high-energy gamma ray photons from the Crab Nebula were detected using the Tibet AS-gamma experiment, a so-called air shower observation array based in Yangbajain, in western China.

The experiment uses nearly 600 particle detectors, distributed over around 700,000 square feet (65,000 square metres) to detect the particle showers created when the high-energy photons hit Earth's atmosphere.

Each of the photons they detected had energies in excess of 100 trillion electron volts, the previously-detected record, with some as high as 4.5 times that.

For comparison, visible light photons have energies of around a few electron volts, while the Large Hadron Collider — the most powerful particle accelerator built by man — can only reach energies of around 6.5 trillion electron volts.

Located around 6,500 light years away, the Crab Nebula was formed after a star exploded in a supernova that was spotted by Chinese astronomers in 1054.

This explosion created the conditions that can generate extremely high-energy photons.

First, charged particles like electrons were driven up to high energies by the shock-wave and the magnetic forces generated by the supernova explosion.

When these high-energy electrons in the Crab Nebula collide with low-energy photons, they transfer their energy, making the photons high-energy instead.

These photons travel off through space and some may even arrive at the Earth. 

When one of these high-energy photons interacts with particles in the Earth's atmosphere, they create showers of other subatomic particles — electrons and positrons — which can be detected by instruments located on the Earth's surface.

The challenge, however, is to distinguish the particle showers caused by high energy photons hitting the atmosphere with those that are also created by cosmic rays, which are much more common.

Researchers in Tibet used enormous detectors to pick out the particle showers created by these gamma rays from the Crab Nebula, pictured, as they hit the Earth's atmosphere

To do this, experts used underground detectors to exclude any event that created muons — elementary particle that are essentially the heavier relatives of electrons — as these particles are created in showers from cosmic rays but not photons.

After ruling out as many of the muon-generating shower events as they could, researchers were left with 24 particle showers, detected across a 3-year-period, that may have been triggered by photons with energies above 100 trillion electron volts.

Some of the shower events even appeared to have been triggered by photons with energies in excess of 450 trillion electron volts. 

The researchers do caution that six of the events they detected could have potentially been caused by cosmic rays, rather than high-energy photons, due to uncertainties in the muon-based exclusion process.

'This energy regime has not been accessible before,' astrophysicist Petra Huentemeyer of the Michigan Technological University in Houghton, who was not involved in the study, told Science News.

'It's an exciting time' for physicists who study gamma rays, she added.

By searching for photons with even higher energies, researchers could find out exactly how the particles are given their energy boosts.

'There has to be a limit to how high the energy of the photons can go,' said physicist David Hanna of McGill University, Montreal, who was also not involved in this study.

Determining this maximum possible energy would allow experts to refine their theories.

The full findings of the study have been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.

WHAT IS A SUPERNOVA AND HOW DOES IT FORM?

A supernova occurs when a star explodes, shooting debris and particles into space.

A supernova burns for only a short period of time, but it can tell scientists a lot about how the universe began.

One kind of supernova has shown scientists that we live in an expanding universe, one that is growing at an ever increasing rate.

Scientists have also determined that supernovas play a key role in distributing elements throughout the universe.

In 1987, astronomers spotted a ‘titanic supernova’ in a nearby galaxy blazing with the power of over 100 million suns (pictured)

There are two known types of supernova.

The first type occurs in binary star systems when one of the two stars, a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, steals matter from its companion star.

Eventually, the white dwarf accumulates too much matter, causing the star to explode, resulting in a supernova.

The second type of supernova occurs at the end of a single star's lifetime.

As the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of its mass flows into its core.

Eventually, the core is so heavy it can't stand its own gravitational force and the core collapses, resulting in another giant explosion. 

Many elements found on Earth are made in the core of stars and these elements travel on to form new stars, planets and everything else in the universe.

Read more:

• Physical Review Letters - Accepted Paper: <article-title>First detection of photons with energy beyond 100 TeV from an astrophysical source</article-title>
• The highest-energy photons ever seen hail from the Crab Nebula | Science News

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

04-07-2019 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

Scientists at the Tibet Air-Shower Array high atop the Tibetan plateau recently observed the most powerful photons ever recorded from an astrophysical source hitting Earth. The photon was part of a barrage of light coming from the Crab Nebula, a giant cloud of gas some 6,500 light-years away with a pulsar—a neutron star spinning at 30 revolutions per second, emitting high-frequency radiation as a tight beam of energy—at its heart, which is all that remains of a powerful supernova that occurred, from our perspective, in 1054 A.D.

Although the Air Shower Array is used to recording extremely high powered photons, they say the photons they recently detected coming from the Crab Nebula are off the charts. According to the MIT Technology Review, the highest powered photons that can be created on Earth, such as those in the Large Hadron Collider, have an energy of roughly 14 terraelectronvolts (TeV), and scientists at the Air Shower Array routinely detect photons of that power. The photons they just saw coming from the Crab Nebula are over 100 TeV, including one single photon with an energy of 500 TeV. That’s the energetic equivalent of a falling ping-pong ball.

The Crab Nebula

What’s that? A falling ping-pong ball isn’t impressive enough for you? Consider this: a single photon is a weird subatomic particle/wave that operates on the quantum scale and has no mass, whereas ping-pong balls are large enough to play an Olympic sport with. That’s like throwing a ping-pong ball with the energetic equivalent of a nuclear bomb. That comparison may not be even close to correct, but you get the idea. It was a shockingly powerful photon.

As to how these high-energy photons are created, scientists have a working theory. According to the MIT Technology review:

Photons of this energy are thought to be created by a process known as inverse Compton scattering. This occurs when a high-energy particle transfers its energy to a photon. In the case of the Crab Nebula, the high-energy particles are probably electrons and protons accelerated by shock waves in the powerful magnetic fields that surround the pulsar.

Artist’s depiction of a pulsar.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

According to the paper about these observations, this discovery opens up a whole new range of possible energy levels for photons and sheds some light on the conditions near pulsars, some of of the most extreme and mysterious objects in the known universe. Now that they have a record of an off-the-charts photon and exactly where it came from, the researchers can work backwards to figure out the sort of physical processes that are happening in and around the Crab Nebula pulsar. But as with all things spacey, the data will have to be checked and rechecked with further observations until scientists can make any definitive headway to understanding pulsars. Even then, there’s always a good chance that it all turns out to be nonsense.

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

04-07-2019 om 20:59 geschreven door peter