24-07-2019 om 01:36 geschreven door peter  

Creator of 'Storm Area 51' Movement Fears Event Could Lead to 'Military Base Slaughter'

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

24-07-2019 om 01:32 geschreven door peter  

24-07-2019 om 01:26 geschreven door peter  

The strange story of the alleged UFO crash at Aztec, New Mexico in March 1948 – and the recovery of a number of dead “little men” at the site – is a real hotbed of lies, disinformation, and shady characters. Most of those same characters were best avoided by those with dollars to spare. The tale was made infamous in the pages of Frank Scully’s 1950 blockbuster, Behind the Flying Saucers; it was a book which turned out to be a huge seller. Today, the Aztec affair is seen by some ufologists as Roswell’s “little brother.” As its “skeleton in the cupboard” might be a far more apt description, however. Many researchers of the UFO phenomenon dismiss the Aztec incident as nothing but a hoax; one which was perpetrated by a shady businessman/conman named Silas Newton. His less-than-shining FBI file can be accessed at the FBI’s website, The Vault.

When it came to stories of aliens from faraway worlds, making money was always the goal for Newton. And the only goal. Along for the ride with Newton was Leo Gebauer. He was the Igor to Newton’s ego-driven Dr. Frankenstein. There is, though, a very interesting and extremely odd aspect to the Newton/Aztec story. It serves to demonstrate how the UFO phenomenon was becoming the tool of manipulative disinformation specialists in the intelligence community. And not just of the Soviet Union. The United States was getting into the strange game, too.

Back in 1998, the late Karl Pflock, ufologist and CIA employee (sometimes at the same time…), was approached by a still-anonymous source who had something very interesting to say about the Aztec caper, and about Newton too. It was a decidedly weird series of revelations that Pflock surely never anticipated receiving. To his dying day, Pflock refused to reveal the name of his informant in the shadows – rumors, however, were that the person may have been a nephew of Silas Newton – but, Pflock did say that all of the lunchtime meetings with his source occurred between July 11 and September 24, 1998 and took place in a restaurant in Bernalillo, New Mexico.

So the story goes, Pflock’s informant had in their hands twenty-seven pages taken, or rather torn, from an old and faded, lined journal. No prizes for guessing who that journal had belonged to. That’s right, sly, old Silas Newton. Pflock was told that Newton had kept multiple journals and diaries not just for years, but for decades. They were jammed with entertaining tales of sexual conquests, of Hollywood starlets, of the fleecing of the rich and the gullible, and of wild adventures across the United States. The outcome of all this? Newton decided, around the turn of the 1970s, that it was right about time for him to write-up his version of the Aztec controversy. It would surely have been a definitive page-turner. Death, however, inconveniently intervened in 1972, when Newton passed away in his mid-eighties. What happened to all of those journals is anyone’s guess.

As for those few pages that Pflock was allowed to see – and to transcribe word for word – they tell a tale of undeniable weirdness. By his own admittance, and a couple of years after the Aztec story surfaced in Frank Scully’s book, Newton was clandestinely visited by two representatives of “a highly secret U.S. Government entity,” as Pflock carefully and tactfully described it. Those same representatives of the government told Newton, in no uncertain terms, that they knew his Aztec story was a complete and bald-faced lie. Utter bullshit, in fact. Incredibly, though, they wanted Newton to keep telling the taleto just about anyone and everyone who would listen. This caused Pflock to ponder on an amazing possibility: “Did the U.S. Government or someone associated with it use Newton to discredit the idea of crashed flying saucers so a real captured saucer or saucers could be more easily kept under wraps?”

Far more intriguing, though, , is the next question that Pflock posed: “Was this actually nothing to do with real saucers but instead some sort of psychological warfare operation [italics mine]?” With the Newton revelations in hand, Pflock, no later than 1999, came to believe that back in the early fifties someone in the government, the intelligence community, or the military of the United States – and maybe even a swirling combination of all three – wanted the Aztec story further circulated. The purpose: as a means to try and convince the Russians that the U.S. military had acquired, or captured, alien technology. When, in reality, it had no such thing in its possession at all.

For the record, in 2002, when Pflock and I were corresponding regularly on the matter of these particularly curious revelations, he told me that he had been able to confirm who the two men that approached Newton worked for and specifically when their meeting with Newton occurred. The time-frame was late March 1950 and the pair of spooks came from a small group within the CIA. Slightly more than a year later, Pflock learned, that very same group was absorbed into the Psychological Strategy Board. The PSB was…”established by Presidential Directive on April 4, 1951 ‘to authorize and provide for the more effective planning, coordination, and conduct within the framework of approved national policies, of psychological operations.’ An abbreviated version of the Presidential Directive was released to the public on June 20, 1951.”

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Having digested the words above, it can be said with a high degree of certainty that those predecessors to the PSB, which Newton was confronted by, would have been the perfect people to have enlisted Newton into their operation mind-fuck. Not only that, in November 1998 Pflock secured a copy of Newton’s will. Having earlier seen Newton’s “scrawling, sprawling” writing up close at that Bernalillo restaurant, Pflock said: “The will unquestionably is in Newton’s hand, and while I’m certainly not a handwriting expert, the comparison left no doubt in my mind that he wrote the journal, too.”

I know just how fascinated Pflock was when it came to the Aztec crash and the claims of Newton and that “highly secret U.S. Government entity.” Pflock and I had been corresponding as far back as the late 1990s, but, I didn’t meet him in person until 2003 – at a UFO gig in the city of Aztec itself. For a number of years, the conference was an annual event. But, no more. When Pflock and I finally met, he near-immediately suggested that we should write an Aztec-themed book. Pflock’s reasoning was that he knew the story very well, and, via the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I had uncovered hundreds upon hundreds of pages of material – chiefly from the FBI – on the Aztec controversy and the players within it. He thought that we would make a good team. Particularly so now that I lived in the U.S. – and specifically in Dallas, Texas, which (in terms of the road-trips that I regularly undertake) is not at all far from New Mexico, where Pflock resided and where the 1948 crash supposedly happened.

As I listened, Pflock told me that his idea was, essentially, to make the book a biography on Newton, but with the Aztec affair being the main thrust of it all. I thought it was a very good idea. Pflock suggested that he prepare a synopsis for his literary agent (this was around a year before I first met my longstanding agent, Lisa Hagan), which is exactly what he did. The book was going to be called Silas the Magnificent: A True Tale of Greed, Credulity, and (Maybe) Government Chicanery and Cover-up in 1950s America. Sadly, the idea collapsed when Pflock fell seriously ill with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He unfortunately died from the effects of ALS on June 5, 2006, at the age of just sixty-three.

Pflock is gone, but the printed synopsis still exists, as do several printed chapters, including one on the matter of the Psychological Strategy Board aspect of all this. It would have made a good book. And, very possibly, it just might have revealed more of the fabricated story of how – and with the help of Silas Newton – American intelligence led the Russians on a wild goose chase and had them believing that U.S. scientists were secretly studying a recovered UFO and its advanced technologies and weapons-systems. If such a plot successfully terrified Soviet intelligence, for the U.S. government it was a job well done.

There’s one more thing that needs to be highlighted on this controversy-saturated saga of a crashed UFO and Silas Newton. On June 24, 1964, Frank Scully, whose 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers, placed the alleged incident firmly under the spotlight, passed away. As the New York Times noted in its obituary on Scully, one day later: “Mr. Scully was labeled a Communist by Congressman Martin Dies, head of the House Un-American Activities Committee. After a stormy two-hour session with the Committee, Mr. Scully was cleared of the charge.”

Yes, Scully was exonerated. It is a fact, though, that sometimes – to use a U.K. term – “mud sticks.” For at least some, including those in the intelligence community, Scully was still seen as a closet communist, regardless of the fact that he had been completely absolved of any kind of guilt. Maybe, those spooks and spies who paid Silas Newton a visit in 1950 were concerned by the possibility that Scully was in cahoots with the Russians. This is, admittedly, speculation and nothing more. But, as I note in my new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin, we see flying saucer enthusiasts, communism, and secret government activity rolled into one.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

24-07-2019 om 01:20 geschreven door peter  

Cosmic Pearls Found in Fossil Clams, Evidence of Asteroid Strike in Florida

Researchers picking through the contents of fossil clams from a Sarasota County quarry found dozens of tiny glass beads, likely the calling cards of an ancient meteorite.

Analysis of the beads suggests they are microtektites, particles that form when the explosive impact of an extraterrestrial object sends molten debris hurtling into the atmosphere where it cools and recrystallizes before falling back to Earth.

They are the first documented microtektites in Florida and possibly the first to be recovered from fossil shells.

Mike Meyer was a University of South Florida undergraduate when he discovered the microtektites during a 2006 summer fieldwork project led by Roger Portell, invertebrate paleontology collections director at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

As part of the project, students systematically collected fossils from the shell-packed walls of a quarry that offered a cross-section of the last few million years of Florida’s geological history. They pried open fossil clams, washing the sediment trapped inside through very fine sieves. Meyer was looking for other tiny objects – the shells of single-celled organisms known as benthic foraminifera – when he noticed the translucent glassy balls, smaller than grains of salt.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

24-07-2019 om 01:01 geschreven door peter  

Meteorite Found in Siberia Contains Naturally Impossible Crystal

www.Ancient-Origins.net – Reconstructing the story of humanity’s past

Source: 

• https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-science-space/meteorite-found-siberia-contains-naturally-impossible-crystal-00495

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

24-07-2019 om 00:35 geschreven door peter  

How to Choose Latest UFO Footage

The Latest UFO Footage Cover Up

You may see the footage below. Footage of a huge shadow moving over the crowd stays in the movie. Footage of a tremendous shadow moving over the crowd stays in the movie.

You might actually watch videos all day long for many years about aliens. The quick video below, for example, is just one of several contemporary sightings. It is possible to have a look at the video below. The video can be seen on the TTS Academy Community of Interest site by click on this link. Hypnosis video is simply one of the absolute most productive procedures to do hypnosis without the use of an actual hypnotist.

You may have a look at the footage below. It’s possible that you have a look at the footage below. You’re able to look at the footage below. You can have a peek at the footage below.

You may have a look at the video below. You have the ability to have a look at the video below. It’s possible to have a peek at the video below. You’re ready to have a look at the video below. Let’s take a quick glance at UFO history.

Life After Latest UFO Footage

Some reports state it is a ping, although some claim it is a beep. They state it’s a ping, but others claim it’s a beep. Today you can get the related news immediately! The great news for people that would like to have an out-of-body experience (OOBE), but haven’t yet done so is that there are lots of astral projection techniques out there. The official story has changed a lot of occasions and a lot of questions remain. The beeswarm plot would enable you to easily see whether any buildings fell outside of the standard distribution, which might help identify candidates for deep energy retrofits.

The Bigfoot sighting a part of a bigger recording, but is covered during an approximate 53-second part of the film. The sighting itself, in spite of the corroborative sightings, is not hard to dismiss by itself. There are, however, several other similar sightings around some of the absolute most nuclear heavy facilities on Earth.

To us, it’s the only moon. The complete Moon can cause all sorts of changes on Earth. It can lead to all types of changes on Earth. The total Moon can result in a variety of changes on Earth.

Today, a great deal of individuals are certain that aliens exist. Other folks report being made to breed with human-like extraterrestrials. None are in fact extraterrestrial spacecraft. None are in reality extraterrestrial spacecraft.

My sighting only lasted a number of seconds. It’s simple to comprehend why there are lots of UFO sightings. Today, UFO sighting has been an issue of amusement as an alternative to a concern, despite the fact that there are ample evidences about their scary overall look. Many reported UFO sightings actually end up being something as simple as a balloon.

UFOs are observed through telescopes. They are frequently associated with aliens and conspiracy theories. They are often associated with aliens and conspiracy theories. At some stage, you’re very likely to encounter a UFO. At times, however, UFOs can’t be identified due to the minimal quality of evidence associated with their sightings. Throughout that period of time, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the same location.

Source: 

• http://footageofufos.com/2019/07/how-to-choose-latest-ufo-footage/

VIDEOS, selected by PETER2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

23-07-2019 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

The Early Days of the Milky Way revealed

A study led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) puts a sequence to the events which gave rise to our Galaxy.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

23-07-2019 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Map Vast Cosmic Void in Our Galactic Neighborhood

An astronomer from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) and an international team published a new study that reveals more of the vast cosmic structure surrounding our Milky Way galaxy.

The universe is a tapestry of galaxy congregations and vast voids. In a new study being reported in The Astrophysical Journal, Brent Tully’s team applies the same tools from an earlier study to map the size and shape of an extensive empty region they called the Local Void that borders the Milky Way galaxy. Using the observations of galaxy motions, they infer the distribution of mass responsible for that motion, and construct three-dimensional maps of our local Universe.

A smoothed rendition of the structure surrounding the Local Void. Our Milky Way galaxy lies at the origin of the red-green-blue orientation arrows (each 200 million lightyears in length). We are at a boundary between a large, low density void, and the high density Virgo cluster.

Credit: R. Brent Tully

Galaxies not only move with the overall expansion of the universe, they also respond to the gravitational tug of their neighbors and regions with a lot of mass. As a consequence, relative to the overall expansion of the Universe they are moving towards the densest areas and away from regions with little mass — the voids.

Although we live in a cosmic metropolis, back in 1987 Tully and Richard Fisher noted that our Milky Way galaxy is also at the edge of an extensive empty region that they called the Local Void. The existence of the Local Void has been widely accepted, but it remained poorly studied because it lies behind the center of our galaxy and is therefore heavily obscured from our view.

Now, Tully and his team have measured the motions of 18,000 galaxies in the Cosmicflows-3 compendium of galaxy distances, constructing a cosmographic map that highlights the boundary between the collection of matter and the absence of matter that defines the edge of the Local Void. They used the same technique in 2014 to identify the full extent of our home supercluster of over one hundred thousand galaxies, giving it the name Laniakea, meaning “immense heaven” in Hawaiian.

For 30 years, astronomers have been trying to identify why the motions of the Milky Way, our nearest large galaxy neighbor Andromeda, and their smaller neighbors deviate from the overall expansion of the Universe by over 600 km/s (1.3 million mph). The new study shows that roughly half of this motion is generated “locally” from the combination of a pull from the massive nearby Virgo Cluster and our participation in the expansion of the Local Void as it becomes ever emptier.

    Cosmicflows-3: Cosmography of the Local Void

    by Daniel Pomarède

    on Sketchfab

Representations of the void can be seen in a video (below) and, alternatively, with an interactive model (below). With the interactive model, a viewer can pan, zoom, rotate, and pause/activate the time evolution of movement along orbits. The orbits are shown in a reference frame that removes the overall expansion of the universe. What we are seeing are the deviations from cosmic expansion caused by the interactions of local sources of gravity.

• The study, Cosmicflows-3: Cosmography of the Local Void is published in the July 22, 2019 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, and is available online.
• Contacts and sources:
  Dr. Roy Gal. Dr. Brent Tully

University of Hawaii at Manoa

• Citation: Cosmicflows-3: Cosmography of the Local Void.
  R. Brent Tully, Daniel Pomarède, Romain Graziani, Hélène M. Courtois, Yehuda Hoffman, Edward J. Shaya. The Astrophysical Journal, 2019; 880 (1): 24 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab2597

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

23-07-2019 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

It is difficult to describe what this weird object may have been; celestial object, UFO or something else that enters the atmosphere?

Linda Miller: On July 15, 2019 I felt compelled to go outside and film the sun gain. I was in the middle of watching the sun go down and when I turned my head and saw this... I thought it might be a plane, I was wrong.

Linda: The colors are the real thing, just adjusted exposure. It is really pretty and weird all at the same time. I have no freakin' idea.

23-07-2019 om 23:05 geschreven door peter  

Huge Diamond ET Base Found On Earths Moon, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 19, 2019
Location of discovery: Earths moon
Source: 

• http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/211681
  

I found this diamond shaped base in a gigapan photo today. The base is located within the 93km Copernicus crater. The diamond structure is a black metallic color and is attached to another longer black metallic structure. There are also lots of lights glowing around these buildings, which makes me believe someone is home.

These structures are probably portable, meaning they are ships that landed there and they sit there until they want to leave. It make me wonder what they are doing there? Perhaps mining. 
Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

23-07-2019 om 22:54 geschreven door peter  

Pixie Geldof Reveals Her Encounter with a UFO in Rome

Singer and model Pixie Geldof claimed to have spotted an extraterrestrial, and she wanted to befriend aliens after the incident. One of the daughters of Bob Geldof was in Rome with a friend when she saw the UFO.

She revealed she had seen strange lights and remembered recently when she was in Rome about two years ago of spotting an odd star next to the moon.  She has never seen a star right next to the moon. She and her friend convinced themselves that they had seen a UFO.

Geldof, 28, went on the say that she believed in aliens and she’d try to be friends with them if they were to contact her.

She said that it is insane to believe we’re alone in the universe.

Geldof’s late sister Peaches also took an interest in the unknown and even in Scientology.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

23-07-2019 om 22:41 geschreven door peter  

India's Chandrayaan-2 Mission Will Take 7 Weeks to Reach the Moon — Here's Why

India's Chandrayaan-2 mission is now on its way to the moon, but it has a slow journey ahead: The rover and lander won't touch down until early September.

As the Apollo missions the U.S. spent the weekend commemorating prove, it doesn't necessarily have to take seven weeks to land on the moon. But the lander and rover of Chandrayaan-2 were scheduled to touch down Sept. 6 (Sept. 7 local time in mission control) — and that was before the launch was delayed nearly a week.

The slow, round-about route that Chandrayaan-2 will follow to reach the moon reflects the power of the Indian rocket used to launch the spacecraft, called the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III. That rocket doesn't carry the same amount of thrust as the giant Saturn V rockets that drove NASA's Apollo program — and no surprise, since those U.S. boosters were the most powerful rockets ever built. The Apollo missions were also designed to carry astronauts, while Chandrayaan-2 is a smaller, uncrewed mission.  

• Related: The Science of India's Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission

This Indian Space Research Organisation diagram shows the flight profile of the Chandrayaan-2 spaceraft as they fly to the moon between July and September 2019. Chandrayaan-2 will take about seven weeks to reach the moon.

(Image credit: Indian Space Research Organisation)

India's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter (bottom) and Vikram lander (top with legs) as seen during launch preparations.

(Image credit: India Space Research Organisation)

ISRO's landing site for Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander is near the south pole of the moon.

(Image credit: Indian Space Research Organisation)

India launched a three-part moon mission called Chandrayaan-2 on July 22, 2019.

(Image credit: Indian Space Research Organisation)

So Chandrayaan-2 was always scheduled to spend a while orbiting Earth before transferring to lunar orbit. After the launch delay last week, engineers at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which oversees the mission, adjusted the mission timeline to ensure the landing schedule wouldn't be seriously affected.

Keeping the landing time from slipping too far is important because the lander and rover aren't designed to withstand the bitterly cold lunar nights, which last the equivalent of two weeks here on Earth.

According to the mission's new schedule, Chandrayaan-2 will spend 23 days orbiting Earth, gradually raising its altitude on one side of an elliptical orbit around the planet. Then, in mid-August, it will turn its sights on the moon, completing a series of maneuvers to leave Earth orbit and begin circling the moon.

In order to accommodate the launch delay, Chandrayaan-2 will spend less time orbiting the moon than previously planned, according to the Hindustan Times. 

During the first week of September, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter will release its Vikram lander, which will then descend to the surface, touching down just a bit later than the mission's original timetable called for. If all goes well, a rover called Pragyan, will then be deployed from the lander a few hours later.

When Vikram lander does land, it will do so near the moon's south pole, an area of particular interest to scientists and explorers because of its stash of water ice in permanently shaded craters. Several of the payloads on board both the lander and its companion rover designed to map and analyze this ice.

If Chandrayaan-2's flight and landing go smoothly, India will become the first country to reach the moon's south pole and only the fourth country to successfully land softly on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, United States and China.

•  Liftoff! India Launches Ambitious Mission to Land at the Moon's South Pole 
•  India Will Launch an Ambitious Moon Orbiter-Lander-Rover Combo in July 
•  The Science of India's Chandrayaan-2 Mission to the Moon's South Pole 
• Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

23-07-2019 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers who are mapping the huge 'nothingness' surrounding the Milky Way for the first time fear it is GROWING

• Experts from the University of Hawaii focused their attentions on a region known at the 'Local Void'
• It is estimated to be between 146 and almost a billion light-years wide and they found it is getting bigger
• They measured the motions of 18,000 galaxies in the Cosmicflows-3 compendium of galaxy distances
• They constructed a map that highlights the boundary between matter and the edge of the Local Void  

By TIM COLLINS FOR MAILONLINE

A vast cosmic void surrounding our galaxy has been mapped and measured by a team of astronomers to work out its gravitational influence on the Milky Way.

For 30 years astronomers have been trying to work out why the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy and their smaller neighbours are expanding faster than the rest of the Universe by over 1.3 million mph (600 km/s).

Experts from the University of Hawaii focused their attentions on a region known at the 'Local Void', estimated to be between 146 and almost a billion light-years wide - and which, they say,  is getting bigger.

They found that roughly half of this rapid expansion is caused 'locally' from the combination of a pull from the massive nearby Virgo Cluster and our participation in the expansion of the Local Void as it becomes ever emptier.

Scroll down for video 

A vast cosmic void surrounding our galaxy has been mapped and measured by a team of astronomers to work out its gravitational influence on the Milky Way. Pictured: A computer generated 3D image of the Local Void's shape, with the Milky Way found at the centre of the blue, green and red arrows

Experts from the university measured the motions of 18,000 galaxies in the Cosmicflows-3 compendium of galaxy distances.

Using this data, they constructed a cosmographic map that highlights the boundary between the collection of matter and the absence of matter that defines the edge of the Local Void. 

They used the same technique in 2014 to identify the full extent of our home supercluster of over one hundred thousand galaxies, giving it the name Laniakea, meaning 'immense heaven' in Hawaiian.

Representations of the void can be seen in the video below and with the interactive model above. 

With the interactive model, a viewer can pan, zoom, rotate, and pause/activate the time evolution of movement along orbits. 

The orbits are shown in a reference frame that removes the overall expansion of the universe. What we are seeing are the deviations from cosmic expansion caused by the interactions of local sources of gravity.

Experts from the University of Hawaii focused their attentions on a region known at the 'Local Void', estimated to be between 146 and almost a billion light-years wide - and which, they say, is getting bigger. This image shows void areas in our region of space, with our Local Void pictured in black

The universe is a tapestry of galaxy congregations and vast voids. Galaxies not only move with the overall expansion of the universe, they also respond to the gravitational tug of their neighbours and regions with a lot of mass. 

As a consequence, relative to the overall expansion of the universe, they are moving towards the densest areas and away from regions with little mass - the voids.

Although we live in a cosmic metropolis, back in 1987 Brent Tully and Richard Fisher noted that our Milky Way galaxy is also at the edge of an extensive empty region that they called the Local Void. 

The existence of the Local Void has been widely accepted, but it remained poorly studied because it lies behind the centre of our galaxy and is therefore heavily obscured from our view.

The full findings of the study were published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Pictured: A computer simulation showing part of the 'cosmic web' structure that makes up the universe. Blue and white represent galaxies and the darker sections are voids containing very little matter

Read more:

• iopscience.iop.o...

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

23-07-2019 om 21:08 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers map the Local Void – the huge “nothingness” surrounding the Milky Way

BY ROB LEA

The local void — a vast cosmic structure surrounding our Milky Way galaxy — has been mapped in a new study, suggesting why our galaxy doesn’t travel with the expansion of the universe.

The large-scale structure of the universe is a tapestry of congregations of galaxies and vast voids. Applying same tools from an earlier study, Brent Tully from the University of Hawaii and his international team of astronomers have been able to map the size and shape of an extensive empty region they called the Local Void that borders the Milky Way galaxy.

Shaded grey contours outline the extent of the Local Void, while blue dots show major mass constituents (large galaxies, galaxy groups, and clusters). The curved blue lines show the derived motions of these massive objects, after removing the overall expansion of the universe. The most important galaxy congregations are given special symbols, like the red ball identifying the Virgo Cluster. The dominant pattern of motions revealed by the orbits is a flow away from the Local Void.

(University of Hawaii)

Tully and his team were able to measure the motions of 18,000 galaxies in the Cosmicflows-3 compendium of galaxy distances. This allowed them to build a 3D cosmographic map that highlighting the boundary between the collection of matter and the absence of matter. This boundary defining the edge of the Local Void.

The study gives researchers a good idea of why our galaxy seems to be

The team used the same technique to identify the full extent of our home supercluster of over one hundred thousand galaxies in 2014, giving it the name Laniakea — or “immense heaven” in Hawaiian.

For 30 years, astronomers have been trying to identify why the motions of the Milky Way, our nearest large galaxy neighbour Andromeda, and their smaller neighbours deviate from the overall expansion of the Universe by over 600 km/s (1.3 million mph).

This new study — published in The Astrophysical Journal — shows that roughly half of this motion is generated “locally” from the combination of a pull from the massive nearby Virgo Cluster and our participation in the expansion of the Local Void as it becomes ever emptier.

Studying the local void

Galaxies not only move with the overall expansion of the universe — or the Hubble Flow — but they also respond to the gravitational influence of their neighbours and regions with an abundance of mass.

A smoothed rendition of the structure surrounding the Local Void. Our Milky Way galaxy lies at the origin of the red-green-blue orientation arrows (each 200 million lightyears in length). We are at a boundary between a large, low-density void, and the high-density Virgo cluster.

(University of Hawaii)

 As a consequence, relative to the Hubble Flow they are moving towards the densest areas and away from regions with little mass — the voids.

The knowledge that our Milky Way galaxy is at the edge of an extensive empty region that they called the Local Void dates back to research spearheaded by Tully and Richard Fisher in 1987.

Despite the fact that the existence of the Local Void has been widely accepted, it has remained poorly studied until now, because it lies behind the centre of our galaxy. This means it heavily obscured from our view by gas and dust lying in the galaxy’s equatorial plane.

In addition to a video showing the simulations the team created, the astronomers have also provided the public with a resource that enables them to manipulate their view of the local void.

You can find that program here.

{https://www.zmescience.com/ }

23-07-2019 om 20:48 geschreven door peter  

NASA engineers are working on a new family of space robots that can roll, climb, and use artificial intelligence to navigate around obstacles in rough terrains on other worlds. Meet the family, here.

The climbing robot LEMUR rests after scaling a cliff in Death Valley, California in early 2019. The robot uses special gripping technology that has helped lead to a series of new, off-roading robots that can explore other worlds.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

From uncovering the first clues of liquid water on Mars to crossing our solar system, NASA’s missions have been adventurous, to say the least. Ranger 3 was NASA’s first attempt to land a rover on the moon in 1962. Since then, numerous robots have followed Ranger 3 from Earth into space. Yet the surfaces of planets and moons in our solar system remain largely unexplored, partly because current space robots haven’t been capable of scaling cliffs, gripping icy surfaces and otherwise conquering hard-to-reach places.

This month (July 10, 2019), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory described its work on a new family of robots that can roll, climb, and use artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate around obstacles in rough terrains. These robots are currently being tested on Earth and will later be sent to places that are otherwise inaccessible by humans, helping scientists do meaningful science along the way.

A tiny climbing robot rolls up a wall, gripping with fishhooks – technology adapted from LEMUR’s gripping feet.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

This new class of space robots will have functionalities inspired by the Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot (LEMUR), which was originally conceived as a repair robot for the International Space Station. In the video below, NASA describes LEMUR’s last field test, in Death Valley, California, in early 2019. The robot used hundreds of fishhooks to climb walls and AI to avoid obstacles that it could not climb. It also used its suite of scientific instruments to scan the rock for ancient fossils, and, as the video explains, it found some!

A direct application of this LEMUR field test would be searching for biosignatures – substances that provide evidence of life – on the planet Mars, perhaps in lake beds thought to hold signs of Martian life from the distant past.

While the LEMUR itself will not be sent into space, the engineers did adopt much of its AI and structural features into the next generation of robots that will act as our eyes and ears beyond Earth. Each one of them has unique features built into it to tackle harsh conditions and uncertain environments. Keep reading, to meet this new generation of space explorers.

Ice Worm was put to its first field test in the cave walls at Mount St. Helens in August 2018. The robot was belayed with a rope to ensure that it wasn’t damaged if it fell.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

1. Ice Worm

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are developing a robot called Ice Worm in an attempt to navigate slippery surfaces. True to its name, the robot – adapted from a single limb of LEMUR – compacts its body before extending it to move forward. It proceeds an inch at a time by drilling one end of a limb into an icy surface, uses a grip to steady itself, then brings in the second limb to join the first using the same technique.

To move forward, it unscrews one foot, lengthens its body and screws it back into the ice a few meters ahead. Using the pressure sensors that instruct it how hard to drill into the ice, it repeats this over and over again to “inchworm” forward. Ice Worm also uses this method to anchor itself while analyzing the surface beneath to collect material in its legs that can be used to test salinity concentrations for microbial life.

Aaron Parness, an engineer at JPL, has trained Ice Worm in the remote regions of Antarctica, which is the harshest place they could find on Earth. The slippery ice coupled with the harsh environment will prepare the robot for similar conditions on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Another set of tests are lined up in glaciers on Mt. Rainier in Seattle. Parness commented:

Field testing shows you things that are hard to learn in the laboratory.

This 1.4-meter (4.6 foot) long robot is also being equipped with pattern recognition and machine learning – aspects of AI that allow it to learn from past mistakes and make optimal decisions. The robot will need to investigate patterns left behind by life in cave formations. In order to do so, it needs to be tiny and mobile enough to scuttle through the cave’s tiny gaps. For this, Parness and his team are working on miniaturized remote sensing and data analysis instruments that Ice Worm can wear like a backpack. Once ready, robots of this kind will be sent to the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter to bring back samples for further analyses.

• Read more about Ice Worm

RoboSimian during a field test in California.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

2. RoboSimian

While this four-legged robot is also inspired by LEMUR in its size and build, RoboSimian has supple wheels made of music wire in contrast to LEMUR’s gripping ones, thus having greater flexibility on rough terrains. This concept first materialized as a part of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which promoted robotic technology for disaster-response operations. The robot is built and trained to operate in dangerous environments, so it’s not surprising that RoboSimian – a four-legged robot that can walk, crawl, slide on its belly, and even do cartwheels – will most likely be sent to Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Saltwater oceans are theorized to be present under the icy surface of that distant moon. Its geysers may also contain signs of microbial life.

Nicknamed King Louie after a character in the film “Jungle Book,” RoboSimian is equipped with spectroscopic instruments that could explore Enceladus’ polar regions.

• Read more about RoboSimian

NASA engineers were inspired by gecko feet, such as the one shown here, in designing a gripping system for space. Just as a gecko’s foot has tiny adhesive hairs, so the JPL devices incorporate small structures that work in similar ways.

Image via NASA/Wikimedia Commons.

3. Building robots the gecko way

You can use tape only so many times before the adhesion wears off. Geckos, on the other hand, offer inspiration for glues that stick even after multiple uses. These tiny lizards have hair on their feet that allow them to cling to a wall with ease. Parness and his team designed a robot with similar features – gecko-inspired adhesives – synthetic hair that sticks to any surface.

These grippers can sustain up to 150 Newtons of force and have been tested in simulated microgravityenvironments. The gecko material itself was tested 300,000 times to make sure the stickiness does not wear off. This robot will one day repair satellites, service them, and even snatch space garbage.

• Read more about gecko-inspired robot grippers

Underwater Gripper at work.

Image via Nautilus.

4. Underwater grippers

Yet another robot inspired by LEMUR, the Underwater Gripper, adopted LEMUR’s 16 fingers and 250 fishhooks to hold on tightly to surfaces and drill into formations. This is particularly useful in environments where there is little to no gravity, especially underwater where the force of the drill could push the robot away.

As of now the robot is working with Nautilus – an underwater research vessel – to collect samples from water that are a mile below the surface. Eventually, it might be sent to explore the surfaces of asteroids and other similar bodies.

• Read more about underwater robot grippers

NASA’s Mars Helicopter in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Image via NASA/JPL.

5.  A helicopter that will do more than just fly

A tiny, solar-powered helicopter will accompany the Mars 2020 rover. Arash Kalantari, a JPL engineer, modified LEMUR’s design to build a robot that lands not just horizontally, but also vertically by clinging to rocks like a dragonfly.

MiMi Aung, project manager for the Mars Helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said:

Nobody’s built a Mars Helicopter before, so we are continuously entering new territory.

The Mars Helicopter is expected to reach Mars by February 2021 and will conduct geological assessments on the landing sites, assess natural resources and hazards for future space missions.

• Read more about the Mars Helicopter

Bottom line: A new class of space robots have functionalities inspired by the Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot (LEMUR). While each design is unique in its abilities, there is one common goal that unites them all: the hunt for life beyond Earth.

• Via NASA

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

23-07-2019 om 01:42 geschreven door peter  

The shameful truth: America only put a man on the moon with the help of Nazi monsters - not that anyone will admit it amid all the hype about the 50-year anniversary

• For the moon landing, America's scientists had been given a huge helping hand 
• German scientists Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph all helped
• But it wasn't mentioned all three were Nazi war criminals, guilty of mass murder 
• All of these men were veterans of the infamous programme to build V2 rockets
• Weapons Hitler believed would obliterate London and save Germany from defeat

By TOM BOWER FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

Watching the Moon landing 50 years ago from his comfortable Paris home, Yves Beon could barely contain himself at the spectacle unfolding on TV.

Dozens of white-shirted scientists and engineers at the Apollo Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, were on their feet, many waving flags, cheering at a triumph that was enhancing American prestige and unleashing an ocean of apple-pie patriotism.

Yet Beon, a hero of the French Resistance, was spitting venom at the screen that night and, had he been alive to see last week’s documentaries repeating the footage of Neil Armstrong’s ‘giant leap for mankind’, his reaction would have been incandescent. 

Amid the jubilation half a century ago, no one bothered to point out that America’s scientists had been given a huge helping hand. Or that the Moon landing was, in fact, the brainchild of German scientists led by Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph. Or that all three were Nazi war criminals, guilty of mass murder. 

Making history: The only clear shot of Neil Armstrong's face as he stepped on to the Moon - it was produced by a British photographer using the latest photo-enhancing technology 

'Ardent Nazi': Wernher von Braun (pictured), a veteran of the V2 programme that killed thousands in Britain, was later acclaimed as an Apollo 11 hero

Dr Hubertus Strughold (left) used concentration camp detainees for high-altitude experiments - and filmed their excruciating deaths. While at a V2 factory, Arthur Rudolph (right) would hang slave labourers if they did not work hard enough. He later had a key role in the Apollo programme

The 1969 footage of the three German scientists embracing each other in the centre of the Houston control room never reached the global television audience – and neither was it broadcast amid last week’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The fact that more than 130 German scientists were employed on the design and production of the Apollo 11 Moon landing was conveniently ignored at the time of the mission, and no wonder. These men were veterans of the infamous programme to build V2 rockets, the secret weapons that Hitler believed would obliterate London and save Germany from defeat in the Second World War.

‘Everyone forgot the hell those Nazis created to build their rocket,’ Beon recalled when we met in 1986. ‘They were b******s with brains. The world forgot that 20,000 innocent men were murdered by those Germans.’

Today, the amnesia continues and it seems wilful. Why, 50 years on, has the BBC refused to re-show The Paperclip Conspiracy, a TV documentary I produced in 1987, for example? It exposed the shocking crimes committed by von Braun’s team and the subsequent conspiracy to conceal the atrocities.

AMID the sentimental nostalgia of the past few days, the Corporation has ignored a fundamental question: what price conscience and morality for that ‘giant leap for mankind’?

The world only knows about the true history of the Apollo programme because of people such as Beon, one of the few slave labourers to emerge in 1945 from the underground factory where Hitler’s engineers built the V2s. Himmler’s SS forced an estimated 60,000 Europeans on to the production line in Nordhausen at the foot of the Harz mountains in central Germany. Survivors were rare.

Beon has particular memories of Arthur Rudolph, the 37-year-old director of production in Nordhausen who, just 17 years later, was the director of Apollo production in America. 

As Beon recalled, Rudolph’s management technique in Nazi Germany was distinctive. ‘If he suspected anyone of not working, he hanged them above the production line and left the body dangling above us for a few days, as a warning. Every week, dozens were killed that way,’ he said. 

‘Sometimes an electric crane lifted 12 prisoners at a time, hands behind their backs with a piece of wood in their mouths to prevent them crying out. Every day over 100 people died from exhaustion, starvation or disease.’

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is photographed walking on the Moon during humanity's first landing in 1969

The crew of the Apollo 11, from left, Neil Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, module pilot; Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin, lunar module pilot. Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to the surface of the moon

As the chief director of the American Apollo programme, von Braun had arranged for Kennedy to witness the test firing of a Saturn rocket (pictured), the type that would eventually deliver Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon 

Beon recalled how von Braun, an SS major, and other scientists ‘just passed by us without looking at the bodies, without any sign of emotion’.

Von Braun’s team were committed Nazis, including Rudolph who, when I interviewed him in 1987, told me: ‘Hitler’s first six years were marvellous. They were the best years in Germany. Everybody was happy.’

The fact that Beon survived Nordhausen was a miracle. With the Americans approaching, vengeful SS guards went on a murderous rampage against the labourers but Beon managed to hide.

Von Braun and his team, meanwhile, had already left, calculating – correctly – that they could wait in the Bavarian countryside, then offer their expertise to the Americans. ‘We were interested in continuing our work,’ he said later. He had no intention of ‘being squeezed like a lemon and then discarded’.

The first V2 rocket hit London in September 1944. By the end of the war, 3,172 rockets had been successfully launched, killing thousands of civilians and dispelling any doubts that the Germans had invented an outstanding weapon of the future – years ahead of the Allies. In 1945, US soldiers were dispatched across Germany to seize completed V2s and the blueprints. Among them was 28-year-old Major Robert Staver, a mechanical engineer, who followed the US 1st Army into the Nordhausen factory on April 11, 1945.

‘The Germans’ cups were still warm when we arrived,’ he recalled when we met in California in 1986. He admitted that, bewitched by the sight of the rockets and such brilliant mechanical innovation, he had ignored the hundreds of corpses scattered across the area.

About 100 rockets were shipped to White Sands in New Mexico, but to understand them and develop rockets of their own, the Americans needed von Braun’s team, too. And that meant reaching them before the Russians. ‘These were geniuses 25 years ahead of us,’ gushed Staver. ‘My orders were to get the top rocket team in history. I decided to treat the Germans as normal, friendly human beings. Otherwise we wouldn’t get their co-operation.’

Buzz Aldrin sets up the landing gear on the Moon after he, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins

Winston Churchill (pictured) and Franklin D.evelt issued solemn wartime pledges to prosecute all Nazi war criminals

Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt issued solemn wartime pledges to prosecute all Nazi war criminals, promises that Staver and his bosses decided to ignore.

The secret journey of the rocket scientists from Nordhausen to America’s Apollo space programme involved an astonishing conspiracy between US army officers and a handful of complicit Washington bureaucrats. In September 1945, following rapid negotiations with Staver and other American officers, von Braun and a small group of his senior aides were flown to El Paso, Texas.

American law explicitly ruled out permanent residence for incriminated Nazis, so they were contracted to stay in America ‘temporarily’ for a few months while they were debriefed. The scheme was known as Operation Paperclip. Later, a further 118 members of his team were flown from Germany. While Yves Beon and other victims of the Nazis struggled to keep body and soul together in wartorn Europe, von Braun lived well on $750 a month plus unlimited free food, comfortable accommodation and generous healthcare.

It wasn’t only engineering expertise that the Americans lacked – they wanted medical information, too. In a parallel operation, American air force officers led by Colonel Harry Armstrong negotiated a deal with Dr Hubertus Strughold, the leader of Germany’s aviation doctors.

Strughold and other specialists had developed techniques to protect Luftwaffe pilots flying at high altitudes. German designs for pressurised cockpits, G-suits and oxygen masks to avoid blackouts were far more advanced than anything available in America or Britain – but that was not surprising, since the German research had been conducted by testing human ‘guinea pigs’ at the Dachau concentration camp.

Inmates had been locked into pressurised chambers by doctors to test the limits of their endurance. The filmed experiments recorded the inmates’ excruciating deaths.

Tom Bower is author of The Paperclip Conspiracy. He is known for his investigative journalism and for his unauthorized biographies

In early 1946, Armstrong decided to ignore the doctors’ crimes. For him, as for Staver, morality was not an issue. The principles of justice for which millions had died during the war were ignored. ‘They were scientists, after all,’ as Armstrong told another, similarly complacent officer. So Strughold and 37 other German specialists were flown to Wright Field, a US air force base in Ohio.

Armstrong had twin motives: to develop America’s aviation medicine, but also to protect the Germans from prosecution as war criminals in American military courts in Nuremberg. With remarkable foresight, Armstrong ordered the medics to focus on how man could survive in space and, in 1969, Strughold was acclaimed among the heroes of Armstrong’s walk on the Moon. No one asked questions about his wartime crimes.

This state of affairs was in part testimony to the skill of Colonel Walter Rozamus, the US army officer in charge of Operation Paperclip at the Pentagon and a man determined to overcome the American laws that explicitly forbade Nazis from staying in the US. By 1946, the German scientists wanted permanent contracts and wished to be reunited with their families. Yet security files compiled by US army investigators in Germany made their Nazi affiliations all too clear.

Herbert Axster, von Braun’s assistant, was described as ‘a notorious supporter and profiteer of the Nazi regime’. Kurt Debus, Apollo’s second-in-command, had been a member of the Brown Shirts and the SS and was guilty of denouncing an innocent German to the Gestapo to remove a rival scientist.

Von Braun was described as ‘an ardent Nazi’ and a ‘potential security threat’. Investigators had discovered that, in 1931, Rudolph had marched through Berlin in a brown Stormtrooper uniform holding a flaming torch and singing the Nazi anthems of racial hatred. He was classified as ‘100 per cent Nazi, dangerous type’ and recommended for imprisonment. By now, Rudolph and 134 rocket experts were living in New Mexico and Rozamus was determined to keep them there.

His next obstacle was Samuel Klaus, an officer in the visa section of the State Department, the equivalent of Britain’s Home Office. Klaus, a Jewish lawyer, had toured Europe in 1945 and was appalled by the atrocities. He understood better than most the terrible crimes committed by German scientists.

Outraged by the Pentagon’s attempt to ignore the truth, Klaus refused to allow von Braun’s team to become American citizens. None of them, he said, was so vital that their expertise could not be extracted within six months. After that, they must be returned to Germany. In the Pentagon, Rozamus and his superiors fumed. ‘Get that little Jew off the committee,’ ordered Major Simpson of the Pentagon’s intelligence section during a conversation in Washington with Klaus’s superior.

‘What the Germans did during the war was irrelevant,’ recalled another army officer. ‘We had to keep the scientists out of the Russians’ hands.’

Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph were veterans of the infamous programme to build V2 rockets, the secret weapons that Hitler (pictured) believed would obliterate London and save Germany from defeat in the Second World War

So, with the support of senior politicians, Klaus was removed from the visa section.

The next step was to sanitise the security records. Paperclips were attached to all the files requiring attention and American officers in Germany were told to ‘rewrite’ reports, allowing the Pentagon and State Department to form ‘a different interpretation’. Overnight, Herbert Axster, von Braun’s assistant, was given ‘a clear record’. Rudolph was declared to be ‘not an ardent Nazi’. Von Braun’s revised report said his records had been lost in the Soviet zone of Germany and that ‘no derogatory information’ was available.

The path to permanent residence was now clear and, for the most important of the Nazi scientists, US citizenship soon followed. Protecting Nazi mass murderers was by now a favoured – if secret – policy in Washington. In 1949, the CIA invented the ‘Ratline’ to help their German agents and informants to escape Europe to South America. Among the first to flee was Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief known as the Butcher of Lyons.

Not merely rehabilitated but thoroughly respected, in September 1962 von Braun met President Kennedy in Huntsville, Alabama. As the chief director of the American Apollo programme, von Braun had arranged for Kennedy to witness the test firing of a Saturn rocket, the type that would eventually deliver Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon.

Charismatic and smiling, von Braun greeted the President as if he were a close friend and, together, the two men watched as the orange flames spurted out of the base and the rocket launched successfully. Turning to Kennedy, von Braun said: ‘I will fulfil your promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of this decade. And by God we’ll do it.’

Von Braun was simply too important for the Americans to allow his murderous past to interfere. A clutch of war criminals had now become Cold War heroes.

Wernher von Braun would die in 1977 in Virginia without a blemish on his reputation. Arthur Rudolph was less fortunate. In 1984, Eli Rosenbaum, a zealous lawyer in the US Office of Special Investigations, forced Rudolph to renounce his American citizenship and return to Germany. ‘I’m really angry,’ Rudolph told me before leaving America for ever. ‘I helped put the first man – an American – on the Moon and then I was treated like this.’ He died in 1996 in Hamburg aged 89. He was never brought to justice for his wartime barbarity.

Today, we know the truth in all its terrible detail. Yet there was no mention of these monstrous crimes during last week’s celebrations of the astonishing Moon landing 50 years ago. Why?

The victims of their achievement deserved better.

• Tom Bower is author of The Paperclip Conspiracy.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

23-07-2019 om 00:55 geschreven door peter  

Satellietbeelden onthullen: grote delen van de Noordpool staan in brand - HLN.be

Bron: De Morgen

Bij ons is de tweede hittegolf van het jaar deze week een feit, maar ook elders in de wereld beleven ze een hete zomer. Vorige maand ging de geschiedenisboeken in als de warmste juni sinds het begin van de metingen. En daar ondervindt ook de Noordpool de gevolgen van.

Lees ook

Alaska breekt het ene na het andere warmterecord: “Beren en elanden zoeken verkoeling onder sproeiers in de tuin”

Gigantische gebieden

Ten noorden van de Noordpoolcirkel leiden de hoge temperaturen en de droogte dit jaar tot ongeziene bosbranden. Al zou je het misschien niet verwachten, een bosbrand op de Noordpool is niet ongewoon. De schaal waarop het vuur nu om zich heen grijpt, is dat echter wel.

Geograaf Pierre Markuse verzamelde een hele reeks satellietbeelden van de branden en postte ze online. De beelden tonen gigantische gebieden gehuld in rook, brandende bomen en verwoeste landschappen. 

 Flickr/Pierre Markuse

Flickr/Pierre Markuse 

Impact

De branden hebben een enorme ecologische impact. Gegevens van de Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) tonen aan dat het vuur in juni verantwoordelijk was voor 55 megaton CO₂-uitstoot - meer dan de uitstoot van alle juni-branden van 2010 tot 2018 bij elkaar geteld. En ook juli staat op het punt om alle records te breken.

Volgens Mark Parrington, wetenschapper aan het European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast, is er tussen 1 juni en 21 juli ongeveer 100 megaton CO₂ uitgestoten, of bijna zoveel als de CO2-uitstoot van heel België in 2017.

De Wereld Meteorologische Organisatie (WMO) noemt de branden in het Noordpoolgebied “ongeëvenaard” en waarschuwt voor de enorme impact op de klimaatcrisis. “De aanhoudende branden zijn het ernstigst in Alaska en Siberië”, klinkt het. “Sommige branden zijn zo groot als bijna 100.000 voetbalvelden. In Alberta, Canada, woedt zelfs een brand van meer dan 300.000 voetbalvelden groot. In Alaska alleen zijn dit jaar bijna 400 bosbranden geregistreerd, en elke dag ontstaan er nieuwe.”

Het noordelijke deel van de wereld warmt sneller op dan de planeet als geheel, zegt de WMO nog. “Die hitte droogt de bossen uit en maakt ze vatbaarder voor branden. De schaal waarop de bosbranden plaatsvinden is in zeker 10.000 jaar niet vertoond.”

 Flickr/Pierre Markuse

Flickr/Pierre Markuse 

Flickr/Pierre Markuse

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

23-07-2019 om 00:14 geschreven door peter  

22-07-2019 om 23:52 geschreven door peter  

22-07-2019 om 23:45 geschreven door peter