The photographer was driving home from work when he noticed a disc-shaped object in the clouds above Jaksonville, Floirda.

He was able to take a picture before the UFO vanished and said: "The flying-saucer-shaped object looks nothing like I have ever seen before in my time in the military and outside."

Mufon case 102650 - Date of sighting: 2017-10-03 - Image submitted to Mufon: 2019-08-10.

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

11-08-2019 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

A stargazer landed the shot of a lifetime on Wednesday after he captured extremely rare footage of a mysterious flash of light on Jupiter, which may have been an elusive meteor explosion.

Texas astrophotographer Ethan Chappel captured the incredible sight while he was filming the planet, and said the event on Jupiter's southern equatorial belt "looks awfully like an impact flash." A bright spot can be seen appearing out of nowhere before it quickly fades away, reports RT.

"After I checked the video and saw the flash, my mind started racing! I urgently felt the need to share it with people who would find the results useful," Chappel told ScienceAlert.

Astronomer Jonti Horner said he had "never seen anything like that before," and described the flash as "just totally breathtaking."

"A lot of the time these things will go unnoticed and unobserved," he explained. "Half of them will happen on the far side of the planet. So there's a lot of things working against seeing these events."

A 1998 study found the rate of large impacts on Jupiter are between 2,000 and 8,000 times the rate of impacts on Earth. Capturing the impacts are rare, however. One was captured in 2009 and again in 2010.

Video impact on Jupiter Twitter account Chappel AStro: https://twitter.com/ChappelAstro 

Chappel Astro@ChappelAstro

Imaged Jupiter tonight. Looks awfully like an impact flash in the SEB. Happened on 2019-08-07 at 4:07 UTC.

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

11-08-2019 om 22:04 geschreven door peter  

The Rocket Engine for NASA's New Orion Spacecraft Just Aced a Critical Test (Video)

By Chelsea Gohd 

The service module fired its propulsion system continuously for 12 minutes.

The Aug. 5 test was conducted using a qualification version of the propulsion system at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico. While the system never left the ground, it simulated one of the most taxing situations the spacecraft’s engines could encounter after launch.

Photo: NASA

The main rocket engine for NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which will be used during the space agency’s Artemis Program, has passed a critical test.

NASA plans to return to the moon by 2024 under direction from the White House. The Artemis Program intends to land more men on the moon as well as the first women.

The propulsion system for Orion’s service module fired continuously for 12 minutes during a test this week, simulating engine activity during an abort-to-orbit scenario. The propulsion system showed it was capable of getting the craft into orbit around the moon if the interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) had not put the craft on the correct path.

The tests form part of the formulation of a contingency plan that would allow the mission to be completed, in part or entirely, should the launch procedure not go according to plan. Engineers fired Orion’s main engine and all eight of the module’s auxiliary engines at the same time and conducted a battery of tests during the 12-minute simulation.

“The tests at White Sands have been very helpful to better understand and operate our service module propulsion system,” said Jim Withrow, project manager for the test article. “This firing was one of a series of tests performed to date and in the coming months to simulate contingency modes and other stressful flight conditions.”

NASA building on success

NASA has made good progress on the Orion Spacecraft with this week’s test coming just a month after the craft’s crew capsule successfully completed a launch-abort test.

“This was our most demanding test for the pressurization system, including our propellant tanks, valves and other components,”Josh Freeh, deputy manager of the Orion Service Module at NASA’s Glenn Research Center said in a statement issued to the press.

“Inserting Orion into lunar orbit and returning the crew on a trajectory back home to Earth requires extreme precision in both plotting the course and firing the engines to execute that plan … With each testing campaign we conduct like this one, we’re getting closer to accomplishing our missions to the Moon and beyond,” Mark Kirasich, program manager for Orion at NASA’s Johnson Space Center added.

Crew safety and mission integrity are a big priority for NASA who want to ensure the expensive mission is a success while also ensuring the safety of the astronauts.

“Well, we’re looking at really anything that can threaten their lives,” Jason Hutt, Orion Crew Systems Integrations Lead said during the In Case of Emergency podcast.

“So we’re looking at fires — see, you know, we had the Apollo 1 Fire early on in our history, and that’s something that we use — we’ve studied that event to make sure that we don’t repeat something like that. We’ve looked at a leak in the spacecraft, we know there’s been history with the collision with the Mir Program that caused the depress on that, we look at that type of situation, and then there are other medical emergencies and things like that that we need to prepare for, while astronauts are typically the healthiest people on to planet, we still need to prepare for things that are unexpected in those events.”

• Tags: NASA

{ https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/ }

11-08-2019 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

Tiny Alien Statue On Mars Tells Us What They Looked Like! UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Aug 2019

Location of discovery: Mars Sol 1296

Source photo: 

• https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=1296ML0061540090405348E01_DXXX&s=1296

This alien statue is 100% evidence that intelligent aliens once lived and thrived on Mars. I can easily make out the feet, legs, upper legs and thinner waist, shoulders, neck and extraordinary detailed head with extended cranium. 

 

This is a fantastic discovery by Youtube Art Alien who finds some really incredible alien artefacts on Mars. This find is one that allows us to see what the aliens that lived here once looked like, how tall they were and how they had a larger cranium. Undeniable evidence that is proof that NASA true purpose is to hide the truth from the public. 

Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

11-08-2019 om 18:31 geschreven door peter  

Space Station Found At Orion Constellation! Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Aug 2019
Location of discovery: Orion Constellation

I have been using this map program a few years now and have kept loads of things I have found in a file, this object being one of them. This giant blue crystal-like space station is out there near the Orion Constellation near the back foot. In the video I thought it was the head are, my bad. 

Clearly aliens can build a space station any way they want and this one seems to have a very artistic appearance to it. If your species is so advanced that their technology is millions of years ahead of our own, then they wont need planets any longer. They literally can chose to create their own planet size space stations and move from place to place in the universe. I would love to meet this species. It looks like a very creative species. 

If you can help me out by liking my video and subscribing, I sure would appreciate it. Thanks, 
Scott C. Waring-Taiwan

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

11-08-2019 om 18:27 geschreven door peter  

Dozens of UFOs Caught on Video Over Wyoming

The video description states the witness of the strange event saw UFOs that looked like some craft moving across the sky without any sound.

It seems that going into Area 51 might not be necessary to see creatures altogether from another planet as one Facebook event suggests. A mass UFO sighting was recently reported in Wyoming, US.

In a description of the YouTube video showing the UFOs, the phenomenon took place on July 26 over Casper City.

It presented the testimony, quoted by the owner of the YouTube channel Hidden Underbelly 2.0 from the eyewitness, saying the objects in the video were not orbs but rather appeared like crafts moving in complete silence.

The witness said they were not drones as they did not hear the propellers, but they had no idea what were those mysterious aerial things.

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

11-08-2019 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Spotted a Car-Size Asteroid Just Hours Before Impact

11-08-2019 om 01:47 geschreven door peter  

Strange Meteorite Discovered In Siberia Contains An 'Unnatural' Crystal

Despite the level of understanding and knowledge the world has about so many things, everyone is still getting excited about new discoveries and this one is no exception. A rare meteorite, which was found in Siberia, contains a crystal, or at least what appears to be a crystal. The mineral itself is quite rare as well and is also a mystery. While crystal is the term used to describe it, no one's sure what it actually is but here's what they know so far:

The Discovery

A fair few years ago now, scientists discovered a small piece of a mineral that was created shortly after the solar system, some four and half billion years ago. The mineral was brought to Earth by the Khatyrka meteorite, which landed in Eastern Siberia. Obviously, a 4 billion-year-old mineral would be incredibly interesting to almost anyone, but not so much in this case. It was still quite intriguing but not for its sheer age, as many would expect, but for its atomic structure instead.

The structure that this mineral possesses is one that has never before been found in nature, although it has been created in laboratory environments. It was referred to as a quasicrystal because from the exterior it resembles a crystal, but on the inside, it's a whole other kettle of fish.

Crystal or No Crystal?

Many people are probably wondering - what constitutes a crystal? A mineral needs to have set properties, specifically with the atomic structure, to be considered a crystal. Namely, it needs lattices. A crystals atoms are arranged in lattice structures, are very predictable, and will just keep repeating themselves. However, while this new mineral may look like a crystal on the outside, it isn't a crystal on the inside. The quasicrystal did have lattices, however, they were ordered and not consistent and identical. Therefore, it can't be a crystal, can it?

The atoms were arranged in a variety of different configurations, which, based on human understanding of science and chemical composition, was simply not possible in nature. Yet here it is. Despite quasicrystals being created in labs since the 1960s, many scientists still doubt the fact that they can exist in nature. It is with this in mind that the teams studying the crystal have concluded that it was formed off the planet and traveled here. Even so, if it was formed under astrophysical conditions over 4 billion years ago, it's still proof that this phase of matter can remain stable over huge periods of time, perhaps even indefinitely.

The discovery of these quasicrystals really puts into perspective how much we think we know as an intelligent species, but also reminds us that we don't know nearly as much as we think we do. The universe is a huge place with diversity around every corner and there's still so much more to find out. Researching these quasicrystals would be a good place to start but there's still so much more still to discover.

{https://www.disclose.tv/ }

11-08-2019 om 01:19 geschreven door peter  

NASA Figured Out How To Make Food Out Of CO2 - It Could Feed Billions

A company from Finland, Solar Foods, are planning to sell food created from carbon dioxide (CO2). They are, quite literally, creating food out of thin air! The company has plans to bring a new protein powder, Solein, to market. It's made out three simple, cheap, and readily available ingredients - CO2, water, and electricity. While this may not sound appealing at first, it's actually incredibly nutritious. Essentially, its a high-protein, ingredient, resembling flour, that contains 50 percent protein content, 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbohydrates.

There are a massive number of potential uses for an ingredient such as Solein and it is expected to be the main component of a lot of foods when it hits the shelves in 2021. It's most likely to first appear in protein shakes and yogurt, both of which are simple foods to add it to. This may be a very exciting development as the creation of Solein is carbon neutral but it also helps remove CO2 from the atmosphere, being beneficial in two respects!

Beginning in 2018, Solein has come so far since it was created. NASA actually came up with the idea first and Solar Foods has since taken it to a commercial level. With plans to release the product as soon as 2021 and produce 2 million meals every year, it won't be long before Solein is in everything. By 2050, the company has high hopes to be providing sustenance for up to 9 billion people as part of a $500 billion protein market. At the rate things have taken place so far, there's no doubt that Solar Foods will achieve their targets.

To create Solein, Solar Foods extracts CO2 from the air using carbon-capture technology. Then, they combine the carbon dioxide with water, nutrients, and vitamins, using 100 percent renewable solar energy from their partner, Fortum, to promote a naturalfermentation process similar to the one that produces yeast and lactic acid bacteria. This is such a natural process, needing no man-made products, that it could single-handedly solve the world's food crisis.

Furthermore, Solar Foods has claimed that their product is completely free from agricultural limitations, and they aren't lying! Solein can be grown indoors so there's no need for arable land, and it's not dependent on favorable weather either. In fact, this seems so promising that the European Space Agency has already started working with the company in an attempt to develop foods for off-planet production and consumption. This could be the answer that they have been looking for.

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{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

11-08-2019 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Earth's lucky escape 565 million years ago: Study finds our planet's magnetic field was 'on the verge of collapse'

• Life on Earth would have faced severe challenges if the field had collapsed
• Solar wind would have stripped the planet of its atmosphere and bombarded the surface with harmful radiation
• Study could also improve the search for alien life, giving astronomers a new glimpse into how planets that can sustain life form

By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

Earth narrowly avoided a catastrophic collapse of the magnetic field that protects our planet 565 million years ago, it has been revealed.

Researchers say that it is had collapsed, life on Earth would have faced severe challenges as the solar wind would have stripped the planet of its atmosphere and bombarded the surface with harmful radiation. 

Researchers found that, luckily, our planet's core solidified 'right in the nick of time', recharging Earth's magnetic field when it was at its weakest point.

Scroll down for video     

Rochester researchers say earth was saved by the planet's core solidifying, recharging Earth's magnetic field when it was at its weakest point.

The discovery provides a new insight into the formation of Earth's core, and backs the theory the Earth's core is relatively young.

Scientists led by Richard Bono, a palaeomagnetism researcher at the University of Rochester, studied single crystals of plagioclase and clinopyroxene formed 565 million years ago in what is now Canada's eastern Quebec.

Our planet's magnetic field is believed to be generated deep down in the Earth's core.

This data allowed them to reconstruct this timeline of Earth's inner core 'nucleation,' or solidification for the paper published online this week in Nature Geoscience.

They found unprecedentedly low geomagnetic field intensities, revealing there was a high frequency of magnetic reversals at that time, suggesting that the geodynamo was on the point of collapsing.

'An enduring mystery about Earth has been the age of its solid inner core,' the researchers wrote. 

Estimates of when the inner core solidified vary widely, ranging between 2.5 billion and 500 million years ago. 

In an accompanying News & Views article, Peter Driscoll writes that 'the nucleation of the inner core may have occurred right in the nick of time to recharge the geodynamo and save Earth's magnetic shield.'

Driscoll said scientists had previously interpreted the weak magnetic field 565 million years ago as being the result of 'rapid tectonic motion, hyper-frequent polarity reversals, and even an equatorial dipole.

'A young inner core is consistent with thermal history models of the Earth9–12 that predict a large transfer of heat from the core to the mantle due, indirectly, to upward revisions to the thermal conductivity of the core,' he wrote. 

The new study could also improve the search for alien life, giving astronomers a new glimpse into how planets that can sustain life form. 

Earth is made up of several different layers, each with unique properties.

At the deepest level is the inner core which is believed to be solid. This produces Earth's magnetic field and protects us from cosmic radiation. 

The next layer is Earth's liquid core which is a fluid layer about 2,200 km (1,400 miles) thick and composed of mostly iron and nickel.

The mantle is the largest region of subterranean Earth and makes up around 84 percent of the planet's volume. 

It sits between the crust and the outer core and is broken down into two sections - upper and lower. 

The asthenosphere is a part of the upper mantle that sits below the lithosphere and is believed to be involved in plate tectonic movement. 

Earth is made up of several different layers, each with unique properties. These are: lithosphere, asthenosphere, mantle and core (pictured)

The lithosphere is the region of the planet that is known as the crust and some pats of the uppermost mantle. it features everything we think of as the ground.

It is made up predominantly of silica and  is broken up into the tectonic plates. 

The Lithosphere-Asthenosphere boundary (LAB) is defined by a difference in response to stress.

The plates and the lithosphere often remain rigid but the weaker and more viscous asthenosphere can move and is know to move. 

This movement causes plates to move into, underneath and below others and  the LAB is the fundamental cause behind tsunamis and earthquakes as well as mountain range formation.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

11-08-2019 om 00:38 geschreven door peter  

Earth's Last Magnetic-Pole Flip Took Much Longer Than We Thought

Earth's north and south magnetic poles flip-flop over long timescales. New research into volcanic rocks may explain how it happens.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

In the new study, the researchers relied on flow sequences of lava that erupted close to or during the last reversal, to measure its duration. Using this method, they estimated that the reversal lasted 22,000 years — much longer than the previous estimates of 1,000 to 10,000 years. 

"We found that the last reversal was more complex, and initiated within the Earth's outer core earlier, than previously thought," lead study author Bradley Singer, a professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Space.com. 

While conducting studies on a volcano in Chile in 1993, Singer stumbled upon one of the lava-flow sequences that recorded part of the reversal process. While trying to date the lava, Singer noticed odd, transitional magnetic-field directions in the lava-flow sequences.

"Such records are indeed extremely rare, and I am one of very few people who date them," Singer said.

Since then, he's made it his career-long goal to better explain the timing of magnetic-field reversals. 

The reversals take place when iron molecules in Earth's spinning outer core start going in the opposite direction as other iron molecules around them. As their numbers grow, these molecules offset the magnetic field in Earth's core. (If this were to happen today, it would render compasses useless as the needle would swing from pointing towards the north pole to pointing to the south.)

During this process, Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from hot sun particles and solar radiation, becomes weaker. 

"This kind of duration would mean the shielding of the Earth from solar radiationwould be very complex and, on average, less effective over a longer time period," John Tarduno, a professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester who was not involved in the study, told Space.com. "The actual effects of that are still debatable, and they're not as tragic or as extreme as someone might suggest, but there still can be important effects."

Some of these effects, Singer suggested, could include genetic mutations or additional stress on certain animal or plant species, or possible extinctions, due to increased exposure to harmful ultraviolet light from the sun. An increase in particles from the sun entering Earth's atmosphere could also cause disruption to satellites and other communication systems, like radio and GPS, he added.

Recent reports of the magnetic field jolting from the Canadian Arctic toward Siberia have sparked debate over whether the next magnetic-field reversal is imminent and what kind of impact that would have on life on Earth.

However, Singer dismissed these claims. "There is little evidence that this current decrease in field strength, or the rapid shift in position of the north pole, reflect behavior that portends a polarity reversal is imminent during the next 2,000 years," he said.

Using the data gathered from lava flows, geologists can learn a lot more about magnetic-field reversals. "Even though volcanic records are not complete records, they're still the best kind of records we have of recording a given time and place," Tarduno said. "Higher accuracy in the age dating, and being able to get more detailed records [of the reversals]...will give the community a lot to think about," he added. 

The paper was published on August 7 in Science Advances.

• Magnetic Fields of 'Hot Jupiter' Exoplanets Are Much Stronger Than We Thought 
• An Electro-Blob Under Africa May Be 'Ground Zero' for Earth's Magnetic Field Reversal 
• Earth's Magnetic Field Can Reverse Poles Ridiculously Quickly, Study Suggests 
• Follow Passant Rabie on Twitter @passantrabie. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

11-08-2019 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

Kevin Randle has, for more than forty-five years, studied the UFO phenomena in all its various incarnations. His training by the Army and the Air Force provides Randle with a keen insight into the operations and protocols of the military, their investigations into UFOs, and into a phenomenon that has puzzled people for more than a century.

During his investigations, Randle has traveled the United States to interview hundreds of witnesses who were involved in everything from the Roswell, New Mexico crash of 1947, to the repeated radar sightings of UFOs over Washington, D.C. in 1952, to the latest of the abduction cases.

Peter Robbins is one of the most respected investigative writers and public speakers on the subject of UFOs. He has more than thirty years of experience as a researcher, investigator, writer, lecturer, activist, and author. A regular guest on radio shows around the country, he has appeared on or been a consultant to numerous television shows and documentaries. He is also co-author of the British best-seller, Left at East Gate: A First-Hand Account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident, Its Cover-Up, and Investigation.

One of the best-known UFO abduction stories is that of Travis Walton. He claims that on Nov. 5, 1975, as he and six others were returning from a day’s work cutting logs in Arizona’s Sitgreaves National Forest, he was zapped by a beam of light from the UFO, and taken aboard the craft for five days. His story won $5,000 as the Best UFO Case for 1975 from the National Enquirer, has been the subject of several books, as well as the Hollywood movie Fire in the Sky (1993).

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

11-08-2019 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

‘Hidden’ ancient galaxies discovery may redefine our understanding of the Universe

 BY ROB LEA 

The discovery of 39 ‘hidden’ ancient galaxies urges scientists to rethink their theories of fundamental aspects of the Universe — including supermassive black holes, star formation rates, and the ever-elusive, dark matter.

In an unprecedented discovery of astronomers, researchers have utilised the combined power of a multitude of observatories across the globe to discover a vast array of 39 previously hidden galaxies.

The finding — described by the researchers from the University of Tokyo as a ‘treasure trove’ — is the first multiple discoveries of this kind. But the finding is significant for more than its size alone.

In addition to containing a wealth of newly discovered ancient galaxies, an abundance of this particular type of galaxy suggests that scientists may have to refine current models of the universe.

This is because our current understanding of the universe and how it formed is built upon observations of galaxies in ultraviolet light. But observations in these wavelengths under-represent the most massive galaxies — those with high dust content and crucially, the most ancient.

This means that a discovery of such galaxies — such as the one just made — must force us to reconsider the rates of star formation in the early universe. The study explains that the population of stars discovered may mean that star formation rates were actually ten times greater in early epochs than previous estimates held.

There are also particular ramifications for our understanding of both supermassive black holes and their distribution, and for the concept of dark matter — the elusive substance which makes up 80% of the matter in the universe.

Despite the wealth of astronomical data that has become available to scientists since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers at the Institute of Astronomy in Toyko were aware there were things that Hubble simply couldn’t show us. It was these things — fundamental pieces of the cosmic puzzle — that they wanted to investigate.

They achieved this by unifying different observatories, using them to look more deeply in the Universe than Hubble alone could do. This is what led them to this huge collection of galaxies.

Researcher Tao Wang describes the uniqueness and magnitude of the team’s discovery: “This is the first time that such a large population of massive galaxies was confirmed during the first two billion years of the 13.7-billion-year life of the universe.

“These were previously invisible to us.”

Wang continues: “This finding contravenes current models for that period of cosmic evolution and will help to add some details, which have been missing until now.”

A different view of the universe

Wang explains that if we could see these galaxies and the light they shed, our view from the Milky way would be significantly different: “For one thing, the night sky would appear far more majestic. The greater density of stars means there would be many more stars close by appearing larger and brighter.

“But conversely, the large amount of dust means farther-away stars would be far less visible, so the background to these bright close stars might be a vast dark void.”

The galaxies have been difficult to see from Earth due to how faint they are. Were we able to see these stars, their density would make the night sky majestic, Wang says.

The light from these galaxies also has to battle extinction — the absorption of light) by intervening interstellar dust clouds. The light from the galaxies also has to travel great distances meaning the wavelength is redshifted by the expansion of the universe making it even less visible.

Professor Kotaro Kohno explains that this phenomenon is how the galaxies escaped Hubble’s gaze: “The light from these galaxies is very faint with long wavelengths invisible to our eyes and undetectable by Hubble.

“So we turned to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which is ideal for viewing these kinds of things. I have a long history with that facility and so knew it would deliver good results.”

This redshift due to cosmic expansion does have its advantages, however. It allows astronomers to estimate not just the distances to the galaxies in question, but it also allows them to calculate just how long ago the light was emitted.

The hidden implications of these hidden galaxies

The team’s finding is so controversial and poses such a radical rethink that they found their fellow astronomers were initially reluctant to believe they had found what they claimed.

Wang explains: “It was tough to convince our peers these galaxies were as old as we suspected them to be. Our initial suspicions about their existence came from the Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared data.

“But ALMA has sharp eyes and revealed details at submillimeter wavelengths, the best wavelength to peer through dust present in the early universe. Even so, it took further data from the imaginatively named Very Large Telescope in Chile to really prove we were seeing ancient massive galaxies where none had been seen before.”

The discovery has the potential to reshape our ideas of the supermassive black holes that scientists currently believe nestle at the centre of most galaxies.

Kohno elaborates: “The more massive a galaxy, the more massive the supermassive black hole at its heart.

“So the study of these galaxies and their evolution will tell us more about the evolution of supermassive black holes, too.”

Kohno also explains that some ideas regarding dark matter may have to be revised, too: “Massive galaxies are also intimately connected with the distribution of invisible dark matter. This plays a role in shaping the structure and distribution of galaxies. Theoretical researchers will need to update their theories now.”

In addition to the potential shake up the team believes that their findings may already present, they expect more surprises to come.

Wang concludes: These gargantuan galaxies are invisible in optical wavelengths so it’s extremely hard to do spectroscopy, a way to investigate stellar populations and chemical composition of galaxies. ALMA is not good at this and we need something more.

“I’m eager for upcoming observatories like the space-based James Webb Space Telescope to show us what these primordial beasts are really made of.”

• Original research: T. Wang, C. Schreiber, D. Elbaz, Y. Yoshimura, K. Kohno, X. Shu, Y. Yamaguchi, M. Pannella, M. Franco, J. Huang, C.F. Lim & W.H. Wang. A dominant population of optically invisible massive galaxies in the early Universe. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586–019–1452–4

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

10-08-2019 om 23:58 geschreven door peter  

Aliens Might Never Appreciate How Cool Voyager’s Golden Record Is

If they find it, they may just be confused.

BY CARA GIAIMO

IN THE LATE SUMMER OF 1977, NASA launched a pair of interstellar probes, Voyager 1 and 2. Like most spacecrafts, these two were built to gather information about unknown realms. More unusually, they also had something to give in return: Each held a copy of what’s known as the Golden Record, a set of images and sounds carefully chosen to give anyone who might find them a taste of Earthly life.

More than 40 years after its launch, the Golden Record hasn’t found any extraterrestrial listeners—that we know of. It does, however, enjoy serious hometown fandom. Here on Earth, it’s been the subject of poetry books, an as-yet unproduced screenplay, and at least one SXSW panel. Last year, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, it even got a vinyl re-release. In a way, the record has already found its intended audience. As consultant B.M. Oliver wrote in a history of the project, “its real function … is to appeal to and expand the human spirit.”

But at least two diehard fans think there’s something to be gained from considering alternative audiences a bit more rigorously. “Every time you try to communicate, you have an intention you are after,” says Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguistics professor at Bowling Green University, and a board member of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), an organization dedicated to reaching out to aliens. “But you have no idea how you’re going to be received.”

Lately, Wells-Jensen, along with fiction writer Rebecca Orchard, have been examining the Golden Record with new eyes and ears. The result has been a confusing cacophony. “There are so many ways it could be misunderstood,” says Orchard, who presented on the topic at METI’s “Language in the Cosmos” conference this May. Like hapless teens making a mixtape, we’ve etched our soul onto this record and flung it at beings we don’t understand in the slightest. If they actually found it, what would they even think?

Getting to this scenario—in which someone Out There actually intercepts, and seriously tries to decode, the Golden Record—requires working through whorl after whorl of improbabilities. First of all, as its creators knew full well, “there’s an infinitesimally small chance that the Golden Record will be picked up,” says Wells-Jensen. “[The Voyager probes] are tip-toeing around out there in the interstellar void. They’re itty-bitty, and it’s dark … the odds are low.”

But suppose someone does tow the record out of nothingness, and bring it to some sort of extraterrestrial DJ station. In that case, “there are two things that could happen,” Wells-Jensen says. The first option is that the aliens already know what to do—that they’ve got a whole stack of interstellar missives, and a set of criteria for understanding them. She launches into an imitation: “They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s another artifact, from another planet that’s just creeping into a technological phase of civilization! A baby race. Isn’t it cute?’”

The second possibility, she continues, “is that instead, they look at it and go, ‘What the heck is that?’” It’s this particular what-if, she and Orchard agree, that is the most fun to think about.

The Golden Record is stuffed to the gills with information. It has 116 images, a mix of songs in different musical styles, and greetings recorded in 55 languages. There’s an audio collage, “The Sounds of Earth,” that starts with a sonic interpretation of planetary motion and ends with the zap of a pulsar, with stops in between for clanging rocks, barking dogs, and chugging tractors. There is also an hour’s worth of brain-and-heart data, transformed into sound. This came courtesy of the record’s creative director, Ann Druyan, who later wrote that she was thinking about “the history of ideas,” “the predicament our civilization finds itself in,” and “what it [is] like to fall in love”—specifically with project lead Carl Sagan, who she later married.

To an Earthly listener, this is all pretty understandable. Crickets and chimpanzees? We’ve heard those guys. “El Cascabel” followed by “Johnny B. Goode”? Let’s rock. Crushing on Carl Sagan? Hey, many of us get that, too. But begin to abstract yourself away, and the record looks and sounds increasingly curious. “It’s almost dizzying to think about all the different ways that these moments could be misinterpreted,” Orchard says.

Take, for example, that series of multilingual greetings. The messages say everything from “Hi, how are you?” to “We greet you, O great ones,” in languages that range from Akkadian to Zulu. Linda Salzman Sagan, who coordinated the recordings, described the overall effect as “an aural Gestalt, in which each culture is a contributing voice in the choir.” The structure of the recording—each snippet said by a different voice, one after another—might help to get this across, she wrote.

As Wells-Jensen points out, though, there are plenty of other interpretations available. “We can tell that those voices changing mean a different individual is speaking,” she says. “But that’s not necessarily clear [to an alien].” Is the whole recording one person, speaking in different ways? After all, many of the albums made on Earth are meant to showcase all the different things one person’s voice can do.

Or maybe it’s meant to be some kind of time-lapse—akin to Tony Schwartz’s “Nancy Grows Up,” in which the documentarian distilled recordings from 13 years of his niece’s life into a few minutes of sound. Another section of “Sounds of Earth” compilation does strive to be somewhat chronological: it moves from “timeless” sounds, like rainstorms and footsteps, through more recently developed ones, such as Morse code and rocket ships. If the aliens managed to figure this out, why wouldn’t they assume that “Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages” was instead “Earthling Grows Up”?

Even if they do grok that it’s multiple people, Wells-Jensen adds, “Why are they talking to each other? Are they having an argument? Are they playing a game, like we play telephone? Is it a religious ritual?” When you start to think in this way, 55 disjointed greetings all in a row doesn’t seem like an obvious call at all.

Then there are all of the things that could be considered clues, but aren’t. Orchard is particularly fascinated by the record’s 116 images, a selection of which can be seen here. “If you look at the photos back to back, parts of them form a narrative,” she says. For example, a fertilized ovum is followed by a fetus, and then a baby being born. Other juxtapositions, though, are not narrative at all. “There’s a picture of a toad in a hand, followed by a picture of a dead, upside-down alligator.” We humans know that these are two different creatures. But aliens, in their attempts to understand, might draw other conclusions. “Does the toad grow into that alligator?”

It’s also easy to imagine the aliens playing the “Sounds of Earth” while flipping through the images, lining the two up slideshow-style. (It’s a worthwhile exercise.) Some convergences are lucky: a photo of the Red Sea, for example, lines up with the sound of dripping water. But with others, further confusion emerges. The photo of an eagle, for example, goes with the sound of a chittering monkey, or perhaps even a clucking chicken (it’s hard to say for sure). Later, “you get the sound of a chainsaw with a little daffodil,” says Wells-Jensen. “So that’s one way in which the thing could be interpreted wrong.”

Both Wells-Jensen and Orchard emphasize that they’re not trying to pull a gotcha on the record’s creators, who were well aware of its limitations. In Murmurs of Earth, Sagan, Ann Druyan, Jon Lomberg, and others wrote at length about the many decisions they made during the compilation process. Some were rhetorical: They didn’t include any overtly distressing images, like mushroom clouds or sick people, because what if aliens took them as intimidations? Others were bureaucratic: NASA insisted that they include a roll-call list of various members of the 1977 U.S. Senate.

This kind of thing is a large part of why, just 40 years on, certain aspects of the record look ridiculous to Earthlings, too. “But you have to remember, they had six weeks!” says Wells-Jensen. “They did a great job.”

Besides, start thinking about what you’d do differently, and confusion starts to seem inevitable. Perhaps, rather than including so many messages in so many different languages, you want to say the same thing over and over again, in a Rosetta Stone sort of way. Wells-Jensen says this might not be such a great idea either, as it violates a conversational maxim that, at least on Earth, seems to be fairly common.

“If I tell you something four times, is that me trying to be really careful and really clear, or is that me telling you that you’re stupid?” she explains. “Or does it mean that I’m really boring, because I’ve only got one thing to say?” As for the photo/sound problem, should you make sure all those things line up perfectly? And if so, as Wells-Jensen puts it, “what sound does a flower make anyway?”

It’s enough to make one throw up one’s hands (and then put them down again, for fear of being seen as threatening to aliens). Other attempts at interstellar communication come with their own pros and cons. We beamed some scientific information toward a star cluster way back in 1974. In 2008, we sent a Doritos commercial to a nearby solar system.

METI tried its own strategy in 2017: it sent out a radio wave transmission made up of arithmetic, trigonometry, and geometry, working under the theory that whoever has the technology to receive the message probably understands math. Wells-Jensen considers all of this, collectively, to be a decent strategy. “I don’t know if we can be less confusing,” she says. “But we can, and should, try different things.”

Before and after we’ve tried them, it can’t hurt to think about how they might be received—even if we spin completely around, record-style, and end up mostly learning about ourselves instead. After all, “we’re just babies,” reiterates Wells-Jensen. “We just started going to our own moon.” We’ve still got a lot of work to do.

{ https://www.atlasobscura.com/ }

10-08-2019 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious, Ancient Radio Signals Keep Pelting Earth. Astronomers Designed an AI to Hunt Them Down.

10-08-2019 om 21:08 geschreven door peter  

Tardigrades Have Landed on the Moon. Here's What Their Survival Could Mean for Humanity.

By William Herkewitz And Daisy Hernandez

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/GETTY IMAGES

Tardigrades are one of the most fascinating creatures on Earth—and now, the moon, too. The mysterious microscopic critters have landed on the lunar surface in what sounds like the beginning of a sci-fi thriller. But they're not there as part of a hostile takeover. They're there completely by accident.

Back in April, the moon-bound Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed due to a computer error. Scientists loaded the tardigrades onto the Beresheet along with human DNA samples; when the lunar lander crashed, thousands of dehydrated tardigrades might have spilled onto the moon's surface, according to a WIREDreport.

The tardigrades were in "tun" form, a dormant state where they shrivel up into a ball, expel most of the water in their bodies, and lower their metabolism via cryptobiosis until they enter an environment better suited to sustain life. They can exist like this for decades. They're also pretty hardy and can endure the harshest environments, including subzero temperatures—and the recent crash landing.

"Tardigrades can survive pressures that are comparable to those created when asteroids strike Earth, so a small crash like this is nothing to them," Lukasz Kaczmarek, an expert on tardigrades, told The Guardian.

So what does this mean for humanity? That depends on what the research produces. If humans can replicate cryptobiosis in the way tardigrades do, we'd live far longer than the average life expectancy of 78.7 years for Americans.

According to Kaczmarek, when a tardigrade enters the tun state, it doesn't age. It becomes dormant at one month old and can wake up years later and still biologically be the same age.

“It may be that we can use this in the future if we plan missions to different planets, because we will need to be young when we get there," said Kaczmarek.

Until then, here's everything you need to know about these weird, wonderful creatures.

What's so special about tardigrades?

Tardigrades are a class of microscopic animals with eight limbs and a strange, alien-like behavior. William Miller, a leading tardigrade researcher at Baker University, says they are remarkably abundant. Hundreds of species "are found across the seven continents; everywhere from the highest mountain to the lowest sea," he says. "Many species of tardigrades live in water, but on land, you find them almost everywhere there's moss or lichen."

In 2007, scientists discovered that these microscopic critters can survive an extended stay in the cold, irradiated vacuum of outer space. A European team of researchers sent a group of living tardigrades to orbit the earth on the outside of a FOTON-M3 rocket for 10 days. When the water bears returned to Earth, the scientists discovered that 68 percent lived through the ordeal.

Wait, what? How is that possible?

Although (as far as we know) tardigrades are unique in their ability to survive in space, Miller insists that there is no reason to believe they evolved for this reason or—as a misleading VICE documentary has implied—that they are of extraterrestrial origin. Rather, the tardigrade's space-surviving ability is the result of a strange response they've evolved to overcome an earthly life-threatening problem: a water shortage.

Land-dwelling tardigrades can be found in some of the driest places on earth. "I've collected living tardigrades from under a rock in the Sinai desert, in a part of the desert that hadn't had any record of rain for the previous 25 years," Miller says. Yet these are technically aquatic creatures, and require a thin layer of water to do pretty much anything, including eating, having sex, or moving around. Without water, they're about as lively as a beached dolphin.

But land-dwelling tardigrades have evolved a bizarre solution to living through drought: When their environment dries up, so do they. Tardigrades will enter a state called desiccation, in which they shrivel up—losing all but around 3 percent of their body's water and slowing their metabolism down to an astonishing 0.01 percent of its normal speed. In this state, the tardigrade just persists, doing nothing, until it's inundated with water again. When that happens, the creature pops back to life like a re-wetted sponge and continues onward as if nothing had happened.

What's even more astonishing is that tardigrades can survive being in this strange state for more a decade. According to Miller, a few researchers believe some species of tardigrades might even be able to survive desiccation for up to a century. Yet the average lifespan of a (continuously hydrated) tardigrade is rarely longer than a few months.

"It sounds quite strange," says Miller, "that even though these tardigrades only live for a few weeks or months, that lifetime can be stretched over many, many years."

How does being dried out protect them from the vacuum of space?

In its desiccated state, the tardigrade is ridiculously, almost absurdly resilient. Laboratory tests have shown that tardigrades can endure both an utter vacuum and intense pressures more than five times as punishing as those in the deepest ocean. Even temperatures up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and as low as -458 degrees F (just above absolute zero) won't spell the creature's doom.

But the exact source of its resilience is a mystery, says Emma Perry, a leading tardigrade researcher at Unity College in Maine. "In general, we know very little about how this species functions, especially when we're talking about the molecular level."

There are clues. Scientists have learned that when the tardigrade enters its desiccated state, "it replaces some of its cell contents with a sugar molecule called trehalose," Perry says. Researchers believe this trehalose molecule not only replaces water, but also in some cases can physically constrain the critter's remaining water molecules, keeping them from rapidly expanding when faced with hot and cold temperatures. This is important, because expanding water molecules (like what happens when you get frostbite) can mean instant cellular death for most animals.

What about space radiation?

Space is deadly, and not just because of the vacuum. Outside our protective atmosphere there is killer radiation caused by distant supernovae, our sun, and other sources. Space radiation comes in the form of harmful charged particles that can imbed in the body of animals, ripping apart molecules and damaging DNA faster than it can be repaired.

But here, too, the tardigrade seems oddly prepared for life in space. According to Peter Guida, the head of NASA's space radiation laboratory, one of the biggest radiation concerns for astronauts (and space-bound tardigrades) is a set of molecules called reactive oxygen species. Ionizing radiation enters the body and bores into wayward molecules that contain oxygen. In simple terms, those newly irradiated molecules then troll through the body causing all sorts of harm.

Tardigrades during their desiccated state produce an abnormal amount of anti-oxidants (yes, these actually exist outside the health-food world), which effectively neutralize those roaming, evil reactive oxygen species. Partly because of this talent, tardigrades have been found to withstand higher radiation doses with far greater success than researchers would otherwise believe they should.

The reason that tardigrades would have evolved to survive high radiation doses is a mystery, too. However, Miller points to a leading theory: Perhaps tardigrades evolved to be swept up by the wind and survive in the earth's atmosphere—which would explain not only their hardiness but also that they're found the world over.

However it happened, there's still much, much more to learn about these fascinating creatures.

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

10-08-2019 om 20:25 geschreven door peter  

Alien abduction HORROR: Aliens ‘cause human PARALYSIS while fully conscious’

ALIEN abductees share horrifying similarities of their abduction experience, according to a bizarre documentary.

Millions of people from around the world claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrials.

The typical testimony from abductees describes how they are taken from their beds, homes, cars, and other locations and transported to spaceships manned by small grey aliens with oversized black, slanted eyes.

Memories of the abduction include being unable to move, hearing buzzing sounds, electrical sensations and difficulty breathing due to pressure on the chest.

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

10-08-2019 om 18:14 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – so far, with a lot more waiting for confirmation. Now, NASA has published a cool new video “summary” of the findings, a time-lapse map if you will, of the locations of these distant worlds in our galaxy. The video was produced by SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo, Andrew Santaguida), using the NASA Exoplanet Archive. It was posted to YouTube on July 7, 2019, by NASA’s APOD Videos and it ran as an Astronomy Picture of the Day on July 10.

Even though the video is short, just over a minute long, it takes the viewer on a time-lapse, condensed journey from 1991, when no exoplanets were known, to today, with more than 4,003 known exoplanets. More than? Yes. According to the NASA Exoplanet Archive the number is now at 4,031, so the map is already outdated! The map not only shows the planets’ locations, but also color-codes them based on what method they were discovered with, whether by radial velocity, transit, imaging or microlensing. What starts as an empty background becomes a galaxy filled with planets. And those are only the ones we know about so far.

It’s hard to think back to before the early 1990s, when astronomers believed exoplanets existed, but had not found a single one in outer space. Now we know of thousands, and scientists estimate that there are billions in our galaxy alone. When you combine that with the fact that there are at least 100 billion known galaxies, the total numbers of likely exoplanets becomes mind-boggling to contemplate.

The Kepler Space Telescope alone has confirmed 2,345 exoplanets, with another 2,420 awaiting confirmation. The Kepler mission has ended, but there are still tons of data to be analyzed, and many more worlds to be confirmed. Kepler revolutionized our knowledge of exoplanets, revealing a wide variety of worlds. Many are rocky planets like Earth, while others are like mini-Neptunes, and others are gas giants like Jupiter, extremely hot because they’re orbiting so close to their stars. Smaller rocky planets and planets that are gaseous but smaller than Neptune actually appear to be the most common exoplanets, at least from what we know so far, which is encouraging for the search for life elsewhere.

TESS – Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – is the newest space telescope dedicated to planet-hunting, and already has confirmed an additional 24 planets plus 993 additional candidates so far, as listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive. One advantage that TESS has is that is observing stars that are closer to us than the ones that Kepler looked at. That means those planets will be easier targets for follow-up observations, including by upcoming space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) , which can better analyze those planets’ atmospheres. By studying the atmospheres, scientists can search for evidence of biosignatures, gases in the atmosphere that may be produced by living organisms. On Earth, that would include oxygen and methane, although there are ways those gases can be created without life as well. Certain combinations of such gases, though, would more likely have a biological origin.

Artist’s concept of Kepler-186f, the first Earth-sized exoplanet found orbiting in the habitable zone of its star. A growing number of such worlds have been found in recent years.

Image via NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle.

Artist’s concept of seven Earth-sized worlds in the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. TRAPPIST-1e is one of the closest rocky planets orbiting a red dwarf star that may be able to support life.

Image via ESO.

Of course, beyond just finding out how many planets might be out there, people mostly want to know how many exoplanets might be habitable, or better yet, actually inhabited by some form of life. The search for biosignatures is one way to try to determine if a given planet has life. At the other end of the spectrum, a highly advanced alien civilization might make its presence known through megastructures such as Dyson spheres or other technosignatures.

We haven’t yet found any unambiguous evidence for alien life on any exoplanets, but we may be getting closer. Extrapolating from what has been discovered so far, rocky worlds like Earth are now thought to be some of the most common in our galaxy. That is an exciting development in itself. This includes some super-Earths, which are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Some of those planets have been found in the habitable zones of their stars, like Earth is, where temperatures could allow liquid water on their surfaces (depending on other variable factors). Other super-Earths are thought to be true water-worlds, completely covered by oceans.

What seems certain is that this map will continue to grow in the years ahead, with thousands more exoplanets expected to be discovered by TESS and other upcoming planet-hunting missions.

Here’s the new map of known exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant suns. It’s all 4,003 known exoplanets discovered as of 2019. This image was an Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 10, 2019.

Image via NASA/APOD.

• Bottom line: This cool new time-lapse video map by SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) – using the NASA Exoplanet Archive – shows all of the exoplanets discovered so far, from 1991 to the present.
• Via ZME Science
• Via APOD

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

10-08-2019 om 17:34 geschreven door peter  

What’s going on about 90 miles (150 km) below the Earth’s surface?

Image via Good Free Photos.

By Miles Bodmer, University of Oregon and Doug Toomey, University of Oregon

The Pacific Northwest is known for many things – its beer, its music, its mythical large-footed creatures. Most people don’t associate it with earthquakes, but they should. It’s home to the Cascadia megathrust fault that runs 600 miles (966 km) from Northern California up to Vancouver Island in Canada, spanning several major metropolitan areas including Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

This geologic fault has been relatively quiet in recent memory. There haven’t been many widely felt quakes along the Cascadia megathrust, certainly nothing that would rival a catastrophic event like the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake along the active San Andreas in California. That doesn’t mean it will stay quiet, though. Scientists know it has the potential for large earthquakes – as big as magnitude 9.

Geophysicists have known for over a decade that not all portions of the Cascadia megathrust fault behave the same. The northern and southern sections are much more seismically active than the central section – with frequent small earthquakes and ground deformations that residents don’t often notice. But why do these variations exist and what gives rise to them?

Our research tries to answer these questions by constructing images of what’s happening deep within the Earth, more than 90 miles (144 km) below the fault. We’ve identified regions that are rising up beneath these active sections which we think are leading to the observable differences along the Cascadia fault.

Cascadia and the ‘Really Big One’

The Cascadia subduction zone is a region where two tectonic plates are colliding. The Juan de Fuca, a small oceanic plate, is being driven under the North American plate, atop which the continental U.S. sits.

The Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American plate beneath the Cascadia fault.

Image via USGS.

Subduction systems – where one tectonic plate slides over another – are capable of producing the world’s largest known earthquakes. A prime example is the 2011 Tohoku earthquake that rocked Japan.

Cascadia is seismically very quiet compared to other subduction zones – but it’s not completely inactive. Research indicates the fault ruptured in a magnitude 9.0 event in 1700. That’s roughly 30 times more powerful than the largest predicted San Andreas earthquake. Researchers suggest that we are within the roughly 300- to 500-year window during which another large Cascadia event may occur.

Many smaller undamaging and unfelt events take place in northern and southern Cascadia every year. However, in central Cascadia, underlying most of Oregon, there is very little seismicity. Why would the same fault behave differently in different regions?

Over the last decade, scientists have made several additional observations that highlight variations along the fault.

One has to do with plate locking, which tells us where stress is accumulating along the fault. If the tectonic plates are locked – that is, really stuck together and unable to move past each other – stress builds. Eventually that stress can be released rapidly as an earthquake, with the magnitude depending on how large the patch of fault that ruptures is.

A GPS geosensor in Washington.

Image via Bdelisle.

Geologists have recently been able to deploy hundreds of GPS monitors across Cascadia to record the subtle ground deformations that result from the plates’ inability to slide past each other. Just like historic seismicity, plate locking is more common in the northern and southern parts of Cascadia.

Geologists are also now able to observe difficult-to-detect seismic rumblings known as tremor. These events occur over the time span of several minutes up to weeks, taking much longer than a typical earthquake. They don’t cause large ground motions even though they can release significant amounts of energy. Researchers have only discovered these signals in the last 15 years, but permanent seismic stations have helped build a robust catalog of events. Tremor, too, seems to be more concentrated along the northern and southern parts of the fault.

What would cause this situation, with the area beneath Oregon relatively less active by all these measures? To explain we had to look deep, over 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the surface, into the Earth’s mantle.

Green dots and blue triangles show locations of seismic monitoring stations.

Image via Bodmer et al., 2018, Geophysical Research Letters.

Imaging the Earth using distant quakes

Physicians use electromagnetic waves to “see” internal structures like bones without needing to open up a human patient to view them directly. Geologists image the Earth in much the same way. Instead of X-rays, we use seismic energy radiating out from distant magnitude 6.0-plus earthquakes to help us “see” features we physically just can’t get to. This energy travels like sound waves through the structures of the Earth. When rock is hotter or partially molten by even a tiny amount, seismic waves slow down. By measuring the arrival times of seismic waves, we create 3-D images showing how fast or slow the seismic waves travel through specific parts of the Earth.

Ocean bottom seismometers waiting to be deployed during the Cascadia Initiative.

Image via Emilie Hooft.

To see these signals, we need records from seismic monitoring stations. More sensors provide better resolution and a clearer image – but gathering more data can be problematic when half the area you’re interested in is underwater. To address this challenge, we were part of a team of scientists that deployed hundreds of seismometers on the ocean floor off the western U.S. over the span of four years, starting in 2011. This experiment, the Cascadia Initiative, was the first ever to cover an entire tectonic plate with instruments at a spacing of roughly 30 miles (50 km).

What we found are two anomalous regions beneath the fault where seismic waves travel slower than expected. These anomalies are large, about 90 miles (150 km) in diameter, and show up beneath the northern and southern sections of the fault. Remember, that’s where researchers have already observed increased activity: the seismicity. Interestingly, the anomalies are not present beneath the central part of the fault, under Oregon, where we see a decrease in activity.

Regions where seismic waves moved more slowly, on average, are redder, while the areas where they moved more quickly are bluer. The slower anomalous areas 90 miles (150 km) beneath the Earth’s surface corresponded to where the colliding plates are more locked and where tremor is more common.

Image via Bodmer et al., 2018, Geophysical Research Letters.

So what exactly are these anomalies?

The tectonic plates float on the Earth’s rocky mantle layer. Where the mantle is slowly rising over millions of years, the rock decompresses. Since it’s at such high temperatures, nearly 1500 degrees Celsius (2700 F) at 100 km (60 mi) depth, it can melt ever so slightly.

These physical changes cause the anomalous regions to be more buoyant – melted hot rock is less dense than solid cooler rock. It’s this buoyancy that we believe is affecting how the fault above behaves. The hot, partially molten region pushes upwards on what’s above, similar to how a helium balloon might rise up against a sheet draped over it. We believe this increases the forces between the two plates, causing them to be more strongly coupled and thus more fully locked.

A general prediction for where, but not when

Our results provide new insights into how this subduction zone, and possibly others, behaves over geologic timeframes of millions of years. Unfortunately our results can’t predict when the next large Cascadia megathrust earthquake will occur. This will require more research and dense active monitoring of the subduction zone, both onshore and offshore, using seismic and GPS-like stations to capture short-term phenomena.

Our work does suggest that a large event is more likely to start in either the northern or southern sections of the fault, where the plates are more fully locked, and gives a possible reason for why that may be the case.

It remains important for the public and policymakers to stay informed about the potential risk involved in cohabiting with a subduction zone fault and to support programs such as Earthquake Early Warning that seek to expand our monitoring capabilities and mitigate loss in the event of a large rupture.

• Miles Bodmer, Ph.D. Student in Earth Sciences, University of Oregon and Doug Toomey, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Oregon
• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
• Bottom line: Parts of the Pacific Northwest’s Cascadia fault are more seismically active than others. Imaging data suggests why.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

10-08-2019 om 17:19 geschreven door peter  

Boven ‘topgeheim’ heb je nog meerdere niveaus. Waarom zelfs presidenten geen toegang hebben tot UFO-geheimen

10-08-2019 om 16:17 geschreven door peter