Physicists Just Released Step-by-Step Instructions for Building a Wormhole

By Paul Sutter 

All you need are a couple of black holes and some cosmic strings. No biggie.

(Image: © Shutterstock)

Everybody wants a wormhole. I mean, who wants to bother traveling the long-and-slow routes throughout the universe, taking tens of thousands of years just to reach yet another boring star? Not when you can pop into the nearest wormhole opening, take a short stroll, and end up in some exotic far-flung corner of the universe. 

There's a small technical difficulty, though: Wormholes, which are bends in space-time so extreme that a shortcut tunnel forms, are catastrophically unstable. As in, as soon as you send a single photon down the hole, it collapses faster than the speed of light.

But a recent paper, published to the preprint journal arXiv on July 29, has found a way to build an almost-steady wormhole, one that does collapse but slowly enough to send messages — and potentially even things — down it before it tears itself apart. All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings. 

Easy-peasy.

The wormhole problem

In principle, building a wormhole is pretty straightforward. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, mass and energy warp the fabric of space-time. And a certain special configuration of matter and energy allows the formation of a tunnel, a shortcut between two otherwise distant portions of the universe.

• Related: 8 Ways You Can See Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Real Life

Unfortunately, even on paper, those wormholes are fantastically unstable. Even a single photon passing through the wormhole triggers a catastrophic cascade that rips the wormhole apart. However, a healthy dose of negative mass — yes, that's matter but with an opposite weight — can counteract the destabilizing effects of regular matter trying to pass through the wormhole, making it traversable.

OK, matter with negative mass doesn't exist, so we need a new plan.

Let's start with the wormhole itself. We need an entrance and an exit. It's theoretically possible to connect a black hole (a region of space where nothing can escape) to a white hole (a theoretical region of space where nothing can enter). When these two odd creatures join together, they form a brand-new thing: a wormhole. So you can jump into either end of this tunnel and instead of getting crushed into oblivion you just harmlessly waltz out the other side.

Oh, but white holes don't exist, either. Man, this is getting tricky.

Charge it up

Since white holes don't exist, we need a new plan. Thankfully, some clever math reveals a possible answer: a charged black hole. Black holes can carry an electric charge (it's not common because of the way they're formed naturally, but we'll take what we can get). The inside of a charged black hole is a strange place, with the normal point-like singularity of a black hole stretched and distorted, allowing it to form a bridge to another oppositely charged black hole.

Voila: a wormhole, using only things that might actually exist.

But this wormhole-via-charged-black-holes has two issues. One, it's still unstable, and if something or someone actually tries to use it, it falls apart. The other is that the two oppositely charged black holes will be attracted to each other — both through gravitational and electric forces — and if they fall together you just get a single, big, neutrally charged and altogether useless black hole.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Put a cosmic bow on it

So to make this all work we need to make sure the two charged black holes stay safely far away from each other, and make sure the tunnel of the wormhole can hold itself open. A potential solution: cosmic strings.

Cosmic strings are theoretical defects, similar to the cracks that form when ice freezes, in the fabric of space-time. These cosmic leftovers formed in the early, heady days of the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. They are truly exotic objects, no wider than a proton but with a single inch of their length outweighing Mount Everest. You never want to encounter one yourself, since they would slice you clean in half like a cosmic lightsaber, but you don't have to worry much since we're not even sure they exist, and we've never seen one out there in the universe.

Still, there's no reason they can't exist, so they're fair game.

They have another very useful property when it comes to wormholes: enormous tension. In other words, they really don't like being pushed around. If you thread the wormhole with a cosmic string, and allow the string to pass along the outside edges of the black holes and stretch out of either end all the way to infinity, then the tension in the string prevents the charged black holes from being attracted to each other, holding the two ends of the wormhole far away from each other. Essentially, the distant ends of the cosmic string act like two opposing tug-of-war teams, holding back the black holes.

Calming the tremors

One cosmic string solves one of the problems (holding the ends open), but it doesn't prevent the wormhole itself from collapsing if you were to actually use it. So, let's toss in another cosmic string, also threading the wormhole, but also looping it through normal space between the two black holes. 

When cosmic strings are closed in a loop, they wiggle — a lot. These vibrations churn the very fabric of space-time around them, and when tuned just right the vibrations can cause the energy of space in their vicinity to go negative, effectively acting like negative mass within the wormhole, potentially stabilizing it.

It seems a little complex, but in the recent paper, a team of theoretical physicists gave step-by-step instructions for constructing just such a wormhole. It's not a perfect solution: Eventually the inherent vibrations in the cosmic strings — the same ones that might keep the wormhole open — pull energy, and therefore mass, away from the string, making it smaller and smaller. Essentially, over time the cosmic strings wiggle themselves into oblivion, with complete collapse of the wormhole not far behind. But the kludged-together wormhole may stay stable long enough to allow messages or even objects to travel down the tunnel and actually not die, which is nice. 

But first we need to find some cosmic strings.

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of Your Place in the Universe.

• 9 Ideas About Black Holes That Will Blow Your Mind
• Interstellar Space Travel: 7 Futuristic Spacecraft to Explore the Cosmos
• Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts

Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

One hypothesis is that some catastrophe, a single event such as a powerful storm, had befallen a large group of people. But DNA analysis of 38 of the skeletons has turned that idea on its head.

The remains appear to come from distinct groups of people from as far as the Mediterranean, and they arrived at the lake several times over a 1,000-year span.

"Through the use of biomolecular analyses, such as ancient DNA, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever anticipated," said geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School.

The story began to unfold a decade ago. Geneticist Kumarasamy Thangaraj of India's CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 72 of the skeletons.

As Thangaraj and his late colleague Lalji Singh had expected, some of the skeletons had DNA consistent with a local Indian origin. But some did not. Several skeletons appeared to have originated around West Eurasia.

This warranted further investigation - a deep dive by way of whole genome sequencing. Genome-wide DNA was successfully generated for 38 individuals. These 38 genomes were then compared against 1,521 ancient and 7,985 present-day individuals from around the world.

(Himadri Sinha Roy)

This analysis revealed three distinct groups. The largest consisted of 23 individuals with DNA similar to that of people from present-day India. Apart from this, they seemed genetically unrelated.

The second-largest group, comprising 14 individuals, was a huge surprise. Their DNA was most similar to people in present-day Crete and Greece.

Finally, the one remaining individual had DNA suggesting a Southeast Asian origin.

"We were extremely surprised by the getics of the Roopkund skeletons," said evolutionary biologist Éadaoin Harney of Harvard University.

"The presence of individuals with ancestries typically associated with the eastern Mediterranean suggests that Roopkund Lake was not just a site of local interest, but instead drew visitors from across the globe."

Analysis of isotopes extracted from the bones supported these findings. Certain stable isotopes in the soil can be taken up into plants, which are then consumed by people. The isotopes replace some of the calcium in teeth and bones; these can then be matched to geographical locations.

"Individuals belonging to the Indian-related group had highly variable diets, showing reliance on C₃ and C₄ derived food sources. These findings are consistent with the genetic evidence that they belonged to a variety of socioeconomic groups in South Asia," said archaeologist Ayushi Nayak of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

"In contrast, the individuals with eastern Mediterranean-related ancestry appear to have consumed a diet with very little millet."

(Pramod Joglekar)

Even more surprising was the staggered arrival times of the groups. Radiocarbon dating placed the Indian-related bones between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. It's possible they were divided into different groups at different times within this timespan.

But the other two groups, from the Mediterranean and from Southeast Asia, were dated to between the 17th and 20th centuries CE. That's just a few hundred years ago. And it's possible that the remains that haven't been tested could include other groups, from other times and other regions.

It's possible we may never know - but future research could contain answers.

"It is still not clear what brought these individuals to Roopkund Lake or how they died," said geneticist Niraj Rai of the Birbal Sahni Institute of PalaeosciencesRai.

"We hope that this study represents the first of many analyses of this mysterious site."

• The research has been published in Nature Communications.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:56 geschreven door peter  

28-08-2019 om 16:44 geschreven door peter  

Metal-detecting couple find one of Britain's biggest ever treasure hoards as they discover almost 2,600 ancient coins worth around £5m in an unploughed field

• Adam Staples and Lisa Grace unearthed 'once in a lifetime' find of 2,600 coins
• Although smaller than famous Staffordshire Hoard  it is about £1m more valuable
• The silver coins made up of King Harold II pennies from Anglo-Saxon England
• There were also William the Conqueror coins, from after 1066 Norman conquest
• Many in the find in Somerset in mint condition and could be worth £5,000 each

By JAMES GANT FOR MAILONLINE

A metal-detecting couple have found one of the biggest treasure hoards in British history which is believed to be worth around £5million.

Adam Staples and partner Lisa Grace unearthed the 'once in a lifetime' find of almost 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years.

Although the find is smaller than the famous Staffordshire Hoard - the biggest collection of buried coins and artefacts discovered in Britain - it is thought to be at least £1million more valuable.

Adam Staples (right) and partner Lisa Grace (left) unearthed the 'once in a lifetime' find of almost 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II (pictured) pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest.

Many of the coins are in mint condition and could be valued anywhere between £1,000 and £5,000 each.

Experts say the coins would have been a substantial amount of money at the time and belonged to an important, wealthy person who probably buried them for safekeeping.

The couple (pictured) notified both the county's local finds liaison officer as they were obliged to by law and have given the coins to the British Museum in London to evaluate

Mr Staples and Miss Grace, 42, made the astonishing find with their metal detectors while searching an unploughed field on a farm in the north east Somerset area in January.

As King Harold's reign only lasted nine months, before he was famously struck in the eye by an arrow at the Battle of Hastings, coins from that period are incredibly rare.

The hoard is also thought to contain coins struck by previously-unknown moneyers.

In an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine, they described the hoard as 'amazing' and 'absolutely mind-blowing'

The couple notified both the county's local finds liaison officer as they were obliged to by law and have given the coins to the British Museum in London to evaluate. 

Experts there have spent the last seven months assessing and cataloguing them and will later this week unveil them to the public for the first time.

If the hoard is declared treasure it will be up to a museum to compensate Mr Staples and Miss Grace with the monetary value of the coins - making them overnight millionaires.

The landowner will also be entitled to 50 per cent of the proceeds.

If the hoard is not deemed important enough for a museum then they will be returned to the finders who will will be able to sell the coins.

Mr Staples and Miss Grace, from Derby, have remained tight-lipped over their 'find of a lifetime'.

But in an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine, they described the hoard as 'amazing' and 'absolutely mind-blowing.'

The metal detecting grapevine has also been rife with news of the find, with scores of people posting messages of congratulations to the couple.

What was the 'Staffordshire hoard'?

A treasure hunter made the find in 2009.

It was the most valuable hoard of Saxon gold in history - estimated to be worth £3.3million ($5 million) - and includes 500 pieces such as gold sword hilts, jewels from Sri Lanka and early Christian crosses.

The 1,300-year-old treasure was discovered by unemployed Terry Herbert in July in a field owned by a friend in Staffordshire.

Some of the artefacts uncovered in Fred's field that went on to be valued at more than £3m

Within days, the 55-year-old former coffin factory worker from Walsall had filled 244 bags with gold objects weighing in at more than 11lbs (5kg).

Mr Herbert, who bought an old metal detector for £2.50 18 years ago, said he was overwhelmed by the find – regarded as one of the most important in decades.

‘I have this phrase that I say sometimes – “spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear” – but on that day I changed coins to gold,’ he said.

Some of the artefacts uncovered in Fred's field that went on to be valued at more than £3m

‘I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it. Maybe it was meant to be, maybe the gold had my name on it all along.

‘I was going to bed and in my sleep I was seeing gold items.’

The jewels are thought to have come from Sri Lanka - carried to Europe by traders.

The gold probably came from the Byzantine Empire, the eastern remnant of the Roman Empire based in what is now Istanbul.

The treasure dates from 675 and 725AD, the time of Beowulf – the great Anglo-Saxon poem.

Nigel Mills, a coin expert and consultant for London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb, said: 'I am told the coins are absolutely stunning.

'Each coin will have the moneyers name on and the mint of where it was issued.

'In the case of the Harold II coins, some will be from moneyers that we have not seen before.

'Harold II coins are rarer than William coins and could be worth between £2,000 to £4,000 each.

'The William I coins will be between £1,000 and £1,500. This hoard could be worth between £3m and £5m.

'Museums have been buying up all of the hoards found, but in this case the hoard may be too great for them. It maybe that an appeal for sponsors is launched to try and acquire them.'

He added: 'They would have been buried within two or three years after 1066 and probably before 1072.

'The Romans buried their coins for the Gods but in this case they were probably hidden and the owner died before they could go back for them.

'It would have been a substantial amount of money back not. Not a king, but somebody high up and important, somebody of substance.

'They didn't have banks back then so where else were they going to store their money safely?'

A spokesman for the Metal Detectives Group said: 'When you find something like that you keep where you find it very quiet.

'If it is treasure it will be put out to tender to museums to acquire. A museum and treasure valuation committee will give the hoard a value.

'But you are talking a minimum of £500 per coin and with 2,500 coins that is a lot. But some will be rarer and more valuable than others.'

A spokesman for the British Museum said: 'We can confirm that a large hoard of late Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins was discovered in January and has been handed in to the British Museum as possible Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996). This appears to be an important discovery.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

Adam Staples and Lisa Grace were out searching in an unploughed field on a farm in the Somerset area in January of this year when they discovered one of the biggest ever treasure hoards in British history. They found nearly 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years and have an estimated worth of approximately £5million (just over $6.1 million in American money). Many of the coins were in mint condition and could be worth as much as £1,000 and £5,000 each.

The silver coins included King Harold II pennies which were from the end of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as William the Conqueror coins which date back to after the 1066 Norman Conquest. Since King Harold only reigned for nine months, coins from that time period are extremely rare. Experts believe that a wealthy person of importance probably buried the coins as they were worth quite a bit of money at that time. It has been estimated that whoever buried the coins would have done so after the year 1066 but before 1072.

After the couple found the coins, they contacted the county’s local finds liaison officer and the “treasure” was brought to the British Museum in London so they could evaluate them. The coins will be displayed for the public to see later this week. If the coins are declared as a treasure, the museum will pay the couple for the coins (landowner will get 50% of their value), however, if the museum decides that they don’t want the coins, they will be returned to the couple who would then be able to sell them on their own.

A spokesman for the British Museum stated, “We can confirm that a large hoard of late Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins was discovered in January and has been handed in to the British Museum as possible Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996). This appears to be an important discovery.”

(Not the coins mentioned in this article)

The largest collection of buried coins and artifacts ever discovered in Britain was the “Staffordshire Hoard” that a treasure hunter found in 2009. The large 1,300-year-old collection of Saxon gold included gold sword hilts, early Christian crosses, and jewels from Sri Lanka. The hoard was valued at around £3.3million (just over $4 million in American funds). And while Mr. Staples and Ms. Grace’s discovery is smaller, it is at least £1million more valuable.

The couple have remained pretty quiet about their findings, but they did do an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine where they described their discovery as “amazing” and “absolutely mind-blowing”. You can see pictures of the coins here.

not the first time ( peter2011)

 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:20 geschreven door peter  

Among the oldest city sites found in Mesoamerica is the enigmatic cultural center of Monte Albán, the ancient political hub of the Zapotec people. This remarkable cultural group, who during their reign were called Be’ena’a, or “The People” in the indigenous Zapotec language, ruled from around 700 BC–1521 AD. Monte Albán served as the hub of a loosely-knit alliance of several Zapotec groups that had been rivals up until around 2000 years prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Monte Albán is a structural marvel in itself, resting atop and artificially leveled hilltop in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. The city rests between the confluence of the Rio Atomic and the Rio Salado rivers, and quickly became the economic anchor of the region, promoting trade and craftsmanship that may have attracted more than 30,000 residents at the height of its growth and political influence over the region.

However, what has remained among the site’s most famous—and curious—attractions are not just the building structures that were once the great city of Monte Albán, but also the famous carvings that adorn the site, known today as Danzantes.

Danzantes on display at Monte Alban; note that many of the stone slabs on display are replicas, with the originals kept inside the complex for protection

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

The Danzantes are a remarkable collection of carved stone slabs that feature bas-relief art depicting humans in various striking poses. Their name (“Los Danzantes” in Spanish) means “the dancers,” in reference to the curious gestures and contortions many of the figures on the stone faces depict, which are reminiscent of dancers. This early interpretation of the nature of these images may have given rise to their name, but little else about the Danazntes suggests dancing or festivity; as a result, the meaning behind these images has remained an item of debate among archaeologists for decades.

One peculiar feature of many of the Danzantes bas-reliefs is the presence of facial hair in the form of long beards worn by many of the figures. Facial hair is not common among the indigenous peoples of the region, which makes the images all the more curious; could this mean that some of the Danzantes actually depict foreigners?

Bearded figure depicted on one of the Danzantes slabs; note the curious positioning of the figure’s hands

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

This may provide a clue to the meaning behind the images, since another problem with the “dancer” theory has to do with the fact that most of the Danzantes are also depicted nude. Dancers, whether male or female, would not have been depicted nude by the cultures of Central Mexico during this period, as it was considered disgraceful. However, nudity does appear in art from other locations in the region, generally in depictions of captives from warfare who have been stripped in humiliation, often prior to their execution. The fact that many of the Danzantes appear to be foreigners would make sense, particularly if these figures represent the captives of war.

Other peculiarities in the appearance of the Danzantes include the fact that their feet appear to be placed at vertical angles, which has led some to theorize that the movements represented by the posing of the figures could actually denote swimming, as proposed by Augustín Villagra in the 1939, within a report he produced for the International Congress of Americanists in Mexico City.

While it is true that certain art depicting the Danzantes does appear to imply curving lines and similar features that might represent water, the “swimmer” theory has its own problems. Some of the figures appear to possess genital mutilation, as well as the appearance of glyphs, scrolls, or perhaps even tattoos adjacent to the apparent emasculations. Some have interpreted this as possible evidence of shamanic practices, where “ecstatic emasculation” might have served some kind of ritual purpose with the characters, especially if they might represent priests. Further, the notion of emasculation could be consistent with the bearded depiction of some of the characters, which might convey accelerated aging after castration has occurred.

Stelae depicting Danzantes figure with possible entrails spilling from the abdomen region

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

Altogether, the best theory appears to be that of prisoners, or perhaps even slain bodies lying on the ground; this would appear to reconcile most, if not all of the features associated with the Danzantes, from the mutilations and placement of the limbs, to the fact that the feet do not appear to convey that they stand on level ground.

In John F. Scott’s 1978 The Danzantes of Monte Albán, he noted the likelihood that the images depicted slain bodies:

The Danzantes have contorted and highly asymmetrical postures; their arms sprawl in front of their torsos or over their heads. Most significant are the leg positions, which usually avoid any suggestion of resting on a ground line; quite possibly the Danzantes should be seen as if lying on the ground. The position of the limbs, the frequent indication of closed eyes on the grimacing faces, and the horizontal placement of slabs with elongated figures, all indicate that they represent slain victims lying on their sides or backs.

However, if the images of the Danzantes actually do illustrate slain enemies, what message was this intended to convey about Monte Albán to those who came there at the height of the Zapotecs?

Danzantes stela depicting scroll-like glyphs and symbols, some of which overlay the body of the character; note the placement of the limbs, suggesting a prostrate position of an individual lying on the ground

(Credit: Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons).

“This is the kind of propaganda that one associates with an emerging state that is fighting to take control over previously autonomous regions and wants to discourage resistance,” wrote Joyce Marcus, a Latin American archaeologist and professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Marcus continues:

“Of the shared conventions in Mesoamerican iconography some of the most widespread are those depicting captives. Prisoners are displayed in humiliation: they are stripped naked and bound, and their posture is awkward. The captors, in contrast, are dressed in elegant regalia and are posed in rigid dignity. If a prisoner has been sacrificed, he is  shown with his eyes closed and his mouth open, and in many instances with flowery scrolls, presumably representing blood, issuing from his wounds.”

It would indeed seem likely that this is the best explanation for the enigma that is the Danzantes imagery at Monte Albán. In any case, their name appears to be a misnomer, as they certainly don’t seem to be dancers. And yet, unraveling the significance of these strange and, at times, rather grisly images tells us much about the politics and practices of this region of the ancient world. Nonetheless, Monte Albán and its curious stone stelae is a place that–to the modern observer–is, and probably will remain quite mysterious.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-08-2019 om 16:09 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica Irrefutable Evidence Of Hidden Civilization! New Location Reveal Stunning Finds!

Google Earth Pro 2019 Updated Imagery(!)

• Terra Nova Canyon Gray Alien Seen Exiting Cave…. 69°14’50.90″S 156°59’0.42″E
• Pleisiosaur (Elasmosaur ) Head, Neck and Body….. 69° 4’10.56″S 156°13’32.48″E
• Evidence of Tracks/Activity.. 69° 4’34.19″S 156°14’10.87″E
• Brown Ice/Kill Site… 69°13’57.69″S 157°45’9.08″E
• Saucer Crash Site… 69°25’45.23″S 156°22’48.57″E
• Ancient Trails/Foot paths.. 69°13’11.84″S 157°43’41.39″E 69°11’35.53″S 157°38’53.96″E

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 15:38 geschreven door peter  

Two UFO Seen From Passenger Jet Over Mexico, Aug 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Aug 2019
Location of sighting: Over Mexico

This object was recorded by a person in a passenger jet over Mexico. The object seems to pass below the jet. The control is too big to be a jet or even several jets. There are only two possible explanations. 1st its a UFO entering earths atmosphere. Or 2nd, it is meteor entering earths atmosphere breaking up. 

To me it seems to be going too slow to be a meteor. This is a UFO. Its hidden in the cloud but is black and huge. Parts of it are sticking out of the front end showing reflectiveness. Clearly this UFO was trying to quickly hide from view of the passenger jet and created this cloud around it, but you can see it moving forward and the black UFO revealing itself a little bit. There is also a white diamond shaped UFO hovering above the black larger UFO. Can you see it? Its two UFOs! One guiding the other. 

There are several volcanos near Mexico city where huge UFOs have been seen entering and exiting on live cam. This UFO was headed to one of those volcanos, where an underground alien base sits 5-6km below the ground.
Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 15:08 geschreven door peter  

A Doomed Comet Just Fell Into the Sun. Here's the Video.

28-08-2019 om 01:50 geschreven door peter  

There Are Thousands of Tardigrades on the Moon. Now What?

By Mindy Weisberger 

Did they survive their crash landing? If so, what happens to them now?

Dehydrated tardigrades that crash-landed on the moon in April won't come back to life anytime soon

(Image: © © Shutterstock)

Tardigrades, which live on every continent on Earth, are also (maybe) living on the moon, following the crash of a lunar lander carrying thousands of the microscopic water bears.

Did any of them survive the impact? If they did, what happens to them now?

When the tardigrades were placed on the Israeli moon mission Beresheet, they were in a tun state — dehydrated, with their chubby limbs and heads retracted and all metabolic activity temporarily suspended. Their arrival on the moon was unexpectedly explosive; Beresheet's crash landing on April 11 may have scattered the microorganisms onto the lunar surface. 

Tubby tardigrades are notoriously tough, but were the Beresheet tardigrades hardy enough to survive that impact? It's certainly possible that some of them made it to the moon intact. But what would that mean for the moon to have what might be thousands of Earth microbes as new inhabitants? And what might it mean for the tardigrades?

• Related: 8 Reasons Why We Love Tardigrades

First of all, is anyone in trouble for accidentally spilling tardigrades on the moon? That's a complicated question, but the short answer is no. Space agencies from around the world follow a decades-old treaty about what is permissible to leave on the moon, and the only explicit prohibitions are against weapons and experiments or tools that could interfere with missions from other agencies, according to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

In the decades that followed the treaty, other guidelines were created that acknowledged the risks of seeding other worlds with Earth microbes, and these stipulations outlined practices for sterilizing mission equipment to avoid contamination. But even though large space agencies typically follow these rules, there is no single entity enforcing them globally, Live Science previously reported.

Scientists have yet to find any evidence that the moon ever hosted living organisms (other than visiting astronauts and microbial hitchhikers from Earth) that could be threatened by microscopic invaders. However, contamination could carry serious consequences for missions to planets where life might yet be found, such as Mars; experts suggest that one potential consequence of colonizing Mars could be the extermination of native microbial life through exposure to Earth bacteria.

It's possible that even before the Beresheet tardigrades crashed on the moon, other forms of terrestrial microbes were already there: gut bacteria in abandoned bags of astronaut poo, said Mark Martin, an associate professor of biology at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.

"I'd be very surprised if you couldn't culture a few things out of the center of that freeze-dried material," Martin told Live Science. "Especially spore-formers. They make a very thick outer layer of their spore proteins that's known to protect them against dehydration, radiation — a variety of things."

Sole survivor

Tardigrades survive conditions that would destroy most other organisms; they do so by expelling the water from their bodies and generating compounds that seal and protect the structure of their cells. The creatures can remain in this so-called tun state for months and still revive in the presence of water; scientists even resuscitated two tardigrades from a 30-year deep freeze in 2016.

As a tun, a tardigrade can weather boiling, freezing, high pressure and even the vacuum of space, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported in 2008, after sending water bears into orbit. Ultraviolet radiation turned out to be the tardigrades' kryptonite, as few of the creatures survived full exposure to UV light during the ESA experiments.

This could be good news for the desiccated Beresheet tardigrades. If they landed in a spot on the moon shielded from UV radiation, the microscopic creatures might stand a chance of survival, Martin said.

"My guess is that if we went up in the next year or so, recovered the wreckage, and found these tiny, little tuns and put them in water, a few of them would come back to life," he explained. 

But as long as the tardigrades remain on the moon, their chances of spontaneously awakening are low. Without liquid water, the tiny creatures will remain in a tun state, and while there's evidence of ice on the moon, liquid water is nowhere to be found. 

Even if the lunar tardigrades did somehow encounter liquid water while still on the moon, without food, air and a moderate ambient temperature, they wouldn't last very long once they revived, Kazuharu Arakawa, a tardigrade researcher with the Institute for Advanced Biosciences at Keio University in Tokyo, told Live Science in an email.

"Much as I would love to see the establishment of the Lunar Tardigrade Republic, I don't think that's going to happen," Martin said.

• Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures
• 5 Strange, Cool Things We've Recently Learned About the Moon
• Top 10 Amazing Moon Facts
• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

28-08-2019 om 01:32 geschreven door peter  

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine says 'Pluto is a planet' and claims the distant world should not have been demoted as he reignites a decade-long row

• Pluto was demoted to the 'dwarf planet' category in ruling from 2006  
• Categorisation caused outrage among experts and fuelled a decade-long row
• Mr Bridenstine is a committed Pluto believer as  'it's the way I learnt it, and I'm committed to it' he said during an interview  

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE 

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has reasserted his belief that Pluto should be a classed as a planet and reignited a debate which has raged for more than a decade, 

Astronomers and leading scientists have long squabbled over the issue of Pluto and its classification as a non-planet since its demotion in 2006.  

Mr Bridenstine st N ated in a recorded, but not broadcast, interview excerpt that he is still firmly of the belief that Pluto should be classed as a legitimate planet. 

Scroll down for video  

 Mr Bridenstine stated in a recorded, but not broadcast, interview excerpt that he is still firmly of the belief that Pluto (pictured) should be classed as a legitimate planet 

'Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet,' he said while on a tour of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building at the University of Colorado Boulder.

'You can write that the NASA Administrator declared Pluto a planet once again. I'm sticking by that, it's the way I learnt it, and I'm committed to it.'

It comes on the 13th anniversary of Pluto's fall from grace and formal demotion to a 'dwarf planet'. 

WHY IS PLUTO NOT A PLANET?

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, a global group of astronomy experts, established a definition of a planet that required it to 'clear' its orbit, or in other words, be the largest gravitational force in its orbit.

The IAU used this to shake up the planetary world and remove Pluto from the ranks of the solar system's elite bodies, taking the number of planets down to nine. 

Since Neptune's gravity influences its neighbouring planet Pluto, and Pluto shares its orbit with frozen gases and objects in the Kuiper belt, that meant Pluto was out of planet status. 

But despite the official ruling, many have never accepted it. 

Mr Bridenstein is one of the die-hard supporters of Pluto and his latest remark backs this up. 

'Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet,' Mr Bridenstine (pictured) said while on a tour of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building at the University of Colorado Boulder. 'You can write that the NASA Administrator declared Pluto a planet once again. I'm sticking by that, it's the way I learnt it, and I'm committed to it'

Cory Reppenhagen

✔@CReppWx

My favorite soundbyte of the day that probably won't make it to TV. It came from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. As a Pluto Supporter, I really appreciated this. #9wx #PlutoLoversRejoice @JimBridenstine

• 532

9:22 PM - Aug 23, 2019

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However, it is unlikely to sway the official bodies and spur them into action to reinstate Pluto.  

A study from last year however, is one of the latest to ad more robust support than the whimsical wishes of the NASA administrator. 

Research from the University of Central Florida in Orlando claims the reason Pluto lost its planet status is 'not valid'. 

It reviewed scientific literature from the past 200 years and found only one publication - from 1802 - that used the clearing-orbit requirement to classify planets, and it was based on since-disproven reasoning.

'The IAU definition would say that the fundamental object of planetary science, the planet, is supposed to be a defined on the basis of a concept that nobody uses in their research,' said UCF planetary scientist Philip Metzger, who is with the university's Florida Space Institute.

'And it would leave out the second-most complex, interesting planet in our solar system.'

Metzger said moons such as Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Europa have been routinely called planets by planetary scientists since the time of Galileo. 

'We now have a list of well over 100 recent examples of planetary scientists using the word planet in a way that violates the IAU definition, but they are doing it because it's functionally useful.'

'It's a sloppy definition

'They didn't say what they meant by clearing their orbit. If you take that literally, then there are no planets, because no planet clears its orbit.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

28-08-2019 om 00:58 geschreven door peter  

Charlotte Edwards, Digital Technology and Science Reporter

POOR Pluto was declassified from being a planet in our Solar System to just a humble dwarf planet 13 year ago.

Despite it being over a decade since this decision was made, the topic is still hotly disputed and there are those who think Pluto should be labelled as a planet once more.

The International Astronomical Union made the final decision but it seems NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has put himself firmly in Pluto's corner.

Bridenstine recently spoke out about his support for Pluto as a planet during a tour of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Nasa chief said: "Just so you know, in my view, Pluto is a planet.

"You can write that the NASA Administrator declared Pluto a planet once again. I'm sticking by that, it's the way I learnt it, and I'm committed to it."

Cory Reppenhagen

✔@CReppWx

My favorite soundbyte of the day that probably won't make it to TV. It came from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. As a Pluto Supporter, I really appreciated this. #9wx #PlutoLoversRejoice @JimBridenstine

• 532

21:22 - 23 Aug 2019

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• 229 people are talking about this

Bridenstine's lighthearted comment doesn't change Pluto's classification but it does bring to light the ongoing debate once more.

Pluto was removed from the list of nine planets in August 2006 mostly because its properties were more suited to the definition of a dwarf planet.

The difference between a dwarf planet and a planet is largely to do with the space around it.

Planets have a clear area around their orbit whereas dwarf planets do not.

There are also many other celestial objects a similar size to Pluto with unclear orbits so some scientists have argued that if Pluto where to be considered a planet then all those other objects would have to be too.

However, Pluto has other features like a multilayered atmosphere, moons, weather and organic compounds that all make the issue regarding its planet status even trickier.

Pluto facts

Here's what you need to know...

• Pluto was discovered in 1930
• It was considered to be one of nine planets in our Solar System until 2006
• The decision to declassify Pluto was controversial because, even though it is small and doesn't have a clear orbit, it has lots of other planet like features like an atmosphere and weather
• Pluto is the largest dwarf planet
• Pluto has five known moons
• Pluto was visited by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, during which pictures were taken of its surface

{ https://www.thesun.co.uk/ }

28-08-2019 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

Is Pluto dan toch een planeet? Volgens NASA-directeur wel - HLN.be

Bron: The Independent

Toen Pluto in 1930 werd ontdekt door de Amerikaanse astronoom Clyde Tombaugh, werd het hemellichaam geclassificeerd als planeet en werd het zo de negende planeet van ons zonnestelsel. Toen men 62 jaar later ook andere even grote objecten in de ruimte ontdekte, kwam men op die beslissing terug. In 2006 werd uiteindelijk beslist om buitenbeentje Pluto, die kleiner is dan de overige planeten, als dwergplaneet te benoemen. Sindsdien hoort Pluto dus niet meer bij de overige planeten Mercurius, Venus, de Aarde, Mars, Jupiter, Saturnus, Uranus en Neptunus.

Lees ook

“Pluto misschien toch een volwaardige planeet”

Sindsdien zijn er geregeld verhitte discussies over die degradatie. En nu mengt dus ook de NASA-directeur zich in het debat.  Hij staat resoluut aan de pro-planeetzijde en trekt de beslissing van dertien jaar geleden in twijfel. “Ik blijf erbij, het is de manier waarop ik het geleerd heb, en ik blijf erachter staan”, verdedigde hij gisteren op een bijeenkomst van het FIRST Robotics event in Oklahoma.

Planeet

Volgens de definitie is een hemellichaam een planeet van zodra het aan drie criteria voldoet: het draait in een baan rond een ster, het heeft voldoende zwaartekracht om een ronde vorm aan te nemen en het bevindt zich in de baan baan rond een ster waar het  zijn eigen baan heeft schoongeveegd van andere objecten.

Hoewel Pluto de eerste twee eigenschappen kan afvinken, is het niet groot genoeg om ook aan de derde eis te voldoen. Om die reden werd in 2006 dus beslist om het hemellichaam tot dwergplaneet te degraderen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

27-08-2019 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

27-08-2019 om 23:35 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Skeletons with Alien-Like Heads Unearthed in Croatia

27-08-2019 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

27-08-2019 om 23:16 geschreven door peter  

POLICE RAID UFO SIGHTING HOTSPOT FOR SUSPECTED FOREST ENCROACHMENT

By Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter

Police and Forestry officials at Khao Kala in Nakhon Sawan on Aug. 16, 2019.

NAKHON SAWAN — Police are investigating whether a meditation center known for UFO sightings is encroaching on protected forests, after dual raids on Thursday and Friday. 

Dozens of policemen and rangers rushed Khao Kala mountain for a second time Friday to determine whether the Khao Kala Meditation Center, run by a group of UFO believers, is encroaching on forest area. Police have also issued summons for the landowners of the meditation center. 

“If we find anyone guilty of wrongdoing, we will file a criminal case against them. If a UFO descends and parks here, that’s even better. We’ll capture them all,” Police Maj. Gen. Damrong Petpong said. 

Police were drawn to raid the area after the UFO Kaokala group organized a UFO-watching event for Saturday, with locals reporting that some adherents believe they are mediums for aliens from Pluto.

UFO Kaokala is a group of UFO believers who maintain that aliens communicate with them via meditation. They say their communications with aliens enhance their Buddhist practices and even help them predict natural disasters (a group member predicted in 2017 that World War III will ignite by 2022). 

The group was founded in 1998, when nurse Somjit Reapeth said she saw aliens at Nakhon Sawan mountain. Since then, the mountain has become Thailand’s go-to UFO sighting spot. 

Saturday’s event is actually Somjit’s birthday. As of press time, an organizer named “Jack,” whose phone number is on the event page, said that the event will still go on, but at the foothills rather than the peak of the mountain. Admission is free and transportation via van from Bangkok will be provided. Contact Jack at the number listed on the event page if interested.

• Read: I Went to a Bangkok Hotel to Hear Apocalyptic Alien Prophecies

Officials armed with coordinate measuring machines canvassed the mountain from its foothills to its peak on Thursday and Friday. 

“The Forestry Department will use satellite GPS to check whether, and how much, the center is on forest space. We will proceed according to the law,” Pinit Laoyuu from the local Forestry Department said. 

Pinit said Friday that he estimated about 3 to 5 rai (0.48 to 0.8 hectares) of the meditation center encroaches on forest. He said that forest officials will be securing the area. 

“For the time being, we will not allow people to pitch tents or hold activities here since a case is ongoing,” Pinit said.

Charoen Raepetch, the listed owner of the meditation center, was not on site Thursday. When contacted, he said that he would not be returning to the mountain any time soon and half-jokingly said that he was “afraid the Forestry people would capture him.” 

Police have summoned Charoen as well as others suspected of being involved in the meditation center for questioning. 

Despite the police presence, locals have flocked to the mountain to take photos, exchanging alleged UFO sightings. Some say that the lights at night can be explained away by shooting range practice at a nearly military case. Others are UFO Kaokala adherents with tents, set on seeing aliens via meditation, with or without forestry officials nearby. The mediums include a doctor and a captain in the military.

Chaliew Phoocharoen, the sub-district head of Khao Kala tambon, said that most people living in the area are not alien believers, and that most of the followers are from out-of-town. µ

blob:https://vdokh.matichon.co.th/82db0f7a-756e-4862-a201-85884dc803e4

The Friday raid on Khao Kala.

blob:https://vdokh.matichon.co.th/abc3d32d-da76-43f4-b96d-d0f7cbbf3b3a

The Thursday raid on Khao Kala.

Related stories:

• I Went to a Bangkok Hotel to Hear Apocalyptic Alien Prophecies

{ http://www.khaosodenglish.com/ }

27-08-2019 om 23:12 geschreven door peter  

27-08-2019 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

What Everybody Needs to Know About the Amazon Rainforest

By Geraldo Luís Lino

The Amazon Rainforest biome has an extension of about 6.7 million square kilometers shared between Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and the French Guyana. Some 62% of it is in Brazil, where 84% of its original area at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 A.D. are preserved. This mostly untouched area is about the size of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Spain and Portugal together; if it were a country, it would be the world seventh in extension, larger than India.

The Amazon Rainforest must not be confused with the Legal Amazon (Amazônia Legal), a geographical region delimited for the purpose of establishing special tax regimes in order to encourage economic activities in the nine Northern Brazilian states. These states comprise 61% of the national territory but harbor less than 13% of the country’s population, and account for less than 8% of Brazil’s GDP. Their low living standards can be assessed by the fact that only 13% of its urban inhabitants have access to sewage systems; a great part of the 4 million Brazilians who do not have a simple toilet at home live there. The region also holds significant parts of other two Brazilian biomes, the Cerrado (savannah) and the Pantanal (wetlands). The Legal Amazon has 5.1 million sq.km; the Brazilian part of the Rainforest, 4.2 million sq.km.

The Rainforest is not the “lungs of the world”; its vegetal and animal biotas consume all the photosynthesis-generated oxygen in their process of respiration (yes, plants do breathe), so the net budget is near zero. (And lungs do not produce oxygen, after all.)

It is not a functional “carbon sink” either, because as a stable climax ecosystem its net carbon budget is also close to zero (except when it burns). Anyway, if people are worried about carbon, they should support the clearing of the forest and its replacement by the secondary regeneration vegetation (called “capoeira”) instead, that captures the atmospheric carbon during its growth, indeed. By the way, between 2008 and 2012, the area of “capoeiras” increased twice and a half faster than the area of cleared forest (there aren’t more recent data). (Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting this course of action.)

The Rainforest is obviously relevant for the biogeochemical cycles of the biosphere but it does not have any significant impact upon the world climate. Its chief contribution for the atmospheric dynamics is to recycle some half of the rainwater coming westwards from the Atlantic Ocean back to the atmosphere by means of evapotranspiration, forming a water vapor flow that is partly re-directed southward. This process is important for the Rainforest itself and its surroundings but its influence can hardly be regarded as being global.

• Shutting off Tap Water: Revenge of the Rainforest

The much-ballyhooed projections about a feared “tipping point” of deforestation beyond which the Rainforest would supposedly suffer an irreversible “dieback” are just products of mathematical models without factual evidence. These models may be useful as academic drills but should not be the turf of policymaking. If other biomes are useful for comparison, the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica), with a biodiversity similar to the Rainforest, covered 1.3 million sq.km of the Brazilian territory along the coast in the 16^th century, and has lost over 80% of its original area since but it has not suffered such a “dieback” so far. The hypothetical deforestation “tipping point” for the rainforest is 20%, a number that grants appealing apocalyptic forecasts and shocking media headlines but does not fit with the hard facts and the common sense.

The annual deforestation rates in the Legal Amazon have been decreasing steadily since the last decade, and are now well under 10,000 sq.km a year. Taking into account that much of this deforestation occurs in the Cerrado, a hypothetical linear projection using such rates suggests that it would take well over 400 years to clear the Rainforest entirely – an absurd scenario that is unimaginable by anyone in their right mind except some delusional and uninformed radical environmentalists, anyway.

Much of the deforestation occurs in private properties and government-sponsored settlement areas for small family farmers, meaning that it is legal. The Brazilian 2012 Forest Code allows that 20% of the property areas in the Rainforest and 50% in the Cerrado be cleared for economic use. Unfortunately, the deforestation rates regularly trumpeted in the media do not make this needed distinction.

The number of fires in the Legal Amazon (including the Cerrado) has also been falling since the record years of 2004-05; the projections for 2019 point that they will reach half or so the numbers of those years. A good deal of such fires occurs in private properties where people have been using fire as a method of cleaning the terrain for centuries; it’s not the best method but it is what they have access to. It’s relevant to notice that most of the fires are not located in the Rainforest itself but in its Southern transition zone to the Cerrado and in the Cerrado itself, as can be seen in the Fire Information for Resource Management System website (See this – the Rainforest is roughly delimited by the huge dark green and light green area north of parallel 15^oS). Incidentally, one can also observe that Brazil is far from being alone in the current worldwide fire season.

There are over 25 million people living in the Legal Amazon, most of them in precarious socio-economic conditions. The vast majority of people who cut trees or make use of fire are not criminals but do it because they need to eke out a living somehow (of course, there are criminals that manage to avoid the law enforcement and the due punishment, like everywhere else). Keeping in mind the respective proportions, nobody but some stubborn environmentalists is regarding the Germans as environmental criminals because the remnants of the Hambach Forest near Köln are intended to be felled by the RWE energy company, in order to get the lignite in the subsoil needed to fuel thermoelectric plants, after chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the closing of several of the country’s nuclear plants for purely political reasons.

Brazil is a developing country and is still struggling to find its way towards the full development of its human and natural resources. For the Amazon region, the path is not “preserving” it as a gigantic combo of botanic garden and zoo, as many people seem to think naively. It must begin with the long overdue tasks of land rights regularization, ecological-economic zoning, adding value to the local productions and resources with the best techniques available, improving and expanding the infrastructure needed to enable quality of life gains for the local populations and a massive effort of research and development of its vast biodiversity resources, combining research institutions, private enterprises and the precious traditional knowledge of its inhabitants. In short, a kind of an Industrial Amazon 4.0, an impulse capable of bringing most of its inhabitants to the levels of wellbeing permitted by the 21^st century knowledge. All this can and must be done with the needed care for the environment and, hopefully, we will be able to put this rational agenda in practice but a fundamental prerequisite for this is to dispel the myths and hysteria about the region and its development.

So, people, including foreign leaders and personalities, should inform themselves better before ridiculously blaming Brazil of “threatening the world climate”, or asking for sanctions against the country (mostly motivated by political and economical reasons). And the same goes for many Brazilians who are always willing to reverberate any criticisms against the country coming from abroad, regardless of their seriousness or lack thereof.

• https://www.globalresearch.ca/everybody-needs-know-about-amazon-rainforest/5687352

Geraldo Luís Lino is a Brazilian geologist, former environmental consultant and co-founder and director of the Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIa – www.msiainforma.org); e-mail: geraldoluislino@gmail.com. 

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Geraldo Luís Lino, Global Research, 2019

Articles by: Geraldo Luís Lino

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27-08-2019 om 22:44 geschreven door peter  

PPS Report – The Mysterious Elongated Skulls of Peru!

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

27-08-2019 om 22:24 geschreven door peter