Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
28-08-2019
This Newfound Alien Planet Has a Truly Bizarre Looping Orbit
This Newfound Alien Planet Has a Truly Bizarre Looping Orbit
Here's yet another reminder that alien worlds are far stranger and more diverse than our own solar system might suggest.
Astronomers just found a giant exoplanet three times more massive than Jupiter that loops around its host star on a highly elliptical path.
If this alien planet, known as HR 5183 b, were magically dropped into our solar system, its orbit would reach inside that of Jupiter but extend way out beyond the path of Neptune, discovery team members said.
This animated graphic shows the bizarre looping orbit of the alien planet HR 5183 b as compared to the orbits of planets in our own solar system. It takes between 45 and 100 years to complete one orbit, scientists say.
(Image credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)
"This planet is unlike the planets in our solar system, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far," Sarah Blunt, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and lead author of a new study announcing the existence of HR 5183 b, said in a statement.
"Other planets detected far away from their stars tend to have very low eccentricities, meaning that their orbits are more circular," Blunt added. "The fact that this planet has such a high eccentricity speaks to some difference in the way that it either formed or evolved relative to the other planets."
HR 5183 b orbits a star that lies about 100 light-years from Earth. Blunt and her colleagues found the planet using the radial velocity method, which looks for the gravitational tugs a world exerts on its host star.
The research team has been watching the parent star with several different telescopes since the 1990s. That's not long enough to capture a full orbit of the newfound world, which takes between 45 and 100 Earth years.
But the astronomers were still able to confirm HR 5183 b's existence, showing that the radial-velocity method can identify planets even with such partial information.
"This planet spends most of its time loitering in the outer part of its star's planetary system in this highly eccentric orbit; then, it starts to accelerate in and does a slingshot around its star," study team member Andrew Howard, an astronomy professor at Caltech, said in the same statement.
"We detected this slingshot motion," Howard added. "We saw the planet come in, and now it's on its way out. That creates such a distinctive signature that we can be sure that this is a real planet, even though we haven't seen a complete orbit."
The magnitude of HR 5183 b's gravitational tug allowed the team to calculate the planet's mass: about three times that of Jupiter.
The exoplanet almost certainly started life on a circular path but then had its orbit reshaped by a gravitational encounter, probably with a similarly sized neighbor world, study team members said.
HR 5183 b reinforces a cosmic truth: Our Milky Way galaxy is studded with a staggering array of planets. There are worlds with three parent stars and "rogues" that zoom through space alone, forever in the dark. There are huge "hot Jupiters" that circle their parents in just a few Earth days, and there are big worlds like HR 5183 b that take decades to complete a lap.
"Copernicus taught us that Earth is not the center of the solar system, and as we expanded into discovering other solar systems of exoplanets, we expected them to be carbon copies of our own solar system," Howard said.
"But it's just been one surprise after another in this field," he added. "This newfound planet is another example of a system that is not the image of our solar system but has remarkable features that make our universe incredibly rich in its diversity."
The new study will appear in The Astronomical Journal.
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated byKarl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom orFacebook.
Starhopper is passing the test-flight torch to orbital prototypes.
Starhopper's biggest leap was also its last.
SpaceX's first prototype for its Mars-colonizing Starship vehicle aced its final test flight today (Aug. 27), rising several hundred feet off the ground at the company's facility in the tiny South Texas town of Boca Chica.
Starhopper lifted off just after 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT; 5 p.m. local Texas time), reached a hover altitude and then flew sideways to touch town at a separate nearby landing pad. The entire flight lasted just 57 seconds.
"Congrats SpaceX team!!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter just after the flight.
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its Starhopper rocket prototype on its highest flight ever on Aug. 27, 2019. The reusable hopping rocket flew from one pad to the other, with a targeted 500-foot (150 meters) ceiling at SpaceX's South Texas test site near Boca Chica Village.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
The ceiling for today's flight was 150 meters (about 500 feet), SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter this week. That limit was imposed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which grants licenses for launches and test flights.
So, today's leap was quite a bit higher than Starhopper's three previous forays off of terra firma. The first two, conducted in early April, produced barely any separation between the craft and the ground; Starhopper was tethered for safety's sake both times. The prototype was first unleashed on July 25; the vehicle rose an estimated 65 feet (20 m) into the Texas sky.
Starhopper is powered by a single Raptor, the next-generation engine that SpaceX is developing for use on Starship and its giant rocket partner, Super Heavy. The 100-passenger Starship will have six Raptors and the Super Heavy will sport 35, with space for two more on the rocket, Musk has said.
Those numbers could change, however. The billionaire entrepreneur has promised to give a Starship design update soon after Starhopper's final flight.
Starhopper now hands the test-flight reins to two orbital prototypes, which SpaceX calls Starship Mk1 and Mk2. The company is building Mk1 in Boca Chica and Mk2 on Florida's Space Coast, reasoning that a little intra-company competition will improve the final Starship design.
Both Mk1 and Mk2 will be powered by at least three Raptors, Musk has said. The test launches of these prototypes will pave the way for operational Starship flights, which could begin as early as 2021.
Those first few commercial liftoffs will probably loft communications satellites. But the first passenger trip could follow shortly thereafter; Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has booked a Starship flight around the moon, with a target launch date of 2023.
Mars missions will be next, if all goes according to plan. Indeed, that's SpaceX's ultimate goal; Musk has repeatedly said that he founded the company back in 2002 primarily to help humanity colonize the Red Planet and become a multiplanet species.
Starhopper's flying days may be done, but the stubby prototype will be retasked rather than put out to pasture.
"Yes, last flight for Hopper. If all goes well, it will become a vertical test stand for Raptor," Musk said via Twitter on Saturday.
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated byKarl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom orFacebook.
In the early 1990s, one thing was fairly certain about the expansion of the universe. It might have enough energy density to stop its expansion and recollapse, it might have so little energy density that it would never stop expanding, but gravity was certain to slow the expansion as time went on. Granted, the slowing had not been observed, but, theoretically, the universe had to slow. The universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today. So the expansion of the universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.
Eventually theorists came up with three sorts of explanations. Maybe it was a result of a long-discarded version of Einstein's theory of gravity, one that contained what was called a "cosmological constant." Maybe there was some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space. Maybe there is something wrong with Einstein's theory of gravity and a new theory could include some kind of field that creates this cosmic acceleration. Theorists still don't know what the correct explanation is, but they have given the solution a name. It is called dark energy.
What Is Dark Energy?
More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the universe.
This diagram reveals changes in the rate of expansion since the universe's birth 15 billion years ago. The more shallow the curve, the faster the rate of expansion. The curve changes noticeably about 7.5 billion years ago, when objects in the universe began flying apart as a faster rate. Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart.
Credit: NASA/STSci/Ann Feild
One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the universe.
This image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520. The result could present a challenge to basic theories of dark matter.
Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual") particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10120 times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.
Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.
A last possibility is that Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct. That would not only affect the expansion of the universe, but it would also affect the way that normal matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies behaved. This fact would provide a way to decide if the solution to the dark energy problem is a new gravity theory or not: we could observe how galaxies come together in clusters. But if it does turn out that a new theory of gravity is needed, what kind of theory would it be? How could it correctly describe the motion of the bodies in the Solar System, as Einstein's theory is known to do, and still give us the different prediction for the universe that we need? There are candidate theories, but none are compelling. So the mystery continues.
The thing that is needed to decide between dark energy possibilities - a property of space, a new dynamic fluid, or a new theory of gravity - is more data, better data.
What Is Dark Matter?
By fitting a theoretical model of the composition of the universe to the combined set of cosmological observations, scientists have come up with the composition that we described above, ~68% dark energy, ~27% dark matter, ~5% normal matter. What is dark matter?
We are much more certain what dark matter is not than we are what it is. First, it is dark, meaning that it is not in the form of stars and planets that we see. Observations show that there is far too little visible matter in the universe to make up the 27% required by the observations. Second, it is not in the form of dark clouds of normal matter, matter made up of particles called baryons. We know this because we would be able to detect baryonic clouds by their absorption of radiation passing through them. Third, dark matter is not antimatter, because we do not see the unique gamma rays that are produced when antimatter annihilates with matter. Finally, we can rule out large galaxy-sized black holes on the basis of how many gravitational lenses we see. High concentrations of matter bend light passing near them from objects further away, but we do not see enough lensing events to suggest that such objects to make up the required 25% dark matter contribution.
One of the most complicated and dramatic collisions between galaxy clusters ever seen is captured in this new composite image of Abell 2744. The blue shows a map of the total mass concentration (mostly dark matter).
However, at this point, there are still a few dark matter possibilities that are viable. Baryonic matter could still make up the dark matter if it were all tied up in brown dwarfs or in small, dense chunks of heavy elements. These possibilities are known as massive compact halo objects, or "MACHOs". But the most common view is that dark matter is not baryonic at all, but that it is made up of other, more exotic particles like axions or WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).
Take heart, Pluto-is-a-planet believers. You have a comrade at NASA. In fact, it’s the head honcho himself – Jim Bridenstine, the current NASA Administrator. While on a recent tour of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building, Bridenstine unexpectedly blurted this out:
“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.”
OK, we just wrote it, Jim. However, does it really mean anything? Is Pluto officially a planet again? Will science textbooks and science fair solar system models be forced to change once more? What about some of the other so-called dwarf planets – at least one of which is actually larger than Pluto? Should they start lobbying?
A “dwarf planet” is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
The IAU further resolves: Pluto is a “dwarf planet” by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of Trans-Neptunian Objects.
The reason for Pluto getting voted off the planetary island by the IAU is that it has not used its gravitation to clear the area around it of space debris. The International Astronomical Union, founded in 1919, is an organization of the world’s astronomers whose mission is “to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects” and whose primary purpose is to hold scientific meetings. However, deeper down in its mission statement, it also takes on the responsibility of serving as “the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and surface features on them.” Did we get to vote on this? Can we vote them out now?
One astronomer thinks so. Planetary scientist Alan Stern, leader of NASA’s New Horizon’s mission – the one that sent back all of those fabulous photos of Pluto – had this to say about the IAU.
“My conclusion is that the IAU definition is not only unworkable and unteachable, but so scientifically flawed and internally contradictory that it cannot be strongly defended against claims of scientific sloppiness, “ir-rigor,” and cogent classification. The New Horizons project, like a growing number of the public, and many hundreds if not thousands of professional research astronomers and planetary scientists, will not recognise the IAU’s planet definition resolution of Aug. 24, 2006.”
Stern was, and still is, mad enough to invent a new word to describe the lack of stiff scientific discipline (ir-rigor) by the IAU in knocking Pluto out of the planet club. Bridenstine is no astronomer (hence not a member of the IAU) and his only qualifications for the NASA administrator job were that he’s a former Republican congressman who once ran the Air and Space Museum in Tulsa. He’s also a former climate change skeptic who has since publicly admitted he’s changed his mind about that, so perhaps he can get the IAU to change ITS mind about Pluto. He can use those NASA New Horizon photos showing Pluto’s mountain ranges and plains, evidence of avalanches, plutoquakes and possible liquid oceans, and its nice spherical shape, which many scientists now believe are all better signs that a space rock is qualified to be a planet.
Senator Vows A Disclosure on Aliens and UFOs If He Takes the White House
Senator Vows A Disclosure on Aliens and UFOs If He Takes the White House
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders promised to tell the American public anything he learns about UFOs or aliens if elected president next year. The senator, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination to take on President Donald Trump, did the pledge in an interview recently released.
When pressed whether he would be open about alien knowledge with the public if he takes the White House, he said that his wife would demand to let the public know. Sanders explained that his wife is not a UFO nut, but she always asks information about the subject and even asks if he does have any access.
When questioned if he does have any access, Sanders responded that he honestly doesn’t, but he will declassify any information concerning aliens or UFOs.
The idea of aliens and UFOs has become an increasingly hot topic online in recent months. It started earlier this summer with the launching of the Facebook event titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,”
The event ended up getting the attention of the Air Force after it racked up hundreds of thousands of Facebook users who signed up to raid the secret military facility in Nevada.
The Air Force made a warning to the would-be raiders that they are ready to defend the base that serves as their open training range.
The event page and its backup were shut down recently by Facebook because of violations to “community standards.”
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.
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.
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.
DNA Analysis Just Made The Eerie Mystery of Himalayan 'Skeleton Lake' Even Stranger
DNA Analysis Just Made The Eerie Mystery of Himalayan 'Skeleton Lake' Even Stranger
MICHELLE STARR
High in the Himalayas of India, amid the snow-capped peaks, nestles a mystery. Roopkund Lake is a shallow body of water filled with human bones - the skeletons of hundreds of individuals. It's these that give the lake its other name, Skeleton Lake, and no one knows how the remains came to be there.
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.
"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."
Mysterie rond ‘Skelettenmeer’ wordt alleen maar groter. Wat is er met al deze mensen gebeurd?
In 1942 werden bij het Roopkund-meer in India vele honderden menselijke skeletten gevonden.
Uit onderzoek bleek dat ze al honderden jaren bij het meer in een onbewoond gebied op zo’n 5000 meter hoogte lagen.
Hoe de skeletten er precies terecht zijn gekomen bleef een mysterie.
In een nieuwe studie, gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Nature Communications, proberen wetenschappers te achterhalen wat er bij het zogeheten ‘Skelettenmeer’ is gebeurd.
Meer vragen
Hun bevindingen roepen echter meer vragen op dan ze beantwoorden.
De onderzoekers hebben de resten van 38 skeletten onderzocht. In totaal 23 mensen blijken bij één of meerdere gebeurtenissen tussen de zevende en tiende eeuw om het leven te zijn gekomen.
Een andere groep van 14 slachtoffers kwam 1000 jaar later om, waarschijnlijk bij één enkele gebeurtenis.
De eerste groep is afkomstig uit Zuid-Azië, de andere uit Griekenland of Kreta.
Niet vastgesteld
De onderzoekers zeggen dat ze geen antwoord kunnen vinden op de vraag waarom mensen uit het Middellandse Zeegebied naar dit meer kwamen en wat ze daar deden.
Talloze wetenschappers hebben geprobeerd uit te zoeken wat er is gebeurd, maar de doodsoorzaak van de slachtoffers is nog altijd niet vastgesteld.
Nieuwe expeditie
De onderzoekers zijn vastbesloten het mysterie rond het Roopkund-meer te ontrafelen.
Zo wordt volgend jaar een nieuwe expeditie naar het onherbergzame gebied georganiseerd.
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
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
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.
WHAT IS TREASURE?
Under the Treasure Act 1996, finders of potential treasure in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are legally obliged to notify their local coroner
An inquest then determines whether the finds constitute treasure.
If the find is declared treasure, the finder must offer it for sale to a museum at a price set by the British Museum's Treasure Valuation Committee.
A reward is then offered to the finders and other relevant parties.
'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.'
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.
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 isshown 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.
Two UFO Seen From Passenger Jet Over Mexico, Aug 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.
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
In the video captured by SOHO, you can see a number of objects zooming around the sun, which is blocked by an opaque disk to reduce glare. Seemingly right on top of the sun is Venus, which is bright and easy to spot. Left of center and not quite as bright as Venus, you can also see Mars. Just about 10 seconds into the video, the sun-bound comet suddenly becomes obvious and easy to detect.
Staying on course, the comet continues to head directly for the sun, where it is charges through the sun's atmosphere and is ultimately destroyed (though, of course, you can't see that in the video). This comet is most likely a Kreutz sungrazer, according to Phillips.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observed a comet dive directly into the sun on Aug. 15, 2019.
(Image credit: NASA/ESO/SOHO)
Kreutz sungrazers are an interesting group of comets as there is no official definition for them. They have been observed for hundreds of years and were studied by Heinrich Kreutz in the 1880's and 1890's. These comets are thought to be fragments derived from a giant, ancient comet.
Citizen scientists discovered this pair of comets, a sungrazer and a sunskirter, on June 20, 2019.
(Image credit: NASA/ESO/SOHO)
This is not the first comet that SOHO spotted this summer. On June 20, 2019, two comets, one a Kreutz sungrazer and the other a Meyer sunskirter — comets that don't get quite as close to the sun as sungrazers — were identified. Citizen scientists detected the pair of comets using data from SOHO and NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft missions as part of the Sungrazer Project.
Incredibly, over half of all known comets have so far been discovered by the Sungrazer Project, according to the project website. Discoveries of new comets can help scientists to study comet orbits, comet composition comet evolution and more. The discovery of sungrazers like the one spotted in this video can additionally support scientific studies of the sun.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Before 2006, there was never a formal definition for what constituted a planet.
Scientists argue that this means Pluto's demotion is unjust and unreasonable.
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
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.'
Pluto should STILL be classified as a planet, Nasa chief claims
Pluto should STILL be classified as a planet, Nasa chief claims
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.
Pluto was considered to be a planet until it was declassified 13 years agoCredit: PA:Press Association
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
Many people were taught that Pluto was one of the planets in our Solar SystemCredit: Getty - Contributor
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
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETHet is de laatste jaren wellicht een van de grootste discussiepunten onder astronomen: de status van Pluto. Sinds het het hemellichaam in 2006 niet langer een planeet, maar “slechts” een dwergplaneet werd genoemd, raken wetenschappers het niet meer eens met elkaar. Ook de NASA-directeur, Jim Bridenstine, mengt zich nu in het eindeloze debat. “Voor mij is Pluto een planeet. Je kan dus schrijven dat de beheerder van NASA Pluto opnieuw als planeet beschouwt”, zei hij gisteren op een bijeenkomst.
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.
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.
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Onderzoeker spot enorm ‘gezicht’ op Antarctica. Bekijk het zelf op Google Earth
Foto: Google Earth
Onderzoeker spot enorm ‘gezicht’ op Antarctica. Bekijk het zelf op Google Earth
Iemand is op Google Earth op iets vreemds gestuit. De persoon in kwestie ontdekte op Antarctica een soort gezicht, dat doet denken aan het legendarische gezicht op Mars.
De vondst werd onlangs op de Instagram-pagina ‘ufo_scandinavia’ gedeeld.
De onderzoeker was aan het speuren op Google Earth en kwam in het ijzige, bergachtige landschap opeens een gezicht tegen.
Geheimen
Er zijn onder meer ogen, een neus en een mond te ontwaren.
Volgens complottheoretici liggen er allerlei esoterische geheimen verscholen op Antarctica.
Veel mensen wezen op de gelijkenissen tussen de vondst en het gezicht op Mars in de regio Cydonia, dat in 1976 voor het eerst werd gefotografeerd door NASA’s Viking 1.
Coördinaten
Iedereen kan het ‘gezicht op Antarctica’ bewonderen door de volgende coördinaten in te voeren bij Google Earth: 72° 00′ 36″ S, 168° 34′ 53″ E.
Sceptici zeggen dat het ‘gezicht’ simpelweg een geval van pareidolie is en geen mysterieus verloren monument dat onder de sneeuw verborgen ligt.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
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