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.
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
23-09-2019
1st Color Photo of Interstellar Comet Reveals Its Fuzzy Tail
1st Color Photo of Interstellar Comet Reveals Its Fuzzy Tail
The first color image of the comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), which astronomers believe to be the first known interstellar comet ever identified, was captured by the Gemini North telescope at Hawaii's Mauna Kea. Gemini North acquired four 60-second exposures in two color bands (red and green). The blue and red lines are background stars moving in the background.
The colored image allowed astronomers to spot a comet tail, which is the product of gases flowing off its surface. This tail is unique among the suspected interstellar visitors to our solar system. Of course, there have only been two such guests so far — this comet, named Comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), and 'Oumuamua, which is a long asteroid or space rock with no obvious gases flowing from its surface.
Astronomers nabbed the view the night of Sept. 9-10 using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.
"This image was possible because of Gemini's ability to rapidly adjust observations and observe objects like this, which have very short windows of visibility," Andrew Stephens, who coordinated the observations at the Gemini Observatory, said in a statement. "However, we really had to scramble for this one since we got the final details at 3:00 a.m. [local time] and were observing it by 4:45!"
The comet was discovered by Russian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on Aug. 30. Right now its path in the Earth's sky brings it close to the sun, making it difficult to observe because it is best visible in twilight. In the next few months, the comet is expected to move further away from the sun — making it easier to see.
For these new Gemini observations, the astronomical team obtained them thanks to a target-of-opportunity program led by Piotr Guzik and Michal Drahus at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. A research paper, led by Guzik, was uploaded to the preprint server Arxiv on Thursday (Sept. 12) and has been submitted to a journal for publication. (Papers on arXiv are not yet peer-reviewed.)
Astronomers aren't certain if this comet originated from outside our solar system, because its path through space isn't well defined. So far, however, the data suggests that its path is a hyperbola — meaning that it is dipping into the solar system before flying out again. Most comets and asteroids tracked in the solar system have elliptical orbits, which range from nearly circular to egg-shaped to long-looped orbits.
It's always nice to see old friends, and NASA's asteroid-monitoring team has a busy schedule this weekend (Sept. 13 and 14) doing just that.
NASA's first appointment of the night is with an asteroid dubbed 2010 CO1, which will make its closest approach to Earth at 11:42 p.m. EDT (0342 GMT on Sept. 14). Then, less than a day later, at 7:54 p.m. EDT on Sept. 14 (2354 GMT), a second asteroid called 2000 QW7 will fly past Earth. Neither has any chance of hitting Earth.
"These asteroids have been well observed," Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA, said in a statement. "Both of these asteroids are passing at about 14 lunar distances from the Earth, or about 3.5 million miles away, but small asteroids pass by Earth this close all the time."
2010 CO1, which is between 400 feet and 850 feet across (120 to 260 meters) is a relatively frequent visitor and last made a close approach last fall, skimming past Earth on Sept. 11. And we'll see it again next year, on Sept. 16. Annual visits will continue until 2023, after which the asteroid will stay farther away from Earth until 2061.
But it's been much longer since scientists got a good look at 2000 QW7, which hasn't made a close approach since the flyby during which it was first identified, in September 2000. It won't make another close approach until 2038. This space rock is about twice the size, at 950 feet to 2,100 feet across (290 to 650 m).
Both of these asteroids are in or near NASA's medium category of asteroids, which begins at rocks at least 460 feet (140 m) across — large enough that if one hit, it could have catastrophic local consequences. NASA's large category begins at 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across, substantial enough that if an impact occurred it could have global consequences.
NASA and other space agencies identify and track asteroids so that, if one does turn out to be on a collision course with Earth, humans could have enough warning to potentially do something about it. But for these two asteroids, that isn't a problem — scientists already have enough information about their orbits to know that they'll pass right on by.
Has the Biblical Moses Been Identified in Secular Egyptian Records?
Moses was a prophet and a leader according to Abrahamic religions, but many scholars view him as a legendary figure rather than a real historic person. They do concede that a Moses-like figure could have existed in history, so is it possible to track this person down through historic records? It is the view of this writer that this is very possible and that in fact the Moses figure can be traced as that of the primary confidant of none other than Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. The trail begins with Th Exodus.
The Exodus and Moses Birth
What is the date of the Exodus ? To find Moses in the Egyptian records, the first requirement is to fix the date of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.
If we use the Bible as our primary source, we know that this occurred during the ‘ New Kingdom ’ period of Egypt, when the powerful Egyptian families of the south reasserted themselves and drove out the Hyksos invaders , who had been entrenched in the power centers of northern Egypt for over 100 years.
The Hyksos’ stay in Egypt is known in history as the ‘Second Intermediate Period’. However, there is a difference of opinion among biblical scholars as to when, during the New Kingdom, the Exodus occurred. So, can we find anything to help us pin it down?
If one accepts the biblical dating of Solomon’s time , we know that he started building his famous temple in 960 BC, and the text of 1 Kings 6 v1 states that this was 480 years since the Exodus . Thus, we can fix a date for the Exodus of 1440 BC, when Moses was 80 years old. This would mean that he was born around 1520 BC and is an adult in the court between 1500 and 1480 BC.
Where Does the Name Moses Come From?
1500 – 1480 BC is the time of the pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, and she had a close confidant, described by the well-known Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley in her book on Hatshepsut, as the ‘Greatest of the Great’.
The father of Hatshepsut was Thutmose l , and his name means ‘son of Thoth’, the god of wisdom, ‘mose’ meaning ‘son’. This is a common use of the word ‘mose’ as in ‘Ra meeses’, son of the sun god Ra, etc.
The biblical text tells us that it was the pharaoh’s daughter who named Moses. Exodus 2 v 10 states that, “she called him Moses because she said, ‘I drew him out of the water’”.
But we will not find a Prince Moses in the court in Egypt because another bible reference, Hebrews 11 v 24, states that “ Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”.
Instead, we find that the close confidant of the queen is a man called ‘ Senenmut’. This appears to be a unique name, and one of its meanings is ‘mother’s brother’. Hatshepsut was born in the early 1530s, so they were close in age, so such a name makes sense.
Why Would the Royal Heiress Adopt a Slave Child?
If Hatshepsut is the woman who rescued and adopted Moses, what would make a woman of such high standing adopt a slave child? After her mother, Hatshepsut was the highest woman in the land, and such a woman would not consider saving the life of a slave child, let alone adopt him as her son. But when we look at the past, it is hard for us to remember that the people we are observing are just like us. They have thoughts and feelings like us, and Hatshepsut, at the time she found the abandoned baby in the basket, was a little girl, with the instincts to protect the helpless that we see so often in children. The text of Exodus 2 v 6 says “she saw the child, he was crying, and she took pity on him”.
Hatshepsut knew that he was a Hebrew child, as the rest of the verse tells us. But she was too young to look ahead and understand the enormity of her action. Almost immediately she must have formed an attachment to him, and as he grew the attachment grew, and her loyalty to him would alter the course of her life.
So, What Do We Know of Hatshepsut?
We know that Hatshepsut married her brother, Thutmose II, becoming his ‘Great Royal Wife’, his principal queen. She bears him two daughters but no sons and, following his death after a reign of only 13 years, his son by a harem woman is made the pharaoh, becoming Thutmose III .
This new pharaoh is an infant and Hatshepsut is made regent. She is effectively the ruler of the land, holding all the power already, and so it seems odd to Egyptologists that after just two years she makes herself pharaoh.
Did she have ambitions to put her adopted son on the throne? This she could do if she were pharaoh, but not if she were only regent. She reigns as the senior pharaoh, jointly with Thutmose III for 22 successful years, until her death.
She rules the country well. She sets up trading expeditions with the lands south of Egypt. She keeps a firm grip on Nubia, Egypt’s southern neighbor from which vast resources are acquired, including gold, cattle, slaves, and soldiers. She carries out extensive building works, both in Waset, the ancient name for Luxor, and around the country.
Life-sized statue of Hatshepsut. She is shown wearing the nemes-headcloth and shendyt-kilt, which are both traditional for an Egyptian king. The statue is more feminine, given the body structure.
She extends the Temple of Amun in Waset, erecting 4 huge obelisks in his honor, two of which are still there, one still standing. It bears engravings as clear as they were when it was erected 3,500 years ago, reading – “Raised for the glory my father Amun that I may be given life”. She builds a magnificent mortuary temple for herself , where the gods are honored, known as the Temple of Deir el Bahri, which still stands and is visited by thousands of tourists every year.
What Happened to Hatshepsut’s Memory After Her Death?
Hatshepsut ruled her country well and was buried honorably, probably with her father Thutmose l in tomb KV 20, a tomb she had built for a double burial.
After the death of his stepmother, Thutmose III continued his long reign of over 50 years, spending much of that time campaigning in the Levant, defeating the power of the Hittites to the northwest and the Mittani to the northeast and bringing the wealthy city states of Canaan firmly under Egyptian control. He is known as the ‘Napoleon of Egypt’ for his success as a military man.
But 30 years after her death, all records of Hatshepsut came under attack. Her statues were removed from the temples, smashed and buried in a pit, and her reliefs were excised from the walls of the temples. In subsequent years, Hatshepsut’s name was omitted from the King Lists , a thing done to no other pharaoh except the great heretic pharaoh Akenaten but not to the one previous female pharaoh Sobekneferu who reigned briefly at the end of the 12th Dynasty.
Removing all record of Hatshepsut’s name was intended, by the Egyptians, as the ultimate punishment, known as ‘damnatio memoriae’. All records of a person removed from history as if they had never lived resulted in the death of their soul for eternity. This effectively removed Hatshepsut from Egyptian history until all memory of her and why she had been so hated was lost.
She was forgotten for over 1,000 years, until vague references to her were found by the priest Manetho in 300 BC when he was asked by the Greeks in power at that time to search out and list the pharaohs of Egyptian history. He found references to a female pharaoh called Amensis, who was identified by later Egyptologists as Hatshepsut, and recorded her as the fifth pharaoh of the New Kingdom Dynasty, but nothing more was known of her.
It was thought that Hatshepsut’s mummy had been lost, but it has recently been identified lying abandoned in the tomb of her royal nurse Sitre, tomb KV 60. It was identified by a tooth fragment known to belong to Hatshepsut, and the mummy appeared to have been left without ceremony, perhaps in haste to hide it from those who would have destroyed it. The Egyptians believed that the preservation of the body was essential to survival in the afterlife, hence the lengths they went to, to preserve them. It was the ultimate punishment to destroy a person’s body.
So, Who Would Have Tried to Remove Hatshepsut From History?
The action against Hatshepsut’s (and Senemut’s) memory occurs either late in the reign of Thutmose III, when his son Amenhotep II was sharing the throne, or after Thutmose’s death, when Amenhotep II was reigning alone. It seems therefore to be Amenhotep II who is responsible for this destruction.
He would be at the correct time to see the return of Moses demanding the release of the Hebrew slaves. The story of the Exodus describes great hardship for Egypt, and one can understand Amenhotep’s fury against both Hatshepsut and Senenmut and wishing to destroy their memory. Being wiped out of history for the Egyptians was tantamount to eternal damnation.
When Were Hatshepsut’s Statues Discovered and What Did They Reveal?
During the 1800s, wealthy gentlemen such as James Breasted went to Egypt specifically with the hope of finding evidence to prove the biblical record . These men effectively established the science of Egyptology.
But at that time, the statues of Hatshepsut still lay buried in the pit where they were thrown 30 years after her death. They remained there undiscovered until found by Herbert Winlock an American Egyptologist employed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Boston, United States in 1927, by which time the world at large was no longer interested in trying to prove the Bible. But not only was a hoard of statues of Hatshepsut discovered just east of the first court of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahri. Another pit was found, containing over 20 hard stone statues of Senenmut, a huge number for a non-royal. In fact, to date, 26 hard stone statues of Senenmut have been identified which causes Egyptologists to wonder what was it about this man that he was given such status.
Kneeling statue of Senenmut, Chief Steward of Queen Hatshepsut.
The first thing to confront us when looking at the records of Senenmut are the many beautiful statues of him as a young lad holding Hatshepsut’s elder daughter, the Princess Neferure . She is there wrapped in his cloak as a baby as he sits on the ground.
He is holding her in his arms the way a woman would hold a child. In some examples he sits on a chair holding her on his lap. Some are of him standing holding Neferure as a toddler, but altogether they show a level of intimacy between the two of them, as we would have in photos taken of our children together.
He is said to be the tutor to Neferure, but statues of a royal child being held like this had never been made before this date. And this is breaking protocol because a non-royal is not allowed to touch a royal child in this way.
And we know that Senenmut is not royal because he names his parents in one of his tombs, and they have no titles at all, showing that they are of humble origin. But the extraordinary thing about Senenmut is that he is treated as a royal.
He has two beautiful tombs built for himself, one, TT 353 has the oldest known star chart, a work of great expertise, on the ceiling. And this tomb is actually within the sacred precinct of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. This is a sacred space and to have Senenmut’s tomb in such a place, sacred in itself, but also the personal space of the pharaoh, shows a degree of closeness between them that is shocking, unless there is an explanation for it.
The other tomb TT 71 has decorations described by the Egyptologist Peter Dorman in the book ‘ Hatshepsut from Queen to Pharaoh’ , page 131 as being clearly done “by artists from the royal ateliers”. Dorman also dismisses the suggestion that Senenmut may have been Hatshepsut’s lover. In this tomb TT 71, a sarcophagus belonging to Senenmut was found. It is made of quartzite, a material only allowed to be used by the royals.
We know that Moses neither dies nor is buried in Egypt. And Senenmut is not buried in either of his tombs but disappears from Egyptian records.
Besides the statues of Senenmut holding the infant princess, there are many statues made of him making offerings to the gods. These statues were made to stand in the presence of the gods, and again, it is not permitted for a non-royal to enter the presence of the gods; having your statue there was the equivalent of you being there in person.
Here again he is treated as a royal. And all these statues are of a very young man, so it must be Hatshepsut who ordered these statues to be made. To be in the presence of the gods was a very favored position, because you would receive the continual blessings of the gods.
We also find a number of reliefs carved in the most sacred space of all in the Deir el Bahri Temple, in the sanctuary of Amun itself. One is even carved in the back wall of the sanctuary, where the ceremonial boat which carried the idol of Amun was placed overnight before its return journey to Waset. For the images of a common citizen to be placed in such a sacred space, breaks every rule in the book, but Hatshepsut must have done this, and done it because Senenmut was the son she had adopted, and she was ambitious for him to rise high in Egypt.
During the course of his years at the court of Hatshepsut, Senenmut is acknowledged by experts in Egyptology, to have held many of the highest titles in the land, showing that he truly was the ‘Greatest of the Great’, in Hatshepsut’s court.
Senemut’s high standing in the court during the reign of Hatshepsut, coupled with him being wiped from the Egyptian historical narrative, and the correlation between the biblical and Egyptian dating, would suggest therefore that he was the person we know from the Bible as Moses.
Having discovered the story of Hatshepsut and Senenmut, I decided to present it as an historical novel. It was published in October 2018 by Mirador. It is called ‘ The King and her children’ and is available from Waterstones and Amazon.
Top image: Moses crossing the Red Sea. Source: Davy Cheng / Adobe Stock.
“We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole. It’s usually a pretty quiet, wimpy black hole on a diet. We don’t know what is driving this big feast.”
Artist’s concept of an object called S0-2 orbiting our Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Astronomers tracked this object for years, hoping to catch it falling over the hole’s event horizon. It did not fall in, but its close approach in 2018 might be one reason for the black hole’s growing appetite now.
UCLA astronomers announced on September 11, 2019, that, last May, they caught the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust. They caught the feast on May 13 (although of course it happened some 25,000 years ago earlier, since the center of the galaxy is about 25,000 light-years away). What they saw was this. The black hole – called Sagittarius A*, pronounced Sagittarius A-star – became extremely bright in May 2019, growing 75 times as bright for a few hours. Yet, as of now, the researchers don’t yet understand why. Why did the area just outside the black hole’s event horizon – its point of no return – suddenly become brighter? What did it ingest, and why at that time?
Astronomer Tuan Do is lead author of new research describing this event, published September 11 in Astrophysical Journal Letters. He also produced the timelapse in the tweet below, which depicts the brightness changes at Sgr A*. Andrea Ghez, of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, is co-senior author on the new paper. She said:
We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole. It’s usually a pretty quiet, wimpy black hole on a diet. We don’t know what is driving this big feast.
… analyzed more than 13,000 observations of the black hole from 133 nights since 2003. The images were gathered by the W. M. Keck Observatoryin Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team found that on May 13, the area just outside the black hole’s ‘point of no return’ (so called because once matter enters, it can never escape) was twice as bright as the next-brightest observation.
They observed large changes on two other nights this year; all three of those changes were ‘unprecedented,’Ghez said.
They said the brightness surrounding the black hole always varies somewhat, but the extreme variations in brightness observed this year left them “stunned.”
So what is going on?
In an absolute sense, the increased brightness on a few nights in 2019 can be explained by radiation from gas and dust falling into the black hole. One hypothesis about the increased activity is that when a star called S0-2 made its closest approach to the black hole during the summer 2018, it launched a large quantity of gas that reached the black hole this year. Tuan Do, the study’s lead author, said:
The first image I saw that night, the black hole was so bright I initially mistook it for the star S0-2, because I had never seen Sagittarius A* that bright. But it quickly became clear the source had to be the black hole, which was really exciting.
Another possibility involves a bizarre object known as G2, which is most likely a pair of binary stars, which made its closest approach to the black hole in 2014. It’s possible the black hole could have stripped off the outer layer of G2, Ghez said, which could help explain the increased brightness just outside the black hole.
Morris said another possibility is that the brightening corresponds to the demise of large asteroids that have been drawn in to the black hole.
Tuan Do@quantumpenguin
Here's a timelapse of images over 2.5 hr from May from @keckobservatory of the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. The black hole is always variable, but this was the brightest we've seen in the infrared so far. It was probably even brighter before we started observing that night!
The question for astronomers is, what does this activity mean? Is it simply an extraordinary singular event, or is it a precursor to significantly increased activity for Sgr A*? Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, is another author on the paper. He said:
The big question is whether the black hole is entering a new phase – for example if the spigot has been turned up and the rate of gas falling down the black hole ‘drain’ has increased for an extended period – or whether we have just seen the fireworks from a few unusual blobs of gas falling in.
The team has continued to observe the area. They say they’ll try to settle the question based on what they see from new images. Ghez said:
We want to know how black holes grow and affect the evolution of galaxies and the universe. We want to know why the supermassive hole gets brighter and how it gets brighter.
The black hole is some 26,000 light-years away and poses no danger to our planet. Do said the radiation would have to be 10 billion times as bright as what the astronomers detected to affect life on Earth.
Astrophysical Journal Letters also published a second article by the researchers, describing speckle holography, the technique that enabled them to extract and use very faint information from 24 years of data they recorded from near the black hole.
Ghez’s research team reported July 25 in the journal Science the most comprehensive test of Einstein’s iconic general theory of relativity near the black hole. Their conclusion that Einstein’s theory passed the test and is correct, at least for now, was based on their study of S0-2 as it made a complete orbit around the black hole.
… studies more than 3,000 stars that orbit the supermassive black hole. Since 2004, the scientists have used a powerful technology that Ghez helped pioneer, called adaptive optics, which corrects the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere in real time. But speckle holography enabled the researchers to improve the data from the decade before adaptive optics came into play. Reanalyzing data from those years helped the team conclude that they had not seen that level of brightness near the black hole in 24 years.
It was like doing LASIK surgery on our early images. We collected the data to answer one question and serendipitously unveiled other exciting scientific discoveries that we didn’t anticipate.
Bottom line: UCLA astronomers announced on September 11, 2019, that – in May – they caught the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust. Why did the area just outside the black hole’s event horizon – its point of no return – suddenly become dramatically brighter? What did it ingest, and why at that time?
It was exciting last week when scientists announced water vapor in a super-Earth’s atmosphere. But, even as the announcement came, other scientists were cautioning that the planet – K2-18b – is probably less like a super-Earth and more like a mini-Neptune.
Artist’s concept of K2-18b, as well as another planet in this system, K2-18c, with the parent star, a red dwarf, in the background.
A couple of days ago, EarthSky reportedthat for the first time ever, water vapor had been detected in the atmosphere of a potentially habitable super-Earth exoplanet. We weren’t alone in our report. As might be expected, the finding received a lot of attention from media. But, it turns out, that the story might not be quite as first reported and was mis-characterized to some extent.
The discovery was outlined in two different papers, the first one published on arXiv on September 10, 2019, and the second in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy on September 11, 2019.
The papers detail the finding of water vapor in the atmosphere of K2-18b, an exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star – where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist – 110 light-years from Earth. It’s accurate that this is the first time that water vapor has been identified in the atmosphere of a smaller exoplanet (non-gas-giant) in the habitable zone of its star, but soon after the announcement, many planetary scientists critiqued how the discovery was covered in media and social media.
The water vapor detection itself is confirmed, but there is a lot of debate as to just what kind of planet K2-18b actually is, and how habitable it may be (or not).
Another artist’s concept of super-Earth K2-18b. Scientists have detected water vapor in its atmosphere, but is it habitable? Most scientists say it’s unlikely.
Some scientists, including in the Nature Astronomy paper, have referred to the planet as a super-Earth. A super-Earth is larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune – typically up to about a maximum of twice the size of Earth – and many have been discovered already. Most are thought to be rocky, like Earth, but there is a transition point – starting about 1.6 to 2 times Earth’s radius – where a planet can become a mini-gas-giant, or a mini-Neptune as they are usually called. They are larger than super-Earths, but still smaller than Neptune. Most scientists now consider K2-18b to be a mini-Neptune, not a super-Earth, with a deep atmosphere of hydrogen and/or helium, and possibly no solid surface at all.
K2-18b has a radius of about 2.7 times that of Earth, and a mass about nine times that of Earth. While some scientists would still consider that to be a possible super-Earth, most, it seems, would classify it as a mini-Neptune. All of this can be a bit confusing.
The 2017 study previously linked to considered that K2-18b might be either large and rocky or covered with water and/or ice. But that study didn’t account for atmospheric constraints, only mass and radius. As exoplanet scientist Erin May told me on Twitter:
My PhD partially focused on the distinction between these classes of planets. Many studies show that it’s extremely difficult to make a planet > than 2 Earth-radii without a large atmosphere. Mass & radius (density) alone are actually not very useful here. I’d also like to point out that from mass and radius alone, this planet should have never been considered a super-Earth. I think there’s a tendency to throw this term around because it’s more “exciting”, but we as astronomers need to keep our terminology straight.
Néstor Espinoza, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), also told me:
If you believe the water feature, you have to believe it is an H/He dominated atmosphere so yes. And the source you cite is not “outdated” – at that time we just didn’t have atmospheric constraints, only mass and radius. Also: the very fact that we see a water feature *implies* a H/He dominated atmosphere. There is no way around it.
There is a good Twitter thread about all this here, from Jessie Christiansen, a research scientist at NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI):
Dr. Jessie Christiansen✔@aussiastronomer
GUYS. Two independent announcements today of the same thing: We have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18 b!
The Hubble Space Telescope spies a rare glimpse of water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet that isn't much bigger than Earth. https://go.nature.com/2LsFk2E
In Nature Astronomy, using the Hubble data from Benneke's observing proposal, Tsiaras et al also report a water vapor detection on K2-18 b.
Alexandra Witze
✔@alexwitze
The planet is more of a mini-Neptune than a super-Earth: it's got a thick hydrogen atmosphere and if you want to find the water you'd have to go ballooning. But, the work is pushing the limits of understanding these alien worlds and how like (or unlike) Earth they may be.
So what about habitability? Since the planet is considered – by most scientists – to now be a mini-Neptune, this lowers the chances significantly. Water vapor itself, or even rain (as still considered possible in this planet’s atmosphere), is great, but life-as-we-know-it requires a rocky surface/interior for chemical nutrients, and bodies of liquid water. There may indeed be planets out there with life forms in only a gaseous atmosphere, but for Earth-kind of life at least, K2-18b would seem to be ill-suited for this.
There has been a lot of debate over whether K2-18b is a super-Earth or mini-Neptune. Most scientists now agree that it is a mini-Neptune, making habitability much less likely.
Finding evidence for water vapor on a distant exoplanet in its star’s habitable zone is exciting, but is not in itself proof of habitability. There are many factors that need to be considered, including composition of the planet and its atmosphere. However, K2-18b is the smallest exoplanet so far found to have water vapor in its atmosphere, which is a good sign: it supports the contention of scientists that even smaller planets with water vapor and/or liquid water will be found, worlds that are more Earth-like in terms of both size and composition. Upcoming space-based telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to study the atmospheres of planets like this, and smaller, in greater detail than ever before, and even search for biosignatures, which could be evidence for life.
Bottom line: The exoplanet K2-18b does have water vapor in its atmosphere, but the planet itself is probably very un-Earth-like.
Interstellar Object Heading Towards Earth Could Be Probe Sent by Aliens – Report
A space object that was discovered by Russian scientist Gennady Borisov in August 2019 and preliminarily designated as a comet by scientists might in reality turn out to be an alien spacecraft, one Californian researcher suggests.
A mysterious object heading through our Solar System could be an interstellar probe piloted by hyper-intelligent beings, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, Dr Seth Shostak, told the Sun.
Слава@st_slava
Телескоп Джемини Север, расположенный на вершине вулкана Мауна-Кеа используя мультиобъектный спектрограф получил четыре снимка в красном и зеленом фильтрах уникальной межзвездной кометы C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), объединение которых позволило впервые увидеть «ледяную гостью» в цвете
Last week, scientists at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii obtained images of a new high-speed space body designated as C/2019 Q4 that was first spotted by Russian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov. Although scientists believe that the space object, which was captured by the Gemini North Telescope's Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, is most likely a comet due to a pronounced tail emerging as a result of outgassing, Shostak thinks that we should not dismiss the possibility that the unidentified object might be an alien spacecraft.
"We can't rule out that this is an interstellar probe", Dr Shostak told the Sun. "If we get a closeup look, we may well see it has a metal exterior with portholes and little green faces looking out at us. However, I would bet next month's pay cheque this is a comet".
Dr Shostak, who is a leading scientist at the non-profit SETI Institute, which is dedicated to seeking out the origins of life in the universe and searching for potential extra-terrestrial signals, believes that the object should be checked for signs of radio signals and life by SETI’s powerful scanning equipment.
"I have suggested to our SETI team that we give this new object a look with the Allen Telescope Array", said the scientist. "So maybe we will check it out".
A similar procedure has previously been conducted in regards to another interstellar, cigar-shaped, object called Oumuamua, which made headlines in 2017 when it was noticed while leaving the Solar System. Although there were some suspicions that the object might have been an alien probe sent by a distant civilisation, these speculations were not confirmed in the end.
Dr Shostak nevertheless believes that there is life beyond our planet and that there have been visitors to the Earth in the past.
"I have no doubts that aliens are out there, we wouldn't be doing our work if I didn't believe that", said the scientists in an interview with The Sun. "It’s even possible they've visited Earth at some point, maybe a billion years ago, maybe 100million years ago. We may never know".
C/2019 Q4, which is currently on route from deep space, is expected to pass near Mars in October this year.
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.
SpaceX wants to buy out the properties of residents in a community located only a few miles away its Starhopper launch site in south Texas, according to a report.
The company's Starhopper flights made headlines this summer as the rocket prototype flew as high as 500 feet (about 150 meters) in altitude. Starhopper fits in well in with SpaceX's Mars exploration plans, as Starhopper is supposed to be an early prototype for the Starship vehicle that SpaceX hopes will bring people to the Red Planet in the coming decades.
But that testing has also produced an unintentional 100-acre brush fire and even explosion warnings in the launching region, which lies nearby the tiny hamlet of Boca Chica, according to Business Insider.
So, SpaceX sent buyout offers to at least 10 households in the community — which has a predominantly elderly population of only about 20 people — saying the company is concerned about "increased disruption to Boca Chica residents and our commitment to complying with public health and safety guidelines," according to the letter, which is written with SpaceX letterhead.
"We did not anticipate that local residents would experience significant disruption from our presence," SpaceX explains of its reasoning to use Cameron County as a potential spaceport location. "However, it has become clear that expansion of spaceflight activities, as well as compliance with Federal Aviation Administration and other public safety regulations, will make it increasingly more challenging to minimize disruption to residents of the village."
SpaceX is offering each household a fixed buyout price of three times the appraised property value, saying that it favors giving an identical deal to residents because it is "the fairest approach." The letter, which is dated Thursday (Sept. 12), adds that the offer is good for two weeks — or until Sept. 26.
To anyone who will accept the offer, SpaceX also plans to give those residents exclusive access to more Starship development events, through "future private VIP launch viewing events that are unavailable to the public."
A few residents told Business Insider they have no interest in accepting the buyout. For example, Maria Pointer, who runs a Facebook group about SpaceX that generally supports its work, said that the company does not understand that most residents cannot afford to buy properties nearby, even with SpaceX's offer to triple property values.
"They need to understand that most of this community has very limited income," she said. "We want to move on, just give us what we need to move on. I'm not going to go to a trailer or an apartment. I gave my life to this property. I gave it everything I had. Nobody else wanted to tame it."
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment. On Sept. 28 — two days after the offer deal closes — the company reportedly plans to give a presentation in an area nearby to provide an update about the Starship development program.
Since SpaceX is not a publicly owned company, outsiders can only get a partial view of its financial situation. The company's valuation was appraised at $33.3 billion in May, according to CNBC. SpaceX is engaged in multiple spaceflight projects, including Starship, creating a vast network of 5G satellites called Starlink, developing a Crew Dragon commercial crew vehicle for NASA, making cargo runs to the International Space Station, and hefting satellites using its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
BIZARRuim tweeduizend feestvierders hebben gisteren verzameld bij Area 51, de mysterieuze testlocatie van de geheime Amerikaanse luchtmacht, in de staat Nevada. Ze kwamen bijeen als reactie op het Facebook-initiatief ‘Storm Area 51’. Tot een bestorming kwam het niet, wel werden drie mensen gearresteerd.
Op het zwaarbewaakte terrein zouden stiekem buitenaardse ruimteschepen en hun bemanning verstopt zijn. De initiatiefnemer van het evenement had mensen opgeroepen het complex gisteren te bestormen. In totaal zegden online ruim 2 miljoen mensen toe, maar in realiteit kwamen ‘maar’ ongeveer 2.300 mensen opdagen, aldus lokale media. Een bestorming bleef uit.
“Mensen droegen gekke kostuums bij de ingang van de basis”, zei een bezoeker. “Waarom zou je dat willen missen? Het is een ervaring die je maar één keer in je leven meemaakt.” Sommige feestgangers droegen ruimtepakken en maskers van buitenaardse wezens. Ook hadden sommigen spandoeken bij zich.
AFPDe “bestormers” van Area 51
De festiviteiten zijn niet uitgelopen op een chaos, iets waar de Amerikaanse autoriteiten op voorhand bang voor waren. Zij waarschuwden mensen juist níet naar Area 51 te komen. Eén vrouw wist de streng beveiligde toegangspoort te passeren en werd tijdelijk vastgehouden, maar ze is inmiddels weer vrijgelaten. Twee bezoekers werden aangehouden voor aanstootgevend gedrag en alcoholmisbruik. “De mensen zijn hier vooral om te kijken wat er aan de hand is”, zei een veiligheidsagent. “Ze komen om plezier te hebben.”
De mysterieuze basis wordt volgens het Amerikaanse leger gebruikt voor het ontwikkelen van geheime militaire projecten. Maar er doen al decennia theorieën de ronde dat de VS op de basis de restanten van een UFO (en haar bemanning) verborgen houdt, en er ook op andere wijze contact onderhoudt met buitenaards leven. In 1947 zou bij de basis een vliegende schotel zijn neergestort. Het gebied is daarom uitgegroeid tot bedevaartsoord voor mensen die in UFO’s en aliens geloven. De weg die naar het gebied leidt, Highway 375, is omgedoopt tot de Extraterrestrial (buitenaardse) Highway.
AFPVolgens lokale media zakte slechts een honderdtal personen af naar de basis, vaak vermomd of met een hoedje van aluminiumfolie om zich "tegen straling te beschermen".
Storm Area 51
Vanwege een uit de hand gelopen grap verzamelen zich uiteindelijk dus meer dan 2.000 mensen in de woestijn van Nevada, vlakbij Las Vegas. In juli maakte een Amerikaan op facebook het ‘Storm Area 51’-evenement aan om ‘de aliens te gaan zien’. Het motto was ’They Can’t Stop All of Us. Met andere woorden: als we met zoveel mogelijk mensen de basis bestormen, kunnen ze ons niet allemaal tegenhouden. Binnen de kortste keren gaven 2,1 miljoen mensen vanuit de hele wereld aan te komen voor de geplande bestorming op 20 september. Wat het Amerikaanse leger er toe bracht in een officiële verklaring te stellen “iedereen te ontraden de basis te betreden”. “We staan altijd klaar om de eigendommen van Amerika te beschermen.”
APDe “bestormers” van Area 51
“We bereiden ons voor op het ergste”
Het weerhield de eerste Amerikanen zich er niet van zich eerder deze week alvast te melden. Verslaggevers van de Las Vegas Revie Journal zagen al meerdere ‘kampen’ langs snelweg 375 bij het plaatsje Rachel. Bezoekers zetten er hun tenten of campers neer, en lieten vlaggen met ‘alien-thema’s’ wapperen. Ken Faulhaver (64) zei tegen de krant: “We zijn hier voor het spektakel. We kopen wat bier en wat merchandise.” En: “Ik hoop dat de aliens komen om mee te feesten.” Bewoners van de dorpjes in het gebied vreesden dat er een massa mensen zou opdagen, zo vertelden ze aan verschillende persbureaus. “We bereiden ons voor op het ergste”, aldus een bewoner.
Dat is onder meer omdat festivalorganisatoren en andere commerciële partijen op het idee van de bestorming zijn gedoken. Op meerdere plekken in de regio zijn dezer dagen (muziek)evenementen onder namen als Area 51 Base Camp en Alienstock. Naast muziek staan er lezingen (over aliens) en films (ook over aliens) gepland.
EPADe “bestormers” van Area 51
Bier en vlaggen
Biermerk Budweiser sponsort een van de feesten en verkoopt ‘buitenaardse’ hoofddeksels. Ook maakte het merk een vlag (voor 75 dollar) die de aandacht moet trekken van UFO’s en hun bemanning. Fastfoodgigant Arby’s verkoopt vanuit een special opgezet restaurant “het beste vlees voor buitenaards leven”.
“Dit fenomeen is een perfecte combinatie van onze interesse in aliens, het buitenaardse, overheidssamenzweringen en de wens om te weten wat we nog niet weten”, zegt socioloog Michael Ian Borer van de Universiteit van Nevada tegen persbureau AP.
Asteroid 2016 HO3 has an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a constant companion of Earth.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH
Are there relic alien spacecraft on asteroids close to Earth that may have been observing the planet for longer than humans have existed?
A thought-provoking, if unlikely-sounding new theory that near-Earth ‘companion’ asteroids may contain live or ancient robotic probes sent from faraway civilizations comes from Dr. James Benford at Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, whose paper "Looking for Lurkers: Co-Orbiters as SETI Observables," is published this week in the Astronomical Journal.
Before we dismiss it as crazy talk, consider that Benford thinks that by ruling-out the presence of alien probes and extraterrestrial archeology on rocks that are often close to Earth would bring us to a profound conclusion: there is no-one out there and we’re truly alone.
What are co-orbital objects?
In this context, a co-orbital is an asteroid that goes around the Sun on the same, or similar, orbital path to Earth. Co-orbital objects approach Earth very closely every year at distance is much shorter than anything except the moon.
Consequently, co-orbitals could be a great place to watch Earth from. Not only would any alien probes on co-orbital objects be concealed, but they would also be anchored and able to access solar energy. They could possibly sustain themselves for many thousands of years.
Illustation of American spacecraft Voyager 1which has survived space for twenty years and travelled over six billion miles. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/NASA/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
TIME LIFE PICTURES
What are ‘lurkers?’
According to Benford, a lurker is a hidden, unknown and unnoticed observing probe, and they could have been sent to observe Earth long ago. “They may respond to an intentional signal and may not, depending on unknown alien motivations,” reads a news release covering Benford’s new paper. “Lurkers would likely be robotic, like our own Voyager and New Horizons probes.” The space probes currently the furthest from us, Voyagers 1 and 2 (launched in the late 1970s) and New Horizons (launched in 2006 and the fastest man-made object ever launched from Earth) have gotten much further than the outskirts of our own solar system.
There’s also obviously a limit to how long any alien space probes sent to study Earth could last. “Perhaps probes are waiting on these objects, listening to us and waiting for us to find them” reads the paper. “They may remain silent and simply report back to wherever they communicate to”. Benford suggests that if we did find such a “lurker” we could simply photograph it and send it in a message simply to say “we see you” and wake the probe from its passive state.
The idea is loosely inspired by the concept of using a Bracewell probe for allowing widely separated civilizations to communicate.
How crazy is this theory?
At first glance, it’s way out there, but Benford thinks that the process of looking for relic alien spacecraft in Earth’s cosmic backyard is critical in us understanding the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence in our galaxy. “If we find nothing there, this gives us a profound result: no one has come to look at the life of the Earth, which has been evident in our atmosphere in spectral lines over interstellar distances for over a billion years.” Spectral lines from light are used by astronomers to identify atoms, molecules and elements present in a planet.
Benford is arguing that if we find nothing on the co-orbital objects around Earth, then the chances of there being more advanced alien civilisations anywhere in our galaxy become more remote.
What is 2016 HO3?
Between 120 and 300 ft. in diameter and also known as ‘Earth's Constant Companion' by NASA, 2016 HO3 is the smallest, closest, and most stable known quasi-satellite of Earth. Discovered on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii, 2016 HO3 loops around the Earth every year during Earth’s orbit of the Sun. It’s been stable for at least 100 years and will remain so for many hundreds of years to come. However, 2016 HO3 is always at least nine million miles away, so never a threat to Earth.
Benford thinks we should study co-orbital objects both in the electromagnetic spectrum of microwaves and light, and also using planetary radar.
Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system to us, would be a primary target for early interstellar probes.
(Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES
China’s plan to visit 2016 HO3
Getting to 2016 HO3 from Earth orbit requires relatively little rocket propulsion, so it’s no surprise that the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced plans to send a probe. A robotic mission that would return samples could launch in 2024.
The search for extraterrestrial life is currently focused on distant exoplanets. It’s a sobering thought that asteroids in our own celestial backyard may have hosted alien probes sent to study Earth many thousands of years ago by extraterrestrial civilizations. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
One of my all-time favorite books is without a doubt Journey to the Center of the Earth, written by world-famous Author Jules Verne.
The story written by Verne involves a German professor called Otto Lidenbrock who was convinced that there are volcanic tubes that lead toward the center of our planet.
Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull and encounter many adventures along the way, including prehistoric animals and dangers. Eventually, they resurface in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano.
In the book, Verne describes a MASSIVE ocean that exists inside our planet.
He explains how: a vast expanse of water, the beginning of a lake or an ocean, extended beyond the limits of sight.
Further, the view followed its mass outlined on the misty background of the horizon. It was a true ocean, capriciously contoured by the terrestrial shores, but deserted and with a terribly wild aspect.
The book was a science fiction bestseller, and despite many people believing that something like this may be possible, the idea remained firmly a science fictional idea.
Now, what if what was once thought to be a mere fantasy of the writer, was, in fact, closer to reality?
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Is it even possible that there really is an underground ocean beneath or feet?
An article published in the journal Nature points in that direction.
As it turns out, scientists discovered a while ago, a diamond-rich in water with traces of a mineral called ringwoodite (in honor of its discoverer, the geochemist Alfred Ringwood).
The diamond originally came from an area that separates the upper terrestrial mantle from the lower one, that is, between four and six hundred kilometers beneath our feet.
So, what does that has to do with Verne, Inner Earth, and an ocean beneath our feet?
The fact is that the diamond found was associated with water molecules in a significant proportion (1.5%), which leads experts to propose the theory that this zone of transition of the mantle is very rich in water.
In fact, scientists have proposed that there is so much water beneath the surface of our planet, that we can cover the surface of our planet entirely in water. The existence of this ‘underground ocean’ would explain the great volcanic and tectonic dynamism of the planet.
Graham Pearson, a researcher from the University of Alberta (Canada) says that the ringwoodite found “provides confirmation that there really are pockets of water in the depths of the Earth.”
That, however, is a theoretical confirmation, of course, since due to lack of equipment and technology it would be impossible to obtain physical evidence from the mantle directly.
That kinda’ sucks since, despite the fact that humans have made it to space, landed on the moon and explored distant alien worlds, we’ve still not explored what exactly lies beneath our ocean, and what mysteries may be hidden beneath the surface of our planet.
Alfred Ringwood proposed that the mineral that bears his name could be found in the transition zone of the mantle, originated by the high pressures and temperatures that are found beneath deep beneath the surface.
But if we can’t go down there, how did scientists find the diamond?
Experts believe that the diamond surfaced in a volcanic eruption in a kimberlite wash (an igneous rock formed from magma and that is the deepest).
It was only three millimeters wide and lacked commercial value, but it was sold to scientists who were looking for other types of rocks, and who came up with something that was priceless: inside the diamond, there was a microscopic trail of ringwoodite.
But not everyone is convinced that a massive underground ocean exists and not all scientists believe that the result of the diamond analysis should be extrapolated to the theory of a massive underwater ocean based on such a small sample of ringwoodite.
Moreover, some scientists even admit that even if there is an ocean beneath our feet, it would not be in liquid form but under a molecular variant called hydroxyl, with only one atom of oxygen and another of hydrogen instead of the two.
David Wilcock and Earth’s Inner Civilizations
In 2015, an article appeared on Coast To Coast AM, where author and researcher David Wilcock discusses Earth’s Inner Civilizations.
Wilcock told C2C that an alliance of ancient civilizations currently resides inside the Earth, and they may soon reveal themselves to the ‘outer’ world.
During the formation of all watery planets in the universe, he explained, hollow cavities form below the surface of the crust and have their own biome that features bacteria which gives off natural light.
“What this means is that you can actually live inside caverns in the Earth that have visible light,” he marveled.
Based on his research, Wilcock said, “it appears that these cavities are used so that more advanced civilizations have a place they can live while they’re managing what takes place on the surface.”
Over the span of the planet’s history, he explained, various advanced societies, such as the Atlanteans, took refuge underground in order to survive tumultuous times and ultimately settled in their new subterranean location.
While the presence of these civilizations has been a part of UFO lore for decades, he contended that the government has direct knowledge of their presence due to accidentally discovering them via clandestine projects aimed at building secret underground bases.
“They’ll have these tunnel boring machines and sometimes they break through into someplace they’re not supposed to go,” Wilcock claimed, “and there’s already people there.”
For the full interview with David Wilcock click here.
Inner Earth Civilizations Exist: the Science and Evidence of Habitable Underground Civilizations
Inner Earth Civilizations Exist: the Science and Evidence of Habitable Underground Civilizations
Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
The preceding information discusses a scientific discovery that might provide evidence for the existence of large caverns within the earth capable of human habitation. Several alleged insiders and whistleblowers claimed that there are indeed advanced civilizations below the surface of the earth. While concrete evidence of such locations have yet to emerge, the preceding article offers evidence for existence of the so-called inner earth. The fact that this question of inner earth remains difficult to confirm means it is an excellent tool for exercising the discerning mind, which is an essential skill for the development of a truly wise and sovereign individual.
Venus Could Have Supported Life for Billions of Years
Venus Could Have Supported Life for Billions of Years
In 1978, NASA’sPioneer Venus (aka. Pioneer 12) mission reached Venus (“Earth’s Sister”) and found indications that Venus may have once had oceans on its surface. Since then, several missions have been sent to Venus and gathered data on its surface and atmosphere. From this, a picture has emerged of how Venus made the transition from being an “Earth-like” planet to the hot and hellish place it is today.
It all started about 700 million years ago when a massive resurfacing event triggered a runaway Greenhouse Effect that caused Venus’s atmosphere to become incredibly dense and hot. This means that for 2 to 3 billion years after Venus formed, the planet could have maintained a habitable environment. According to a recent study, that would have been long enough for life to have emerged on “Earth’s Sister”.
The study was presented yesterday (Sept. 20th) at the 2019 Joint Meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC-DPS), which took place from Sept. 15th to 20th in Geneva, Switzerland. It was here that Michael Way and Anthony Del Genio of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS) shared a new take on Venus’s climatic history, which could have implications in the search for habitable exoplanets.
For the sake of their study, Dr. Way and Dr. Del Genio created a series of five simulations that considered what the environment of Venus would be like based on different levels of water coverage. This consisted of adapting a 3D general circulation model that took into account changing atmospheric compositions and the gradual increase in solar radiation as the Sun became warmer over the course of its lifetime.
In three of the five scenarios, Way and Del Genio assumed that the topography of Venus was much as the same as it is today, the ocean ranged from a minimum depth of 10 m (~30 ft) to a maximum of about 310 m (~1000 ft) and a small amount of water was locked in the soil. They also considered a scenario with Earth’s topography and a 310-meter ocean, and another where Venus was entirely covered in an ocean 158 m (~500ft).
In the end, all five simulations indicated the same thing: that Venus would have been able to maintain stable temperatures – from a low of 20 °C (68 °F) to a high of 50 °C (122 °F) – for about three billion years. Were it not for a series of event that caused 80% of the planet’s surface to be resurfaced (which led to the outgassing of CO² contained within the crust), it might even be habitable today. As Way explained it:
“Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years. It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today.
A land-ocean pattern like that above was used in a climate model to show how storm clouds could have shielded ancient Venus from strong sunlight and made the planet habitable. Credits: NASA
It all started about 4.2 billion years ago, a few hundred million years after Venus formed and had just finished a period of rapid cooling. At this point, assuming Venus underwent a similar process as Earth, it’s atmosphere would have been dominated by carbon dioxide. This would have slowly been absorbed by silicate rocks to form carbonates that were then locked into the planet’s crust.
By about 715 million years ago, according to Way and Del Genio’s study, the atmosphere would have been similar to what Earth’s is like today – composed predominantly of nitrogen gas with trace amounts of CO² and methane. These conditions could have remained stable up until present times were it not for a massive outgassing event.
The cause of this remains a mystery; however, scientists believe it was due to a geological event that caused 80% of the planet to resurface. This could have involved large amounts of magma bubbling up and releasing massive amounts of CO² into the atmosphere. The magma would have then solidified before reaching the surface, thus creating a barrier that prevented the CO² from being reabsorbed. As Way explained:
“Something happened on Venus where a huge amount of gas was released into the atmosphere and couldn’t be re-absorbed by the rocks. On Earth we have some examples of large-scale outgassing, for instance the creation of the Siberian Traps 500 million years ago which is linked to a mass extinction, but nothing on this scale. It completely transformed Venus.”
Artist’s conception of a terraformed Venus, showing a surface largely covered in oceans. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Ittiz
This would explain how Venus’ atmosphere was thickened to the point where it was over 90 times as dense as Earth’s (92 bar compared to 1 bar). Combined with the high concentrations of CO², this would have led to a runaway Greenhouse Effect that would explain how the planet became the hellish place we know today, where surface temperatures average 462 °C (864 °F).
This flies in the face of conventional notions of habitability, which state that Venus’ orbit places it beyond the inner edge of our Sun’s habitable zone (HZ). Within this “Venus Zone”, according to conventional wisdom, a planet absorbs too much solar radiation to ever be able to maintain liquid water on its surface. But as Way indicated, their simulations all indicated otherwise:
“Venus currently has almost twice the solar radiation that we have at Earth. However, in all the scenarios we have modelled, we have found that Venus could still support surface temperatures amenable for liquid water.”
These findings are in line with a similar study that Way and Del Genio conducted in 2016 with colleagues from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Uppsala University and Columbia University. For this study, their team created a suite of 3D climate simulations using data from the Magellan mission that examined how the presence of an ocean on ancient Venus would affect its habitability.
From this, they determined that if Venus had a rotational period slower than about 16 Earth days, its climate would have remained habitable until 715 million years ago. However, there are still two major unknowns that need to be addressed before scientists can say with confidence that Venus was habitable until very recently.
The planet Venus, as imaged by the Magellan 10 mission. Credit: NASA/JPL
First, scientists will need to determine how quickly Venus cooled and if it was able to condense liquid water on its surface in the first place. Second, it remains unknown whether the global resurfacing event that led to Venus’ transition was a single event or merely part of a series that had been taking place for billions of years.
“We need more missions to study Venus and get a more detailed understanding of its history and evolution,” said Way. “However, our models show that there is a real possibility that Venus could have been habitable and radically different from the Venus we see today. This opens up all kinds of implications for exoplanets found in what is called the ‘Venus Zone’, which may in fact host liquid water and temperate climates.”
Think of it… had Venus not undergone a massive resurfacing event (or a series of them), humanity would have only needed to look next-door for proof of extra-terrestrial life. For that matter, had Mars not lost its magnetosphere 4.2 billion years ago, it could have produced life of its own that would still be around today. Our one Solar System could have had not one, but three life-bearing planets (neighboring at that)!
These findings are likely to be encouraging for those who believe that Venus should be terraformed someday. Knowing that the planet once had a stable climate, and could maintain it despite its orbit, effectively means that any ecological engineering we do there would stick.
That means that Venus could someday be made into a balmy world that’s mostly covered with oceans with few large continents and extensive archipelagos. Sound like any pl }ace you know?
This beautiful view from ESA’s Mars Express stretches from the bright, cloud-covered north pole of Mars to the contrasting hues of the northern hemisphere and the cratered terrain in the south.
Mars Express has been orbiting Mars since 2003. The spacecraft has sent back myriad breathtaking images of our planetary neighbour in the past decade and a half, captured by the probe’s on-board High Resolution Stereo Camera – and this image is no different.
The spacecraft imaged this slice across the planet’s surface in June 2019, when the camera took several global views. Visible at the top of the frame is Mars’ ethereal north pole: this is permanently covered by a cap of frozen water and carbon dioxide, which thickens in the northern martian winter and thins in the summer.
The northern polar cap is seen here encircled by bright, eye-catching clouds, tendrils of which snake downwards from the polar region to obscure some of the planet’s northern hemisphere. As this image shows, this patch of Mars is a mix of different tones and colours – a reflection of the different chemical and physical characteristics of the material that makes up the surface. Mars’ two hemispheres are very different in a number of ways.
Most notably, the northern hemisphere sits several kilometres lower than the southern, and the two are separated by a distinctive, rugged boundary formed of canyons, cliffs and scarps, fractures, valleys, flat-topped mounds known as mesas, and many other features. The northern hemisphere is also characterised by low-lying plains that are largely unmarked by impact craters and thus thought to be relatively young, while the southern hemisphere is ancient, showing signs of intense cratering.
This separation can be seen here, and is shown especially clearly in the accompanying topographic context map.
The dark and dusty young plains of the northern hemisphere sit just below the white northern cap; these meet and merge with a prominent escarpment that slices across the planet, creating a dark scar on the tan-coloured surface. Below this, in tones ranging from rusty orange to pale butterscotch, are the southern highlands, featuring more craters than it is possible to count.
Topographic context
Two main regions are shown here: Arabia Terra (towards the upper left) and Terra Sabaea (to the middle and lower right, forming the main bulk of the highlands visible in this slice).
The light region stretching out of frame to the bottom right is Hellas Planitia, a plain that is home to the Hellas basin: one of the largest basins identified on Mars – and, in fact, in the Solar System – at 2300 km across.
The split between Mars’ two hemispheres is known as the martian dichotomy, and remains one of the greatest mysteries about the planet.
Was it formed due to geological processes within Mars’ mantle? Did the planet’s crust once comprise various moving tectonic plates, as we see on Earth, that pushed against one another to form the dichotomy? Could it have been created by one or more colossal past impacts – or by another process entirely?
Terra Sabaea and Arabia Terra in context
Observations of the boundary zone between the two hemispheres show that this region has been altered over time by wind and water, including by glaciers. Mars is thought to have seen various bursts of glacial activity over the years, where deposits of ice – sometimes hidden beneath layers of soil or dust – form viscous flows that slowly move across the surface, altering it as they go.
Mars Express was recently joined at Mars by the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which arrived in 2016 and has since been analysing the martian atmosphere and mapping the planet’s surface. Mars Express and the TGO will soon welcome the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover and its accompanying surface science platform, which are scheduled for launch in July of 2020.
This growing fleet will continue ESA’s long-standing presence at Mars, and further our understanding of the planet and its many remaining scientific mysteries – including the martian dichotomy.
An amateur astronomer says our solar system may have another visitor from deep space.
According to an announcement from the Minor Planet Center, an object spotted at the end of August by amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov, in Crimea, is likely the second known interstellar object to make a pit stop in our corner of the galaxy.
Astronomers say the object, preliminarily dubbed C/2019 Q4, appears to be a comet given what they have identified as a tail streaking behind the interstellar visitor while it moves through space.
Estimates on C/2019 Q4 project that the object could remain within our solar system for between six months to a full year, meaning astronomers may be able to get a particularly good look at its features, on its brightness
On Thursday, the center released an official 'circular' -- a document detailing information on the object's orbit -- which highlighted the apparent comet's eccentric pattern.
'Based on the available observations, the orbit solution for this object has converged to the hyperbolic elements shown below, which would indicate an interstellar origin.' reads document.
While that hyperbolic pattern -- which differs from the elliptical shape of objects in our solar system -- shows that the object will likely leave our solar system for good, it also portends a longer stay and much more in-depth look than previous interstellar travelers.
Estimates on C/2019 Q4 project that the object could remain within our solar system for between six months to a full year, meaning astronomers may be able to get a particularly good look at its features, on its brightness.
On Thursday, the center released an official 'circular' -- a document detailing information on the object's orbit -- which highlighted the apparent comet's eccentric pattern. The faint object is circled above
'We don’t know how bright it’s going to be. That’s always an issue with comets, so you’ve got that unpredictability, combined with the fact that it is interstellar. And this is the first interstellar comet we’ve seen,' astronomy-software developer Bill Gray, told Forbes.
Previously, astronomers identified an asteroid-like rock known as Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to pass through our solar system.
The mysterious cigar-shaped projectile, formally named object 1I/2017 U1, resembles both a comet and an asteroid, however, it doesn't conform to many of the other defining features usually associated with these objects, including its direction of spin and lack of a tail.
Previously, astronomers identified an asteroid-like rock known as Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. An artist's impression of Oumuamua is pictured
Conversely, when astronomers spotted Oumuamua, they had just three weeks to observe it before it left our solar system.
Professional stargazer Robert Weryk first spotted the interstellar traveler in October, 2017 at the University of Hawaii's Haleakala Observatory.
Researchers had just weeks to collect as much data as possible before the strange visitor traveled beyond the reach of Earth's telescopes.
The object is now out of sight but could take up to 20,000 years before it leaves our solar system onto its next destination.
Interstellar objects like the ones recently discovered are particularly exciting for astronomers since they offer a rare, glimpse of what other parts of the galaxy may look like.
Astronomers will now be able to compare their findings on Oumuamua with the most recent specimen.
WHAT IS 'OUMUAMUA AND WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT?
A cigar-shaped asteroid named 'Oumuamua sailed past Earth at 97,200mph (156,428km/h) in October.
It was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 19 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week.
It is named after the Hawaiian term for 'scout' or 'messenger' and passed the Earth at about 85 times the distance to the moon.
It was the first interstellar object seen in the solar system, and it baffled astronomers.
Initially, it was thought the object could be a comet.
However, it displays none of the classic behaviour expected of comets, such as a dusty, water-ice particle tail.
The asteroid is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide.
That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or asteroid observed in our solar system to date.
But the asteroid's slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to objects in our own solar system.
Around the size of the Gherkin skyscraper in London, some astronomers were convinced it was piloted by aliens due to the vast distance the object traveled without being destroyed – and the closeness of its journey past the Earth.
Alien hunters at SETI – the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence based at Berkeley University, California said there was a possibility the rock was ‘an alien artefact’.
But scientists from Queen’s University Belfast took a good look at the object and said it appears to be an asteroid, or ‘planetesimal’ as originally thought.
Researchers believe the cigar-shaped asteroid had a 'violent past', after looking at the light bouncing off its surface.
They aren't exactly sure when the violent collision took place, but they believe the lonely asteroid's tumbling will continue for at least a billion years.
A mysterious star whose repeated bouts of darkening might be due to "alien megastructures," according to some researchers' conjectures, may now have more than a dozen counterparts that display similarly mystifying behavior, a new study finds.
Further research into all of these stars might help solve the puzzle of their bewildering flickering, the study's author said.
In 2015, scientists noticed unusual fluctuations in the light from a star named KIC 8462852. This otherwise-normal F-type star, which is slightly larger and hotter than Earth's sun, sits about 1,480 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.
When the researchers analyzed data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomer Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian, then at Yale University, and her colleagues found dozens of odd instances of KIC 8462852 dimming by up to 22%, with such dips lasting anywhere from a few days to a week. These events did not appear to follow any pattern and seemed far too substantial to be caused by planets or dust crossing the star's face.
These analyses of KIC 8462852 — now nicknamed "Boyajian's star" (formerly Tabby's star) after its discoverer — raised the possibility that astronomers had detected signs of intelligent alien life. Specifically, researchers have suggested that the star is surrounded by a Dyson sphere, a hypothetical megastructure that is built around a star to capture as much of its light as possible. Mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that such megastructures could help power an advanced civilization. (Science fiction often depicts Dyson spheres as solid shells around stars, but the megastructures also could be globular swarms of giant solar panels.)
The megastructure hypothesis is near the bottom of most astronomers' lists these days when it comes to Boyajian's star, however; further analyses have pointed to more prosaic explanations, such as clouds of dust or comet fragments. Still, scientists have not yet nailed down the precise cause of the odd dimming. The answer remains elusive in part because Boyajian's star seemed unique; there were no known counterparts to provide additional clues that might help researchers solve this cosmic mystery.
Now, study author Edward Schmidt, an astrophysicist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, suggests that he may have discovered more than a dozen stars like Boyajian's star.
Schmidt looked for counterparts of Boyajian's star using software that searched for analogous dimming events from about 14 million objects with varying brightness monitored in the Northern Sky Variable Survey from April 1999 to March 2000. He then followed up on promising candidates by examining their long-term behavior, using data from the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, ruling out sources whose dimming could be caused by conventional explanations such as an eclipsing companion star or some intrinsic variability in brightness.
Schmidt identified 21 stars that showed possibly unusual dimming. These fell into two distinct categories: 15 were "slow dippers" that dimmed at rates similar to Boyajian's star, and six were "rapid dippers" that showed even more extreme variability in their dimming rates.
"The thing that surprised me the most were these stars that had so many dips, the ones I called 'rapid dippers,'" Schmidt told Space.com. "I expected more occasional dips like Boyajian's star."
Further analysis using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space observatory found that these potential dippers tended to be either conventional "main-sequence" stars with about the same mass as the sun or red giant stars with about twice the sun's mass. The slow and rapid dippers are seen in both groups, which may suggest that they represent varying degrees of the same mechanism, Schmidt said.
Schmidt noted that the Northern Sky Variable Survey he searched for potential counterparts of Boyajian's star did not contain records of Boyajian's star itself darkening during the year of data in that catalog. This highlights how astronomers may easily miss stars that can darken in this manner if they look only at catalogs that monitor stars for relatively short intervals of time.
"We're obviously missing some of these stars because of the catalogs we have," Schmidt said. "By looking at more catalogs, we may get a better picture of what's going on, even though it won't be a complete picture."
Future research that combs through more catalogs of stellar activity may turn up even more analogues of Boyajian's star, he said.
"I intend to try and follow up on the rapid dippers," Schmidt said. "One thing I noticed about them is that at least one seemed to be slowing way down in its dipping rate over the five years of coverage we have of it. It'd be interesting to find out what happened in its past, which may help give a better idea of what's going on with these stars."
Schmidt detailed his findings July 18 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Bigelow Aerospace publishes video what looks like an Orb and a Being inside a sealed room
Bigelow Aerospace publishes video what looks like an Orb and a Being inside a sealed room
On September 20, 2019 Bigelow Aerospace posted a strange video on their Twitter account showing a floating Orb and probably 'something' else and it's entitled "our small contribution"
When asked what the video is about, they responded "It is an orb recorded in a highly secure Bigelow Aerospace facility in Las Vegas. Absolutely nothing could get in or out of that particular structure but yet, something did…”
But something strange is going on with this video recorded in Bigelow's research and development facility in Las Vegas which is said to be the location for the storage of metal alloys and other materials recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.
At first it is a grainy video something you don't expect from a recording made in 2011 except if the video was intentionally blurred to hide some details. Was the room a sealed one and why does that look like a prison table inside the room? Beside the floating Orb in the small room it is as if 'something' is sitting at the table.
Absolutely nothing could get in or out of that particular structure!
In his wonderful account of the rocket that never was (Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship, 2002), George Dyson discusses his father’s thoughts on taking the craft to the moons of Saturn. Freeman Dyson and other Orion colleagues wanted to land on a moon to pick up propellant, but thought the moons of Jupiter were trickier than Saturn’s because of the depth of the Jovian gravity well. Anyway, Enceladus was a kind of beacon, and it was there Dyson fixed his attention.
George Dyson quotes Freeman on the matter:
“We knew very little about the satellites in those days. Enceladus looked particularly good. It was known to have a density of .618, so it clearly had to be made of ice plus hydrocarbons, really light things; which were what you need both for biology and for propellant, so you could imagine growing your vegetables there. Five-one-thousandths g on Enceladus is a very gentle gravity, just enough so that you won’t jump off.”
As George noted, Enceladus was a long way from La Jolla, CA (where General Atomic had moved in 1958 to a 300-acre facility above the beaches near Torrey Pines), some 9 astronomical units, but the views would be spectacular. Imagine standing on Enceladus, where Saturn would appear vastly larger than Earth’s moon appears to us. Planet and rings would fill the sky, “changing phase from hour to hour, illuminated by the pale light of a distant sun.”
Image: Mosaic of the surface of Enceladus captured by Cassini on 9th October 2008 from an altitude of 25 kilometres.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
We now know just how prescient Freeman Dyson was about the virtues of Enceladus, armed with Cassini data about geysers and an internal ocean. I always keep an eye on further insights from Cassini about this intriguing moon, and notice that at the EPSC-DPS joint meeting in Geneva this week, a team of researchers under Alice Le Gall (LATMOS-UVSQ, Paris) has analyzed some 60 radar observations of Saturn’s inner moons taken by Cassini. The result: Previous reports from these data underestimated their radar brightness by a factor of two.
All of Saturn’s inner moons show high radar reflectivity, with Enceladus itself being twice as bright as Europa, which is the brightest of Jupiter’s satellites. Significant variation turns up among the moons of Saturn, with Enceladus having the highest radar albedo, Titan the lowest.
Image: This is Figure 1 from the precis of Dr. Le Gall’s presentation. Caption: Averaged 2.2-cm disk-integrated radar albedos of Saturn’s major satellites. The error bars show the dispersion of the dataset for each satellite.
Credit: Alice Le Gall.
What we’re witnessing among these inner moons is a fascinating interplay of material being pumped from the internal ocean of Enceladus into nearby space, affecting Tethys and Mimas. These three moons also interact with Saturn’s E-ring, which delivers water ice to their surfaces. The dazzling reflectivity that attracted the Orion team is largely the result of fresh water-ice particles from Enceladus, which acts as what Dr. Le Gall calls a ‘snow-cannon’ to coat all three surfaces. In other words, it snows on these worlds, in the sense that the particles fall back onto Enceladus and precipitate onto the surfaces of the other moons as well. Says Le Gall:
“The super-bright radar signals that we observe require a snow cover that is at least a few tens of centimetres thick. However, the composition alone cannot explain the extremely bright levels recorded. Radar waves can penetrate transparent ice down to [a] few meters and therefore have more opportunities to bounce off buried structures. The sub-surfaces of Saturn’s inner moons must contain highly efficient retro-reflectors that preferentially backscatter radar waves towards their source.”
Just what these ‘structures’ are is not known, though radar observations of Enceladus have shown subsurface features including pinnacles and ice blocks, along with fractured terrain. Le Gall’s team has developed models to test what specific shapes can act as effective reflectors, also testing whether enhanced reflection is a matter of random scattering events. This is a work in progress:
“So far, we don’t have a definitive answer,” adds Le Gall. “However, understanding these radar measurements better will give us a clearer picture of the evolution of these moons and their interaction with Saturn’s unique ring environment. This work could also be useful for future missions to land on the moons.”
The presentation is Le Gall et al., “Saturn’s inner moons: why are they so radar-bright?” in EPSC Abstracts Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS 2019-454-2, 2019 EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 (abstract).
Mysterious magnetic pulses & evidence of groundwater discovered on Mars
Mysterious magnetic pulses & evidence of groundwater discovered on Mars
Mars may be hiding water deep beneath its surface, NASA’s InSight lander has discovered – and the planet’s magnetic field has a life of its own, pulsing at the stroke of midnight in a manner utterly unlike anything found on Earth.
There may be liquid water on Mars after all – dozens of miles inside the planet, according to magnetic measurements from the InSight lander, which has been exploring Mars since landing in November. The probe’s magnetometer seems to register an electrically conductive layer up to 62 miles beneath the surface, appearing similar to how water deep within the Earth appears using terrestrial magnetometers.
Unfortunately for would-be Martian colonists eager to find out whether there really is water down there, InSight can only drill 16 feet beneath the surface, leaving a potential oasis woefully out of reach.
In another intriguing discovery, the red planet’s magnetic field wiggles mysteriously at midnight, according to measurements from InSight’s magnetometer, which found that field to be 20 times stronger than what had been predicted based on previous orbital measurements. The pulses last as long as two hours.
Scientists suspect a protrusion in the weak magnetic envelope surrounding the planet is “plucking” the surface magnetic field to cause the eerily-timed pulsations, suggesting the anomaly aligns with InSight’s perch in Elysium Planitia every night at midnight, causing the magnetometer to go wild as if on a timer.
During a hearing of the space subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Science, Space and Technology Committee on Wednesday (Sept. 18), multiple representatives voiced concerns about the agency's progress toward the ambitious 2024 lunar-landing goal. And one of the key witnesses, Ken Bowersox, NASA's acting associate administrator for human exploration and operations, didn't exactly put their deadline doubts to rest.
When Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., asked how confident he was that NASA would meet the 2024 target, for example, Bowersox responded, "I wouldn't bet my oldest child's upcoming birthday present or anything like that."
The 2024 target is a good thing, Bowersox added, saying that aggressive goals help focus the agency's efforts and attention. But he stressed that meeting the deadline is not the agency's main objective.
"We're going to do our best to make it. But, like I said, what's important is that we launch when we're ready, that we have a successful mission when it launches," he said.
"And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, just arbitrarily, we're going to make it," said Bowersox, a former NASA astronaut. "We have to have a lot of things come together to make it happen. We have to get our funding, we have to balance our resources with our requirements, and then we've got to execute it really well. And so, there's a lot of risk to making the date, but we want to try to do it."
NASA is doing this work via a lunar-exploration program called Artemis, which envisions using the moon as a steppingstone to the ultimate human-spaceflight destination: Mars.
If all goes according to plan, NASA will build a small moon-orbiting space station called the Gateway in the early 2020s. Gateway is key to the overall Artemis effort, because it will serve as a hub for surface missions. Landers, both crewed and uncrewed, will depart from the Gateway to the lunar surface and return to the ministation when their work on the ground is done. Astronauts will also operate moon rovers from this orbital perch, NASA officials have said.
The space agency aims to land two astronauts — including the first-ever female moonwalker — near the lunar south pole in 2024 and establish a sustainable, long-term presence on and around the moon by 2028.
This latter date was the original target for the first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era. But in March, Vice President Mike Pence moved the timeline up four years.
"Urgency must be our watchword," Pence said at the time, invoking a space race with Russia and China. "The United States must remain first in space in this century as in the last, not just to propel our economy and secure our nation but, above all, because the rules and values of space, like every great frontier, will be written by those who have the courage to get there first and the commitment to stay."
NASA plans to achieve the Artemis goals using the Orion capsule and a huge rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS). Orion has flown once, on an uncrewed test mission to Earth orbit in 2014, but the oft-delayed SLS has yet to get off the ground.
The first flight of SLS, known as Artemis 1, will send an uncrewed Orion around the moon. That test mission is targeted for late 2020, Bowersox said. Artemis 2, scheduled for 2022, will launch four astronauts on a lunar flyby mission. Artemis 3 will deliver four astronauts to the Gateway in 2024; two of these pioneers will then make their way down to the lunar surface aboard a privately built lander.
Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, voiced considerable skepticism that this plan will come together in time.
"It has been almost a decade since an American spacecraft sent astronauts into space at all. Yet the Administration's plan requires our astronauts to attempt a lunar landing on only the second crewed flight beyond low-Earth orbit after what by then will have been a 50-year hiatus, with no real plans for prior crewed preparatory flights in low-Earth orbit," Johnson wrote in her prepared statement for Wednesday's hearing, which was called "Developing Core Capabilities for Deep-Space Exploration: An Update on NASA's SLS, Orion and Exploration Ground Systems."
The paucity of crewed test flights is apparently an area of concern for Johnson, who noted that the 2024 lunar landing attempt will come as part of the first crewed mission to Gateway. And that surface mission might mark the first flights of the lander and the ascent vehicle that gets astronauts back up to the Gateway, she added.
"Rhetoric about American leadership in space and advancing the role of women in spaceflight is all well and good, but it is not a substitute for a well-planned, well-managed, well-funded, and well-executed exploration program," Johnson said in her written statement. "To date, Congress has not been given a credible basis for believing that the president’s Moon 2024 program satisfies any of those criteria. In short, if Congress is to support such a program, the Administration is going to have to do a lot more to provide such evidence."
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.
Aliens of all stripes are zeroing in on the secretive Area 51 this weekend.
Area 51 is the hush-hush U.S. Air Force military installation located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada.
The installation has been the focus of numerous conspiracies involving the base's extraterrestrial connection — a locale for captured flying saucers and surely an alien holding site.
The town of Rachel is an unincorporated portion of Lincoln County, Nevada. As the closest habitation to the Nellis Air Force Range and Area 51, the area has become a Mecca for inquisitive UFO believers.
The town is roughly three hours drive north of Las Vegas along Nevada Highway 375, also called the "Extraterrestrial Highway." Rachel is home base for Little A'Le'Inn that has been selling tickets for "ALIENSTOCK."
Be forewarned: There is no gas available in Rachel. Incoming alien hunters are urged to fill their tank in Alamo/Ash Springs from the east or Tonopah from the west.
Meanwhile, instead of storming a secretive government base, the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center is partnering with Collective Zoo and Bud Light to host an evening of top-secret entertainment on Thursday, September 19 with the Area 51 Celebration.
"The time has come to sit back, share a beer, and talk all things aliens," exclaims the associated website. "Come in peace, we have everything you need to make this celebration a blowout, including a classified lineup of music artists specially curated by Collective Zoo."
Matty Roberts, the man behind the virtual "Storm Area 51" movement has been abducted to host the alien-themed event in downtown Las Vegas.
Gate-crashing no-no
Overall, there's no telling how many are truly expected to populate the Area 51 festivities. As of this posting, it remains unclear what events may have been cancelled or are still planned in light of an alien free-for-all, even legal fights over events.
In the meantime, for those wishing to storm a highly-classified military base, UFO devotees are being warned that any gate-crashing is a no-no and will be deterred.
Leonard David is author of the recently released book, "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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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 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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