‘Oumuamua – the weird object that entered our solar system in 2017 and quickly fled back toward interstellar space – might not be an asteroid or comet from a distant solar system, as many believed. It might instead be a “cosmic dust bunny.”

Artist’s concept of ‘Oumuamua, whose actual appearance is unknown. This illustration is based on the limited observations available. What was ‘Oumuamua? We know it entered our solar system – swept near our sun on September 9, 2017 – then headed back to interstellar space again. Astronomers are still trying to piece its story together.

Image via ESO/ M. Kornmesser.

When astronomers first spied ‘Oumuamua – in the fall of 2017 – they weren’t sure if it was one of our solar system’s asteroids or comets, or something else. It turned out to be an interstellar interloper, the first-known interstellar object. The astronomers watched it speed through the solar system, disappearing from view of even the largest earthly telescopes around January 2018 … as theories about its odd shape and behavior raged. Some said it was an unusually long asteroid. Others even proposed an extraterrestrial spacecraft, reminiscent of the one in Arthur C. Clarke’s famous sci-fi novel “Rendezvous with Rama.” The astronomers eventually settled on its being either an asteroid or comet from another solar system, albeit a weird one.

Now there’s a new idea. ‘Oumuamua might not be an interstellar asteroid or comet, but instead something never seen before: neither ice nor rock, but rather a very lightweight and “fluffy” conglomerate of dust and ice grains, sort of like a “cosmic dust bunny.” The new peer-reviewed research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on November 11, 2019.

Popular Science published an article on this study on November 15. As explained by Charlie Wood at PopSci, the new study suggests ‘Oumuamua might be so porous that sunbeams could actually push it and give it its observed momentum.

When astronomers first spotted ‘Oumuamua, it was already on its way out of the solar system. There was limited time to observe it. But astronomers did notice something odd: the object was increasing slightly in speed. Comets could do that, as they lost ice and dust particles behind them in their tails. But ‘Oumuamua didn’t a tail.

• EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Our best view of ‘Oumuamua – from the William Herschel Telescope on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain – on October 29, 2017.

Image via A. Fitzsimmons, QUB/Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes.

What else could cause ‘Oumuamua to increase in speed? As Wood’s article in PopSci explained:

One provocative paper suggested that pressure from sunlight itself was pushing the object away, as light particles have billiard ball-like momentum. But considering ‘Oumuamua’s assumed heft as an asteroid, it would need a giant flat surface to catch enough of the sun’s rays to get any kind of boost from the barrage of light particles.

This idea, though, led to the even wilder possibility. Perhaps ‘Oumuamua was artificial, something like a large flat light sail.

It was Amaya Moro-Martín – an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute – who proposed ‘Oumuamua might be “fluffy.” It might be a lightweight conglomerate of dust and ice grains, known as a fractal aggregate: in essence, a dust fractal or “cosmic dust bunny.” The porous patterns in it would be repeated across different size scales, like a fractal. As co-author Eirik Flekkøy, a physicist at the University of Oslo, told PopSci:

It’s a completely new thing. I think if you hit this thing it would be a little bit like hitting a spider web.

The PopSci article explained:

Intrigued by Moro-Martín’s suggestion, Flekkøy and his colleagues set out to check whether the fractal aggregate hypothesis held up. They noticed that an observed slowing of ‘Oumuamua’s rotation supported the theory, because the speed of the slowing fit with a phenomenon where light can push harder on some parts of a surface—such as shinier parts—than it pushes on others. When the object cools after being heated up by the sun, the departure of heat exerts gentle pushes too. All these uneven nudges can add up to make a lumpy object spin faster or slower over time.

So if sunbeams could turn ‘Oumuamua, the researchers reasoned, perhaps they could speed it up too

This could explain the object’s slowing rotation and increase in speed, but would such a lightweight structure hold together? PopSci quoted Flekkøy as saying:

If this is such a filamentary, porous, fractal structure, would it survive? And the answer is fairly safely, yes.

Read more via Popular Science

Artist’s illustration of a light sail. Some people have speculated that ‘Oumuamua could be an alien version of something similar, but larger.

Image via Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society.

The trajectory of ‘Oumuamua through the solar system.

Image via Guy Ottewell’s blog.

• Bottom line: ‘Oumuamua – the weird object that entered our solar system a few years ago – may not be an asteroid or comet at all, but rather a “cosmic dust bunny.”
• Source: The Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua as a Fractal Dust Aggregate

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

27-11-2019 om 14:11 geschreven door peter  

Alien civilizations may have explored the galaxy and visited Earth already, new study says. We just haven’t seen them recently.

• The Milky Way could be teeming with extraterrestrial civilizations that have spread across the stars, according to a new study.
• The study offers new perspectives on the Fermi Paradox, which asks why we haven’t found signs of intelligent extraterrestrials in our galaxy.
• There are plenty of scenarios in which aliens could exist but we haven’t heard from them, the study authors wrote. Aliens may have even visited Earth, they say, just not recently enough for us to have noticed.
• The study suggests that aliens might wait for stars to move closer to one another before spreading across the galaxy
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The Milky Way could be teeming with interstellar alien civilizations, according to a new study. We just don’t know about it because they haven’t paid us a visit in 10 million years.

The study, published last month in The Astronomical Journal, posits that intelligent extraterrestrial life could be taking its time to explore the galaxy, harnessing star systems’ movement to make star-hopping easier.

The work is a new response to a question known as the Fermi Paradox, which asks why we haven’t detected signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

The paradox was first posed by physicist Enrico Fermi, who famously asked: “Where is everybody?”

Fermi was questioning the feasibility of travel between stars, but since then, his query has come to represent doubts about the very existence of extraterrestrials. Astrophysicist Michael Hart explored the question formally when he argued in a 1975 paper that there has been plenty of time for intelligent life to colonise the Milky Way in the 13.6 billion years since the galaxy first formed, yet we’ve heard nothing from them. Hart concluded that there must be no other advanced civilizations in our galaxy.

The new study offers a different perspective on the question: Maybe aliens are just taking their time and being strategic, the authors suggest.

“If you don’t account for motion of stars when you try to solve this problem, you’re basically left with one of two solutions,” Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a computational scientist and the study’s lead author, told Business Insider. “Either nobody leaves their planet, or we are in fact the only technological civilisation in the galaxy.”

Stars (and the planets around them) orbit the centre of the galaxy on different paths at different speeds. As they do, they occasionally pass each other, Carroll-Nellenback pointed out. So aliens could be waiting for their next destination to come closer to them, his study says.

In that case, civilizations would take longer to spread across the stars than Hart estimated. So they may not have reached us yet ⁠- or maybe they did, long before humans evolved.

A new idea about interstellar travel

Researchers have sought to answer the Fermi Paradox in a number of ways – studies have investigated the possibility that all alien life forms in oceans below a planet’s surface, and posited that civilizations may get undone by their unsustainability before accomplishing any interstellar travel. There’s also the “zoo hypothesis,” which imagines that Milky Way societies have decided not to contact us for the same reasons that we have nature preserves or maintain protections for some uncontacted indigenous peoples.

A 2018 Oxford University study, meanwhile, suggested that there’s a roughly 2-in-5 chance we’re alone in our galaxy and a 1-in-3 chance we’re alone in the entire cosmos.

But the authors of the newest study point out that previous research hasn’t accounted for a crucial fact of our galaxy: It moves. Just as planets orbit stars, star systems orbit the galactic centre. Our solar system, for example, orbits the galaxy every 230 million years.

If civilizations arise in star systems far away from the others (like our own, which is in the backwaters of the galaxy), they could make the trip shorter by waiting until their orbital path brings them closer to a habitable star system, the study says. Then once settled in that new system, the aliens could wait again for an optimal travel distance to make another hop, and so on.

In this scenario, aliens aren’t jet-setting across the galaxy. They’re just waiting long enough for their star to get close to another star with a habitable planet.

“If long enough is a billion years, well then that’s one solution to the Fermi paradox,” Carroll-Nellenback said. “Habitable worlds are so rare that you have to wait longer than any civilisation is expected to last before another one comes in range.”

The Milky Way could be full of settled star systems

To explore the scenarios in which aliens could exist, the researchers used numerical models to simulate a civilisation’s spread across the galaxy. They factored in a variety of possibilities for a hypothetical civilisation’s proximity to new star systems, the range and speed of its interstellar probes, and the launch rate of those probes.

The research team did not attempt to guess at aliens’ motivations or politics – a tendency that some astronomers view as a pitfall in other Fermi Paradox solutions.

“We tried to come up with a model that would involve the fewest assumptions about sociology that we could,” Carroll-Nellenback said.

Still, part of the problem with modelling the galactic spread of alien civilizations is that we’re only working with one data point: ourselves. So all our predictions are based on our own behaviour.

But even with this limitation, the researchers found that the Milky Way could be filled with settled star systems that we don’t know about. That still held true when they used conservative estimates of the speed and frequency of aliens’ interstellar travel.

“Every system could be habitable and could be settled, but they wouldn’t visit us because they’re not close enough,” Carroll-Nellenback said, though he added that just because that’s possible doesn’t make it likely.

So far, we’ve detected about 4,000 planets outside our solar system and none have been shown to host life. But we haven’t looked that hard: There are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and even more planets. One recent study estimated that up to 10 billion of those planets could be Earth-like.

So the study authors wrote that concluding that none of those planets hold life would be like looking at a pool-sized amount of ocean water and finding no dolphins, then deciding that the entire ocean has no dolphins.

Aliens may have visited Earth in the past

Another key element in debates about alien life is what Hart called “Fact A”: There are no interstellar visitors on Earth now, and there is no evidence of past visits.

But that doesn’t mean they were never here, the authors of the new study say.

If an alien civilisation came to Earth millions of years ago (the Earth is 4.5 billion years old), there might be no remaining signs of their visit, the authors wrote. They pointed to previous researchsuggesting that we may not be able to detect evidence of past alien visits.

It’s even possible that aliens have passed near Earth since we’ve been here, but decided not to visit. The paper calls this the “Aurora effect,” named for Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel “Aurora.”

What’s more, aliens might not want to visit a planet that already has life, the authors said. To assume that they would, they added, would be a “naive projection” of a human tendency to equate expansion with conquest.

The study accounted for all of these considerations – the calculations assumed that alien civilizations would only settle a fraction of the habitable worlds they encountered. Still, the researchers said, if there are enough habitable worlds, aliens could easily have spread across the galaxy by now.

There’s still much more to learn

For now, the researchers don’t think we should get discouraged by any perceived silence from the universe.

“It doesn’t mean that we’re alone,” Carroll-Nellenback said. “It just means that habitable planets are probably rare and hard to get to.”

In the next few years, our ability to detect and observe other potentially habitable planets is expected to improve dramatically as new telescopes get built and launched into space.

The Kepler telescope made leaps and bounds in the search for planets that might host life in our galaxy. In Earth’s orbit today, the Hubble Space Telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) are continuing the search. NASA is also building the James Webb Space Telescope, which may be able to see as far through space and time as the Big Bang. It’s slated to launch in 2021.

Of course, what would really improve scientists’ ability to estimate the probability that we’re alone in the universe would be more data on the speed or ranges of interstellar probes. A better sense of how long hypothetical alien civilizations last would be useful, too.

“We’re in desperate need of some data points,” Carroll-Nellenback said.

{ https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ }

27-11-2019 om 13:47 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/ }

27-11-2019 om 12:49 geschreven door peter  

Extraterrestrial life could be more common than previously thought, new study says

Researchers believe there’s a specific type of star system very different from ours that provides a higher chance for intelligent life.

While some in the scientific community believe finding extraterrestrial life is “probably going to take a long time”, others believe aliens could be more prevalent than previously thought.

A new study suggests intelligent life is likely to inhabit a star system drastically different than ours. The researchers modelled a theoretical Earth into binary star systems – those with two stars – and found that 87 per cent of these “exo-Earths” should have their axis tilted similar to that of Earth, an important ingredient for intelligent life.

“Multiple star systems are common, and about 50 (per cent) of stars have binary companion stars. So, this study can be applied to a large number of solar systems,” said the study’s co-author, Gongjie Li, in a statement.

They probably won’t look like this, but scientists think aliens are more likely to exist in certain star systems.

Source:News Limited

These types of discoveries have been made in the past, including most recently LTT 1445 A b, a distant rocky exoplanet that has three stars. LTT 1445 A b is about 22 light-years from Earth. In 2016, NASA discovered a planet orbiting two stars in the OGLE-2007-BLG-349 system, 8,000 light-years away.

A light-year measures distance in space and equals 6 trillion miles.

The researchers compared Earth’s tilt to the tilt of Mars, noting the extreme variations between the two planets, and then looked at what Earth might be like if it were in the Alpha Centauri AB system, 4.4 light-years from Earth.

“Using numerical modelling in α Centauri AB, we show the following: there is a stark contrast between the planetary obliquity variations depending on the host star, planetary neighbours limit the possible spin states for Earth-like obliquity stability, and the presence of a moon can destabilise the obliquity, defying our Earth-based expectations,” the researchers added in the study.

“We simulated what it would be like around other binaries with multiple variations of the stars’ masses, orbital qualities and so on,” said Billy Quarles, the study’s principal investigator, in the statement. “The overall message was positive but not for our nearest neighbour.

The Alpha Centauri group is the closest ‘binary star system’, where the two stars orbit one another.

Picture: NASA/ESASource:Supplied

Going out further into deep space, the results became more promising, leading the researchers to believe it’s a possibility.

“In general, the separation between the stars is larger in binary systems, and then the second star has less of an effect on the model of Earth,” Prof Li added. “The planet’s own motion dynamics dominate other influences, and obliquity usually has a smaller variation. So, this is quite optimistic.”

The study has been published in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal and was funded by NASA’s Exobiology Program.

A comprehensive study published in June found no evidence of extraterrestrial life among more than 1300 stars in proximity to Earth, a hunt that spanned more than three years.

A separate study published that month drastically cut the number of planets that could potentially host intelligent life, noting the definition for the “habitable zone” – the distance between a planet and star – “is likely limited relative to that for microbial life”.

In October, a former NASA scientist published a stunning op-ed, saying he is convinced the space agency “found evidence of life” on Mars in the 1970s. NASA has vehemently denied this claim.

• This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission

{ https://www.news.com.au/ }

27-11-2019 om 12:30 geschreven door peter  

NASA's Orion Capsule Takes a Ride on the 'Super Guppy' (Photos, Video)

By Mike Wall - Spaceflight 

The crew capsule is now in Ohio for testing.

NASA's Super Guppy transport plane, with the Orion crew capsule inside, on the ground at Mansfield Lahm Airport in Ohio on Nov. 24, 2019. Orion will undergo a series of tests at NASA’s Plum Brook Station.

(Image: © NASA/Bridget Caswell)

NASA's Orion spacecraft just took a ride on one of the weirdest airplanes in the world.

Orion, which will help astronauts get to and from the moon and Mars, flew from Florida's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to Ohio over the weekend aboard the Super Guppy, NASA's specialized oversized-transport plane.

The Super Guppy touched down at Mansfield Lahm Airport on Sunday (Nov. 24). Orion was removed from the plane and loaded onto a flatbed truck on Monday morning (Nov. 25), NASA officials said. The capsule is headed for NASA's Plum Brook Station, where it will undergo extensive testing inside the world's largest vacuum chamber.

• Related: The Orion Space Capsule: NASA's Next Spaceship (Photos)

The testing campaign will begin with a "thermal test," during which Orion's various systems will be powered on in a space-like environment.

"During this phase, the spacecraft will be subjected to extreme temperatures, ranging from minus 250 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit [minus 160 to 150 degrees Celsius], to replicate flying in and out of sunlight and shadow in space," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "The second phase is an electromagnetic interference and compatibility test, lasting about 14 days. This testing will ensure the spacecraft’s electronics work properly when operated at the same time."

After these tests are done, Orion will be ferried back to KSC, where technicians will begin integrating it with NASA's huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket ahead of the Artemis 1 mission. 

Artemis 1, which is targeted for November 2020, will send Orion on a three-week, uncrewed flight around the moon. That mission will be the first for the SLS and the second for Orion, which took a brief uncrewed jaunt to Earth orbit in December 2014. (That flight lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.)

Artemis 1 will be a key milestone in NASA's Artemis program, which aims to put two astronauts down near the lunar south pole by 2024 and establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2028.

Accomplishing such goals will help NASA and its partners learn the skills needed to put boots on Mars, agency officials have said.

The Super Guppy has been hauling oversized NASA cargo for more than five decades. The plane's strange, bulbous shape makes perfect sense, given this role.

"Although there are other aircraft capable of carrying more weight than the Super Guppy, very few come close to its internal dimensions. Boasting an immense cargo area that is 25 feet in diameter and 111 feet long [7.6 by 34 meters], the Super Guppy can carry items that are virtually impossible to fit inside other cargo aircraft," NASA officials wrote in a description of the aircraft.

"The Super Guppy has a unique hinged nose that opens 110 degrees, permitting full frontal cargo loading," they added. "A control lock and disconnect system at the fuselage break allows the nose to be opened and closed without disrupting the flight or engine control rigging."

• Orion Explained: NASA's Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (Infographic)
• Space Launch System: NASA's Giant Rocket Explained (Infographic)
• 'Artemis Is Here:' Vice President Pence Stresses Importance of 2024 Moon Landing

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

27-11-2019 om 01:24 geschreven door peter  

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Storm Isn't Dying Anytime Soon

By Samantha Mathewson - Science & Astronomy 

A series of images taken between May and June 2019 capture the reddish extension, or "flaking," observed on the east side of the Great Red Spot.

(Image: © Chris Go)

Despite the apparent shrinkage of clouds in Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the storm itself is still going strong, new research suggests.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot represents the most powerful storm in the solar system. While earlier studies have suggested that the storm has been shrinking since at least the 1800s, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, argued today (Nov. 25) at a conference of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics that there is no evidence that the vortex that powers the cloud formation is changing. 

"I don't think its fortunes were ever bad," Philip Marcus, a professor of fluid dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement released by the society. "It's more like Mark Twain's comment: The reports about [the storm's] death have been greatly exaggerated." 

• Related: Jupiter's Great Red Spot in Photos

The Great Red Spot has been photographed by both professional and amateur astronomers. Photos captured in May and June 2019 revealed large red "flakes" spinning off from the storm, which fueled assumptions that the system is getting smaller. 

However, observers don't see the storm directly, only the visible clouds above it, Marcus said. He and his colleagues suggest that the "flaking" observed around the storm is a natural consequence of storms interacting, rather than an indication that the Great Red Spot storm is itself weakening. 

As a smaller storm spinning the opposite direction approaches the Great Red Spot, a point of stagnation form. Then, when a smaller storm spinning the same direction as the monster storm approaches, its clouds are shattered and flake away in a reddish extension like that observed on the east side of the storm this spring, said Marcus, whose research focuses on the fluid dynamics of vortices, waves, turbulence and hydrodynamic stability. 

"These are very normal healthy activities for the Red Spot and its colleagues," Marcus said during a news conference held at the society's meeting.

In addition, Marcus said, he expects that the heating and cooling patterns around the vortex will continue to fuel the Great Red Spot. 

"I think that unless something somewhat cataclysmic happens on Jupiter, it will last for the indefinite future, until the jet streams change, so I would say likely centuries," Marcus said in the news conference. "Of course, I probably just gave it the kiss of death and it'll probably fall apart next week but that's the way science works."

•  Photos: Jupiter, the Solar System's Largest Planet 
•  In Photos: Juno's Amazing Views of Jupiter 
•  Jupiter's Great Red Spot: A Monster Storm in Pictures 

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

27-11-2019 om 00:38 geschreven door peter  

19 more galaxies mysteriously missing dark matter have been found

The newly found outliers defy ideas of how these star systems evolve

Most dwarf galaxies, like NGC 5477 seen in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, have far more dark matter than normal everyday matter. But researchers recently found 19 dwarf galaxies that seem to be missing huge stores of dark matter.

HUBBLE/ESA AND NASA

By Christopher Crockett

A smattering of small galaxies appear to be missing a whole lot of dark matter.

Most of a typical galaxy is invisible. This elusive mass, known as dark matter, seems to be an indispensable ingredient for creating a galaxy — it’s the scaffolding that attracts normal matter — yet reveals itself only as an extra gravitational tug on gas and stars.

But now, researchers have found 19 dwarf galaxies — all much smaller than the Milky Way — that defy this common wisdom. These newly identified outliers have much less dark matter than expected. The finding, published November 25 in Nature Astronomy, more than quintuples the known population of dark-matter renegades, adding fuel to an already simmering mystery.

“We are not sure why and how these galaxies form,” says Qi Guo, an astrophysicist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Typical dwarf galaxies concentrate dark matter far more than their larger cousins, she notes. Their smaller size leads to weaker gravity, which has trouble holding on to tenuous clouds of gas. That usually shifts the balance of mass in dwarf galaxies away from normal matter and toward dark matter.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

27-11-2019 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

NASA just showed us what a future moon lander might look like – CNET

This illustration shows what the midsize lander concept would look like on the moon.

NASA

NASA just gave us a peek at what a possible future moon lander might look like. The concept design the agency shared on Monday is essentially a space-faring delivery truck, meant to carry gear like rovers to the moon’s polar regions.

NASA doesn’t just want to send humans to the moon with its planned 2024 Artemis mission. The space agency wants to “establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028 to uncover new scientific discoveries, demonstrate new technological advancements, and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy.”

NASA is working with commercial partners to eventually deliver science and technology payloads to the moon. The space agency hopes the lander reference design will give them some food for thought as they develop their own equipment.

While this concept is dedicated to a rover payload, designers could use some of the same ideas for future human landers or other types of lunar equipment deliveries.

Engineers, scientists and space fans will enjoy browsing through NASA’s technical paper (PDF) for all the details on the lander’s potential components. It’s a fascinating inside look at how a lunar-lander sausage is made.

{ https://techupdatess.com/ }

26-11-2019 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Vrees van astronomen komt uit: vloot Starlink-satellieten van Elon Musk verstoort zicht op sterren en planeten - HLN.be

(En er komen nog duizenden exemplaren bij)

Eerder deze maand lanceerde het Amerikaanse ruimtebedrijf SpaceX een tweede cluster van mini-satellieten voor zijn toekomstige constellatie ‘Starlink’, dat wereldwijd - dus ook op afgelegen locaties waar internet nu afwezig, onbetrouwbaar of duur is - supersnel internet moet opleveren. 

Lees ook

Vreemde lichtgevende bol gespot boven België (en daar zit ene Elon Musk vermoedelijk voor iets tussen)

Controverse

Per zestig worden ze gelanceerd en dan komen ze op zo’n 550 kilometer hoogte in onze atmosfeer terecht. Dat is hoger dan het ISS, maar lager dan de meeste andere satellieten. 120 exemplaren zweven op dit moment in de lucht, gespreid over verschillende ruimtebanen. Een peulschil, want SpaceX heeft al toelating gekregen om 12.000 kunstmanen de lucht in te schieten. Het heeft bovendien frequenties aangevraagd voor nog eens 30.000 satellieten.

Al van in het begin gaat het grootse breedbandinternet-project van Elon Musk gepaard met controverse. Zo wordt gevreesd voor overbevolking van satellieten in lage banen, met risico op botsingen. “Elon Musk vult de lucht met ruimteafval”, klinkt onder meer de kritiek. Astronomen vrezen ook een verstoring van sterrenkundige waarnemingen, doordat de satellieten heldere strepen door hun beelden trekken en sterren en andere hemellichamen versluieren.

“Ik ben in shock”

Wat blijkt? De satellieten kunnen inderdaad observaties hinderen. Daarover klaagt onder meer een astronome van het Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), in het noorden van Chili. 

“Wow!! Ik ben in shock!!”, tweette wetenschapster Clarae Martínez-Vázquez. “De grote hoeveelheid Starlink-satellieten passeerde ons luchtruim vanavond”, zei ze. “Onze DECam-zichtbaarheid (Dark Energy Camera, red.) werd zwaar getroffen door 19 van hen. Het treintje Starlink-satellieten duurde langer dan vijf minuten.” De astronome voegde eraan toe dat ze dat “nogal deprimerend” vindt. 

Lichtspoor

Toen in mei de eerste zestig satellieten werden gelanceerd, kwam er al meteen kritiek toen de formatie heel helder en duidelijk werden gespot aan de nachtelijke hemel. Ook bij ons was een streep van tientallen lichtjes zichtbaar die op sterren leken. Een Nederlandse UFO-website werd overspoeld met meldingen van mensen die zich verbaasden over het mysterieuze lichtspoor. 

Een maand later publiceerde de International Astronomical Union een officieel statement waarin werd geklaagd over de reflecterende satellieten. Er werd geargumenteerd dat de kunstmanen astronomisch onderzoek kunnen bemoeilijken en zelfs in gevaar kunnen brengen, onder meer gelet op de gevoelige capaciteiten van grote astronomische telescopen op de grond.

De Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA moest in september dan weer een koerscorrectie uitvoeren met aardobservatiesatelliet Aeolus, om een botsing met een Starlink-satelliet te voorkomen. Door de toenemende drukte in de ruimte worden koerscorrecties steeds normaler, vreest de ESA.

EPA 

Volgens astronomen verpesten dit soort satellieten het zicht op de kosmos en brengen ze toekomstige astronomische waarnemingen in gevaar.

EPA

 EPA

{ https ://www.hln.be/ }

26-11-2019 om 17:42 geschreven door peter  

Astronaut stuurt robot vanuit ruimtestation ISS door hangar in Nederland - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET De Italiaanse astronaut Luca Parmitano heeft met succes vanuit het Internationaal Ruimtestation (ISS) een zogeheten rover over een hindernissenparcours op Aarde gestuurd. Het robotwagentje reed door een hangar op het voormalige vliegveld Valkenburg, bij het Nederlandse Katwijk.

Via een scherm kon de astronaut van het Europese Ruimtevaartbureau ESA zien waar hij het voertuig naartoe stuurde. Volgens ESA had de test nauwelijks beter kunnen verlopen. Voor de proef was een uur uitgetrokken, maar Parmitano trotseerde de baan in minder dan een halfuur.

Lees ook

Eerste koekjes in de ruimte: astronauten op ISS krijgen een oven voor bakexperiment

Het ruimtevaartbureau is zeer enthousiast over de samenwerking tussen mens en robot. “Een rover op Mars zou weken over het werk hebben gedaan dat Luca en de Analog-1-rover in een halfuur verrichten”, zei projectmanager Kjetil Wormnes. En dat is zeer van belang voor ESA, want ESA stuurt volgende zomer met Rusland een robotjeep en een stabiel platform naar Mars. Hoofdvraag van die missie is of op de Rode Planeet ooit leven heeft bestaan.

De technieken die ESA vandaag heeft uitgeprobeerd, kunnen bij toekomstige missies goed van pas komen. Astronauten kunnen op deze manier veilig en comfortabel vanuit een ruimteschip of -basis een robot aansturen die op onderzoek uitgaat. Ze hoeven dan niet zichzelf in een ruimtepak te hijsen. Alleen al het aantrekken van zo’n pak en de deur “uitgaan” door een luchtsluis duurt uren.

Human Spaceflight

✔@esaspaceflight

 · Nov 25, 2019

Replying to @esaspaceflight and 2 others

This is the view @astro_luca sees in space as he moves the #Analog1 rover through a simulated lunar terrain in the Netherlands to search for scientifically interesting rocks.

Human Spaceflight

✔@esaspaceflight

And this is what we see on Earth! Spooky to see the #Analog1 robot move, knowing the operator is thousands of kilometres away orbiting our planet.

• 24

12:39 PM - Nov 25, 2019

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26-11-2019 om 17:28 geschreven door peter  

“Archeologen graven gemummificeerde leeuwenwelpjes op in Egypte” - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Er werden ook 75 houten en bronzen standbeelden van katten gevonden, in verschillende vormen en maten. In houten dozen zaten gemummificeerde katten. Er waren ook standbeelden van andere dieren, zoals mangoesten en kleine krokodillen.

“Als de resultaten bevestigd worden, is het de eerste keer dat in Egypte intacte gemummificeerde leeuwenwelpjes ontdekt zijn”, aldus Mostafa Waziri als topman van de Hoge Raad van Antiquiteiten. Tot nu zijn enkel skeletten van leeuwen gevonden. De leeuwenmummies zouden in de zevende eeuw voor Christus begraven zijn. 

In de bekende necropolis van Saqqara zijn honderdduizenden dieren geofferd en achtergelaten in graven.Egypte kondigde recent een reeks ontdekkingen aan die de toeristische sector in het land er weer bovenop zouden moeten helpen.

 REUTERS 

Standbeelden van katten.

 EPA 

Gemummificeerde katachtigen worden tentoongesteld in Saqqara.

AFP 

Een van de recent ontdekte graftombes waar archeologen aan het werk zijn.

 REUTERS

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

26-11-2019 om 17:04 geschreven door peter  

Jacht naar (vorig) leven op mars gaat verder: complex plan moet gesteente naar de aarde brengen -  HLN.be

Bron: The Guardian

Het plan werd ‘Mars Sample Return’ gedoopt en moet zo’n 500 gram gesteente dat afkomstig is van mars, naar onze aarde brengen. “En laten we duidelijk zijn, elke stap van de missie belooft behoorlijk uitdagend te worden”, zo stak Jan Wörner, directeur van de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie, van wal tijdens de voorstelling.

Om het gesteente te verzamelen zullen in de eerste plaats twee marsrovers of robots worden ingezet. De eerste rover verzamelt de staaltjes in metalen buisjes, terwijl de tweede robot die buisjes in een container zo groot als een voetbal, moet opslaan. Vervolgens zal het materiaal in een baan rond mars gekatapulteerd worden door een raket om daar onderschept te worden door een onbemand ruimteschip. Tot slot zullen de staaltjes van mars per parachute in de woestijn in Utah gedropt worden.

Lees ook

Marsrover Curiosity deelt nieuwe selfie van zijn bijzonder experiment

Leven op mars

Waarom de twee ruimtevaartagentschappen uitpakken met zo’n complex plan? Wetenschappers popelen om materiaal afkomstig van mars te bestuderen gezien de omstandigheden op de rode planeet miljarden jaren geleden vergelijkbaar waren met die op aarde. De planeet had destijds een dikke atmosfeer en er was stromend water te vinden op het oppervlak.

Vandaag is het grootste deel van die atmosfeer echter verdwenen en wetenschappers stellen zich de vraag of er vroeger sprake was van geëvolueerd leven.

Inadequate methodes

“We hebben op dit moment slechts twee manieren om het gesteente van mars te bestuderen”, aldus astrobioloog Susanne Schwenzer. “We kunnen sondes naar mars sturen en daar rotsmonsters analyseren of we kunnen stukjes bestuderen die als meteorieten op de aarde arriveren.”

Maar die methodes hebben enkele nadelen. De sondes worden belemmerd door hun (gelimiteerde) opslagplaats, batterijduur en ondervinden vaak problemen bij het landen op de rode planeet. En het bestuderen van meteorieten - stukjes rots die de ruimte werden ingeblazen nadat grotere meteorieten mars troffen - levert nog meer problemen op. “Vaak wordt het gesteente besmet na de aankomst op aarde. Bovendien weten we niet vanwaar op mars de meteorieten afkomstig zijn.”

Vandaar de luide roep van wetenschappers om het gesteente zelf te verzamelen en naar aarde te brengen. 

En wat met dat leven? 

De halve kilogram aan gesteente van mars zal onderzocht worden door wetenschappers wereldwijd. Hun zoektocht naar leven zal zich daarbij vooral focussen op de aanwezigheid van fossiele microben. Al bestaat er een kleine kans dat er nog steeds leven is op mars. “Het is zeer onwaarschijnlijk dat we levende organismen naar de aarde zullen brengen. Zelfs als we dat doen, is het erg onwaarschijnlijk dat ze schadelijk zullen zijn”, verklaart Sanjay Vijendran, lid van de ‘Mars Sample Return’. “We kunnen dat echter niet als vanzelfsprekend beschouwen en alle maatregelen die ervoor zorgen dat de staaltjes geen bedreiging voor de planeet vormen, zullen genomen worden.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

26-11-2019 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

26-11-2019 om 16:27 geschreven door peter  

6,800-YEAR-OLD RITUAL SITE THREE TIMES BIGGER THAN STONEHENGE'S SARSEN CIRCLE DISCOVERED

26-11-2019 om 16:25 geschreven door peter  

6,800 year old "roundel" discovered in Poland

Hannah Osborne
Newsweek

A huge ancient ritual site dating back over 6,800 years has been discovered in Poland. It is believed to have been used by neolithic people for between 200 and 250 years, with new features added every few dozen years, archaeologists have said.

The circular structure is 360 feet in diameter, which is over three times the size of the inner Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge and roughly the same size as the monument's outer ditch.

The structure, which has been called a "roundel" because of its circular shape, was first spotted in 2017. Since then archaeologists have been working at the site to understand its significance. In an article on PAP, a website run by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Website, researchers have announced radiocarbon dating indicates the site was built before 4,800 B.C.

The roundel is located in the village of Nowe Objezierze, about 50 miles east of Berlin, Germany. It consists of a central area surrounded by three gates that lead to the interior. It then has four ditches circling it. Each ditch is larger and deeper than the last, and it appears they were dug at relatively regular intervals, with a new one being added every few dozen years. The ditches were about 4 to 6.5 feet deep.

Other similar circular enclosures dating to between 4,850 B.C. and 4,600 B.C. are found in a fairly limited area of Europe, including around the River Danube. These are generally thought to have had a ritual purpose and served as some sort of astronomical calendar.

Discussing the new roundel in Poland, project leader Lech Czerniak, from the University of Gdańsk, told PAP: "This is quite sensational, given the fact that it coincides with the dating of structures located on the Danube, considered the oldest. It seems equally important that the four ditches surrounding the central area of the structure probably did not function simultaneously, but every few dozen years, a new ditch with an ever larger diameter was dug.

"The primary focus of the project are questions about the social aspects of the functioning operation of roundels, including what prompted the inhabitants of a given region to make a huge effort in building and maintaining the roundel, where the idea and knowledge necessary to build this object came from, and how often and for how long the object was used."

As well as dating the roundel, archaeologists also excavated the area and found hundreds of bones, ceramics, stone and flint artifacts and shells and dye. The bones are now being analyzed by experts and the team hopes to find out more about the communities that used the structure for worship. It is thought that like the other circular enclosures, the Roundel was used as a "ritual calendar."

"It is worth realizing that many so-called pre-literate communities celebrated the most important holidays once in a few, or even a dozen or so years, but very intensely," Czerniak said.

Comment: 

See also:

• Book Review: Where Troy Once Stood
• Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls
• Winter Solstice: From Chaos to Creation
• Study details immense timber henge at Newgrange, Ireland, discovered during summer drought
• 'Spanish Stonehenge' resurfaces following drought in Extremadura
• Ancient city of Petra was a 'celestial calendar', says new study
• America Before by Graham Hancock - Book review

And check out SOTT radio's:

• MindMatters: America Before: Comets, Catastrophes, Mounds and Mythology
• MindMatters: Everything's a Remix: Origins of the World's Mythologies
• MindMatters: The Meaning of the World's Mythologies

See Also:

• Two lion cub mummies discovered in Egypt for the first time
• Ray McGovern offers Congress 'Ukraine for Dummies'
• 7,000-year-old burial of female "shaman" in Sweden was one of the last hunter-gatherers

{ https://www.sott.net/category/19 }

26-11-2019 om 16:22 geschreven door peter  

VIDEO: Aliens Read Map Wrong, UAP Storm “Spot 51” Instead?

While the great unwashed Facebook hordes were storming Area 51 in Nevada, something equally strange transpired over Minnesota in an area known locally as “Spot 51”. Friday, September 20th, Todd Mitchell, owner of Country Campground in Detroit Lakes, MN, ran his 24-hour security video camera just like any other evening. But this night he wondered if it might document something more exciting than camper arrivals, perhaps some dramatic lightning strikes from an incoming thunderstorm. What he didn’t know was he had recorded something even more extraordinary.

Later when Mitchell reviewed his footage, he forgot all about the lightning when he noticed what appeared to be a fuzzy, black object flitting erratically among the storm clouds, trailing what could be easily mistaken for dark fumes behind it. To the viewer’s eye, it sure looks like a skybound smoke monster, repeatedly performing feats of aerial acrobatics before it vanishes into thin air. Or perhaps it’s an alien spaceship suffering the effects of a faulty exhaust system. Or maybe someone just let the air out of one prime specimen of Charles Fort’s normally invisible sky jellyfish. Any of those options qualify the strange object as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

Mitchell provided the footage to his TV news station, noting that on a local map, the Detroit Lakes Chamber of Commerce identifies Country Campground as “Spot 51”. The video combined with that revelation resulted in yucks and ample banter at the end of WDAY’s Sept. 25th evening news broadcast. But at least they didn’t play the X-Files theme music.

Looks like I spoke too soon! They saved the X-Files theme music for the second report. To their credit, the TV crew visited the scene, interviewed Mitchell, and even delved into the county’s UFO-related history.

Some may propose that the object Mitchell captured is merely a bug on the lens or some other equally pedestrian explanation. I contacted witness Todd Mitchell and he provided a link to three video clips, which he has uploaded to YouTube for your examination.

Mitchell acknowledges that some of the office to the back of the camera is reflected by the double pane window he shoots the video through. He identifies the small lights to the left and the center of the screen as the reflection of his “Dish Network rack system”. To the far right side, there is additional room reflection.

In Part 1, the video seemed perfectly normal until Mitchell drew my attention, about 10 seconds in, to a tiny, barely perceivable black dot off to the right of the screen, in the part of the sky just above a small tree. The dot moves slowly upward in a more-or-less straight line. Of all three of the objects appearing in these video clips, this one most clearly seems to demonstrate the crawling movement of a bug. It traverses the screen smoothly, seemingly unaffected by wind shear or changes in sky composition, as if creeping across a  perfectly flat surface.

In Part 2, we see much more erratic moment, that is also consistent with bugs flying close to the lens. However, the smokey trailing effect following the movement is interesting, but may just indicate video blurring caused by extreme speed.

Part 3, is the most curious because at the last moment some commenters point out that the object seems to weave through a cloud.

When I asked Mitchell if he had ever experienced anything strange or paranormal before his response was, “Oh, heck, no!” “There’s a lot of things that you can generally explain or guess at. But for this I have no guesses,” he says.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

26-11-2019 om 15:45 geschreven door peter  

Henry Lee was someone whose diligent research in the 19^th century uncovered numerous tales of sea serpents and over-sized creatures of the oceans. He spent some of his time addressing one of the most controversial of all aspects of this phenomenon. Namely, the disturbing issue of people being attacked – maybe even killed – by creatures of the sea. Of this particular issue, Lee said: “I have often been asked whether an octopus of the ordinary size can really be dangerous to bathers. Decidedly, ‘Yes,’ in certain situations. The holding power of its numerous suckers is enormous. It is almost impossible forcibly to detach it from its adhesion to a rock or the flat bottom of a tank; and if a large one happened to fix one or more of its strong, tough arms on the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held firmly to a rock, I doubt if the man could disengage himself under water by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately the octopus can be made to relax its hold by grasping it tightly round the ‘throat’ (if I may so call it), and it may be well that this should be known.”

Lee continued with his position on all of this: “That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures is, unhappily, a fact too well attested. I have elsewhere related several instances of this having occurred. Omitting those, I will give two or three others which have since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his ‘Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,’ tells how a Sardinian captain, whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned by an octopus. When his body was found, his limbs were bound together by the arms of the animal; and this took place in water only four feet deep.”

Lee was not done; indeed, his files were voluminous: “Mr. J. K. Lord’s account of the formidable strength of these creatures in Oregon is confirmed by an incident recorded in the Weekly Oregonian (the principal paper of Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before that date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath the surface by an octopus, and drowned. The body was discovered on the following day in the horrid embrace of the creature. Indians dived down and with their knives severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse.

Lee cited the work of Clemens Laming, the author of a book titled The French in Algiers. In its pages, as Lee learned, was a case that could have resulted in overwhelming tragedy. Thankfully, it didn’t quite get to that point: “The soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of them disappeared–no one knew how. Bathing was, in consequence, strictly forbidden; in spite of which several men went into the water one evening. Suddenly one of them screamed for help, and when several others rushed to his assistance they found that an octopus had seized him by the leg by four of its arms whilst it clung to the rock with the rest. The soldiers brought the ‘monster’ home with them, and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate it. This adventure accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers [italics mine].”

Lee was hardly done: “The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter of a century has resided as a missionary amongst the inhabitants of the Hervey Islands, and with whom I had the pleasure of conversing on this subject when he was in England in 1875, described in the Leisure Hour of April 20th, 1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might deprive a man of life. A servant of his went diving for ‘poulpes’ (octopods), leaving his son in charge of the canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface, his arms free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a large octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the living plaister from off his face he must have been suffocated – a fate which actually befell some years previously a man who foolishly went diving alone [italics mine].”

“In Appleton’s American Journal of Science and Art, January 31st, 1874,” said Lee, “a correspondent describes an attack by an octopus on a diver who was at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida. The man, a powerful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have been drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; for when dragged on to the raft from which he had descended, he fainted, and his companions were unable to pull the creature from its hold upon him until they had dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body. A similar incident occurred to the government diver of the colony of Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne he was seized by an octopus. He killed it by striking it with an iron bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the arms more than three feet long.”

There is a lesson to be learned here. Be very careful when you go swimming in our oceans and seas: you may not be aware of what lurks below you, just ready to strike. Perhaps, fatally so.

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

26-11-2019 om 15:23 geschreven door peter  

Today, we know much more about what happens to people when they die - and what we are learning does not support materialism. Even medical scientists take near-death-experiences seriously now.

The doorway or barrier is a common event in a typical NDE. The experiencer instinctively knows that to pass through the door or barrier means they would not come back to their life.

In the next video a brief NDE experience told by Paul Swain on what it was like to be at the edge of the afterlife.

Then, in a continuing interesting discussion, Robert J. Marks and Walter Bradley, after whom the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence is named, looked at near-death experiences (NDEs) which I recommend you to read the in-depth article (including excerpts, podcast, video and additional information on NDEs) at Mindmatters.ai

  

Other videos, selected bij peter2011

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

26-11-2019 om 14:36 geschreven door peter  

100 ufos caught on camera 2019

documentary

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

26-11-2019 om 14:33 geschreven door peter  

Driver Stuck in Traffic Captures a Video of Strange Rotating Disc in NC

Experts logged eleven UFO sightings last month in North Carolina. However, if you include a lesser-known report made close to Shelby, approximately 50 miles west of Charlotte, it is an even dozen.

The potential sighting has surfaced publicly after a video showing a disc-like object appeared on YouTube. The UFO on the video remained stationary for several minutes before disappearing over Cleveland County.

According to the witness, the video was recorded in the morning rush hour on 25^th of October. The footage requested viewers to offer ideas on what the mysterious thing might have been.

Aaron Bostic, 33, said that he was stuck in traffic on U.S. 74 in Shelby when a diamond-shaped object came into his view glowing brightly against a cloudy sky. He observed the object was somewhat rotating. He added that it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Initially, he thought it was a plane landing at Charlotte Douglas Airport or a big stunt drone but later wondered as it stayed in the same spot for around two minutes.

He showed the video to his co-workers, but nobody knew what it could have been. He added that the UFO did not have the flashing lights of a helicopter and no right contours to be a blimp.

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

26-11-2019 om 13:49 geschreven door peter