The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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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.
A new study of the atmospheres of known giant exoplanets suggests that water – an essential ingredient for life – may be common on other worlds in our Milky Way galaxy. At the same, there may be less of it than astronomers once expected.
Artist’s concept of a gas giant exoplanet orbiting close to its star. The new study suggests water vapor is common on such worlds, but maybe in lesser amounts than thought.
Water – needed for life as we know it – has turned out to be common in our solar system. Besides Earth, of course, there are moons in the outer solar system with oceans beneath their icy surfaces. Ice can be found almost everywhere in our neighborhood of space, even on the moon and Mercury! But what about in other solar systems? A new study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, suggests that water may be at the same time both plentiful and scarce, depending on the type of planets involved.
The new findings were announced by Cambridge on December 11, 2019, and the peer-reviewed paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on the same day.
The researchers studied atmospheric data from 19 known exoplanets to learn more about their chemical and thermal properties. These planets ranged from mini-Neptunes (nearly 10 Earth masses) to super-Jupiters (over 600 Earth masses). Temperatures on these worlds range from 20 degrees Celsius (about 70 degrees Fahrenheit) to over 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,600 F). These planets are similar to the gas and ice giants in our solar system, but they orbit a variety of different types of stars. Study leader Nikku Madhusudhan, of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, said:
We are seeing the first signs of chemical patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds, and we’re seeing just how diverse they can be in terms of their chemical compositions.
Based on what we know about the giant planets in our own solar system, these kinds of exoplanets were predicted to have similar high abundances of certain elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and water. So what did they find?
The results showed that 14 of the planets had an abundance of water vapor, as well as an abundance of sodium and potassium in six planets each. This suggests that there is a depletion of oxygen relative to the other elements and that the planets may have evolved with little accretion of ice. As Madhusudhan noted:
It is incredible to see such low water abundances in the atmospheres of a broad range of planets orbiting a variety of stars.
Comparison of exoplanet Kepler-186f with Earth (artist’s concept). Some of these Earth-sized rocky worlds should also be able to have liquid water on their surfaces, although that research was not part of this particular study, which focused on giant gas and ice planets.
Image via NASA Ames/ SETI Institute/ JPL-Caltech/ Ars Technica.
This means that exoplanets can be more diverse than previously thought in terms of atmospheric composition and water content, which challenges several theoretical models of planet formation. Different chemical elements can no longer just be assumed to be equally abundant in planetary atmospheres.
It’s not easy measuring how much water there is in the atmospheres of planets so far away, but it can even be challenging for planets much closer to home. Jupiter is a prime example of this. According to Luis Welbanks, lead author of the study:
Measuring the abundances of these chemicals in exoplanetary atmospheres is something extraordinary, considering that we have not been able to do the same for giant planets in our solar system yet, including Jupiter, our nearest gas giant neighbor.
Since Jupiter is so cold, any water vapor in its atmosphere would be condensed, making it difficult to measure. If the water abundance in Jupiter were found to be plentiful as predicted, it would imply that it formed in a different way to the exoplanets we looked at in the current study.
Determining the amount of water vapor in the atmospheres of the giant planets even in our own solar system can be challenging. This is Jupiter as seen by the Juno spacecraft on April 1, 2018.
Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SwRI/ MSSS/ Gerald Eichstad/ Sean Doran/ Newsweek.
As already mentioned, the sample size of planets in the study is quite small, so researchers want to expand on it in the future. Madhusudhan commented:
We look forward to increasing the size of our planet sample in future studies. Inevitably, we expect to find outliers to the current trends as well as measurements of other chemicals.
It should also be noted that this current study did not include smaller rocky super-Earth or Earth-sized planets, which are now known to be quite common in our galaxy. Those are the kinds of worlds where the amount of water would have the most consequence in terms of the potential habitability of a planet.
As Madhusudhan said:
Given that water is a key ingredient to our notion of habitability on Earth, it is important to know how much water can be found in planetary systems beyond our own.
While this study may be limited regarding the types of exoplanets known to exist, it provides an important insight into how much water could be expected to be discovered among a large population of such worlds. This will help scientists better understand how these planets formed, and perhaps provide clues as to how many potentially habitable planets there may be as well, when combined with additional future studies of rocky worlds more similar to Earth.
Bottom line:A new study from the University of Cambridge shows that water vapor is common in the atmospheres of at least some larger exoplanets, but in lesser amounts than expected.
SAN FRANCISCO — If there are creatures swimming in the buried oceans of the outer solar system, they're probably not related to us, new research suggests.
Some scientists believe that life has hopped from world to world around the solar system, aboard chunks of rock blasted into space by comet or asteroid impacts. Indeed, there's a school of thought that the life teeming here on Earth is actually native to Mars, which likely boasted habitable conditions earlier than our own planet did. (This rock-riding idea is known as "lithopanspermia," a subset of the broader panspermia notion, which envisions spread by whatever means, either natural or guided by an intelligent hand.)
But what are the odds that such putative pioneers could colonize the habitable real estate much farther out — specifically, the Jupiter moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus, both of which harbor big oceans of salty liquid water beneath their ice shells?
Purdue University geophysicist Jay Melosh tackled this question and presented the results last week during a talk here at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Melosh used computer models to follow the fates of 100,000 simulated Mars particles launched off the Red Planet by an impact. He modeled three different ejection speeds: 1, 3, and 5 kilometers per second (about 2,240 mph, 6,710 mph and and 11,180 mph, respectively).
In the simulations, a tiny percentage of the particles ended up hitting Enceladus over the course of 4.5 billion years — just 0.0000002% to 0.0000004% of the number that impacted Earth. The numbers were about 100 times higher for Europa; that moon got 0.00004% to 0.00007% of Earth's particle share.
We know that about 1 ton of Mars rocks that are fist-size or larger rain down on Earth every year. Using that figure, Melosh calculated that Europa gets about 0.4 grams of Mars material per year, and Enceladus receives just 2-4 milligrams. These are averages, he stressed; the moons' Mars mass almost certainly comes from very infrequent arrivals of decent-sized rocks, not a steady flow of small stuff.
The numbers are similar if the source of the rocks is Earth rather than Mars, Melosh said.
These results might seem to bode well for life's spread; after all, it might take just one impact of a microbe-bearing rock to turn Europa or Enceladus from habitable to inhabited. But there are more factors to consider, and they tamp down the optimism.
For example, Melosh found that the median transit time for a Mars meteorite that ends up hitting Enceladus is 2 billion years. Microbes are tough, but that's a long time to endure the harsh conditions of deep space. And the simulations indicated that these incoming Mars rocks would hit Enceladus at between 5 and 31 km/s (11,180 mph to 69,350 mph). The lower end of that range might be survivable, but it's hard to imagine anything living through those more extreme impacts, Melosh said.
"So, the bottom line: If life should be found in the oceans of Europa or Enceladus, it is very likely that it’s indigenous rather than seeded from Earth, Mars or (especially) another solar system," Melosh said during his AGU talk. (His calculations peg the probability of an exoplanet meteorite impacting Earth over the past 4.5 billion years at just 0.01%. The chances are much lower for Europa and Enceladus, he said.)
That's exciting news, if viewed from a certain perspective. Europa and Enceladus — and other potentially habitable worlds in the outer solar system, such as Saturn's huge moon Titan — may well have remained uncontaminated for eons, providing ample opportunity for native life-forms to take root and evolve. So, our solar system may boast many different types of life, rather than one widespread one. (Of course, seeing how Earth-like life would evolve over billions of years in a frigid, buried ocean would be pretty exciting, too.)
And if we discover just one such "second genesis" in our solar system, we would know that life is no miracle and must be common throughout the cosmos.
We may be on the verge of answering some of these profound questions. For example, NASA is developing a mission called Europa Clipper, which will characterize the satellite's ocean and scout out potential touchdown sites for a future life-hunting lander mission, among other tasks. Clipper is scheduled to launch in the early to mid-2020s, but the lander's future is murky; though Congress has ordered NASA to develop the surface mission, it's unclear if the funding will come through to make that happen.
Another NASA mission, called Dragonfly, will launch in 2026 to study Titan's complex chemistry. This robotic rotorcraft could potentially spot signs of life in the big moon's air, if any are there to be found. And over the longer haul, researchers are looking into ways to get a robot through the ice shells of Europa and Enceladus and into their possibly life-supporting oceans. No such mission is on the books, but one could get off the ground in the 2030s if we're lucky.
There will be serious astrobiological action closer to home soon, too. NASA plans to launch a life-hunting rover to Mars next summer, as do the European Space Agency and Russia, which are working together via a program called ExoMars. Both of these wheeled robots will focus on finding signs of ancient, not currently existing, Red Planet organisms. (Of course, chances are decent that Martians, if they exist, are related to us.)
Exoplanets are part of the picture as well. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is due to launch in 2021, will be able to sniff the atmospheres of nearby alien worlds for potential biosignatures, as will three giant ground-based observatories scheduled to come online in the middle to late 2020s — the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope.
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.
Researchers found a brand new mineral tucked in a tiny meteorite. It's never been seen in nature before
Researchers found a brand new mineral tucked in a tiny meteorite. It's never been seen in nature before
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
The Wedderburn meteorite contains edscottite, which occurs in iron smelting. But it has never occurred in nature until now, when researchers sliced the meteorite open and found it hidden there.
(CNN)Between 2015 and 2019, researchers discovered 31 new carbon minerals, most of them vividly colorful. Edscottite is one of the least flashy new finds, but it's also the one that's set geologists abuzz.
Edscottite is one of the phases iron goes through when it's cooling down from a high temperature, as it's smelted into steel. But the edscottite discovered in a tiny meteorite and officially named this year is the first to occur in nature.
The Wedderburn meteorite's been sitting in Museums Victoria in Australia since it was found nearby in 1951, and researchers have sliced it open to search its contents just as long.
"We have discovered 500,000 to 600,000 minerals in the lab, but fewer than 6,000 that nature's done itself," Stuart Mills, Museums Victoria's senior curator of geosciences, told Melbourne newspaper The Age.
It's named for Ed R.D. Scott, a cosmochemist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and pioneering meteorite researcher. He first identified the unique iron carbide in 1971 while studying the meteorite, but technology hadn't advanced far enough for him to characterize its structure.
It might have formed in space
Researchers Chi Ma of Caltech and Alan Rubin at UCLA examined a slab of the meteorite and were surprised to find edscottite under an electron microscope.
Just how it formed is still unclear. Geoffrey Bonning, a planetary scientist at the Australian National University who was not involved with the study, speculated to The Age that it was blasted out of the core of another planet.
The hypothetical planet, he said, formed when asteroids clumped into one big planet. The planet heated up during its formation, and hot metal dripped into its core.
"This meteorite had an abundance of carbon in it. And as it slowly cooled down, the iron and carbon came together and formed this mineral," Mills said.
Eventually, the planet might've been struck by another astronomical body and destroyed, flinging the debris across the solar system.
The debris, Bonning posited, became the Wedderburn meteorite. The edscottite might've been created when all that metal heated up in the former planet.
Christmas Eve has come and gone and NORAD has stopped tracking a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. However, no one in a position of authority can explain why the North American Aerospace Defense Command, with headquarters in Colorado Springs, isn’t tracking those mysterious giant drones which continue to fly nightly over a remote area of northeastern Colorado. Well, perhaps there’s someone in Nebraska who’s concerned enough to investigate because new reports say the drones have crossed the border into the Cornhusker State. What is more mysterious (or nefarious) – the giant drones or the seeming lack of government and military concern?
“I had reports of anywhere from 6 to 12. One person believed it to more than 12, close to 30. It seemed like several of them were flying together, in 3 or 4 pairs.”
Sheriff Jon Stivers of Washington Country in the northeast corner of Colorado told Fox News Denver of the reports he’s been getting about the giant (6-foot wingspan) drones flying in formation in his area of jurisdiction. The 30-drone sighting appears to be the largest formation yet – the previous reports from Phillips County topped out at 17. So, the size of the nighttime (7 pm to 10 pm regularly) drone formations is growing … and now they’ve spread across the northeastern border into Nebraska.
“Britton said he has spoken with a sheriff’s deputy in neighboring Deuel County, Neb., who has been chasing drones in his state the past few days. The Deuel County sheriff could not be reached Friday to comment.”
The Denver Post says Sedgwick County Sheriff Carlton Britton (Sedgwick is the most northeastern county of Colorado) heard that his counterpart across the way in Deuel County is also getting drone reports. However, there seems to be no media coverage of them in Nebraska and no indication that any government, military or other officials of authority are looking into them.
These strange drones have been flying their suspicious nighttime missions for over a week now. Why the silence? The FAA, Air Force, DEA, U.S. Army Forces Command and other authorities maintain they’re not involved. Meanwhile, legal experts continue to maintain that the nighttime drone flights are perfectly legal. No one seems to have followed them – giving the excuse that it’s dark and they’re flying with lights off. No one has taken any photos, even at dusk, for the same reason. While the sheriffs continue to warn that shooting one down is illegal and dangerous, conspiracy theorists are calling for some kind of action – legal or not.
Everyone seems to feel the same way as Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Nestor, who told The Denver Post:
“I would love for someone to break it wide open. I don’t know what it is, but I would like it not to be in my county.”
Not in my backyard. Let someone else do it. When it comes to the mysterious drones of Colorado and now Nebraska, the prevailing mood of the 2010’s is crossing the border into the 2020’s.
We’ll continue to keep watch on this developing story.
VFRMAP.COM
This is basically the area where the sightings are occurring. It's largely uncontrolled airspace with a very sparse population.
VFRMAP.COM
Here you can see the relationship of the area of activity in relation to Denver and nearby Nebraska.
UFO Researcher Set Up And Arrested He Claims, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Researcher Set Up And Arrested He Claims, UFO Sighting News.
Todays a sad day for UFO researchers. I heard that Tyler from Secureteam10 Youtube channel was recently arrested on domestic violence, probation and assault charges. The channel has over two million subscribers and once brought in over a quarter million US dollars per year. Tyler uploaded a video titled, "I've been set up," causing two million subscribers to get notifications of the video, but he soon took it down. However other Youtubers copied the video and put on their own channels to share with the UFO community. Over a dozen other channels uploaded his video and included other things such as his mug shot, legal charges and such.
Tyler has been a bit mysterious this year, often disappearing from Youtube leaving his channel hanging for up to 6-8 weeks without a single video uploaded. But this time...its very odd. He says he was set up, arrested and beaten behind bars. That its all because of his Youtube channel and that he was told to keep quiet about it. His followers have begun to complain and leave, thinking he cares little for them.
I do know that UFO researchers do get followed, do get threatening emails and messages. Some UFO researchers have even been killed in the last few years to keep them from revealing more evidence. Its a dangerous field to be in and one I do not recommend. He was a world famous UFO researcher once and suddenly crashed. Hopefully he will not give up. Everyone makes mistakes and we don't truly know the circumstances or the pressures he was under at the time. He's got a good channel with over 1000 videos he made, most getting hundreds of thousands and even millions of views. Scott C. Waring
NASA Confirms and Accepts The Existence of UFOs on Earth Throughout History
NASA Confirms and Accepts The Existence of UFOs on Earth Throughout History
At last, NASA confirms the existence of UFOs throughout the history of humanity. The statement has been released in a document published on its official website.
The author of the document says that ancient observers of mysterious objects spotted in the sky could not assign it to natural causes. Moreover, he says that at least some of the strange phenomena witnessed in the sky by our ancestors were very similar to the UFOs that appear nowadays.
Witnesses, thousands of years ago, made use of a military language – at least in the terms that we understand it today – in order to deal with those incidents.
As you know, military terminology reflects the most advanced technology of a specific time, so when we talk about “military language” referring to the time of our ancestors we need to contextualize the term and apply it to that specific historical period.
This terminology is also used in our days to speak about UFOs in an attempt to rationalize the phenomenon and describe it in the most accurate way.
The author of the document lists numerous “military objects” spotted by ancient witnesses.
If you want to have a look at them, or if you want to know more about the subject, please read the full report “Unidentified flying objects in classical antiquity” posted by NASA here:
NASA’s InSight lander has been collecting data from Mars since the end of November 2018. The NASA probe was designed to investigate the inner workings of the Red Planet by creating a 3D map of its interior and by measuring the planet’s seismicity. But the scientists analysing the treasure trove of information collected by InSight have uncovered an unusual set of data. The researchers found a series of magnetic pulses occurring every day around midnight, local time on Mars.
The Mars probe comes equipped with a sensitive magnetometer instrument to pick up variations in the planet’s and the lander’s magnetic field.
The instrument detected “long pulsation trains” lasting as long as two hours, with wave periods of just one minute.
The findings were presented in a paper at the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
The paper reads: “During nighttime conditions near midnight local time, long pulsation trains are occasionally detected in the magnetic field.
NASA news: The InSight lander on Mars is studying the planet's interior
(Image: NASA)
NASA news: The lander has been exploring Mars since November 2018
(Image: NASA)
The researchers believe all of the measurements have strong implications for future exploration efforts.
They wrote: “The strong magnetisation seen in the surface rocks indicates that much can be learned about the dynamics of the crust from magnetometers carried on rovers.
“We strongly encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to studying the surface of Mars.
“Mars magnetisation could revolutionise our understanding of the emplacement of the crust of Mars in much the same way as the magnetic surveys of the Earth’s oceans have revolutionised our understanding of terrestrial tectonics.
NASA mystery: Strange magnetic pulses at midnight baffle scientists studying Mars
NASA mystery: Strange magnetic pulses at midnight baffle scientists studying Mars
NASA’s InSight lander has been collecting data from Mars since the end of November 2018. The NASA probe was designed to investigate the inner workings of the Red Planet by creating a 3D map of its interior and by measuring the planet’s seismicity. But the scientists analysing the treasure trove of information collected by InSight have uncovered an unusual set of data. The researchers found a series of magnetic pulses occurring every day around midnight, local time on Mars.
The Mars probe comes equipped with a sensitive magnetometer instrument to pick up variations in the planet’s and the lander’s magnetic field.
The instrument detected “long pulsation trains” lasting as long as two hours, with wave periods of just one minute.
The findings were presented in a paper at the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
The paper reads: “During nighttime conditions near midnight local time, long pulsation trains are occasionally detected in the magnetic field.
The researchers believe all of the measurements have strong implications for future exploration efforts.
They wrote: “The strong magnetisation seen in the surface rocks indicates that much can be learned about the dynamics of the crust from magnetometers carried on rovers.
“We strongly encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to studying the surface of Mars.
“Mars magnetisation could revolutionise our understanding of the emplacement of the crust of Mars in much the same way as the magnetic surveys of the Earth’s oceans have revolutionised our understanding of terrestrial tectonics.
Astronaut Christina Koch sets new record for longest single space flight by a woman
Astronaut Christina Koch sets new record for longest single space flight by a woman
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
Astronaut Christina Koch, launched to the International Space Station on March 15, marks her 289th day in space Saturday, breaking retired astronaut Peggy Whitson'sworld record for the longest single space flight by a woman.
Along the way, Koch has participated in four spacewalks, joining astronaut Jessica Meir for history's first all-female excursion in October. She plans to venture back outside twice more in January, again teaming up with Meir, to complete the installation of new solar array batteries for the station's solar power system.
Astronaut Christina Koch floating outside the International Space Station on October 18, 2019 during the first all-female walk in space.NASA
When Koch returns to Earth February 6, her time in space will stand at 328 days, just 12 days shy of retired astronaut Mark Kelly's U.S. record, set in 2016. The all-time single flight record — 438 days — was set by cosmonaut Valery Polyakov in 1995. Whitson still holds the U.S. record for total time in space — nearly 666 days — over five flights.
"It's a huge honor," Koch said early Friday in an interview with "CBS This Morning." "Peggy is a heroine of mine who's also been kind enough to mentor me through the years. You know ... it's not so much how many days you're up here, but what you do with each of those days. That reminds me to bring my best every single day."
Koch holds a master's in electrical engineering, is a veteran of multiple research tours in Antarctica and Greenland, and helped design instruments at the Goddard Space Flight Center for NASA science probes in orbit around Earth and Jupiter. She and Meir were selected for NASA's astronaut corps in 2013, joining a class made up of four men and four women.
"It's a wonderful time for human spaceflight because I think we finally recognize that it's not worth going unless we go together, that it's important to not turn away any innovative idea, that everyone has a role and everyone has a place at the table as we move forward," Koch said.
Space station astronaut Christina Koch chats about her record-setting mission with "CBS This Morning."NASA TV
"If we're going to go for all humanity and to support humanity's love for exploration, then we have to do it with all humanity. And I think we're seeing that as our plans unfold for going back to the moon, seeing the first woman walk on the moon in 2024, and just recognizing that we have to go together if we're going to go, and we're going to do it right."
Koch became the 14th woman to walk in space last March 29 when she and Nick Hague worked to install a second set of solar array batteries. She originally was expected to venture outside with astronaut Anne McClain for the first all-female spacewalk, but Hague took McClain's place because of a spacesuit sizing issue.
The all-female spacewalk finally happened on October 18 when Koch and Meir, the 15th woman walk in space, ventured outside to replace a faulty battery charge-discharge unit. It was the first EVA by two women in the 54 years since the late Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov carried out history's first spacewalk in 1965.
Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space during an excursion with a male cosmonaut in 1984. NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan followed suit later that year, joining astronaut David Leestma for a shuttle spacewalk.
"My class was ... the first class that's half female and half male, and we were never held to any different standards or expectations," Koch told "CBS This Morning." "Highlighting the fact that it was the first all female EVA, spacewalk, is important because seeing those milestones be broken sort of tells people where we're at and where we think that the importance lies.
"I think it's inspiring because future space explorers do need to see people that remind them of themselves to kind of bring that inspiration home. I know that was certainly true for me and my background. So to have the opportunity to do that for future space explorers is a real honor."
Jessica Meir, left, and Christina Koch pose in the space station's airlock holding the power tools they used in the first all-female spacewalk.NASA
Asked about her most memorable moments in space, Koch said she enjoyed looking down on Michigan and North Carolina where she grew up, "but I would say the most awe-inspiring thing that I've ever seen is the Northern Lights or Southern Lights from above on a planetary scale."
"I've had the opportunity working in Antarctica and the Arctic to see them from below and the beautiful, shimmering lights taking over the whole sky," she said. "But to look down on the Earth and see the entire shape of the aurora as they form near the poles was truly an amazing sight and just literally took my breath away."
Koch said she hopes setting a new single-flight endurance record will serve as a milestone to motivate others while pushing the boundaries of science because "that's important for our future exploration ... going to Mars and also returning to the moon and going there to stay."
"But overall, I'd have to say that my number one hope for this milestone is that the record is exceeded again as soon as possible," she said. "Because that means that we're continuing to push the boundaries."
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Saturday, Dec. 28, is Koch's 289th day in space, not her 288th.
A summary of decades of research on a rather 'out-there' idea involving viruses from space has recently been published, and it's raising questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth. This may sound weird and strange but its serious.
It's easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but every now and then a paper like this comes along, leaving us blinking owlishly, unsure of where to even begin. A total of 33 names are listed as authors on this review, which was published by Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. The journal is peer reviewed and fairly well cited. So it's not exactly small, or a niche pay-for-publish source. Science writer Stephen Fleischfresser goes into depth on the background of two of the better known scientists involved: Edward Steele and Chandra Wickramasinghe. It's well worth a read. For a tl;dr version, Steele is an immunologist who already has a fringe reputation for his views on evolution that relies on acquiring gene changes determined by the influence of the environment rather than random mutations, in what he calls meta-Lamarckism. Wickramasinghe, on the other hand, has had a somewhat less controversial career, recognised for empirically confirming Sir Fred Hoyle's hypothesis describing the production of complex carbon molecules on interstellar dust. Wickramasinghe and Hoyle also happened to be responsible for another space biology thesis. Only this one is based on more than just the origins of organic chemistry. The Hoyle Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology makes the rather simple claim that the direction of evolution has been significantly affected by biochemistry that didn't start on our planet. In Wickramasinghe's own words, "Comets are the carriers and distributors of life in the cosmos and life on Earth arose and developed as a result of cometary inputs." Those inputs, Wickramasinghe argues, aren't limited to a generous sprinkling of space-baked amino acids, either.
Rather, they include viruses that insert themselves into organisms, pushing their evolution into whole new directions. The report, titled "Cause of Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic?", pulls on existing research to conclude that a rain of extra-terrestrial retroviruses played a key role in the diversification of life in our oceans roughly half a billion years ago. "Thus retroviruses and other viruses hypothesised to be liberated in cometary debris trails both can potentially add new DNA sequences to terrestrial genomes and drive further mutagenic change within somatic and germline genomes," the authors write. Let that sink in for a moment. And take a deep breath before continuing, because that was the tame part. It was during this period that a group of molluscs known as cephalopods first stretched out their tentacles from beneath their shells, branching into a stunning array of sizes and shapes in what seemed like a remarkably short time frame. The genetics of these organisms, which today include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are as weird as the animals themselves, due in part to their ability to their ability to edit their DNA on the fly. The authors of the paper make the rather audacious claim that these genetic oddities might be a sign of life from space. Not of space viruses this time, but the arrival of whole genomes frozen in stasis before thawing out in our tepid waters. "Thus the possibility that cryopreserved squid and/or octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted," they write. In his review of the paper, medical researcher Keith Baverstock from the University of Eastern Finland, concedes that there's a lot of evidence that plausibly aligns with the H-W thesis, such as the curious timeline of the appearance of viruses. But that's just not how science advances. "I believe this paper justifies scepticism of the scientific value of stand alone theories of the origin of life," Baverstock argues. "The weight of plausible, but non-definitive, evidence, great though that might be, is not the point." While the idea is as novel and exciting as it is provocative, nothing in the summary helps us better understand the history of life on Earth any better than existing conjectures, adding little of value to our model of evolution. Still, with solid caveats in place, maybe science can cope with a generous dose of crazy every now and then.
Journal editor Denis Noble concedes that 'further research is needed', which is a bit of an understatement. But given the developments regarding space-based organic chemistry in recent years, there's room for discussion. "As space chemistry and biology grows in importance it is appropriate for a journal devoted to the interface between physics and biology to encourage the debates," says Noble. "In the future, the ideas will surely become testable." Just in case those tests confirm speculations, we recommend being well prepared for the return of our cephalopod overlords. Who knows when they'll want those eggs back?
Open a tightly-sealed bottle that’s been hiding in the back of the office refrigerator for a year and the first thing you probably notice is the smell, followed by some weird stuff growing inside. Open a tightly-sealed container that’s been hiding underground for 2 billion years and a bad smell will come as no surprise. But stuff growing inside? That’s the hope of a group of researchers who put a drop of water taken from a sealed pocket in a 2-mile-deep gold mine in South Africa under an electron microscope and saw something that could be … that looks suspiciously like … life! If it is, a lot of other people are interested in it – especially NASA, which thinks this is the same way it will find life on Mars. Will anyone really notice or care if they also find gold on Mars?
“The recent discovery of near saturated brines 3 km below land surface in the South African gold mine, Moab Khotsong (26.98 S, 26.78 E), presents an opportunity to characterize microbial life in potentially ancient brines hosted within the 3.1-2.9 Ga Witswatersrand Supergroup.”
In a presentation at the recent Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union entitled “B11K-2202 – Abiotic (Prebiotic?) Organic Chemistry in a Potentially Ancient Hypersaline Brine: New Insights on the Limits of Microbial Life Inhabiting 3.1 km Deep Fracture Fluid in South Africa,” Princeton University graduate student Devan Nisson unveiled the results of the geophysical equivalent of opening a bottle hidden for a year in the back of your refrigerator. In this case, the ‘refrigerator’ is the Moab Khotsong gold and uranium mine, located in the northern part of South Africa, which claims to have the world’s deepest mine shaft at 3,000 meters (9,800 ft). From those depths, Nisson and her fellow researchers probed deeper with boreholes and eventually hit pockets of pressurized water. Samples were taken back to Princeton, where Inside Science reports that the electron microscope showed something unexpected:
“When they examined the material under a scanning electron microscope, they saw rodlike shapes that appeared to be bacteria or similar-looking microbes called archaea. One of the cells was pinched in the middle, apparently in the process of dividing.”
Did Nisson run out of the lab like Dr. Frankenstein yelling “It’s alive!”? Not yet. She admits that the shapes could be minerals and plans DNA testing to determine if they’re animal, vegetable or mineral. The tests will also verify whether the water has been untapped for 2 billion years or if it was contaminated recently by fissures from mining. What they do know already is that a pocket at that depth contains water that is about seven times saltier than seawater and reaches temperatures of up to 129 degrees Fahrenheit – really hot and salty but still capable of supporting life. It also contains small organic acids and nitrate and sulfate ions that could feed microbes and provide energy.
That’s the same environment NASA expects to find when deep boreholes are drilled into Mars on future missions – hence its interest in what Devan Nisson found when she dug deep into the depths of Moab Khotsong and opened a 2 billion-year-old bottle of salty water. Is it life, life-lite, life-like, like Mars … or just a really deep rabbit hole? We’ll soon find out.
There has been a long debate on whether brains can be fossilized and that question may finally have an answer. Scientists claim to have discovered incredibly well preserved fossilized brains in 500-million-year-old bug-like creatures.
The inky stains were found in fossils from an arthropod called Alalcomenaeus that lived during the Cambrian period – between approximately 543 million and 490 million years ago. The bug-like creature’s exoskeleton was well preserved in addition to the soft tissue from the brain and nerves. In their study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (and can be read in full here), researchers described finding two Alalcomenaeus fossils in which the brains were still preserved.
Co-author of the study, Javier Ortega-Hernández, who is an invertebrate paleobiologist at Harvard University and curator of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, explained, “What we are dealing with in the fossil record are exceptional circumstances. This is not common — this is super, super rare.”
Alalcomenaeus had a nervous system similar to scorpions.
Paleontologists previously found one Alalcomenaeus fossil which was believed to have had preserved nervous tissue; however, there was much controversy over the discovery. But now with two more specimens, it’s pretty convincing proof that nervous tissue in arthropod fossils from the Cambrian period can indeed be fossilized. In fact, all three specimens were discovered buried in similar deposits which allowed the brain tissue to fossilize.
The two Alalcomenaeus fossils were found in the Great Basin in Utah. Ortega-Hernández and his co-authors described the fossils as having symmetrical stains that were found along its mid-line that looked like the nervous system that’s found in modern arthropods like spiders, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs. Additionally, the stains contained carbon which is an important element found in nervous tissue. “The nervous system and the gut kind of cross each other, which is really funky but common in arthropods nowadays,” Ortega-Hernández told Live Science. Pictures can be seen here.
But not everyone is convinced that they in fact found a fossilized brain. Jianni Liu, who is a professor at the Early Life Institute in the Department of Geology at Northwest University in Xi’an, China, wrote an email to Live Science and argued that the inky stains found in the fossils could have been a “slightly random effect of the decay process” instead of being brain tissue.
Liu and her colleagues studied around 800 fossilized specimens and discovered that almost 10% of them had inky stains around the head. They found that while nervous tissue decays quite rapidly, bacteria from the gut can persist and “produce these so-called biofilms as radiating [stains] which look a bit like parts of a nervous system,” they wrote in a 2018 study.
Nicholas Strausfeld, who is a regents professor in the department of neuroscience at the University of Arizona, explained that when the creatures are buried underneath strong pressure, the remains become flattened out. And since there is a lot of fat found in nervous tissue, it repels water and “have some resistance against decay”.
There is still a lot of work and studying that needs to be done in regards to brain and nervous tissue fossilizing, but these are definitely interesting developments.
Watch NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover go for a test drive in preparation for landing on Martian soil
Watch NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover go for a test drive in preparation for landing on Martian soil
NASA engineers witnessed their newest Mars rover take its first steps in preparation for its next mission that will search for fossilized remains of ancient life on the red planet.
The test took place inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Engineers clad in white bunny suits—special cleanroom attire worn in order to keep the rover’s delicate instruments very, very clean—watched the yet-to-be-named rover inch forward as part of the crucial pre-flight test, which lasted just over 10-hours.
“Mars 2020 has earned its driver’s license,” Rich Rieber, the lead mobility systems engineer for Mars 2020, said in a news release. “The test unambiguously proved that the rover can operate under its own weight and demonstrated many of the autonomous-navigation functions for the first time. This is a major milestone for Mars 2020.”
During the test, NASA engineers noticed no problems, as the six-wheeled rover successfully performed all its required tasks: it rolled forward and backward and even pirouetted. According to NASA, the rover’s systems, all working in concert, enabled it to steer, turn and drive with ease.
The testing of the vehicle’s autonomous navigation system went well. Since these systems performed perfectly under Earth’s gravity, engineers expect them to perform just as well under Mars’ gravity, which is only 38% of what we experience on Earth.
The test went so well that NASA says the “next time the Mars 2020 rover drives, it will be rolling over Martian soil.” The Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to launch in July 2020, followed by a landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
“A rover needs to rove, and Mars 2020 did that,” John McNamee, project manager for Mars 2020, said in a statement. “We can’t wait to put some red Martian dirt under its wheels.”
During its initial test drive, the rover crept forward in small, 3-feet ( 1-meter) increments, enabling the engineers to properly assess its movement and steering abilities. The rover also drove over small ramps designed to simulate uneven Martian terrain.
Engineers were also able to collect data from the vehicle’s Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX)—an instrument that uses radar waves to scan the ground below the rover. Depending on the terrain, once on Mars, RIMFAX will penetrate the ground, probing the red planet’s subsurface to depths of more than 30-feet (or 10-meters).
Engineers have outfitted the Mars 2020 rover with more durable wheels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity, the Mars 2020 rover’s predecessor currently roaming around on Mars, is predominantly commanded by people back on Earth. However, the rover does have the ability to autonomously choose where to fire its laser spectrometer. As part of its onboard science arsenal, the instrument—called ChemCam—is designed to analyze the chemical composition of nearby rocks and soil.
Mars 2020, on the other hand, will be more independent than any of its predecessors. Equipped with advanced auto-navigation software, the rover will drive with the help of a dedicated onboard computer operating on data collected from the vehicle’s high-resolution, wide-field color cameras.
NASA engineers estimate that the rover will travel an average of 650 feet (200 meters) per day. For comparison, Curiosity’s current distance record for a single day is 702 feet (214 meters), although that’s not typical. The Mars 2020 rover will also be sporting more durable wheels. Curiosity’s wheels are visibly worn after seven years on the Martian surface; engineers hope Mars 2020’s wheels will hold up better.
NASA’s Mars2020 rover will explore Jezero Crater in search of life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Once on Mars, the rover will land at Jezero Crater—a former lake bed, rich in mineral deposits known for preserving microfossils here on Earth. In this crater, the rover will search for any signs that life may have once existed on Mars.
While acting as a remote scientist, the rover will unlock clues about the planet’s climate and geology as well as collect samples that will be returned to Earth sometime in the future.
Following the loss of the Opportunity rover, Curiosity has been the sole robot roaming the Martian surface. That will change in 2021, but they won’t be the only ones.
They will be joined by another: The European Space Agency is teaming up with Russia to send their version of the Mars 2020 rover. The Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover will arrive on Mars at a soon-to-be-announced location, in 2021.
As the Latin proverb goes, Homo homini lupus – “man is wolf to man,” which is rather unfortunate as wolves are also wolves to men. Sitting in the kind embrace of modern civilization, it’s easy to forget a lineage fraught with fears of bloodthirsty creatures hidden in the dark.
Tool usage and organized social behaviors landed humanity a spot as the apex predator of the animal kingdom across the globe early on in our history, but there are still many creatures that prove a substantial threat under the wrong circumstances. While humans killing humans is a significant source of death around the world, it “only” accounted for about 560,000 deaths in 2016 — a number that pales in comparison to a single entry on the list of deadly animals.
1. Polar bears
Most animals attack humans intruding upon their territory as an instinctual act of self-preservation. Though many of these attacks prove deadly, it’s rare that other predators seek out human beings as prey. Polar bears, on the other hand, are one of the few animal species that will attack human beings for food, if desperate. Lacking an instinctual fear of humans due to a lack of natural exposure, polar bears see humans as an easily overpowered small mammal, and attacks often prove fatal.
2. Emus
Emus do not prey on humans but are characterized by a curiosity towards people moving in their surroundings as they may follow us simply to observe. Emus have earned a spot on the list as tenacious opponents of human conquest. In the winter of 1932, Australian settlers found acquired lands encroached upon by emu migrations numbering in the tens of thousands. The large presence of emus made agriculture nearly impossible and sparked what was known as “The Great Emu War.” Machine guns, bounties, and organized parties proved no match for the flightless birds, who regularly evaded attacks and left settlers with an awkward truce and miles of barrier fencing.
3. Funnel-web spiders
The list wouldn’t be complete without due respect to the many deadly creatures of the Outback or one of the most common human fears. Australian funnel-web spiders are the most toxic species of spiders. These arachnids are attracted to water and are often found near swimming pools. Most attacks result from the aggression of wandering males, and the bite of an Australian funnel-web spider can kill a child in hours or an adult in one day. Funnel-web spiders were a significant cause of death during early human colonization of their habitats, though anti-venom treatments are fast and effective. Since the widespread availability of funnel-web anti-venom, no deaths have been reported.
4. Hippopotamuses
“River horses” are aquatic herbivores that live in herds. The dense mammals are so heavy that they can walk underwater. Hippopotamus calves are frequent targets of crocodiles, and adults have been observed engaging in anti-predator behaviors. In combination with the fierce territoriality of bulls, these behaviors make the creatures a substantial threat to wandering and fishing humans, with death tolls ranging from 500 to 3,000 per year. Hippopotamuses are most dangerous when they perceive threats to their young or the females are in heat.
5. Mosquitoes
The deadliest creature to human beings doesn’t bear fangs, claws, or a machine gun but, rather, fragile wings and a thread-like proboscis. A 2016 report from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation showed that mosquitoes are responsible for the largest number of human deaths related to animals. Carrying diseases as diverse as dengue fever and Zika virus, the most lethal disease that mosquitoes spread in the developing world is malaria with approximately 212 million cases in 2015 and 429,000 deaths.
Posted by Deborah Byrd in ASTRONOMY ESSENTIALS | TODAY'S IMAGE
The December 26, 2019, annular or ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse was viewed across a narrow track that started at sunrise in Saudi Arabia and ended at sunset over the North Pacific Ocean.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Progression into and out of yesterday’s annular eclipse, from Tumon Bay, Guam. Eliot Herman reported: “It was a beautiful day in Guam to observe the eclipse mostly clear blue skies with a little marine haze on the coast. These images were captured with a Questar telescope and a Nikon D850 camera using a Baader solar filter.” Thank you, Eliot!
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Nikunj Rawal wrote from Jamnagar, Gujarat, India: “… 73% maximum eclipse at 09:17 a.m. at Jamnagar, India on December 26. Was worth experience to witness and capture the phenomenon using a long-focal-length telephoto lens with well planned preparations of 2 weeks on top of the Gop Hills Mountain. The annular phase of this solar eclipse was not visible here, unlike South Indian states. This sequence is a combination of 2 consecutive exposures taken with the same camera using the same settings — one taken of the landscape and another of the background of sun using 3.8mm Baader filter.” Thank you, Nikunj!
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Kandaswamy Natarajan wrote from Chennai, Tamilnadu, India: “This morning solar eclipse clicked through my Huwaei mobile camera.” Note that the sun is much too bright to show the eclipse, but Kandaswamy captured it via the lens flare – an internal reflection from his camera – on the photo. Thank you, Kandaswamy!
Annular Solar Eclipse as seen from Chennai, India. 26th December 2019 Visibility : Partial Maximum Eclipse approx 85% of Sun's disk around 9.30 A.M@the_hindu@IndianExpress@timesofindia
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Kannan A wrote from Singapore: “On this day – December 26, 2019 – in Singapore, we got to see the annular solar eclipse. It was a very rare moment on this day which coincided with Boxing Day and the 15th anniversary of the 2004 Tsunami in Banda Aceh. During the maximum phase of the eclipse, the clouds formed momentarily allowing stargazers to view the eclipse without the use of specialized equipment, but with precautions taken to protect the eyes. In the north of Singapore, Woodlands, however, I did not get to see the ring of fire but got a pleasant Christmas C!” Thank you, Kannan A!
Bottom line: Photos from the EarthSky Community of the December 26, 2019, annular or “ring of fire” solar eclipse. The annular eclipse was viewed across a narrow track that started at sunrise in Saudi Arabia and ended at sunset over the North Pacific Ocean. Outside that track, many more viewed a partial eclipse.
An Alien Race colonized the Solar System by building Pyramids on Mars and the Moon
An Alien Race colonized the Solar System by building Pyramids on Mars and the Moon
In several photographs of the Moon and Mars it is possible to see buildings of various types including the pyramids. But a question arises: has an alien race built buildings, pyramids and underground bases in the solar system? Well … surely one or more extraterrestrial races have built pyramidal structures and other buildings on Earth, on the Moon, on Mars and on other planets in our star system. The many images that can be found on the Internet and in some rare publications are usually censored and not officially released and show the presence of alien structures in the solar system.
For NASA, everything related to alien structures discovered on other planets does not have to be in the public domain. For conspiracy theorists, there is no doubt that the Moon, Mars and other planets of the solar system hide ancient vestiges belonging to ancient space travelers, that is, a technologically evaded race (perhaps the Amunnaki?) Who colonized and built artificial structures that would not have been difficult to detect.
The theory of the presence of artificial structures built by an intelligent alien race on the moon is not new. Over the years, countless photos of strange lights and other abnormal structures such as pyramids and other buildings have attracted the attention of ufologists, who have identified buildings with complex architectures that would not have been built by primitive Earthmen.
For example, the “Clementine” space probe was able to capture high resolution photos of the Moon’s surface. So during over 300 orbits, he had the opportunity to collect significant data. Those who waited to see high resolution images from Earth were however very surprised when the United States Navy that ran the Climentine mission published their first series of images. They were heavily pixelated, modified in low resolution Gif format, as if few details had been extracted from the images, which should have been made available to the public instead.
Many areas of lunar interest had been intentionally darkened, as if NASA and the Navy were hiding something big. This can be clearly seen in the case of the images relating to the “Rainer Gamma” region, a high albedo area 40 miles west of the Reiner crater. The official explanation of the darkened area would be the “data loss”, but we all know that this is not the case.
Region: “Rainer Gamma”
This deliberate suppression becomes even more evident in the famous photos of the moon towers and beyond. Even the images of Mars have been modified and many obscured to suppress the truth about the presence of inexplicable structures.
A very interesting discovery on Mars concerns that in which many structures with clear signs of construction made by technologically advanced beings are visible. These are ancient alien ruins. If they had been found on Earth, people would have no hesitation. However this is Mars, and since knowing that alien life existed so close to Earth would have really shaken the whole world. This is why NASA doesn’t want the world to know about it.
NASA wants to keep it secret to see if they could find any kind of alien technology that could be useful to the United States. Imagine finding a broken computer on Mars … and bringing it back, only to find that the computer has an alien version of artificial intelligence. NASA downloads the program and integrates it into modern technology today, using it to control the world. Well this would be the most likely scenario.
Alien structure on the moon but clouded by NASA
3D photography of the surface of Venus highlights a mysterious structure
There is photographic evidence that something was artificially built on the Moon, Mars, Venus and other planets in the solar system. There are structures on the surface of the Red Planet and structures on Venus, found in countless images taken from space probes, such as the NASA MRO that has long been mapping the whole red planet.
Pyramid on Mars
From Apollo’s mission to the International Space Station, there are enough images to create a strong argument when it comes to visits by extraterrestrial races. There are things that even science cannot explain. Whether it’s the Earth, the Moon or Mars, the UFO phenomenon (now better Extraterrestrial Reality) is everywhere, and one of the puzzling and most interesting statements made in recent years comes from General Albert Stubblebine, a major general who was also the commander General at the commands of the Security Command (INSCOM), more exactly, at the head of the US Army Intelligence.
General Stubblebine declared before his death that alien structures connected to underground tunnels exist on Mars
In his latest interview, Stubblebine stated: “ there are constructions on the surface of Mars, on the Moon and on other planets in the solar system that are the work of an ancient technologically advanced alien race. There are buildings and other structures on Mars that are connected with underground areas of unimaginable size. There are also machines on the surface of Mars. Structures below the surface of Mars obviously cannot be seen by probe cameras such as the 1976 Voyager. I also say that there are machines on the surface of Mars and there are machines below the surface of Mars that you can look at but only through the “Signs” of their presence. “.
“You can only find out in detail, you can see what they are, where they are, who they are and many details about them. The rovers on Mars are sent only to make people believe that Mars is just a desolate planet. True yes, but only in part but there are some areas where vegetation still exists and in some photographs taken by the MRO probe you can see them. Under its surface are hidden secret bases and ancient alien bases and on the surface there are pyramids and domes that have also been photographed and often photographs hidden or manipulated by NASA. “
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Forbidden Discoveries Documentary 2019 Impossible Devices, Out of Time Technology and Artifacts
Forbidden Discoveries Documentary 2019 Impossible Devices, Out of Time Technology and Artifacts
Of all the many unexplained phenomena and objects in the world, the ones that hold a great deal of fascination for us are what can be categorized as ancient anomalies. There have been many of these strange out of time discoveries, many more than geologists, archaeologists, and other scientists care to admit. We will look at the existence of puzzling artifacts, inexplicable monuments, human-made marvels and baffling finds regarding to our ancient and prehistory and ask the question, are we missing pieces of the puzzle with regards our past?
Watch eye-opening, thought-provoking, awesome, educational documentaries by subscribing and of course hit the bell button in the top right to stay informed of our latest releases. We will make each film expand the viewer's horizons, especially those open to learning more about the world. We hope you will become aware of facts you may have been previously unaware of in the excellent forbidden ancient discoveries documentary.
The sun is right there in the name of NASA's Parker Solar Probe, but a second mission of opportunity may make the spacecraft just as vital to Venus scientists as to those studying our local star.
Parker Solar Probe launched in August 2018, destined to spend seven years looping ever closer to the sun in hopes of sorting out some of the hottest mysteries about our star. But to do so, the spacecraft needed a carefully choreographed trajectory, one that included seven flybys of Earth's evil twin, Venus. And Venus scientists, who haven't had a dedicated NASA spacecraft since the mid-1990s, were not about to let that opportunity fly past them.
"The Venus flybys are like, if you have like a 48-hour layover in Paris, not leaving the airport," Shannon Curry, a planetary physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Space.com. "It would be crazy not to turn on [the instruments]." Curry and her colleagues made her case, and the Parker Solar Probe will gather its second batch of Venus data today (Dec. 26), as the probe makes its closest approach to the planet at 1:14 p.m. EST (1814 GMT).
Of course, Parker Solar Probe's instruments are designed to study a star, not a planet. They focus mostly on plasma, the hot mess of charged particles that makes up the sun. Traditionally, planetary scientists want very different instruments on their spacecraft: radar devices to map the surface, spectrometers to identify chemicals and the like. But that doesn't make plasma data superfluous.
Two dedicated Venus missions have carried plasma detectors to the world: NASA's Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Venus Express. But those spacecraft were built decades ago. "The stuff that they were able to put on [Parker] Solar Probe takes measurements faster, better, stronger, like the whole deal," Curry said.
And she and her colleagues have plenty of questions about Venus that plasma data could help answer. For today's flyby, the team is particularly interested in a feature called the bow shock, where the planet's neighborhood meets the solar wind of charged particles that constantly stream off the sun.
The precise location of the bow shock varies based on how active the sun is, which changes over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. "We're not positive it'll cross the shock or not, but that's actually important because it'll tell us physically where the shock is at this point in the solar cycle," Curry said. "It tells us a lot about what the sun's doing, and the shock is a nice gauge of that."
And the environment on either side of the bow shock differs dramatically. Outside the shock is the pristine solar wind and the effects of solar storms. But if Parker Solar Probe crosses inside the shock, scientists should be able to better understand how quickly Venus is losing its atmosphere.
"The magnetic fields pile up and actually sort of drag the atmosphere off. It's almost like a slingshot," Curry said. "That's one of the biggest ways the atmosphere of Venus gets removed, the sun's magnetic field lines."
Venus scientists are interested in a more detailed measurement of atmosphere loss, because atmospheric pressure affects what state water takes; it's Earth's even 1 bar of pressure that helps keep our oceans liquid. "At some point, maybe liquids could exist again [on Venus], or maybe they did before and we just don't know," Curry said.
But the Venus atmospheric-loss measurements will really crank up during Parker Solar Probe's next two flybys, in July 2020 and February 2021. These two visits will carry the spacecraft right through what scientists call the tail of Venus, which is where the atmosphere slips away from the planet.
"Those are going to be the super-important ones. I think these first two are almost — not like dress rehearsals, but it's really important to make sure we get everything right," Curry said. "Flybys 3 and 4 will tell us mountains about atmospheric escape at Venus and then a lot of other dynamics we just don't understand."
Curry said that Parker Solar Probe may be able to solve a long-standing mystery about the surface of Venus: whether the planet sports small, patchy crustal magnetic fields. So far, Mars is the only planet where scientists have seen this phenomenon. "It's like a little magnetic rash on its belly, like little bubbles with magnetic fields," Curry said. But no one's gotten a close enough look at Venus to check for them. "We might not [see them], and they might not even be there. We just don't know."
The results of the first Venus flyby, which took place in October 2018, prove the importance of practice. During the pass, the spacecraft ended up shutting its instruments down, convinced that they were pointing straight at the sun, which they aren't meant to do.
"We're just looking at Venus, not the sun. Venus is just a superbright planet the way it reflects," Curry said. "That's why the instruments got confused." Now, Curry said, the project team believes it's figured out how to keep that error from happening again.
And the Venus work is benefiting from a science bonus discovered by the main Parker Solar Probe team, which realized that the spacecraft could gather and send back more data than originally anticipated. Curry had been willing to fight for even just an hour of data on a flyby; during the first maneuver, the team got about 10 hours of observations.
Curry is hoping to build similar Venus collaborations with the European and Japanese team running the BepiColombo mission en route to Mercury and with Europe's Solar Orbiter mission. Like Parker Solar Probe, both of these spacecraft also need to make Venus flybys to reach their targets.
"These are the only measurements of Venus we're going to have for, frankly, it might be the next decade," Curry said. "We have nothing planned to go to Venus." And the missions NASA is considering don't carry plasma instruments like Parker Solar Probe does, so questions like atmospheric loss might go unanswered even then.
Combine those two factors, and the mission's accidental planetary science looks even more precious. "With Venus science," Curry said, "anybody who gets data is a hero."
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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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.
