• Media via Wikimedia

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04-01-2020 om 22:05 geschreven door peter  

Mimas takes its name from one of the Titans of Greek mythology, who were the sons and daughters of Cronus (the Greek equivalent to Jupiter). Mimas was an offspring of Gaia, born from the blood of the castrated Uranus, who eventually died during the struggle with the Olympian Gods for control of the universe.

Size, Mass and Orbit:

With a mean radius of 198.2 ± 0.4 km and a mass of about 3.75 ×10¹⁹ kg, Mimas is equivalent in size to 0.0311 Earths and 0.0000063 times as massive. Orbiting Saturn at an average distance (semi-major axis) of 185,539 km, it is the innermost of Saturn’s larger moons, and the 8th moon orbiting Saturn. It’s orbit also has a minor eccentricity of 0.0196, ranging from 181,902 km at periapsis and 189,176 km at apoapsis.

With an estimated orbital velocity of 14.28 km/s, Mimas takes 0.942 days to complete a single orbit of Saturn. Like many of Saturn’s moons. Mimas rotation period is synchronous to its orbital period, which means it keeps one face constantly pointing towards the planet. Mimas is also in a 2:1 mean-motion resonance with the larger moon Tethys, and in a 2:3 resonance with the outer F Ring shepherd moonlet, Pandora.

Composition and Surface Features:

Mimas’ mean density of 1.1479 ± 0.007 g/cm³ is just slightly higher than that of water (1 g/cm³), which means that Mimas is mostly composed of water ice, with just a small amount of silicate rock. In this respect, Mimas is much like Tethys, Rhea, and Dione – moon’s of Saturn that are primarily composed of water ice.

Due to the tidal forces acting on it, Mimas is noticeably prolate – i.e. its longest axis is about 10% longer than the shortest, giving it its egg-shaped appearance. In fact, with a diameter of 396 km (246 mi), Mimas is just barely large and massive enough to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. to become rounded in shape under the force of its own gravitation). Mimas is the smallest known astronomical body to have achieved this.

Three types of geological features are officially recognized on Mimas: craters, chasmata (chasms) and catenae (crater chains). Of these, craters are the most common, and it is believed that many of them have existed since the beginning of the Solar System. Mimas surface is saturated with craters, with every part of the surface showing visible depressions, and newer impacts overwriting older ones.

Mimas’ most distinctive feature is the giant impact crater Herschel, named in honor of William Herschel (the discoverer of Uranus, its moons Oberon, and Titania, and the Cronian moons Enceladus and Mimas). This large crater gives Mimas the appearance of the “Death Star” from Star Wars. At 130 km (81 mi) in diameter, Herschel’s is almost a third of Mimas’ own diameter.

Its walls are approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) high, parts of its floor measure 10 km (6.2 mi) deep, and its central peak rises 6 km (3.7 mi) above the crater floor. If there were a crater of an equivalent scale on Earth, it would be over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) in diameter, which would make it wider than the continent of Australia.

The impact that made this crater must have nearly shattered Mimas, and is believed to have created the fractures on the opposite side of the moon by sending shock waves through Mimas’s body. In this respect, Mimas’ surface closely resembles that of Tethys, with its massive Odysseus crater on its western hemisphere and the concentric Ithaca chasma, which is believed to have formed as a result of the impact that created Odysseus.

Mimas’ surface is also saturated with smaller impact craters, but no others are anywhere near the size of Herschel. The cratering is also not uniform, with most of the surface being covered with craters larger than 40 km (25 mi) in diameter. However, in the south polar region, there are generally no craters larger than 20 km (12 mi) in diameter.

Data obtained in 2014 from the Cassini spacecraft has also led to speculation about a possible interior ocean. Due to the planet’s libration (oscillation in its orbit), scientists believe that the planet’s interior is not uniform, which could be the result of a rocky interior or an interior ocean at the core-mantle boundary. This ocean would likely be maintained thanks to tidal flexing caused by Mimas’ orbital resonances with Tethys and Pandora.

A number of features in Saturn’s rings are also related to resonances with Mimas. Mimas is responsible for clearing the material from the Cassini Division, which is the gap between Saturn’s two widest rings – the A Ring and B Ring. The repeated pulls by Mimas on the Cassini Division particles, always in the same direction, forces them into new orbits outside the gap.

Particles in the Huygens Gap at the inner edge of the Cassini division are in a 2:1 resonance with Mimas. In other words, they orbit Saturn twice for each orbit competed by Mimas. The boundary between the C and B ring is meanwhile in a 3:1 resonance with Mimas; and recently, the G Ring was found to be in a 7:6 co-rotation eccentricity resonance with Mimas.

Exploration:

The first mission to study Mimas up close was Pioneer 11, which flew by Saturn in 1979 and made its closest approach on Sept. 1st, 1979, at a distance of 104,263 km. The Voyager 1 and 2 missions both flew by Mimas in 1980 and 1981, respectively, and snapped pictures of Saturn’s atmosphere, its rings, its system of moons. Images taken by Voyager 1 probe were the first ever of the Herschel crater.

Mimas has been imaged several times by the Cassini orbiter, which entered into orbit around Saturn in 2004. A close flyby occurred on February 13, 2010, when Cassini passed Mimas at a distance of 9,500 km (5,900 mi). In addition to providing multiple images of Mimas’ cratered surface, it also took measurements of Mimas’ orbit, which led to speculation about a possible interior ocean.

The Saturn system is truly a wonder. So many moons, so many mysteries, and so many chances to learn about the formation of the Solar System and how it came to be. One can only hope that future missions are able to probe some of the deeper ones, like what might be lurking beneath Mimas’ icy, imposing “Death Star” surface!

We’ve written many great articles about Mimas and Saturn’s moons here at Universe Today. Here’s one about the Herschel Crater, one about the first detailed look Cassini made, and one about it’s “Death Star” appearance.

Another great resource about Mimas is Solar Views, and you can get even more info from the Nine Planets.

We have recorded two episodes of Astronomy Cast just about Saturn. The first is Episode 59: Saturn, and the second is Episode 61: Saturn’s Moons.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-01-2020 om 21:47 geschreven door peter  

There May Be Active Volcanoes on Venus: New Evidence

By Charles Q. Choi 

They may have erupted in the last few years!

An artist's illustration of volcanoes on Venus. A new study suggests Venus may have harbor active volcanoes today, with eruptions in recent years.

(Image: © ESA/AOES)

Venus may still harbor active volcanoes, with eruptions taking place as recently as a few years ago, a new study finds.

Aside from Earth, the only other place known to host active volcanoes that spew lava is Jupiter's moon Io. Mars and Earth's moon once had active volcanoes, but they died long ago.

Still, there are hints that Venus might harbor active volcanoes, such as traces of sulfurous gases seen in its atmosphere. In addition, about a decade ago, scientists analyzing data from the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe suggested that some of the lava flows on Venus are less than 2.5 million years old, and possibly even less than 250,000 years old. 

• Related: The 10 Weirdest Facts About Venus

Specifically, in 2010, researchers found unusually high emissions of visible to near-infrared light from a number of sites on Venus. Surface regions that are old are expected to have lower emissions of such light after long exposure to weathering from Venus' hot, caustic atmosphere, so these patches of higher emissions hinted at recent lava flows.

However, the exact ages of these lava flows remain uncertain. This is because much is unknown about how quickly volcanic rocks alter in response to Venus' harsh atmosphere and how such changes influence emissions of visible to near-infrared light.

 Hunting volcanoes on Venus 

To see if lava flows seen on Venus are recent, scientists experimented with crystals of olivine, a green mineral commonly found in volcanic rock. They focused on how these crystals altered under conditions similar in some ways to what they might experience on the surface of Venus.

The researchers heated olivine along with regular Earth air in a furnace up to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius) for up to a month. They found olivine became coated within days mostly with the reddish-black mineral hematite, which in turn made certain features of olivine more difficult to detect.

Since the ESA's Venus Express, which orbited Venus from 2006 to 2014, apparently could detect signs of olivine even from orbit, these new findings suggested that such olivine came from volcanic eruptions recently, as otherwise chemical reactions with Venus' atmosphere would have obscured it.

"This is the first time we may have seen active volcanism on another planet," study lead author Justin Filiberto, a planetary scientist at the Universities Space Research Association's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told Space.com.

The researchers are now following up on their research with other volcanic minerals baked in air more similar to Venus' atmosphere — that is, laden with carbon dioxide and sulfur. "The results with those are pretty much the same," Filiberto said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 3 in the journal Science Advances. 

• Amazing Venus Photos by ESA's Venus Express
• Venus' Volcanoes Are Likely Still Active
• Weird Volcanoes Are Erupting Across the Solar System

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/news }

04-01-2020 om 21:19 geschreven door peter  

04-01-2020 om 18:55 geschreven door peter  

Massive Deep Underground Bases & Alien Close Encounters

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

04-01-2020 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

NASA Whistleblower Comes Clean About Poleshift - Are You Prepared?

As we enter the unknown…will you rise to the occasion or sit by the wayside. The decision is yours and yours alone. No one can tell you what to do. We will help you get informed and prepared for the inevitable.

OTHER  WHISTLE BLOWER STORIES, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

04-01-2020 om 17:45 geschreven door peter  

Halleys Comet Is Really An Alien Spaceship! NASA Source, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 4, 2020
Location of discovery: suns orbit
Source photo: 

• https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/1p-halley/in-depth/
  

Guys, I hate to break it too you but Helley's comet is a an alien spaceship! The ship measures about 6.5 miles or 11km across. So thats no small ship. It passes earth in its wide orbit, and next time it will pass earth is in 41 years 6 months from today. Thats Jully 27, 2061. The ship is at an odd tilt putting the top of the ship towards its destination and its floor toward the tail the craft is making to disguise itself. Why hide? Because they don't want humans to be frightened of them, they just want to make a flyby to check on things and humanity as well. Nice of aliens to put so much effort into watching over us and worrying about us. Its always good to have friends in high places. :)
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

04-01-2020 om 17:06 geschreven door peter  

Huge bright UFO over St Augustine, Florida

This strange unidentified flying object was seen and recorded in the sky above St Augustine in Florida on 4th December 2019.

Witness report: 

The attached video is edited in order to be able to send it but it actually starts earlier and shows a longer time period Of hovering. The attached video is actually the third time we observed this bluish White white ball in the south East sky. I have pictures of the other times earlier that week. The three times that we saw the white bluish light in our Southeast sky it would either completely turn off or disappear or like in this video the last time we saw it it moved and then disappeared. this was the last night we witnessed it and was also a night that we saw a very high and unusual amount of helicopters flying around our sunset evening.

In addition we have pictures and video of an orangish reddish light that appeared during the same two weeks Knightley in the southwest sky at about 45° hovered and then moved after about an hour or after dark and it moved west across the sky nightly until we couldn’t see it.

My husband who actually recorded this video on his phone had an experience about 20 minutes after this recording that he still won’t share with me and I don’t know if he has any video or picture evidence and I still don’t know what happened other than it really freaked him out.

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

04-01-2020 om 16:35 geschreven door peter  

The Universe May Be Flooded with a Cobweb Network of Invisible Strings

By Paul Sutter - Astrophysicist 

We may soon find out whether we live in an axiverse

(Image: © Shutterstock)

What if I told you that our universe was flooded with hundreds of kinds of nearly invisible particles and that, long ago, these particles formed a network of universe-spanning strings? 

It sounds both trippy and awesome, but it's actually a prediction of string theory, our best (but frustratingly incomplete) attempt at a theory of everything. These bizarre, albeit hypothetical, little particles are known as axions, and if they can be found, that would mean we all live in a vast "axiverse."

The best part of this theory is that it's not just some physicist's armchair hypothesis, with no possibility of testing. This incomprehensibly huge network of strings may be detectable in the near future with microwave telescopes that are actually being built. 

• Related: The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

If found, the axiverse would give us a major step up in figuring out the puzzle of … well, all of physics.

A symphony of strings

OK, let's get down to business. First, we need to get to know the axion a little better. The axion, named by physicist (and, later, Nobel laureate) Frank Wilczek in 1978, gets its name because it's hypothesized to exist from a certain kind of symmetry-breaking. I know, I know — more jargon. Hold on. Physicists love symmetries — when certain patterns appear in mathematics. 

There's one kind of symmetry, called the CP symmetry, that says that matter and antimatter should behave the same when their coordinates are reversed. But this symmetry doesn't seem to fit naturally into the theory of the strong nuclear force. One solution to this puzzle is to introduce another symmetry in the universe that "corrects" for this misbehavior. However, this new symmetry only appears at extremely high energies. At everyday low energies, this symmetry disappears, and to account for that, and out pops a new particle — the axion.

Now, we need to turn to string theory, which is our attempt (and has been our main attempt for 50-odd years now) to unify all of the forces of nature, especially gravity, in a single theoretical framework. It's proven to be an especially thorny problem to solve, due to a variety of factors, not the least of which is that, for string theory to work (in other words, for the mathematics to even have a hope of working out), our universe must have more than the usual three dimensions of space and one of time; there have to be extra spatial dimensions.

These spatial dimensions aren't visible to the naked eye, of course; otherwise, we would've noticed that sort of thing. So the extra dimensions have to be teensy-tiny and curled up on themselves at scales so small that they evade normal efforts to spot them.

What makes this hard is that we're not exactly sure how these extra dimensions curl up on themselves, and there's somewhere around 10^200 possible ways to do it.

But what these dimensional arrangements appear to have in common is the existence of axions, which, in string theory, are particles that wind themselves around some of the curled-up dimensions and get stuck.

What's more, string theory doesn't predict just one axion but potentially hundreds of different kinds, at a variety of masses, including the axion that might appear in the theoretical predictions of the strong nuclear force.

Silly strings

So, we have lots of new kinds of particles with all sorts of masses. Great! Could axions make up dark matter, which seems to be responsible for giving galaxies most of their mass but can't be detected by ordinary telescopes? Perhaps; it's an open question. But axions-as-dark-matter have to face some challenging observational tests, so some researchers instead focus on the lighter end of the axion families, exploring ways to find them.

And when those researchers start digging into the predicted behavior of these featherweight axions in the early universe, they find something truly remarkable. In the earliest moments of the history of our cosmos, the universe went through phase transitions, changing its entire character from exotic, high-energy states to regular low-energy states. 

During one of these phase transitions (which happened when the universe was less than a second old), the axions of string theory didn't appear as particles. Instead, they looked like loops and lines — a network of lightweight, nearly invisible strings crisscrossing the cosmos.

This hypothetical axiverse, filled with a variety of lightweight axion strings, is predicted by no other theory of physics but string theory. So, if we determine that we live in an axiverse, it would be a major boon for string theory. 

A shift in the light

How can we search for these axion strings? Models predict that axion strings have very low mass, so light won't bump into an axion and bend, or axions likely wouldn't mingle with other particles. There could be millions of axion strings floating through the Milky Way right now, and we wouldn't see them.

But the universe is old and big, and we can use that to our advantage, especially once we recognize that the universe is also backlit.

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe, emitted when it was just a baby — about 380,000 years old. This light has soaked the universe for all these billions of years, filtering through the cosmos until it finally hits something, like our microwave telescopes. 

So, when we look at the CMB, we see it through billions of light-years' worth of universe. It's like looking at a flashlight"s glow through a series of cobwebs: If there is a network of axion strings threaded through the cosmos, we could potentially spot them.

In a recent study, published in the arXiv database on Dec. 5, a trio of researchers calculated the effect an axiverse would have on CMB light. They found that, depending on how a bit of light passes near a particular axion string, the polarization of that light could shift. That’s because the CMB light (and all light) is made of waves of electric and magnetic fields, and the polarization of light tells us how the electric fields are oriented — something that changes when the CMB light encounters an axion. We can measure the polarization of the CMB light by passing the signal through specialized filters, allowing us to pick out this effect. 

The researchers found that the total effect on the CMB from a universe full of strings introduced a shift in polarization amounting to around 1%, which is right on the verge of what we can detect today. But future CMB mappers, such as the Cosmic Origins Explorer, Lite (Light) satellite for the studies of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection (LiteBIRD), and the Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) , are currently being designed. These futuristic telescopes would be capable of sniffing out an axiverse. And once those mappers come online, we'll either find that we live in an axiverse or rule out this particular prediction of string theory.

Either way, there's a lot to untangle.

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

• From Big Bang to Present: Snapshots of Our Universe Through Time
• The 11 Biggest Unanswered Questions About Dark Matter
• 5 Elusive Particles Beyond the Higgs
• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

04-01-2020 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

The Decade of Mars: How the 2020s May Be a New Era of Red Planet Exploration

Mars as seen from orbit by NASA’s Viking mission.

(Image: © NASA/JPL)

A new phase

NASA has hunted for Mars life before. The agency's Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, which in 1976 became the first spacecraft ever to touch down on the Red Planet, each carried four biological experiments. But the Vikings returned ambiguous results, forcing a strategy rethink. 

The Viking missions "showed us that life is pretty difficult to find," Vasavada said. 

NASA scientists and officials came to grips with this fact, and with the realization that it wasn't even clear if the conditions necessary for life as we know it had ever prevailed on Mars, he added. So, the agency embarked on a strategic exploration program designed to characterize the Red Planet in detail with a series of orbiter, lander and rover missions.

This work reached a crescendo in the 2010s. Curiosity and the smaller rovers Spirit and Opportunity plied their trade in the last decade, as did the InSight lander and its two fly-along cubesats and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN. (Spirit barely makes this list; the golf-cart-size rover last communicated with Earth in March 2010.)

And NASA didn't monopolize Mars exploration in the 2010s. India launched its first Red Planet craft, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), in 2013. Also eyeing the planet from aloft during the decade were Europe's long-lived Mars Express orbiter and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), whose March 2016 launch took the European-Russian ExoMars program into space. (Rosalind Franklin and its accompanying landing platform, Kazachok, represent the second phase of the two-part ExoMars.)

The past tense is not really appropriate for many of the above craft, by the way: Curiosity, InSight, Mars Odyssey, MRO, MAVEN, MOM, Mars Express and TGO all remain active today. 

• Related: Occupy Mars: History of Robotic Red Planet Missions (Infographic)

The work done by these robots and their predecessors has paved the way for Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin. For example, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and the orbiters spotted lots of evidence of past water activity on the Red Planet's surface. Curiosity dug even deeper, identifying an ancient lake-and-stream system inside Mars' 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. And MAVEN provided valuable temporal context, finding that the Red Planet likely had lost most of its atmosphere — which had kept Mars warm enough to support liquid surface water — to space by about 3.7 billion years ago.

"I think the evidence is compelling that Mars has met, in the past, all the requirements for either the occurrence of life or an origin of life, depending on how you think something might have played out,"  MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Space.com at the AGU meeting last month.

Two life-hunting rovers 

That brings us to Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin. The ExoMars rover is scheduled to touch down in March 2021, likely in Oxia Planum, a plain in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere that shows lots of evidence of ancient water activity.

The solar-powered Rosalind Franklin will use its cameras and scientific instruments to search for morphological and chemical signs of ancient Mars life. The rover will be able to dig deep for such clues; it's equipped with a drill that can bore 6.5 feet (2 meters) below the Red Planet's surface.

Mars 2020, which will soon get a more memorable moniker via a student naming competition, will do similar astrobiology work inside the 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero Crater. (The rover will gather a variety of other data — and test out new exploration tech, including a tiny Mars helicopter — as well.) 

Scientists think Jezero was home to a lake and a river delta in the ancient past, so it's a good hunting ground on multiple fronts for the NASA rover. Not only was that ancient environment potentially habitable, but river deltas here on Earth are good at preserving biosignatures, mission team members have said.

"We are very much hoping that, with our payload, we can make a very strong case that there are biosignatures on the surface of Mars," Mars 2020 deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of JPL said at the AGU media roundtable last month. 

Mars 2020 won't be able to drill nearly as deep as Rosalind Franklin. But the NASA rover will do some specialty boring of its own, collecting and caching several dozen samples for eventual return to Earth, where they can be scrutinized in detail by teams of scientists in well-equipped labs around the world. 

This is a key aspect of the 2020 rover mission. After all, confirming the existence of ancient biosignatures on Mars, if any are indeed there to be found, is likely to be a tricky business, said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, principal investigator of Mars 2020's Mastcam-Z instrument.

"We could make a claim about a biosignature, but it's not clear anyone would believe us," Bell said at the AGU roundtable. "So, let's bring the samples back."

Getting the Mars material here will be a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Europe recently affirmed its financial commitment to the complicated sample-return effort, but NASA is still waiting for its official budgetary go-ahead.

If that green light does indeed come, the 2020s will likely get another serious jolt of spaceflight electricity. The current, still-unconfirmed plan envisions launching a NASA mission called Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) in 2026. SRL will include a stationary lander, the ESA-provided Sample Fetch Rover and a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will blast the material collected by Mars 2020 into space. These precious samples would make it to Earth in 2031.

• Related: 7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars

Boots on the red ground?

There will be much more Mars activity in the 2020s as well — a lot just this year, in fact, if all goes according to plan. 

China aims to launch an orbiter-rover mission to the Red Planet this summer, in the same July-August window that Mars 2020 and Rosalind Franklin are targeting. (Such windows come just once every 26 months, when Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions.) 

These would be the first Chinese probes to make it to Mars, but not the first to try. An orbiter called Yinghuo-1 launched in November 2011 aboard Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which never made it out of Earth orbit.

The United Arab Emirates also plans to notch its first Red Planet success soon: the nation aims to launch an orbiter called the Hope Mars Mission this summer. Japan — whose only Mars mission to date, the Nozomi orbiter, failed in 1998 — is working to send a lander toward the Red Planet in 2022 and a sample-return mission to the Mars moon Phobos in 2024. India's MOM 2, which may include a lander and/or rover along with an orbiter, could lift off in that same general timeframe.

And then there's the realm of human spaceflight. NASA is working to put boots on Mars sometime in the 2030s, with plenty of help from its international partners and the private sector. But SpaceX has a more ambitious timeline.

Elon Musk's company is developing a giant, reusable rocket-spaceship combo known as Starship to make colonization of the Red Planet economically feasible. Starship could end up helping set up a million-person city on Mars within the next 50 to 100 years if all goes well, Musk has said.

And Starship's first interplanetary forays should come much sooner than that. SpaceX aims to launch an uncrewed Starship mission to the lunar surface as early as 2022, company president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell recently said. That flight might be a contracted NASA mission; the agency recently announced that SpaceX is eligible to deliver robotic NASA payloads to the moon's surface using Starship.

Crew-carrying milestones could follow in relatively short order. For example, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has booked a round-the-moon mission aboard Starship, with a target launch date of 2023. 

Such timelines may prove to be overly ambitious. After all, the only Starship version that's gotten off the ground to date is a stubby, single-engine prototype called Starhopper, and the first full-size variant of the spaceship blew its top during its initial pressure test this past November. But SpaceX has a track record of achieving impressive spaceflight feats, as its dozens of rocket landings and many cargo missions to the International Space Station attest. 

So stay tuned. With or without a crewed Mars mission, the next 10 years should be a wild Red Planet ride!

• Life on Mars: Exploration and Evidence
• Mars 2020: The Red Planet's Next Rover
• Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-Colonizing Vehicles in Images

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/ }

03-01-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

NASA's New Mars 2020 Car May Look Like the Curiosity Rover, But It's No Twin

By Elizabeth Howell 

The two rovers have quite different missions.

Illustrations of NASA's Curiosity (also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL) and Mars 2020 rovers. While the newest rover borrows from Curiosity's design, each has its own role in the ongoing exploration of Mars and the search for ancient life.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA plans to launch a rover to Mars this July to hunt for signs of ancient Red Planet life. 

The new Mars 2020 rover's body is similar to that of the older Curiosity rover, which landed in 2012. But the two machines are quite different in important ways.

Curiosity's mission centers on assessing the past habitability of its landing site, the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. The rover quickly determined that Gale harbored a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system in the ancient past, and Curiosity is now fleshing out that long-gone environment as it climbs the foothills of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the sky from Gale's center.

• Related: NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures

Mars 2020 will characterize the habitability of its landing site, Jezero Crater, after touching down in February 2021. But the new rover will also hunt for ancient biosignatures — signs of past life that could be lurking in rock or soil samples. And Mars 2020 will cache the most promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

The mass and dimensions of the rovers differ as well. Mars 2020 is about 5 inches (13 centimeters) longer and 280 lbs. (127 kilograms) heavier than Curiosity. That's because Mars 2020 will carry a different set of tools, officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explained in a recent statement.

The two robots' arms have the same reach (7 feet, or 2.2 meters). But Mars 2020 has bigger instruments and a larger drill to do "coring." 

"The drill will cut intact rock cores, rather than pulverizing them, and they'll be placed in sample tubes via a complex storage system," JPL officials said in the statement.

Curiosity has 17 cameras, including both color and black-and-white shooters. Mars 2020, by comparison, will carry 23, and most of them will take color photos. In addition, Mars 2020's Mastcam-Z will improve upon Curiosity's Mast Camera with zoom and high-definition video. 

The newer rover, unlike its predecessor, will also carry two microphones to listen to the sounds of landing on Mars, as well as the Red Planet wind and the zaps coming from Mars 2020's onboard laser-equipped instrument.

Mars 2020 also will improve upon Curiosity's aluminum wheels, which have been damaged by sharp rocks. NASA successfully modified its driving plan for Curiosity to see it through its time on the Red Planet. But such troubleshooting may not be necessary for Mars 2020, whose wheels are bigger and thicker, and sport more treads, or "grousers." 

"Extensive testing in JPL's Mars Yard has shown these treads better withstand the pressure from sharp rocks but work just as well on sand," JPL officials said.

Mars 2020 will also take advantage of advances in computing for "self-driving smarts," figuring out its path on Mars autonomously up to five times faster than Curiosity can. Mars 2020 team members hope this upgraded brain will reduce the amount of planning time needed for navigation, allowing the new rover to cover more ground and accomplish more tasks. 

With the self-driving technique, daily operations could take 5 hours, compared with 7 for Curiosity, JPL officials stated. (Curiosity used to require 19 hours of analysis, but improved operations and newer autonavigation on Curiosity have reduced that time considerably in seven years.) 

A final major difference is in the landing. Like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will endure "seven minutes of terror" that wraps up with a rocket-powered sky crane lowering the robot to the Martian surface on cables. But the new rover features "terrain relative navigation," an advanced system that will allow Mars 2020 to land much more precisely than its predecessor. 

• Mars 2020: The Red Planet's Next Rover
• Life on Mars: Exploration & Evidence
• Photos: Ancient Mars Lake Could Have Supported Life

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

03-01-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

Some of the best mysteries are those shrouded in the mists of time, from cultures long gone and little-understood. In the days of ancient Iraq there existed a pre-Sumerian culture known as the Ubaidian culture, which dates back between from 5,500 to 4,000 BC in ancient Mesopotamia and which is thought to have sort of kicked off the Sumerian civilization. The sites related to this ancient culture, known for their groundbreaking use of unwalled city layouts, distinct style of pottery, unique food processing tools, impressive architectural skills for the time, including their complex multi-room rectangular mud houses, paved streets, surprisingly advanced irrigation systems, and elaborate temples, as well as for their advanced agricultural know-how, have become meccas for archeologists, especially the site called Tell Al’Ubaid, first excavated by Harry Reginald Hal in 1919. It is here where a very strange and baffling series of findings has been made over the decades that have made this already mysterious and little-known culture all the more enigmatic, among these figures of some unknown race of reptilian humanoids.

Here among the ruins and various intriguing artifacts left behind from this once great culture have been found an assortment of decidedly odd figurines that are unique in that they seem to depict reptilian humanoids of some sort, both male and female, often wearing padding in the shoulders and hats or helmets, and featured in a variety of poses holding various objects such as staves, scepters, and in the case of female figures even suckling babies that are just as lizard-like as the mothers. The figures are unlike anything else uncovered in the region, and feature elongated heads, pointed, muzzled faces, and slanted, almond-shaped eyes, all of them being unambiguously decidedly not human and displaying mostly very reptilian features. The thing is, since their discovery in the 20th century no one has really been able to figure out what they are supposed to be or what their significance is.

Ubaid figurines

It was at first thought that these might be stylized representations of gods the people worshiped, not completely unusual as there are many cultures that have worshiped serpents and reptilian deities, including the Sumerians themselves with their serpent god Enki, but archeologists and historians have doubted this origin for a few reasons. One is that the figures are never really made out to be decked out in opulence or particularly grand clothing, which one would expect if they were almighty gods, and another is that the poses they are found in, including nursing infants, tend to be mundane, unceremonious, and nonreligious, further pushing away the idea that these were revered deities. They seem to be non-ritualistic in nature, yet they nevertheless still seem to have been important in some way to those who created them. So if they were not worshiped as gods then why did this 7,000 year-old civilization make all of these meticulously crafted figures of reptilian humanoid creatures? That largely depends on who you ask.

One idea is that these were just decorative pieces or abstract works of art, the resemblance to reptilian humanoids merely coincidental or an aesthetic design choice, yet is that is the case then why make so many of them with the same basic appearances, clothing, and items? There is also the idea that the Ubaidian culture might have practiced some sort of body modification such as skull elongation, seen in some other cultures around the world, and that these figures are depictions of these individuals, but if so why? There is also the notion that these figures represent some sort of hoax and were planted there, but modern day analysis seems to date them as indeed being from the Ubaid culture, so what is going on here?

Yet another, more fringe idea is that the figurines could possibly been depicting some real race of aliens or reptilian beings of some sort that were then made into these figures. Could there have been a race of reptilian humanoids roaming about and even interacting with this ancient culture, who were then immortalized in these strange figurines? There is really no way to know, the Ubaid culture in and of itself is already quite the impenetrable mystery, and in the end we can only guess at what these figures signify or what they really meant.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

03-01-2020 om 21:55 geschreven door peter  

If you’re running for president and you won’t want to answer tough questions about UFOs, extraterrestrials, X-files disclosure and the Space Force, you may want to avoid New Hampshire where Daymond Steer, a reporter for The Conway Daily Sun, has been hitting candidates hard about UFOs as they campaign in the Granite State. Last week it was Democrat Amy Klobuchar. He has also interrogated Republican William Weld (yes, there’s still another Republican running for president) and longshot Democrats Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, California congressman Eric Swalwell, former Massachusetts governor Devan Patrick and self-help author Marianne Williamson. What did they have to say?

“Let me say it this way, I have to be extremely careful because I am on the Intelligence Committee. So nothing that I’m saying is anything to do with anything I’ve learned on the Intelligence Committee. (But) our guys are seeing unidentified stuff. They don’t know what it is. And I don’t know what it is. I don’t think they’re saying that it’s necessarily things from outer space, but it’s unexplained stuff. That’s. That’s off the Southeast coast of the United States and off the California coast. We’re trying to learn more about it. The Air Force is trying to learn more about it.”

Michael Bennet

(Wikipedia)

Michael Bennet has a front row seat to the X-files as an Intelligence Committee member, but he wasn’t saying much and didn’t make any promises, although he did confirm that the military is seeing “unidentified” and “unexplained” stuff.

“I’m focused on things like getting rid of a lawless president — that’s first and foremost. Then I will work on out-of-worldly creatures.”

Eric Swalwell

(Wikipedia)

When asked about UFOs by reporter Steer, Eric Swalwell avoided it by punting with a comment on the current president, two moves that won’t win him many votes from UFO and conspiracy believers and open-minded Republicans.

“I will say, though, I have met other pilots, commercial pilots, who have said that there are things that they’ve seen in the night sky, mostly the night sky. I used to be on the board of an airline, I talked to pilots who told me about that sort of thing.”

Deval Patrick

(Wikipedia)

Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick was on the board of United Airlines (UAL) and knows that pilots generally don’t report UFOs out of fear of losing their jobs. If he’s really had those conversations, he had to win them over by showing he shared in or at least respected their beliefs.

“I don’t know why the United States is so secretive about that issue compared to other countries. I love that stuff.”

Marianne Williamson

(Wikipedia)

Anyone who knows about Michelle Williamson’s New Age beliefs will not be surprised with her answer to Steer’s question about the USS Nimitz pilot who saw UFOs, although “I love that stuff” is not quite the same as “I’ll throw open the X-files and tear down the fence around Area 51.”

William Weld

(Wikipedia)

Perhaps the best comments came from Republican William Weld. He was much more open and expansive in his answers (watch the interview here), possibly because he’s run for president before. In an interview this week, he said, “I do think there’s extraterrestrial life out there” and he believes it’s probably “more intelligent” than us. While he seemed to scoff at the idea of “flying saucers” visiting Earth, he said “never say never.” In revealing his belief in the idea that memories are somehow passed down through generations and our minds passively receive them from grandparents and ancestors before them, he makes an interesting reference to the Bridey Murphy case, where a U.S. woman (Virginia Tighe) in 1952 was hypnotized and claimed to be the reincarnation of a a 19th-century Irishwoman named Bridey Murphy, possibly giving credence to stories of UFO abductions told by people under hypnotic regression. While Tighe’s claims were eventually debunked, Weld still remembers the story, as do many others. In answering a follow-up question about the files from the 2004 Nimitz sighting, Weld promised to “check it out” because “I’m a curious individual.” Curiosity is not the same as disclosure, but it’s a start and not a flippant punt to a remark about his potential opponent.

There are more presidential candidates visiting New Hampshire soon because of its February 11th primary. Will they be as open as William Weld to the UFO questions sure to come from The Conrad Daily Sun and intrepid UFO questionerer Daymond Steel? We’ll soon find out.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

03-01-2020 om 20:30 geschreven door peter  

There is no other sort of case in the realm of UFOlogy that gathers as much attention and scrutiny as those incidents in which one of these mysterious craft have seemed to have actually crash landed upon our planet. The most notable of these for many is perhaps the Roswell, New Mexico incident, which has gone on to firmly entrench itself into the lore of great UFO events. Yet, there are others as well, and indeed one of the more popular of these supposed UFO crashes happened in the very same state as Roswell, and is sometimes mentioned in the same breath, generating just as much debate and controversy.

The story of what has been commonly called “The Other Roswell” supposedly begins in March of 1948, when an unidentified craft reportedly came down from the sky to make a controlled landing/crash at the remote desert moonscape of Hart Canyon, near the small outpost town of Aztec, New Mexico. The object was supposedly then witnessed perched atop a mesa by oil workers Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer, who were trying to put out a brush fire in the area at the time. What they saw was beyond anything they had ever seen, described it as being an immense metallic disc around 100 feet in diameter, composed of some sort of lightweight but very powerful metal that showed no signs of seams, joints, screws, or nails, or even damage, and which held within it a single portal in its side. The strangest things of all was that when the workers peered into the window-like opening they claimed to have seen strewn about within were at least 16 charred bodies of what looked to be miniature humanoid beings of some type, seemingly killed by the impact of their descent. The men called the local police, who arrived on the scene to be just as flabbergasted as they were, and it was as they stood about with mouths agape the military then predictably moved in to cordon off the area, allegedly telling them they were not to speak of the event.

As is often the case with such incidents, the military then went about whisking the craft and its occupants off, and the two oil workers apparently could not keep their mouths shut about it, because they soon relayed their account to a journalist by the name of Frank Scully. In 1949, Scully would print a whole series of articles on the incident in Variety Magazine, going on to also mention it heavily in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. It was at this point where the story would enter the annals of great UFO incidents, and also accrue quite a bit of controversy that has continued to this day.

Shortly after Scully’s book was published, doubt was thrown onto the whole thing, when the two original witnesses were exposed as having been not oil workers, but con men who had concocted the whole thing as a scheme to make money selling “alien technology” that they had retrieved from the craft that would supposedly detect il in the landscape. It worked out perfectly for them, as the remote area was so isolated that no locals had apparently reported anything out of the ordinary, the two police men who had reportedly been on the scene were not available for questioning, and of course the military wasn’t talking. It basically came down to the word of the first two witnesses, and they could make up whatever story they liked. The idea is that they scammed Scully, who believed it to be a genuine account, in order to get publicity and get the account out into the wild. Indeed, some of this technology the men had supposedly found had been passed on to J.P. Cahn of the San Francisco Chronicle, who had it tested to find out that it was just normal aluminum, and around this time others who had been swindled in the past by the man began pointing fingers, and both Newton and Gebauer would concede that it had all been a hoax. It seems pretty cut and dried so far, but it would prove to be anything but.

In the 1980s, the case began to gain traction again, with many in the UFO community deciding that it was perhaps not a hoax after all, and that maybe something fishy was going on. This reached a crescendo with the research of UFOlogists Scott and Suzanne Ramsey, who spent over decades tracking the story down and hunting down clues that they would include in their book The Aztec UFO Incident. One of the first things they point out is that the whole idea that this was all orchestrated by two con men may just be a red herring, with Scott Ramsey having said of this:

Gotta remember that from 1952 until about 1986, no one would touch the Aztec incident. It was poisoned. No UFO researchers would touch it because it was considered to be a hoax hoisted off on the public by con men. This was taken apart in our book. We realized the government engineered that story to sink Aztec, and they were willing to ruin the lives of two, three people, to make sure it got covered up. You cannot refute the evidence that we have put in this book.

They also draw attention to an FBI document called the “Hottel Memo,” written by Guy Hottel, the head of the FBI field office in Washington in 1950, directed to J, Edgar Hoover and a part of which which reads:

An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50-feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but were 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suite of speed flyers and test pilots. According to Mr. ——— (redacted) informant, the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanics of the saucers. No further evaluation was attempted by SA ——— (redacted) concerning the above.

At the time, many people thought that this was strictly referring to Roswell, but there have been some, including the Ramseys, who think that it was more directed towards the Aztec Incident. They point out various other pieces of evidence to support their plight, such as an incident in which a man was approached for selling photos from the alleged crash, with the government converging upon him in Denver, Colorado to purchase them for a good sum of money. Ramsey has said of this:

Just as the buy was about to go down, the FBI and Army CID – that’s Counter Intelligence Division – stepped in. And they specifically in that FBI report say the gentlemen was trying to sell pictures of the Aztec flying saucer. The bottom line on that one is the government took the Aztec saucer very seriously. If there was no Aztec saucer, they would not be been willing to pony up a bunch of money to buy some photos, whether they existed or not.

The alleged Aztec UFO crash site today

Numerous other pieces of evidence that they put forward seek to paint the Aztec crash as being far more than a hoax, and worthy of serious follow-up. They state that the witnesses were actually 100 percent believable, and that something strange did indeed go on out in those badlands back in 1948, and that it was simply covered up to a remarkable degree to be swept under the carpet. Scott Ramsey has said of it all:

The witnesses were all 100 percent certain. That what they saw that day was not a conventional aircraft, nor was it a prototype Air Force design that strayed off course and crashed on the high plains of New Mexico. Based on clear witness memories, there is no doubt that they saw a landed flying saucer from origins unknown.

I honestly think in 1948, this is right after World War II. We’re only three years after World War II. The Cold War was going on. I think our government was absolutely smart in not letting our enemies know that we had recovered one, two, three, maybe four flying saucers. Why would we let the Russians know that that kind of technology was there? We were better off to make it look like a hoax, ridicule the people that saw it. You know, we had to make them the town drunk. We do that and move on. Take the technology and try to figure it out because if we’ve got it, God bless, it’s a lot better than if they have it.

Personally, I wish that the government would come clean and tell the American people more of the truth of the story, not just of Aztec but of all the other many UFO cases. I think the public is ready to handle the truth. In today’s world, I think we’re ready to handle the truth. Might not have been the case in 1951, or 52, or 53 right after World War II, but I think the public can handle that today.

In the end, they claim that this really did happen, and that the witnesses were sincere, but that it was totally buried by the nefarious government. Is that what happened? Whether any of it is true or not, the whole incident has made the area of Aztec, New Mexico a tourist mecca for UFO enthusiasts, with an annual UFO festival and the supposed crash site even delineated and marked with a plaque, which you can visit to this day. However, there is nothing left out in this eerie desert landscape to hint at what may or may not have happened on that fateful day back in 1948. We are left to wonder, did something not of this world really touch down in this remote wilderness to be whisked away and totally covered up, or is this just a hoax and bit of media sensationalism? We may never know for sure, but the incident at Aztec, New Mexico has certainly gone on to be an oft-talked about UFO case, and still serves to stir up debate and wonder.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

03-01-2020 om 20:21 geschreven door peter  

Klobuchar Suggests She Would Disclose UFO Information As President

JAZZ SHAW

Here’s an obscure tidbit from the campaign trail involving Democratic Senator (and POTUS hopeful) Amy Klobuchar. This week she sat down for a lengthy interview with the editorial board of the Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire, which is something of a required stop for all presidential candidates. The interview was livestreamed on the newspaper’s Facebook page and printed up for a recent edition.

It was a wide-ranging interview covering most of the usual topics of the day, including a claim from Klobuchar that she feels she’s “well-positioned” to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump next November. But toward the end of the Q&A she was hit with a somewhat more obscure question that she had declined to answer a few months ago. Has she looked into the reports of US Navy encounters with alleged UFOs and what does she make of all this? It turns out she has and she suggested that, as president, she would investigate whether or not some of that information could be disclosed to the public. (Hat tip to Paul Seaburn at Mysterious Universe.)

Back in October, the Sun asked Klobuchar if she was familiar with New Hampshire man David Fravor, who was made famous in 2017 for his account of chasing a UFO off the West Coast as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot in 2004.

During that exchange in front of The Met Coffee House in North Conway, Klobuchar said she would look into it and on Monday she confirmed that she did.

“I think we don’t know enough … I don’t know what’s happened, not just with that sighting, but with others,” she said. “And I think one of the things a president could do is to look into what’s there in terms of what does the science say; what does our military say.

“Here’s the interesting part of that answer is that some of this stuff is really old … So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public so earnest journalists like you who are trying to get the bottom of the truth would be able to see it?” she asked rhetorically.

That answer wasn’t really all that long, but those four sentences definitely caught the attention of people in the UFO community. We’re dealing with a politician running for office here, so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. But what was she really saying?

First of all, she seemed to be familiar enough with the David Fravor encounter to believe that this has come up on her radar. The reporter who asked the question was Draymond Steer and he asks pretty much every presidential candidate about UFOs. In fact, he was the one who asked her back in October and didn’t get an answer.

So Klobuchar doesn’t believe that we know enough yet, but she also apparently hasn’t been privy to any secrets on this topic either. She wasn’t one of the Senators briefed on the subject in secret earlier this year, so that makes sense. Her ideas about what a president can do (ask what the science says and what the military has to say) are fairly generic as well.

Of course, other presidents have asked before, as we’ve discussed here previously. It’s confirmed that both Clinton and Obama asked and they were apparently told nothing. (Or so they claim.) Does Klobuchar believe she’d fare better in getting the intelligence agencies to open the bag? Good luck with that, Senator.

Her last comment was at least a bit more interesting, however. She made reference to “some of this stuff” being “really old.” Presumably, she’s not talking about the Nimitz and Roosevelt encounters in 2004 and 2015 because those are still on everyone’s minds. So what did she mean? Was that a reference to the 1947 Roswell incident? If so, she could certainly generate a lot of headlines if she somehow drove a wedge into that oyster. But so many before her have tried that I somehow doubt any new information would be forthcoming.

Of course, this could all be nothing more than an effort to appeal to a particular voter demographic. According to the most recent polling, while a majority of Americans still aren’t convinced that UFOs are definitely extraterrestrial spacecraft, a solid 68% said that they believe the government knows more than they’re telling the public. And we generally don’t like being kept in the dark. People are fascinated by these questions and it’s possible that Klobuchar is teasing some possible disclosure to round up a few more undecided voters.

So is the truth out there? Amy Klobuchar still has a ton of ground to make up in the primary polling if she really wants a chance to find out.

{ https://hotair.com/ }

03-01-2020 om 18:33 geschreven door peter  

03-01-2020 om 18:28 geschreven door peter  

Credit: EPFL

DEAnsect was developed by a team at EPFL’s Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS), working with the Integrated Actuators Laboratory (LAI) and colleagues from the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France. The research was published in Science Robotics.

Vibration propulsion

Researchers at EPFL have developed an ultra-light robotic insect that uses its soft artificial muscles to move at 3 cm per second across different types of terrain. The robot can be folded or crushed and yet continue to move.

Credit: EPFL

DEAnsect is equipped with dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), a type of hair-thin artificial muscle that propels it forward through vibrations. These DEAs are the main reason why the insect is so light and quick. They also enable it to move over different types of terrain, including undulating surfaces.

Credit: EPFL

An untethered model that is fully wireless and autonomous, weighing less than 1 gram and carrying its battery and all electronic components on its back.

Credit: EPFL

The artificial muscles consist of an elastomer membrane sandwiched between two soft electrodes. The electrodes are attracted to one another when a voltage is applied, compressing the membrane, which returns to its initial shape when the voltage is turned off. The insect has such muscles fitted to each of its three legs. Movement is generated by switching the voltage on and off very quickly – over 400 times per second.

Credit: EPFL

The team used nanofabrication techniques to enable the artificial muscles to work at relatively low voltages, by reducing the thickness of the elastomer membrane and by developing soft, highly conductive electrodes only a few molecules thick. This clever design allowed the researchers to dramatically reduce the size of the power source. “DEAs generally operate at several kilovolts, which required a large power supply unit,” explains LMTS director Herbert Shea. “Our design enabled the robot, which itself weighs just 0.2 gram, to carry everything it needs on its back.” “This technique opens up new possibilities for the broad use of DEAs in robotics, for swarms of intelligent robotic insects, for inspection or remote repairs, or even for gaining a deeper understanding of insect colonies by sending a robot to live amongst them.”

A video explaining the main concepts and results of this study.

Credit: Ji et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaaz6451 (2019)

“We’re currently working on an untethered and entirely soft version with Stanford University,” says Shea. “In the longer term, we plan to fit new sensors and emitters to the insects so they can communicate directly with one another.”

Untethered DEAnsect (soft robot) autonomously navigates a figure 8 path, then stops at the end.

Video of the DEAnsect autonomously navigating a path in the shape of a figure 8.

Credit: Ji et al., Sci. Robot. 4, eaaz6451 (2019)

DEAnsect the robotic ant: how it works and what it can do

Contacts and sources:

• Herbert Shea
• Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS)
• Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

03-01-2020 om 17:54 geschreven door peter  

What the In-Crowd Won’t Tell You About UFO Videos from 2019

You may observe the video below. You might examine the video below. The quick video below, for instance, is merely one of several contemporary sightings. Today, there are many videos of UFOs, and you will have the capacity to verify if they’re real or fake. Today, there are many videos of UFOs, and you’ll have the capability to verify if they’re real or fake.

If you’re seeking to get your own UFO sighting, there are in fact a few places where you’re more inclined to acquire your wish. Many reported UFO sightings actually end up being something as simple as a balloon. They actually end up being something as simple as a balloon.

The Downside Risk of UFO Videos from 2019

You might look at the video below. You might have a look at the video below. You may have a look at the video below. Be certain you have a look at the video below. You take a look at the video below. You might have a look at the video below. You have a look at the video below.

The Little-Known Secrets to UFO Videos from 2019

At a while, you will encounter a UFO. At some time, you will run into a UFO. Throughout that time period, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the exact same spot. Throughout that period of time, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the same spot. Throughout that period of time, there were two triangle UFOs sighted in the same spot.

The Debate Over UFO Videos from 2019

You think about the video below. You consider the video below. The above mentioned video has some of the communication between the pilots and ATC. Today, there are various videos of UFOs, and you’re going to be able to verify if they’re real or fake.

The Battle Over UFO Videos from 2019 and How to Win It

The events will typically have a superior speaker to supply you with the data that you’re attempting to find, and offer you the aid which you will wish to be more recognized. They will typically have a terrific speaker to provide you with the data which you are trying to find, and offer you the aid that you simply will want to be more recognized. There are normally promotable events going on each of the time in a variety of places. There are usually they going on all of the time in various locations. There are typically they going on all the time in different areas. There are normally promotable events going on each of the time in lots of locations. There are ordinarily promotable events going on each of the time in an assortment of locations.

The events will typically have an exceptional speaker to supply you with the data you are attempting to find, together with offer you the aid which you simply will need to be more recognized. If you discover that there’s an event in your future and you’re able to make the most of it, you must ensure you’re doing everything that you can to bring as much details to your business or individual life as possible. There are usually promotable events going on all the time in a wide range of areas. There are typically they going on all the time in a variety of areas. There are normally promotable events going on each one of the time in a great number of locations.

Source: 

• http://footageofufos.com/2020/01/what-the-in-crowd-wont-tell-you-about-ufo-videos-from-2019-2/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

03-01-2020 om 16:29 geschreven door peter  

Real Reasons Behind US Government Secrecy on UFOs

In 2017, the New York Times revealed the shocking story of a secret Pentagon program to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The story led many researchers to delve into this strange world. Since then, the public has learned some interesting information about UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) as the Pentagon refers to them.

However, the US government makes it extremely difficult to know what and where UFO-related stuff is going on. Some believe the government is behind some significant conspiracy to cover up the evidence of alien visitation to Earth. Others think the government is in cahoots with ET species to create human-alien hybrids.

Perhaps, but many suspects not.

What many others believe is that the few people in the US government who know about it believe the phenomena might be a threat but don’t know how to deal with it.

Several UFO enthusiasts suggest the government’s assessment of the phenomena, though they won’t admit it, is that the UFOs are being monitored near the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. UFOs also are popping up near nuclear submarines and Air Force nuclear weapons bases.

On Robert Hastings’ documents, these UFOs have sometimes even temporarily shut down nuclear weapons systems in the US. It appears now that humanity’s perfection of nuclear energy piqued something or someone’s curiosity in us.

It is important to note that these UFOs are far more advanced than US military capabilities. These UFOs are observed as being capable of reaching hypersonic speeds, demonstrating anti-gravity and invisibility technologies. They have also been tracked moving in and out of Earth orbit, making the most advanced capabilities of the US military an absurd joke in comparison. If these UFOs intend harm, we don’t have a chance. For Pentagon planners, this scenario is an Armageddon-level thing.

Publicizing the truth about UFOs also risks another danger. If the US shares what it knows about UFOs, Russia or China might learn enough to replicate associated very advanced technologies behind UFOs for themselves. If Moscow or Beijing figures out the space-time manipulation before the US, we have a rather large problem.

So, don’t count the military to share more of what it knows anytime soon. We’ll get to the truth eventually, but it will take time.

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

03-01-2020 om 16:20 geschreven door peter  

A new study focuses on the axial tilt of Earthlike exoplanets in binary or double star systems. It boosts hope for complex life elsewhere … although not, these astronomers say, within the star system closest to our sun.

Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, the 2 stars in the Alpha Centauri system, just 4.2 light-years away. This system is our nearest neighbor among the stars. An additional faint red dwarf star, Alpha Centauri C, or Proxima Centauri, is also nearby. Many have hoped to find an exoplanet – perhaps capable of harboring advanced life – in this system. But a new study lowers those expectations while raising them for the rest of the universe.

Image via NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope/Georgia Tech.

Are we alone, or are there other intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy? In recent years, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, or worlds orbiting distant suns, some of which are potentially habitable. The growing consensus seems to be that we probably aren’t all by ourselves. Now a new study – announced by astronomers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (aka Georgia Tech) on November 20, 2019 – focuses on the axial tilt of Earthlike exoplanets in binary or double star systems. It also boosts hope for complex life elsewhere … although not, these astronomers say, within the star system closest to our sun.

• The new peer-reviewed study was published in The Astrophysical Journal on November 19.

The researchers found that if a theoretical twin of Earth were placed into a binary star system – where two stars orbit each other – up to 87% of them should tilt on their axes in a way similar to Earth’s. What’s more, the tilt should be as stable as Earth’s: not perfectly stable, but not wildly unstable, either. This result is significant, since Earth’s relatively steady tilt on its axis helps our world maintain a stable climate, needed for complex life to evolve.

Astronomer Gongjie Li at Georgia Tech said in a statement:

Multiple-star systems are common, and about 50% of stars have binary companion stars. So, this study can be applied to a large number of solar systems.

Do the results mean that all exoEarths in double star systems have steady and stable axial tilts, along with a greater potential for complex life? Unfortunately, no. We need only look as far as the next-nearest star system to find a counter-example.

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Artist’s illustration of an exoEarth modeled into the Alpha Centauri star system. The planet is hypothetically in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri B, but is icy and not very hospitable for complex life.

Image via Georgia Tech/Billy Quarles using Universe Sandbox.

That is, the researchers modeled an example of an Earthlike world within the habitable zones of the two primary stars in the Alpha Centauri system, only 4.2 light-years away. Their statement explained:

Alpha Centauri A actually didn’t look bad, but the outlook for mild axis dynamics on an exo-Earth modeled around star B was wretched. This may douse some hopes because Alpha Centauri AB is 4 light-years away, and a mission named Starshot with big-name backers plans to launch a space probe to examine the system, including for signs of advanced life.

So far, no actual exoplanets have yet been detected around either Alpha Centauri A or B. On the other hand, a planet is thought to orbit Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star and technically our sun’s nearest neighbor (although no one knows for sure if Proxima is gravitationally bound to the A-B stars). This planet – called Proxima b – isn’t thought to be habitable, though. According to the new study’s principal investigator Billy Quarles, also of Georgia Tech:

We simulated what it would be like around other binaries with multiple variations of the stars’ masses, orbital qualities, and so on. The overall message was positive, but not for our nearest neighbor.

Earth’s axial tilt varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees every 41,000 years. This is mild enough for the planet to maintain a stable enough climate for complex life to evolve.

Image via timeanddate.com.

A world’s axial tilt is important to the question of whether it can produce and sustain complex life. That’s because, for example, Earth’s axial tilt has a huge effect on our planet’s climate.

Earth’s tilt doesn’t vary much – only between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees every 41,000 years – and that fact has helped the planet maintain a stable climate over hundreds of millions of years, these astronomers say. In turn, the stable climate has allowed evolution to proceed and produce more complex lifeforms.

Earth’s moon also helps to keep variation in Earth’s axial tilt to a minimum.

Plus Earth has a stable orbit around the sun, another factor in how well our planet can maintain a climate stable enough for complex life.

If a planet has large variations in its axial tilt – as our neighboring planet Mars does for example – it’s harder for the planet’s climate to stay stable. Mars’ axis is much more variable than Earth’s, precessing between 10 degrees and 60 degrees every 2 million years. According to Quarles:

If we didn’t have the moon, Earth’s tilt could vary by about 60 degrees. We’d look maybe like Mars, and the precession of its axis appears to have contributed to a loss of atmosphere.

On Mars, this has significant effects; at 10 degrees tilt, the atmosphere condenses at the poles, creating caps that lock up a lot of the carbon dioxide atmosphere in ice. At 60 degrees, the planet could actually develop an ice belt around its equator. There is a lot of ice underground on Mars today, even near the equator, but not on the surface of the planet except at the poles.

The researchers also found that – in a double star system – for example, for Alpha Centauri B, an Earth-like planet would actually have a more stable climate without a moon. According to Quarles:

Around Alpha Centauri B, if you don’t have a moon, you have a more stable axis than if you do have a moon. If you have a moon, it’s pretty much bad news.

But even without a moon, a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B would have a difficult time maintaining a stable climate. Quarles said:

The biggest effect you would see is differences in the climate cycles related to how elongated the orbit is. Instead of having ice ages every 100,000 years like on Earth, they may come every 1 million years, be worse, and last much longer.

Astrophysicist Billy Quarles with the telescope at Georgia Tech’s observatory.

Image via Rob Felt/Georgia Tech.

But, Quarles noted, there’s also a sweet spot in their model, albeit a small one:

Planetary orbit and spin need to precess just right relative to the binary orbit. There is this tiny sweet spot.

The potential for habitable climates on Earth-like worlds in the galaxy and the universe in general, however, seems quite positive, according to Li:

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. The planet’s own motion dynamics dominate other influences, and obliquity usually has a smaller variation. So, this is quite optimistic.

This is great news for the search for life elsewhere. About half the stars in our galaxy exist in double star systems, and the new results suggest that many exoEarths in those systems should have stable climate systems, suitable for complex life to evolve.

Even if not right next door.

• Bottom line: A new study of exoplanet axial tilts from Georgia Tech shows that many Earth-sized worlds, even in binary star systems, could have stable enough climates for complex life to evolve.
• Source: Obliquity Evolution of Circumstellar Planets in Sun-like Stellar Binaries Via Georgia Institute of Technology

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03-01-2020 om 01:52 geschreven door peter