New photos that have been released show the heavily-cratered Pallas and why it’s been nicknamed the “golf ball asteroid”. It actually does look like a golf ball because countless impacts created many craters on its surface that were probably caused by its highly unusual orbit.

Numerous large craters are visible on both hemispheres, and a bright spot reminiscent of salt deposits on Ceres is found on the southern one

In order to study the asteroid’s surface and shape, scientists used the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contract Exoplanet Research (or SPHERE) imager on the Very Large Telescope that’s located in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

By studying eleven pictures taken of the surface of Pallas, scientists found a large amount of craters that measured between 18.5 and 75 miles wide (Pallas’ diameter averages around 318 miles). In fact, it’s been impacted so many times that it has approximately twice as many craters as the largest asteroid Ceres and around three times as many as the second-largest asteroid Vesta.

According to the researchers (their paper can be read here), the two huge craters on Pallas, which are located near the south pole and by the equator, show that the asteroid was hit in a sideways impact with projectiles that measured between 37 and 65 miles in diameter. The impact near the equator was so strong that it could have possibly created a “family” of several hundred smaller craters that measure less than 12 miles in width.

Miroslav Broz, who is an astronomer at Charles University in the Czech Republic as well as a co-author of the study, told Space.com, “We performed numerical simulations to determine the most probable age of the family, which is 1.7 billion years, and this should correspond to the surface age of Pallas, or at least a substantial part of it.”

According to the researchers, since Pallas travels through space in a tilted and elongated orbit, that’s probably why it is being impacted by objects at an exceptionally high speed of around 25,725 mph compared to the average speed of approximately 12, 975 mph. Pallas’ odd orbit and fast impacts would explain why it is so heavily cratered. Pictures of Pallas can be seen here.

Pallas

The researchers found another interesting fact about Pallas. They created a 3D model of the asteroid and discovered that it is denser than Ceres but less dense than Vesta which indicates that it has a much bigger rock to ice proportion than Ceres. It also indicates that Pallas has a composition that is quite similar to a type of meteorite that’s called CM chondrite. Chondrites are meteorites that are composed of small round shaped pellets that are called chondrules and they are created when droplets of molten minerals cool off very fast while in space. This new information suggests that the interior of Pallas was never hot enough to create a silicon-heavy rocky core with a water-rich mantle so it probably contains a mixture of ice and rock instead.

Features tracked throughout multiple rotation phase angles are in yellow and named after ancient Greek names of weapons

IS EARTH DUE FOR A MAJOR ASTEROID IMPACT?

Researchers have discovered most of the asteroids that are about a kilometers in size, but are now on the hunt for those that are about 140m - as they could cause catastrophic damage.

Although nobody knows when the next big impact will occur, scientists have found themselves under pressure to predict - and intercept - its arrival.

Artist's impression pictured 

'Sooner or later we will get... a minor or major impact,' said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt

It may not happen in our lifetime, he said, but 'the risk that Earth will get hit in a devastating event one day is very high.'

'For now, there is little we can do.' 

Source: AFP 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-02-2020 om 23:39 geschreven door peter  

Why is the planet-killer asteroid Pallas covered with impact craters? Study uncovers violent past

A group of researchers discovered why a massive asteroid that's capable of destroying Earth is covered in impact craters

By Carlo Inigo Monzon

{ https://www.ibtimes.sg/ }

13-02-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

NASA Found Exotic Organic Molecules on Ancient Space Object 'Arrokoth'

The latest data from ancient "Arrokoth," the most distant object ever visited by spacecraft, supports the idea that it's covered in organic molecules called "tholins" and gives us a window into deep cosmic time.

By Maddie Stone

IMAGES: NASA. COMPOSITION BY JORDAN PEARSON

As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft presses on into the dark and distant reaches of the Kuiper Belt, scientists have been exploring the trove of data collected during its recent encounter with Arrokoth, a mysterious and ancient space rock that, at 4.1 billion miles from Earth, is the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft.

This week, three papers published in the journal Science report new findings on the ancient object that give us a unique window into deep cosmic time, including insights into how it formed and details on the exotic organic molecules that give it its red color.

With roughly ten times more data than was available for an initial report last year, the studies explore the distant rock’s geology, composition, and history in far greater detail. Among the highlights are a clearer picture of how Arrokoth formed in the early solar nebula, a cloud of gas and dust that surrounded the sun 4.5 billion years ago, and details of its chemistry, which seems to include both simple organic molecules and “tholins,” a class of carbon-based polymers that are believed to be prevalent throughout the Kuiper Belt.

The hazy ring is an artist’s view of the Kuiper Belt. The rocks that populate it revolve about the sun. They are known as KBOs, short for Kuiper Belt objects. The New Horizons spacecraft, which launched in 2006, has been bringing photos of the solar system’s outer reaches, including Pluto in 2015.

NASA; ADAPTED BY L. STEENBLIK HWANG

Overall, the new findings support the idea that Arrokoth is a primordial time capsule that can help lift the fog on the earliest chapters of our cosmic history.

Most of the new clues to Arrokoth’s origin story come from its outward appearance. As New Horizons approached Arrokoth in the lead up to the flyby, it became clear the object was bi-lobed; a “contact binary” that formed when two rocks touched. Using numerical models, a team led by astronomer Will McKinnon of Washington University in St. Louis has now fleshed out the picture further. Their results suggest the merger was less of a collision and more a very gentle joining of two objects that co-evolved as a cloud of nebula material collapsed under its own gravity.

According to McKinnon, the idea that objects like Arrokoth can form from collapsing dust clouds has been around for a while. But without seeing one up close, it was hard to rule out other theories, like a series of more violent collisions. With the alignment and shape of Arrokoth’s two lobes matching this calmer formation model, astronomers can be more confident that other Kuiper Belt Objects formed similarly.

Three images of the space rock. Methane or nitrogen ice may give the this Kuiper Belt object its reddish color.

SWRI/JHU-APL/NASA

A separate paper focused on Arrokoth’s geology argues that its cratering history is consistent with an object that formed over 4 billion years ago in the solar nebula. Finally, Arrokoth’s relatively uniform chemical composition and color support the idea that it evolved from a single blob of particles rather than a more jumbled assortment of rocks.

“All the characteristics of Arrokoth fit this theory,” McKinnon said. “And they don’t fit the other theory of something building up from small to large in a sequence of impacts.”

“I think Arrokoth is really neat because we’ve never seen an object that looks the way it would have right after forming by this mechanism,” said Lowell Observatory astronomer Will Grundy, who led up the analysis of Arrokoth’s chemistry.

But while Grundy’s results help solve the mystery of how Arrokoth formed, they also raise new questions about where the space rock’s exotic organic compounds came from.

As early as 2016 scientists had hints that Arrokoth was red. A study published last year confirmed this to be the case. At the time, the researchers’ best explanation was that Arrokoth was rich in tholins, complex organic polymers that are reddish in color and form in chilly outer solar system environments—including, scientists think, in Pluto’s atmosphere—when simpler carbon-bearing molecules interact with UV light or cosmic rays.

The new analysis, which examines far more of the data collected by the color camera and infrared spectrometer on New Horizons’ Ralph Instrument, supports the idea that Arrokoth is chock full of tholins. The study also found that Arrokoth is rich in methanol ice, a simpler organic molecule, and surprisingly little, if any, water ice.

Unpacking the history of Arrokoth’s exotic organics offers a different sort of window into deep time. Tholins, Grundy says, could have formed on Arrokoth’s surface or in the solar nebula. Or they could hail from even further back in time, to the giant molecular cloud that collapsed to form our Sun.

Ashley Walker, an aspiring astrochemist who did her senior thesis studying tholins on Saturn’s moon Titan with Johns Hopkins planetary scientist Sarah Hörst, said that even though we expect to these molecules to form in the outer solar system, “it’s really intriguing to see them in further out, colder places.” Sleuthing out their origins in the ancient proto-solar system, she said, “can give us clues to our very own Earth.”

While these latest papers “wrap up the [Arrokoth] encounter with a nice bow,” as McKinnon put it, the story isn’t over for New Horizons. The spacecraft continues to sail deeper into the Kuiper Belt on its way to interstellar space. And while there are no further encounters on the agenda for now, this summer, astronomers will use the Subaru telescope in Hawaii to scan the sky for any additional objects in the spacecraft’s vicinity. If they find one, they might be able to arrange a third rendezvous.

“It’s a low probability, but if we don’t look, the chances of us finding an object are zero,” McKinnon said. “So, we’re going to look, and we’ll tell you in a few months if we’ve found a target. It’s not over till it’s over.”

{https://www.vice.com/en_us }

13-02-2020 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

If you like to lie on an inflatable raft in your swimming pool and scan the night sky for UFOs, you may want to read this before you jump in again. A large triangular UFO was seen recently by multiple witnesses hovering over  swimming pools at a sports and social club in Mechita, Argentina, on what was described as an extremely hot night (it’s summer in Argentina). The next morning, a club worker discovered that water had been splashed out of the pools and, despite an entire night of intense heat, had not evaporated. Was the UFO attracted to the pools? Did it splash the water? What could it have done to give the water such power?

“They were 10:30 pm on the last Friday 22nd, I was next to a friend kneading pizzas inside his house with tremendous heat so I decided to leave and when I leaned against a car, I looked up and saw a huge object in the form of black triangle darker than the sky and with red tips. It moved from left to right and made no noise, there was no engine or turbine sound and it was located about 50 meters above the trees. ” (Google translation)

Witness Diego Sarquís told La Trocha what he saw on that hot January night – a triangle “about 10 or 15 meters in diameter” (33 to 50 feet) hovering 164 feet above the club’s large pools and making no noise. He called for friends who came out but may or may not have seen it “traveling very slow and rotating with an apparent SE-NW heading, going toward Junín.” Junín is about 90 km (56 miles) from Mechita – both cities are in the province of Buenos Aires and Junín has had a number of UFO sightings, according to Luis Burgos, a UFO investigator for FAO (Argentine Foundation for Ovnilogy). He talked to both Diego and other witnesses he uncovered.

“In Diego’s observation, the object is completely silent and when this family sees it about 600 or 700 meters from the place, it already perceives a rather intense noise as if it were a helicopter. It is the only difference there would be between both visions. This is not a contradiction since it could have been a bit of propulsion or the escape of the object that Diego did not perceive, because he was completely silent when he could see it.” (Google translation)

The most intriguing witness by far was a manager in charge of the pools at the Mechita Swim Club. She gave  Burgos a photograph taken the morning after the UFO appeared showing the concrete surrounding the pools. Something splashed water out of the pools and, despite this being many hours later and the temperature being extremely hot, none of the water had evaporated. (See the photo here) Burgos explained to Noticia Baires that Argentine UFO’s are most seen above water (70% of them are over water), particularly swimming pools.

“It happens that when objects approach land or produce a landing, they are looking for something . When we do a zonal survey, the first thing we look for, beyond the witnesses, the geographical location and the environment, are the poles of attraction . We find swimming pools, Australian tanks, mills, laurel trees, eucalyptus mountains, railways, power lines.” (Google translation)

The “Mechita triangle” appeared over and splashed water out of swimming pools, not nearby lagoons. Burgos also noted that this geographic area, particularly along nearby Route 5, has historically had “a lot of UFO activity.”

“There in Bragado people remember the observation that the famous director, composer and pianist José Basso had in 1958 , who traveled with his orchestra one night in the vicinity of Bragado and observed a flying plate practically perched on the ground . Some of his musicians approached because the bus driver stopped the march and saw an object practically landed in a field. On the way back they stopped at the same place and noticed that there was a large area of calcined grass that was where the device had been. That case became very famous because the witness was very well known, but cases like that there are a lot.” (Google translation)

“Ufos and Water: Physical Effects of Ufos on Water Through Accounts by Eyewitnesses” by Carl W. Feindt contains many accounts of UFOs above, below, entering and exiting water, and the recent Tic Tac UFOs seen by Navy pilots were over the ocean. One popular theory is that these spaceships are water-fueled. However, the only water that seemed to be lost in the “Mechita triangle” pool incident was that splashed out of the pool. Was the UFO spooked by Diego Sarquís and the other witnesses? Could it have accidentally dumped something during the process into the pool, causing the water to resist evaporation? None of the accounts say the water was sampled and analyzed, and there don’t appear to be any follow-up investigations.

That’s too bad. This is one of the closest and most unusual triangle UFO sightings. Was it alien or of Earth? Whichever caused it, what happened to the water in the pool? Is what Burgos found enough to make you quit watching for UFOs from your pool or hot tub? What about bathtubs under skylights? Standing in a puddle? Snow? Drinking a cold glass of H2O? Should astronomers double down on searching for water on other planets?

Is this the reason why water-fueled motor vehicles and their inventors seem to disappear before they can be mass-produced?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-02-2020 om 20:36 geschreven door peter  

Ten things we’ve learned about the sun from NASA’s SDO this decade

This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 16, 2015, shows two dark spots, called coronal holes. The lower coronal hole, a polar coronal hole, was one of the biggest observed in decades.

Credit: NASA/SDO

In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory—SDO—is celebrating its 10th year in space, reports Phys.org.

Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the sun, studying how the sun creates solar activity and drives space weather—the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.

Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings.

SDO’s measurements of the sun—from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output—have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star.

SDO’s images have also become iconic—if you’ve ever seen a close up of activity on the sun, it was likely from an SDO image.

SDO’s long career in space has allowed it to witness nearly an entire solar cycle—the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity.

Here are a few highlights of SDO’s accomplishments over the years.

Source: 

• https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2020/02/13/ten-things-weve-learned-about-the-sun-from-nasas-sdo-this-decade/

1. Fantastic Flares

SDO has witnessed countless astounding flares—giant outbursts of plasma released from the solar surface—many of which have become iconic images of the ferocity our nearest star. In its first year and a half, SDO saw nearly 200 solar flares, which allowed scientists to spot a pattern. They noticed that around 15% of the flares had a "late phase flare" that would follow minutes to hours after the initial flare. By studying this special class, scientists gained a better understanding of just how much energy is produced when the sun erupts.

2. Solar Tornadoes

In February 2012, SDO captured images showing strange plasma tornados on the solar surface. Later observations found these tornadoes, which were created by magnetic fields spinning the plasma, could rotate at speeds up to 186,000 miles per hour. On Earth, tornadoes only reach speeds of 300 miles per hour.

3. Giant Waves

The churring sea of plasma on the solar surface can create giant waves that travel around the sun at up to 3 million miles per hour. Theses waves, named EIT waves after an instrument of the same name on the Solar and Heliophysics Observatory spacecraft that first discovered them, were imaged at high resolution by SDO in 2010. The observations showed for the first time how the waves move across the surface. Scientists suspect these waves are driven by coronal mass ejections, which spew clouds of plasma off the surface of the sun into the solar system.

4. Combustible Comets

Over the years, SDO has watched two comets fly by the sun. In December 2011, scientist watched as Comet Lovejoy managed to survive the intense heating as it passed 516,000 miles above the solar surface. Comet ISON in 2013 didn't survive its encounter. Through observations such as these, SDO has provided scientists with new information about how the sun interacts with comets.

5. Global Circulation

Having no solid surface, the entire sun is continually flowing due to the intense heat trying to escape and the rotation of the sun. Moving about at the mid-latitudes are large-scale circulation patterns called Meridonial circulation. SDO's observations revealed that these circulations are much more complex than scientists initially thought and are linked to sunspot production. These circulation patterns may even explain why at times one hemisphere might have more sunspots than another.

6. Predicting the Future

The sun's outpouring of material from coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, and the solar wind speed across the solar system. When they interact with Earth's magnetic environment, they can induce space weather, which can be hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts. Using data from SDO, NASA scientists have worked on modeling the path of a CME as it moves across the solar system in order to predict its potential effect on Earth. The long baseline of solar observations has also helped scientists form additional machine-learning models to try to predict when the sun might release a CME.

7. Coronal Dimmings

The sun's wispy superheated outer atmosphere—the corona—sometimes dims. Scientists studying coronal dimming have found that they are linked to CMEs, which are the main drivers of the severe space weather events that can damage satellites and harm astronauts. Using a statistical analysis of the large number of events seen with SDO, scientists were able to calculate the mass and velocity of Earth-directed CMEs—the most dangerous type. By linking coronal dimming to the size of CMEs, scientists hope to be able to study the space weather effects around other stars, which are too distant to directly measure their CMEs.

8. Death and Birth of a Solar Cycle

With a decade of observations, SDO has now seen nearly a complete 11-year solar cycle. Starting near the beginning of Solar Cycle 24, SDO watched as the sun's activity ramped up to solar maximum and then faded to the current ongoing solar minimum. These multiyear observations help scientists understand signs that signal the decline of one solar cycle and the onset of the next.

9. Polar Coronal Holes

At times the sun's surface is marked by large dark patches called coronal holes where extreme ultraviolet emission is low. Linked to the sun's magnetic field, the holes follow the solar cycle, increasing at the solar maximum. When they form at the top and the bottom on the sun they're called polar coronal holes and SDO scientists were able to use their disappearance to determine when the sun's magnetic field reversed—a key indicator of when the sun reaches solar maximum.

10. New Magnetic Explosions

At the end of the decade in December 2019, SDO observations enabled scientists to discover a whole new type of magnetic explosion. This special type—called spontaneous magnetic reconnection (versus previously observed more general forms of magnetic reconnection)—helped confirm a decades-old theory. It also may help scientists understand why the solar atmosphere is so hot, better predict space weather, and lead to breakthroughs in controlled fusion and lab plasma experiments.

In its 10th year, SDO will be joined by a new joint ESA-NASA mission, Solar Orbiter. With an inclined orbit, Solar Orbiter will be able to see the polar regions for which SDO has limited coverage. Solar Orbiter also has complementary instruments that will allow the two missions to work together to create 3-D images of structures below the visible surface of the sun, giving scientists an even greater understanding of solar activity in the years to come.

Source : 

• https://phys.org/

{

13-02-2020 om 18:19 geschreven door peter  

Spook-DNA wijst op tot nu toe onbekende voorouder van de mens  - HLN.be

Onderzoekers University of California in Los Angeles ontdekten in de genomen van vier West-Afrikaanse populaties dat tot een vijfde van hun DNA afkomstig bleek van de ontbrekende, onontdekte voorouders. Genetici vermoeden dat de voorouders van de moderne West-Afrikanen tienduizenden jaren geleden zich genetisch vermengden met een archaïsche bevolking die nog niet bekend is en die zich nog voor de splitsing tussen neanderthalers en de moderne mens zou hebben afgescheiden. Net zoals de oer-Europeanen ooit paarden met neanderthalers.

Lees ook

Nieuwe ‘spookvoorouder’ ontdekt met artificiële intelligentie

Vandaag kennen we nog enkel de moderne mens, maar ooit liepen er op aarde verschillende mensensoorten rond. Als die elkaar tegenkwamen, waren seksuele contacten tussen beide niet uitgesloten. Als gevolg daarvan dragen wij hedendaagse Europese mensen in ons DNA nog altijd een beetje genen van de neanderthalers, zoals oorspronkelijke Australiërs, Polynesiërs en Melanesiërs die van de Denisovamens nog in kleine mate in zich hebben.

Eerdere studies wezen er al op dat een andere oude mensensoort ooit Afrika bevolkte, maar wetenschappers vonden nooit fossielen of DNA om het te bewijzen. Onderzoekers Arun Durvasula en Sriram Sankararaman lieten nu statistische technieken los op 405 genomen uit vier West-Afrikaanse volkeren om na te gaan hoe waarschijnlijk het was dat de aanvoer van genen door kruising in het verre verleden had plaatsgevonden. Uit hun analyse bleek dit wel degelijk in alle gevallen zo te zijn.

Daarna zochten ze in de Afrikaanse genomen naar stukjes DNA die er anders uitzagen dan de moderne menselijke genen. Zo konden ze er DNA-sequenties uithalen die heel waarschijnlijk van een of andere voorouder kwamen. Vergelijking met de genen van neanderthalers en van Denisovamensen leerde dat het DNA van een onbekende uitgestorven mensensoort moest komen.

Spookgenen met grote impact

“Ze hebben blijkbaar een behoorlijk grote impact gehad op de genomen van de moderne personen die we hebben bestudeerd”, aldus Sankararaman over die onbekende genen. “Ze vertegenwoordigen 2% tot 19% van hun genetische afkomst.” De vier bestudeerde volkeren kwamen uit drie landen: twee uit Nigeria, een uit Sierra Leone en een uit Gambia.

De wetenschappers schatten dat de spookpopulatie zich tussen 360.000 en 1 miljoen jaar geleden afsplitste van de voorouders van neanderthalers en van de moderne mens. De groep van misschien 20.000 individuen zou zich dan ergens tijdens de afgelopen 124.000 jaar voortgeplant hebben samen met de voorouders van moderne West-Afrikanen.

Sankararaman voegt eraan toe dat dit niet de enige verklaring is: “De kans is groot dat het ware plaatje veel ingewikkelder is”. Er kunnen ook verscheidene golven van voortplanting geweest zijn over een periode van duizenden jaren. Of misschien waren er verschillende populaties van tot nu toe onbekende prehistorische voorouders.

De onderzoekers willen zich nu storten op de functies van die oude genen. Mogelijk hebben moderne West-Afrikanen ze behouden omdat het hen hielp om te overleven en zich voort te planten.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

13-02-2020 om 17:49 geschreven door peter  

BUITENAARDS BEZOEK VOOR AMERIKAANSE LUCHTMACHTBASIS? ( VIDEO )

De Amerikaanse luchtmachtbasis in de buurt van Las Vegas is bij kenners beroemd vanwege de buitenaardsen die daar zijn gelegerd.

Het is dan misschien ook niet zo vreemd dat er bij Nellis Airforce Base een groot ruimteschip opduikt. 

We schreven hierover eerder het volgende:

Een van de grotere Amerikaanse luchtmachtbasis is Nellis AFB in de buurt van Las Vegas in de staat Nevada.

Er doen al lange tijd veel verhalen de ronde over dat er buitenaardsen zouden verblijven.

Een bekende en prominente persoonlijkheid die veel weet over buitenaards leven is de voormalig Canadese Minister van Defensie, Paul Hellyer.

Wat hij zegt is onder andere het volgende:

1) Er zijn minimaal vier verschillende soorten buitenaardsen die de aarde de afgelopen duizenden jaren hebben bezocht.

2) De soorten hebben waarschijnlijk verschillende agenda’s en dienen niet beschouwd te worden als van hetzelfde ras.

3) Een van die soorten is wat men noemt de Tall Whites. Volgens Hellyer werkt dit type samen met de Verenigde Staten.

4) Er leven op dit moment buitenaardsen op aarde.

Volgens ufoloog Scott C. Waring is de plek waar de Tall Whites wonen een ondergrondse basis op het terrein van Nellis AFB.

Er worden dan ook regelmatig (kleinere) ufo's waargenomen in die streek, maar grote ruimteschepen, dat is een ander verhaal.

Grote ruimteschepen zouden enorm opvallen en wanneer er één van een kilometer lengte door talloze mensen zou worden waargenomen, dan zouden we een situatie krijgen die vergelijkbaar is met wat er in 1938 gebeurde door een hoorspel van Orson Welles waarin melding werd gemaakt van de landing van Marsmannetjes.

Dus, wat doen die schepen? Die verbergen zich, door zich onzichtbaar te maken, cloaken in het Engels. Een manier om dat te doen is om zich voor te doen als een wolk of zich verbergen in een bestaande wolk.

En dan krijg je iets wat er als volgt uit ziet:

Een beeld dat we al veel vaker hebben gezien: een wolkeloze lucht met daarin één (grote) wolk die daar niet thuis hoort.

Deze opname is gemaakt op een weg die men de "extraterrestrial highway" noemt, op een plek die ze noemen in "the middle of nowhere", op zo'n 150 kilometer afstand van Las Vegas, met daar vlakbij de Nellis AFB.

Volgens de berekeningen van Scott Waring is dit ruimteschip ongeveer een kilometer lang en volgt het de bergketen die je ziet in de achtergrond. En wanneer je dat doet, kom je rechtstreeks uit bij Nellis AFB.

Voor hen die denken dat zoiets niet kan, hierna nog even een voorbeeld uit een eerder artikel: van een wolk in een stralend blauwe lucht die geen wolk blijkt te zijn.

Een prachtig voorbeeld van een vermomming van een buitenaards ruimteschip vinden we in een waarneming dat is ingediend bij Mufon onder nummer 91551 door een man uit Ashburn in de Amerikaanse staat Virginia.

De man in kwestie is bouwvakker en stond op 15 maart van dit jaar op de vijfde verdieping van een gebouw in aanbouw, toen hij besloot een foto te nemen. Hij was het verder vergeten en pas op 21 april heeft hij de foto bekeken.

Tot zijn grote verbazing ontdekte hij een wel hele vreemde wolk in de lucht. De foto die hij nam ziet er zo uit.

Wanneer je de wolk dichterbij haalt, dan zie je de bekende UFO vorm en ook dat het allesbehalve een wolk is.

{ https://niburu.co/ }

13-02-2020 om 17:29 geschreven door peter  

Ship Found On Mars Using Google Map, UFO Sighting News.

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-02-2020 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

UFO Fleet Seen During Overcast Weather At Yuma, Arizona, Video, UFO Sighing News.

Date of sighting: Jan 20, 2020
Location of sighting: Yuma, Arizona, USA

This video was posted by my friend on Youtube going by the name of Willease. He's a trustworthy guy who insures he posts original and authentic footage. 

This UFO fleet was recorded by a eyewitness who watch as one by one the lights in the sky disappeared. UFOs such as these have been seen around the world from Taipei city to Rapid City, South Dakota, similar sightings have occurred. However we have to take into account that there is a Marine Core Air Station in Yuma which could be dropping flares over their 3,000 acres of military land. Its hard to say unless the eyewitness went in that direction to find out. I really wish he did or gave us some indication of the exact location. Can these be UFOs? Oh hell yeah, such reports, videos and photos of this type of glowing alien craft exist going back many decades. I just cant see the military flying and dropping flares in such bad overcast foggy weather...so I'm calling it a UFO fleet. Also the fact that these lights are in triangle formation makes me confident its not flares. Flares are most often dropped in lines.
Scott C. Waring 

13-02-2020 om 16:52 geschreven door peter  

Star Wars Ship Seen About Taipei 101 Building, Taiwan, Feb 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Feb 2, 2020
Location of sighting: Taipei, Taiwan
Source: Me

Hey guys, sorry I forgot to post this on my site, but I did post it on my twitter feed. I was looking outside the window and took a picture of the famous Taipei 101 building, once the world 2nd tallest, and noticed a strangely shaped cloud above the building. The could resembles the Star Wars Tie fighter ship used by Darth Vader. After I took the photo, I realized the cloud may be a ship, so I switched my phone to video, but before I could aim...the cloud disappeared. Now I watched this area and never saw any other cloud disappear with such speed. I say I had less than 30 seconds before it was gone. I'm sorry, I just don't believe it. Its not a cloud at all. Only a cloaked alien ship could disappear that fast. As I have said before, UFOs often cloak and become invisible, but also make themselves look like clouds in order to get up close and personal...to see with their own eyes, instead of computer screens. Yet, time and time again, people catch this cloud cloaked UFOs. It appears that aliens are less intelligent than we give them credit for. Why would aliens want to visit Taipei? Its the capital of Taiwan, its 30 min flight from China, so they may be checking to see how neighboring countries deal with the threat of the coronavirus. Its an amazing city all around. 
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

Saw a Star Wars shaped cloud over Taipei 101 building here in Taiwan 🇹🇼 it disappeared before I could get a video but got two photos. Maybe a cloaked UFO? #ufo #ufos #sighting #sightings pic.twitter.com/UXQS2BOdx9

— ET DATA BASE (@UFO_Sightings_X) February 2, 2020

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

13-02-2020 om 16:48 geschreven door peter  

During NASA's ISS live stream on February 10, 2020 a glowing V-shaped UFO appears on the horizon and flies at high speed through space until it disappears.

It is certainly not a reflection or some sort of flare since the recording clearly shows that the UFO is moving at high speed from the right to the left on the screen. 

It's always the question, whether this v-shaped UFO belongs to the secret space fleet or if it is of extraterrestrial origin.

  

other videos - peter2011

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

13-02-2020 om 16:19 geschreven door peter  

Over 60 Percent of American People Want The Government To Make UFO-Related Information Public

The majority of American people want government information on UFOs to be released to the public. Piplsay study revealed that 61 percent of people want the U.S. government to release any information it might have on aliens and UFOs to the public.

The study also found that 58 percent of people believe the government investigates aliens and UFOs, and 27 percent think the sightings are real.

UFO enthusiasts express their support on what the Americans want on UFO disclosure. They want the government to release the files from Area 51 and elsewhere. They are excited for the information to flow through the streets and into the minds of the people.

People are becoming more interested in UFOs after the Navy videos showing a “tic-tac” UFO became public.

How about you? Do you think UFOs and aliens are real? Some people do not have a clue and others don’t know anything more than the general public does.

UFO does not naturally mean it is an alien. It just means an unidentified flying object. However, it is possibly ET-related as well.

Either way, the majority of the people want the government to live on the edge, declassify everything and embrace the chaos.

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

13-02-2020 om 15:45 geschreven door peter  

Zealandia, the world’s 8th continent, linked to the forging of the Pacific Ring of Fire

In 2017, geologists made a convincing case that Earth has, in fact, eight continents if you also include Zealandia. Although it is mostly beneath the ocean, with the exception of New Zealand and New Caledonia, Zealandia is mostly made of continental crust rather than the magnesium- and iron-rich ocean crust. For this reason, many believe Zealandia qualifies as a continent.

New Zealand in sunglint, via NASA Earth Observatory.

Now, in a new study, researchers have revealed how the long-lost undersea continent evolved since its formation. In the process, they found that Zealandia’s upheaval may have been responsible for the birth of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Forging the Ring of Fire

A new continent in the 21st century? Did it just pop overnight? “This is not a sudden discovery, but a gradual realization,” wrote 11 geologists who authored a 2017 paper published in GSA Today, recommending that ‘Zealandia’ be considered a continent.

The researchers claim that New Zealand and New Caledonia aren’t just some islands chains — they’re just 5 percent of what’s visible above the ocean’s surface, the rest of the 5-million-square-kilometer continent is submerged underwater. That makes Zealandia about as big as greater India. It would also be the ‘youngest, thinnest, and most submerged’ of the continents,’ according to the authors of the 2017 study.

Zealandia itself isn’t something new. It was coined by one of the authors of the 2017 paper, Bruce Luyendyk, a geophysicist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, back in 1995. However, originally, Zealandia was used to describe New Zealand, New Caledonia, and a collection of submerged pieces and slices of crust that broke off a region of Gondwana, the supercontinent from 200 million years ago.

“If we could pull the plug on the oceans, it would be clear to everybody that we have mountain chains and a big, high-standing continent,” said Nick Mortimer, a geologist at GNS Science.

Yet, we still know very little about the submerged continent. But a new study suggests that the story Zealandia is even more amazing than meets the eye.

An international team of researchers recovered sediments from drilling beneath the ocean floor during a 2017 expedition, then sent them to the lab for analysis. Some of the sediments below the Tasman Sea were laid down as long ago as 100 million years ago.

The entire expedition lasted nine weeks and involved 32 scientists from all over the world onboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution. This wasn’t a walk in the park, though — the researchers had to drill as a deep as 5 km (3.1 miles) using a drill that weighed 300 tonnes.

Encased inside the sediments are tiny fossils, which the researchers used in order to determine the elevation of the sediments when they were deposited. This way, the researchers hoped, they might be able to find out why Zealandia is so different from all the other continents.

Three sites in the northern region of the continent had the kind of fossils that indicated a shallow reef ecosystem between 35 million and 50 million years ago. Perhaps, some of the areas were terrestrial during that time. Today, these sites are found smack in the middle of the Tasman Sea, close to the Lord Howe Rise deep-sea plateau.

Close to the New Caledonia Trough, the fossils contained plankton species known to inhabit deeper waters. This indicates that the elevation of Zealandia had dropped in the 35- to 50-million-year time frame.

The authors of the new study suspect that after northern Zealandia rose and the New Caledonia Trough subsided, the entire continent sunk another 1 km beneath the sea.

Since the 1970s, the prevailing theory of Zealandia’s formation claimed that its low profile is due to the thinning of its crust after it separated from the supercontinent Gondwana about 85 million years ago. However, these latest findings presented by the expedition of scientists show that portions of the Zealandia rose by 1-2 km while others subsided about the same amount.

Zealandia, via the Geological Society of America

Rupert Sutherland, geophysicist at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington and co-author of the new study, claims that this topographic upheaval may be due to the reactivation of ancient faults linked to the formation of the Pacific Ring of Fire — a region known for its relatively frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity

“Although subduction drives Earth’s plate tectonic cycle, scientists don’t yet understand how it starts,” Dr. Sutherland said.

“One of the amazing things about our observations is that they reveal the early signs of the Ring of Fire were almost simultaneous throughout the western Pacific,” he added.

“Because this timing predates the global tectonic plate reorganization, scientists need to find an explanation for how subduction began across such a broad area in such a short time.”

Sutherland and colleagues have proposed a radical new mechanism that explains these observations: a ‘subduction rupture event’ — a massive but super-slow earthquake, in the researchers’ words. This geological event essentially resurrected ancient subduction faults that had laid dormant for millions of years.

“We don’t know where or why, but something happened that locally induced movement, and when the fault started to slip, like in an earthquake the motion rapidly spread sideways onto adjacent parts of the fault system and then around the western Pacific,” Dr. Sutherland said.

“But unlike an earthquake, the subduction rupture event may have taken more than a million years to unfold.”

Although the ‘subduction rupture event’ is still a new theory, the evidence so far suggests that such events can quite possibly alter the geography of continents. What’s more, the same events that triggered changes in Zealandia may have to the formation of the Ring of Fire subduction zones around the western Pacific.

“Ultimately, Zealandia’s sedimentary record should help us determine how and why this event happened and what the consequences were for animals, plants, and global climate,” Dr. Sutherland said.

“The process has no modern analogue and because the subduction rupture event is linked to a time of rapid, global plate tectonic change, other instances of such change in the geologic record may imply that comparable events have occurred in the past,” Dr. Sutherland said.

“Geologists generally assume that understanding the present is the key to understanding the past. But at least in this instance, this may not hold.”

The findings appeared in the journal Geology.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

13-02-2020 om 01:36 geschreven door peter  

Mapping Mars: The Geology of the Red Planet

• View the high resolution version of this incredible map by clicking here

For centuries, Mars has been mythically defined by its characteristic red appearance.

In Babylonian astronomy, Mars was named after Nergal, the deity of fire, war, and destruction. In Chinese and Japanese texts, the planet was known as 火星, the fire star.

Although this unique reddish hue has been a key defining characteristic of Mars in culture for centuries, today we now know that it’s the iron oxide soil of the Martian landscape that makes it the “Red Planet” – and that there is much more to Mars than its color upon closer observation.

Above, today’s map, posted and created by Reddit user /hellofromthemoon, brings together the data from centuries of observation and the numerous missions to the Red Planet to map out its geology on a grand scale.

A Red Dot in the Sky

Egyptian astronomers first observed the planet Mars four thousand years ago and named it “Horus-the-red.” Babylonian astronomers marked its course through the night sky to track the passage of time. But it was not until 1610, when Galileo Galilei witnessed Mars with his own eyes through a telescope, that Mars was revealed as a whole other world.

Over the centuries with improving technology, a succession of astronomers observed and crudely mapped out everything from polar ice caps to yellow clouds, and white and dark spots denoting varying elevations across the Martian surface. Some of the earliest maps of Mars date to 1831. But there is only so much you can accurately observe from the surface of the Earth.

On July 14, 1965, NASA successfully received the first up-close images of Mars from the Mariner 4 spacecraft, passing within 9,844 kilometers (6,117 miles) of Mars’ surface. Mariner 4 captured the image of a large ancient crater and confirmed the existence of a thin atmosphere composed largely of carbon dioxide.

Since then, four space agencies have successfully made it to Mars: NASA, the former Soviet Union space program, the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organization. From orbital satellites to surface exploration with robots, each successful mission has brought back important data to develop an evolving picture of the planet.

Here is a complete list of both the successful and failed missions to Mars.

Martian Geology

On Mars, we see volcanoes, canyons, and impact basins much like the ones on Earth. The yellows scattered across the map indicate meteor impacts of varying size while the swaths of red indicate volcanoes and their associated lava flows. The varying colors of brown indicate the cratered highlands and midlands that make up most of the southern hemisphere.

The planet appears asymmetric. Most of the southern hemisphere is heavily cratered and resembles the moon’s highlands. In contrast, the northern hemisphere is sparsely cratered and has many large volcanoes.

Mars is approximately one-half the diameter of the Earth, but both planets have the same amount of dry land. This is because the current surface of Mars has no liquid water.

Mars and Earth are very different planets when it comes to temperature, size, and atmosphere, but geologic processes on the two planets are eerily similar. The sheer size of some landforms on Mars would shadow over similar features on Earth because of the lack of water erosion. This lack of erosion has preserved billion year-old geologic features.

The tallest mountain on Mars and in the solar system is Olympus Mons, and it is two and a half times taller than Mt. Everest. A Martian canyon system, called Valles Marineris, is the length of the entire continental United States and three times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Mars Colony: Location, Location, Location

The first step to building a colony is to figure out where the best chance of survival is. For Mars, some researchers have identified the planet’s poles, which contain millennia-old ice deposits. These are thought to contain large amounts of ice, which mars settlers could extract and turn into liquid water.

The poles also host other natural resources, such as carbon dioxide, iron, aluminum, silicon and sulfur, which could be used to make glass, brick and plastic. Furthermore, the planet’s atmosphere contains enough hydrogen and methanol for fuel.

Closing the Distance

The map above represents the culmination of centuries of work which we are lucky enough to view here on a computer, conveniently online for us to appreciate and wonder what life’s like on the surface of Mars.

Who knows what more exploration will reveal.

{ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ }

13-02-2020 om 00:36 geschreven door peter  

‘Black Triangle’ UFO Sightings Around the World Span Decades

Article by George Knapp  (krqe.com)

• Huge, silent, black triangle or boomerang shaped craft have been reported and even filmed flying over populated areas all across North America and Europe for decades. In the early 1980s, hundreds of nighttime sightings were reported in rural New York. In 1989, ten thousand witnesses watched and photographed several huge black triangle craft fly silently over Belgium. Belgian Air Force F-16 jets couldn’t keep up with the triangles’ virtually impossible maneuvers. In 1997, thousands watched a gigantic triangle-shaped craft fly over the Phoenix night sky. Military officials first said they hadn’t seen anything, and then claimed that it had been a National Guard unit training with flares at night. The public didn’t buy it.
• Large black triangle craft were seen over Russia as early as the 1970s. Recently, the mystery triangles have been seen in every US state, flying low and slow over cities. The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a private Las Vega organization, has a database of more than 1,000 black triangle reports. NIDS’ Dr. Colm Kelleher headed a four-year investigation of the black triangles. He notes that “These things are huge …football-field size. [S]ometimes they’re stealthy, but a lot of the times they’re flying with extremely bright lights. They’re always silent.” Radar have documented these craft dropping 20,000 feet in a matter of seconds. Said Kelleher, “Why would unacknowledged aircraft be flying at 500 to 1,000 feet over populated areas? …If they’re a classified military project, why are military jets scrambled to go after them?”
• In 2019, Las Vegas journalist Cateland White watched as a dark behemoth flew over her backyard. Said White, “It was triangular shaped, and there were rectangular reflectors. There was no interior light coming out of it at all. …It was really slow. And I couldn’t figure out how it was staying in the air.” It seemed to be heading toward nearby Nellis Air Force Base. When White contacted the base, a base representative told her, ‘Ma’am, I’m going to tell you one more time and this is the last time I’m gonna tell you. You will forget what you saw. And you won’t tell anybody.’ “The man said, ‘I don’t want you to talk about this anymore’”.
• These black triangles have often been seen near military installations. One huge craft was spotted on a runway at Groom Lake (Area 51), part of Nellis Air Force Base. Some speculate that these are secret advanced military blimps, capable of carrying large deployments of troops or tanks to remote locations. The Pentagon has awarded three contracts for the development of big airships. Others think that the Department of Homeland Security may be using them to spy on suspected domestic terrorists within the United States. A high tech airship could suck up every fax, phone call and email as it passes over.
• The NIDS database shows that in the past two years sightings of giant triangles over major cities have skyrocketed. Whoever’s flying them isn’t worried about their existence being known. When NIDS posted its study online it was swamped with nearly 100,000 inquiries, mostly from the aerospace industry. “So there’s a tremendous amount of interest in this topic,” says Kelleher. “Are these aircraft ours are they somebody else’s?[And] if not ours, who’s?”
• [Editor’s Note] In chapter 15 of Dr Michael Salla’s 2019 book: US Air Force Secret Space Program – Shifting Extraterrestrial Alliances & Space Force, he discusses the origin of the US Air Force’s top secret Aurora Program which developed the TR-3B triangle craft, able to perform both in the earth’s atmosphere and in near space. Salla cites Edgar Fouche who confirms that the TR-3B, code named ‘Astra’, was a tactical reconnaissance craft developed in the 1970s and built by private aerospace companies for the Air Force during the 1980s. Fouche served with the US Air Force from 1967 to 1987 and then spent another eight years with defense contractors working on a number of classified aviation programs at Groom Lake Area 51.

From November 1989 to April 1990, prototype black flying triangles, approximately 250 feet in length, were sighted and photographed in Scotland and Belgium by hundreds of witnesses including police officers. On March 30, 1990, the Belgium Air Force sent F-16 fighter jets to intercept a flying triangle. According to Fouche the 600-foot wide model TR-3B became operational in the early 1990’s, and three were flying by 1994.

The TR-3B employs a “Magnetic Field Disrupter” which rotates highly pressurized mercury-based plasma around a circular accelerator ring, reducing the craft’s weight by a factor of 89%. Three rocket engines using conventional fuel sources like hydrogen, oxygen and/or methane provide the thrust. The TR-3B is a high altitude, stealth, reconnaissance platform with an indefinite loiter time. Fouche claimed that the TR-3B was able to silently hover for at least 10 minutes and gave off “a corona of silver blue light” that glowed around it while hovering.

Corey Goode asserts that the TR-3B was a “hand me down” to the USAF’s military space program and to cabal “elites” from an even more highly classified space program controlled by NASA along with the Antarctic German Space Program.

Huge, silent, unknown craft have been reported flying over populated areas dating back decades. What are they?

Black triangles or boomerang shaped objects, some larger than any known aircraft, have been documented, even filmed, over cities all across North America, as well as in Europe. If they’re a classified military project, investigators wonder, then why are military jets scrambled to go after them?

“They launched on several occasions top-of-the-line military aircraft against these things and they were left in the dust,” says Dr. Colm Kelleher of the National Institute for Discovery Science. “One minute they’re overhead, and the next they’re over the horizon.

Dr. Kelleher managed an investigation of the black triangles back in 2004, which coincidentally is the same year the U.S. Navy encountered a now-famous UFO known as the “Tic Tac.”

So what were those black triangles, and who, if anyone, was flying them? A special 2-Part report, only on mysterywire.com.

PART 1

MYSTERY WIRE — In 1997, thousands of eyewitnesses watched in awe as a boomerang-shaped formation of lights cruised slowly and silently over the city of Phoenix.
“They’re lined up in a pattern,” one witness said as a camera recorded the event.

Witnesses first thought these were separate lights flying in formation, but quickly realized the lights were all part of a single gigantic something. Military officials were asked about the Phoenix lights but said they hadn’t seen anything.

Months later, they explained that a National Guard unit had been training with flares near the city. The public in general didn’t buy it.

Eight years earlier, the airspace over Belgium was repeatedly violated by huge unidentified black triangles. Ten thousand witnesses saw them. Several of the triangles were photographed. The Belgian Air Force dispatched F-16s to intercept and destroy the unknown intruders, but the triangles performed maneuvers that seemed virtually impossible.

Research scientist Dr. Colm Kelleher recounts the Belgium incident. “On several occasions they launched the top-of-the-line military aircraft against these things, and they were left standing. They were left in the dust.”

“One minute these things are overhead and the next minute they’re on the horizon,” Kelleher said.

Kelleher spent several years with the National Institute for Discovery Science, or NIDS, a private Las Vegas science organization. A four-year NIDS study of the mystery triangles has found that these craft have been seen for decades all over the world.

In the early ’80s, there were hundreds of nighttime sightings in rural New York. Belgium was inundated in the late ’80s. But more recently, the mystery triangles have really come out of the closet and have been seen in every state, including Nevada, flying low and slow over cities.

“These things are huge,” Kelleher said. “These things are football-field size, sometimes they’re stealthy, but a lot of the times they’re flying with extremely bright lights. They’re always silent.”

NIDS now has a database of more than 1,000 black triangle reports, 17 of them from Nevada. The witnesses often say the craft seemed to float like a blimp or airship. But they’re also capable of aeronautical magic.

{ https://exonews.org/ }

12-02-2020 om 23:55 geschreven door peter  

Fossil of a 'weird' iguana-like reptile with a needle-sharp snout found in Alaska is identified as a 200 million-year-old species of thalattosaur previously unknown to science

• Gunakadeit joseeae is the most complete thalattosaur found in North America
• Thalattosaurs were a group of marine reptiles from over 200 million years ago
• This species may have died out as sea levels dropped and it could no longer hunt 

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE

An iguana-like creature with a needle-sharp snout has been confirmed from a fossilised skeleton as a species of the extinct marine reptile thalattosaur. 

The new species, previously unknown to science, roamed the coast of what is now Alaska some 200 million years ago.

The new creature has been named Gunakadeit joseeae, after a Native Tlingit name for a legendary sea monster. 

It dates from the Triassic period more than 200 million years ago and has been identified from a lone fossil found in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.  

It is the only intact fossil from the thalattosaur group ever found in North America.   

An artist's depiction of Gunakadeit joseeae, a species of thalattosaur that may have died out when waters became to shallow for them to hunt

'This animal is striking because it's got this super-sharp pointed snout,' said paleontologist Pat Druckenmller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and lead author of the study. 

'Literally, it´s needle-like.'

'Thalattosaurs were among the first groups of land-dwelling reptiles to readapt to life in the ocean,' said Neil Kelley from Vanderbilt University and co-author of the study, published in Scientific Reports. 

'They thrived for tens of millions of years, but their fossils are relatively rare so this new specimen helps fill an important gap in the story of their evolution and eventual extinction.' 

Thalattosaurs grew to lengths of up to 9 to 13 feet and lived in equatorial oceans worldwide until they died out near the end of the Triassic period when their distant relatives – dinosaurs – were first emerging. 

Thalattosaurs Wikimedia commons

The snout and the fine bones in the throat of this new species suggest a reptile that dug into cracks in submerged reefs to suck out food - mostly small crustaceans and squid.

Its fossil was uncovered through a stroke of luck, when an extremely low tide in 2011 exposed the typically submerged rock where it was embedded on an island beach as scientists happened to be surveying the area.

Fully separating the fossil from rock took years, said US Forest Service geologist Jim Baichtal, one of the scientists who found the specimen.

Positively identifying it as a new species included a trip by Druckenmiller to China, one of the few places where intact thalattosaurs have been discovered.

That work confirmed what was obvious to those who saw the fossil's skull and snout in 2011.

They could tell right away that it was something new because of its extremely pointed snout, which was likely an adaptation for the shallow marine environment where it lived. 

'We knew right away that it was totally different,' Druckenmiller said.  

'It was probably poking its pointy schnoz into cracks and crevices in coral reefs and feeding on soft-bodied critters.' 

Once the sample was back at the UA Museum of the North in Fairbanks, a fossil preparation specialist worked in two-week stints over the course of several years to get the fossil cleaned up and ready for study.

Only now have the results been presented in a research paper as a new species.  

The fossil of Gunakadeit joseeae, which was found in Southeast Alaska. About two thirds of the tail had already eroded away when the fossil was discovered

But its specialisation may have been what ultimately led to its extinction. 

'We think these animals were highly specialised to feed in the shallow water environments, but when the sea levels dropped and food sources changed, they had nowhere to go,' Druckenmiller said. 

At the time Gunakadeit joseeae was living, what is now the rugged temperate rainforest of southeast Alaska was a much warmer place – a coastal region only about 10-20 degrees north of the equator. 

The newly identified thalattosaur is the latest among several important paleontological discoveries in the Tongass National Forest.

They include the 1996 discovery of a 10,300-year-old human skeleton in a cave in the southern part of the largest US national forest. 

Those remains, of a young man with a fish-based diet, contributed to knowledge about people who migrated to North America by coastal routes rather than over the Bering Land Bridge.

Read more:

• An articulated Late Triassic (Norian) thalattosauroid from Alaska and ecomorphology and extinction of Thalattosauria | Scientific Reports

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

12-02-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

Scientists raced against a rising tide to recover a tantalizing fossil on an island in southeast Alaska. It turned out to be a species new to science.

From the left, Gene Primaky, Jim Baichtal, and Patrick Druckenmiller at the excavation site of the new fossil in the Keku Islands of southeastern Alaska. It was just after they’d extracted the fossil, minutes before the site was submerged by a rising tide. “We rock-sawed like crazy and managed to pull it out,” Druckenmiller said.

Image via Kevin May/ University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In 2011, scientists worked against a rising tide to excavate a remarkable fossil on an island in southeast Alaska. Subsequent studies revealed that the fossil was a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago. This specimen has since been named Gunakadeit joseeae (pronounced ghu-nuh-kuh-DATE JOE-zee-ay; the first syllable’s vowel sounds like the “oo” in “good”). It’s the most complete thalattosaur skeleton ever found in North America and has added substantial new information to this little-known group of extinct reptiles.

Details of the discovery were published in the journal Scientific Reports on February 4, 2020.

It’s a wonder the fossil was ever found; the specimen was in an intertidal area at the Keku Islands, near the village of Kake. It was submerged most of the time, except during very low tides that happened for a few hours on only a few days of each year.

On one such occasion, on May 18, 2011, Jim Baichtal, a U.S. Forest Service geologist with the Tongass National Forest, was out hunting for fossils with colleagues. With him was Gene Primaky, an information technologist, who first spotted the fossil on a rocky outcrop.

Baichtal sent a photo of it to geologist Patrick Druckenmiller at the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

A month later, Druckenmiller and his team were on site to excavate the fossil. They had a narrow window for their work: two days when low tides were low enough, during daylight, to expose the fossil for about four hours on each day. The next opportunity would not come around for nearly another year. Druckenmiller said:

We rock-sawed like crazy and managed to pull it out, but just barely. The water was lapping at the edge of the site.

The fossil turned out to be a new thalattosaur species, now called Gunakadeit joseeae. The skeleton was fully intact, except for two-thirds of its tail that was lost to erosion.

Image via University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Artist’s depiction of a single Gunakadeit joseeae.

Image via Ray Troll/ University of Alaska Fairbanks.

It took several years at the University of Alaska Museum of the North for a fossil preparation specialist to clean the specimen and prepare it for study.

The first indication that this was a new species of thalattosaur was the shape of the fossil’s skull. It had a very pointed snout, which Druckenmiller suggested was a likely adaptation to the shallow seas in which the animal once lived. He thinks that shape may have ultimately led to the demise of the species, saying:

It was probably poking its pointy schnoz into cracks and crevices in coral reefs and feeding on soft-bodied critters. We think these animals were highly specialized to feed in the shallow water environments, but when the sea levels dropped and food sources changed, they had nowhere to go.

Today, the name of the newly found creature reflects both the place where it was found, and its discovery story. The genus name, Gunakadeit, is that of a sea monster from the lore of the Tlingit people, who were indigenous to the Pacific Northwest of North America. The species name, joseeae, is in honor of Joseé Michelle DeWaelheyns, mother of the fossil’s discoverer, Gene Primaky.

Artwork by Robert Mills ©2020. It depicts Gunakadeit, a creature of the lore of the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest. In Tlingit mythology, Gunakadeit is a sea monster that brings good luck to those who see it.

Image via Robert Mills/ University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Thalattosaurs lived during the mid to late Triassic Period, about 247 to 201 million years ago. Found in tropical seas around the world, these marine reptiles reached lengths of 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet). They became extinct at the end of the Triassic Period, about 201 million years ago.

Prior to the discovery of Gunakadeit joseeae, it had been 20 years since scientists had taken an exhaustive look at thalattosaurs. In paleontology, this involved studying the detailed anatomical characteristics of other thalattosaur fossils found around the world, and using computers to analyze the possible relationships between the different species. Patrick Druckenmiller, who led the study of this creature, said in a statement:

When you find a new species, one of the things you want to do is tell people where you think it fits in the family tree. We decided to start from scratch on the family tree.

In the study of living things, a “family tree” is a body of knowledge, represented as a diagram, that shows evolutionary relationships between related organisms, including their common ancestry.

Druckenmiller worked with Neil Kelley of Vanderbilt University on the analysis of the fossil’s place on the thalattosaur family tree. The results took them by surprise. Druckenmiller commented:

It was so specialized and weird, we thought it might be out at the furthest branches of the tree. Instead it’s a relatively primitive type of thalattosaur that survived late into the existence of the group.

Kelley added:

Thalattosaurs were among the first groups of land-dwelling reptiles to readapt to life in the ocean. They thrived for tens of millions of years, but their fossils are relatively rare so this new specimen helps fill an important gap in the story of their evolution and eventual extinction.

Artist’s depiction of the new thalattosaur species, Gunakadeit joseeae. It lived 200 million years ago.

Image via Ray Troll/ University of Alaska Fairbanks.

• Bottom line: Scientists have discovered a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago in warm tropical seas around the world. This specimen, named Gunakadeit joseeae, is the most intact North American thalattosaur ever found, and has helped scientists better understand how thalattosaur species are related to each other.
• Source: An articulated Late Triassic (Norian) thalattosauroid from Alaska and ecomorphology and extinction of Thalattosauria
• Via University of Alaska Fairbanks

{ https://earthsky.org/ } 

12-02-2020 om 23:16 geschreven door peter  

NASA Advances Plans to Bring Samples Back From Mars

{ http://www.nasa.gov/ }

12-02-2020 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

The oldest material on Earth has been found in a meteorite

12-02-2020 om 22:01 geschreven door peter  

The strange objects were filmed near an army base in Yuma, Arizona, and conspiracy theorists are convinced it could be the Space Force in action

By Simon Green - Video News Editor

The Space Force has been caught on camera training its fleet, conspiracy theorists have claimed after seeing footage of strange lights appearing over Arizona.

Footage taken above Yuma shows six bright UFOs seemingly hovering in formation in the sky.

As the camera rolls, the lights start to disappear and after several minutes they are reduced to three in a triangle formation.

When the clip comes to an end there is just one object in the sky.

The mysterious footage was posted to YouTube by Devil_Travels on January 23, before being picked up by popular conspiracy channel MrMBB333.

Thousands of people have seen the clip, with many noting that a large base belonging to the US Marines is stationed in the same region.

The mysterious lights over Arizona 

(Image: YOUTUBE/DEVIL_TRAVELS)

And the unusual trajectory and formation of the sights led many to suggest it could be evidence of the Space Force in action.

One commented: “It’s US Space Force training.”

The training theory went down well with fellow viewers, with another adding: “You’ve nailed it.”

An image of the Phoenix Lights

And a third added: “An example of Space Force.”

But there may be another explanation for the mystery lights.

A similar sight was captured off the coast of North Carolina last year which was also situated near an army base.

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ }

12-02-2020 om 20:55 geschreven door peter