The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
14-02-2020
UFO Seen Heading To Mount Shasta, Holy Mountain, California, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Seen Heading To Mount Shasta, Holy Mountain, California, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Feb 13, 2020
Location of sighting: Trinity National Forest, California, USA
Source: Twitter
This was posted by a US gov worker at the national forest at Mount Shasta. The photo shows a glowing orange UFO near Shasta. The UFO even has a rim all around it. The forest around Mount Shasta is named after the Trinity. The father, son and holy ghost...three parts of got divided into three. Funny the forest is named after it. I too have heard the stories of the famous Saint Germain with a ultraviolet light glowing around him coming out of the caves entrances and speaking to hikers on the trail. There are dozens of huge caves that go deep below the mountain, some never explored and many people have gotten lost down there never to be seen again. I believe Saint Germain is just a person, an alien being who heads the alien city that resides 4-7km below this volcano.
Weird UFO lands in canyon near coal mining site in Australia
Weird UFO lands in canyon near coal mining site in Australia
This video was captured by mining workers over two consecutive days last year and shows at least two UFOs from which at least one seems to land in the canyon near a coal mining site in the Middleton Queensland in Australia.
Day 1 - The first sighting shows a craft which almost looks like an upside down pyramid and is a few miles away from the coal mine and probably a couple of hundreds feet width when it goes down in the canyon
Day 2 - The second sighting shows another weird craft surrounded by some sort of energy field. This craft remains motionless in the air for a while before it appears to descend into the canyon too.
Listen to the mining workers when they talk about the craft which apparently seems to land in the canyon.
The famed Tic Tac shaped craft captured on video and sighted by multiple US Navy pilots beginning in 2004 are advanced US Air Force spacecraft capable of traveling at 500 mph underwater and 24,000 mph into space according to a former intelligence specialist in electronic communications.
Mike Turber claims that he served with the USAF as an intelligence specialist and later with various defense contractors where he had Top Secret security clearance and access to various Special Access Programs (SAP’s) and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) projects.
Turber came forward in two interviews he gave on November 4 and December 2, 2019, where he presented information he has received from “official government” sources that the Tic Tac sightings are USAF hybrid aerospace craft capable of traveling underwater, in the air and into outer space.
He says that the incredible speeds the USAF craft can achieve both in the atmosphere and underwater is due to its ability to utilize the principle of supercavitation [timestamp 39:40], where a cavitation bubble is created around a craft moving water molecules out of the craft’s flight path and eliminating friction as explained by Wikipedia:
A supercavitating object is a high-speed submerged object that is designed to initiate a cavitation bubble at its nose. The bubble extends (either naturally or augmented with internally generated gas) past the aft end of the object and prevents contact between the sides of the object and the liquid. This separation substantially reduces the skin friction drag on the supercavitating object.
According to Turber, the Tic Tac craft were assembled in Palmdale, California at a highly classified Air Force facility called “Plant 42”. According to Global Security, a number of major aerospace companies operate out of this enormous facility:
Air Force Plant 42 is at Palmdale, CA, north of Pasadena in Los Angeles County. It is operated by Lockheed, Rockwell International, Northrop, and Nero. AFP 42 is located in the northeastern portion of Los Angeles County, California, within the Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert, approximately 80 miles north of Los Angeles. It has over 6,600 acres (the government owns 85%) and includes approximately 4.2 million square feet of floor space (the government owns 45%). The site includes multiple high bay buildings and airfield access with flyaway capability. The facility also has one of the heaviest load-bearing runways in the world.
The most well-known corporation is Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works which moved to Plant 42 from Burbank, California, in 1989.
According to Turber, he worked at Plant 42 after his Air Force career and realized that some of the craft being secretly constructed there were related to the Tic Tac sightings which he first learned about in 2005. He says that at the time he worked with the Air Force and was analyzing radio communications from Navy pilots discussing their sightings of UFOs that could maneuver both in the air and sea.
Turber says that he knows of at least three models of hybrid air, sea and space vehicles that have been built at Plant 42. He asserts that at least 20 of these had been built and deployed during the time he worked at Plant 42. The largest is 46 feet long which allows it to be easily loaded onto trucks for easy transportation along California’s highway system.
He asserts that the USAF Tic Tac craft use advanced stealth and invisibility technology, and that the USAF deployed them near Navy ships to test pilot reactions, and to essentially “mess with the Navy”.
Turber says that the Navy has now developed similar craft, and that major nations such as China and Russia have developed the exact same craft [timestamp 17:50]. China’s hybrid spacecraft are more evolved than Russia’s and quickly catching up to the USAF craft.
The Tic Tac craft are not reverse engineered from extraterrestrial spacecraft, according to Turber. Instead they were first developed in the 1950s from civilian sources such as Dundee University, before finding their way to institutions such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (timestamp 32:25). In contrast, multiple insiders claim that advanced aerospace technologies were reverse engineered from captured extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Turber says that several of the Tic Tac shaped hybrid craft were deployed over North Korea in November 2017, to intimidate its paramount leader, Kim Jung-Un, and President Donald Trump was informed of the craft’s deployment and purpose.
Turber’s testimony is important since it explains the origins and performance of the Tic Tac UFOs that major media outlets began to report in detail back on December 16, 2017, after the New York Times and Politico covered the issue in major stories.
According to Turber, the media’s tepid response to the revelation was a major factor in him coming forward. He insists that rather than being a whistleblower, he has been encouraged to come forward by official sources to reveal his testimony and prepare the public for the major revelations that lie ahead.
Unfortunately, Turber has not shared any official documents confirming his Air Force career and work with different military contractors. This is puzzling since other former USAF personnel and corporate employees, such as Edgar Fouche, have publicly released such documentation when they have come forward to reveal their insider knowledge of the TR-3B and Aurora Project without suffering any repercussions.
What Turber did share with his interviewer, Jim Breslo, was data from the Google Maps timeline feature that showed that on November 18, 2017, his phone recorded a flight from Ontario, California to the US East Coast that lasted one hour and 24 minutes [timestamp 1:17:40]. Turber alluded to the incident as objective evidence that he was involved in a highly classified aerospace project at the time but was not able to reveal more details.
The phone data timeline indeed does corroborate his core claim of having worked on classified aerospace projects since it is difficult to explain how anyone using a conventional aviation transport can travel from the West to East coast in 84 minutes. Nevertheless, the Google Maps travel timeline isn’t sufficient to corroborate what his “official” sources told him, so hopefully Turber will share some of his documentation to substantiate his military and aerospace career.
Breslo brought up the remarkable similarity between the flight performance of the Tic Tac craft and a Navy patent for a Hybrid Aerospace Underwater Craft (HAUC) which I have previously discussed, and which Brett Tingley and Tyler Rogoway, writing for The Drive, have connected to the Tic Tac incidents.
The Navy patent explains how the craft is able to travel without friction under water and through the air by creating a quantum vacuum bubble around it: as explained by Tingley:
In the Navy’s patent application for the HAUC, it’s claimed that the radical abilities of propulsion and maneuverability are made possible thanks to an incredibly powerful electromagnetic field that essentially creates a quantum vacuum around itself that allows it to ignore aerodynamic or hydrodynamic forces and remove its own inertial mass from the equation. Thus, the ability to generate such high-frequency electromagnetic waves is key to the alleged abilities of this theoretical hybrid craft that can soar near effortlessly through air and water at incredible speeds with little to no resistance or inertia.
Turber dismissed the Navy patent as bogus [timestamp 36:18], yet the principle of a quantum vacuum around the craft being generated by electromagnetic energy makes for a compelling explanation for how such craft could achieve supercavitation when traveling through different mediums such as water, air, and space.
Turber’s testimony is very helpful since it directly points to the Tic Tac craft being part of a USAF secret space program, and that these assets are now in the process of being handed over to the new Space Force, just as predicted in the US Air Secret Space Program: Shifting Extraterrestrial Alliances and Space Force. That means exciting times lie ahead as Space Force unveils the secret space program it has inherited from the USAF.
[Special Note: I will be presenting the revolutionary Navy patents and their relevance to Secret Space Program disclosure at my upcoming Webinar with Portal to Ascension on March 21, 2020. You can register here.]
Earlier this month, Canadian researchers announced they’d discovered a powerful radio signal, emanating from a distant galaxy in bursts every 16 days.
And Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard University’s astronomy department, told Futurism this week that he thinks one possibility is that the signals are coming from an alien civilization.
To be clear, Loeb also acknowledged that the signals — “fast radio bursts,” or FRBs — could be generated by young neutron stars called magnetars, or by another, yet-undiscovered natural phenomenon.
“But at the moment we do not have a smoking gun that clearly indicates the nature of FRBs,” he wrote in an email. “So all possibilities should be considered, including an artificial origin.”
One concrete possibility, he said, is an extraterrestrial civilization using a beam of energy to propel cargo through space — and that the Canadian researchers picking up radiation leaking away from it.
Loeb pointed out that he previously examined that concept in a 2017 paper, however, and found that the energy required to move cargo with energy beams would be absolutely staggering. In fact, he said, such a beam would require about as much energy as the entirety of sunlight that hits the Earth.
“This would require a huge engineering project, far more ambitious than we currently have on Earth,” he wrote. “So the main technological challenge is in the huge power that the radio beam need[s] to carry.”
The Canadian researchers themselves acknowledged, in a followup press release about the findings, that “non-professionals have suggested they are messages from aliens.”
Loeb, though, thinks the possibility is worth seriously considering — in addition, of course, to natural causes. He also pointed out that different FRBs could conceivably be caused by different phenomena.
“An advanced technological civilization is a good approximation to God,” he told the New Yorker at the time. “Suppose you took a cell phone and showed it to a caveperson. The caveperson would say it was a nice rock. The caveperson is used to rocks. So now imagine this object — ‘Oumuamua— being the iPhone and us being the cave people.”
The first flight of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion crew capsule — and the first big step in putting astronauts back on the moon — was originally scheduled to launch this year, but the mission is now expected to slip to 2021.
A new document from NASA explaining President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2021 budget request for the agency lists the uncrewed test flight, known as Artemis 1, as scheduled to launch in 2021. Although NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and other agency officials have said they expect the mission to be delayed, an updated launch target has not yet been officially announced.
An updated timeline for that mission is currently under review, and NASA expects to present its new plan to Congress about six weeks from now, Doug Loverro, the director of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, told reporters at a State of NASA event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday (Feb. 10).
Despite the delays, NASA is still aiming to put "the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024" with its Artemis program, Bridenstine said during his State of NASA speech at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on Monday, repeating a motto that he shares just about every time he has a microphone and an audience.
According to a graphic published in NASA's FY 2021 budget documents, the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion, called Artemis 2, is poised to launch on a lunar flyby mission in 2022, followed by a crewed lunar landing, Artemis 3, in 2024.
While NASA prepares to put astronauts on the lunar surface, the agency will also be working to launch the various components of its Lunar Gateway, a small space station that will serve as an orbiting outpost near the moon. To reach the lunar surface, astronauts will first dock with the Gateway in their Orion spacecraft before boarding a lander that will ferry them the rest of the way down to the moon.
So, the Gateway — or at least a few vital components of it — will need to be assembled in lunar orbit before astronauts can land on the moon. The first piece of the Gateway, its power and propulsion element (PPE), is scheduled to launch in 2022. Then, in 2023, NASA plans to launch the habitation and logistics outpost (HALO) module, which will serve as the crew quarters for astronauts at the Gateway.
During the last few months before NASA launches Artemis 3, three additional components will join the Gateway via three separate commercial rocket launches. Those launches will transport a transfer vehicle that will ferry landers from the Gateway to a lower lunar orbit, a descent module that will bring the astronauts to the lunar surface and an ascent module that will bring them back up to the transfer vehicle, which will then return them to the Gateway.
Once all of those pieces are put together in orbit, NASA will have all the infrastructure it needs to send astronauts to the lunar surface, which Loverro said he is confident the agency will do by the end of 2024.
However, some continue to criticize NASA's ambitious timeline for the moon landing. Years of SLS delays aside, the agency has barely started constructing critical elements of the Gateway, and NASA has yet to begin building a human-rated lunar lander.
An artist's depiction of Blue Origin's lunar lander, called Blue Moon.
(Image credit: Blue Origin)
An artist's concept of a Boeing moon lander for astronauts for NASA's Artemis program. (Image credit: Boeing)
The agency solicited proposals for crew landers last fall, and so far Boeing and a team led by Blue Origin have revealed their ideas. Once NASA chooses which lander (or landers) it will use for the Artemis program, construction will begin at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Meanwhile, Boeing is still working on building the first SLS rocket for Artemis 1, and NASA has requested that the company build at least 10 more SLS rockets for the entire Artemis program. With Artemis, NASA aims to build a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface after the landing in 2024.
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.'
A new study was able to uncover why an asteroid that's big enough to wipe out an entire planet is covered in impact craters. The researchers attributed the massive asteroid's violent history to its natural orbit.
A study recently published in the journal Nature centred on Pallas, which is one of the largest known space rocks in the asteroid belt. It has an estimated diameter of 512 kilometres and is regarded as the largest asteroid that's not yet visited by a spacecraft.
Impact Craters On Pallas
Asteroid collisionNASA
Since it has not yet been observed up-close, researchers used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to collect data on the asteroid. They discovered that the surface of the massive spherical asteroid is covered in craters that are about 29 to 121 kilometres wide. Based on computer simulations and data collected by the VLT, the researchers estimated that Pallas three times as many impact craters as Vesta, which is the second-largest known asteroid.
Due to the shape of the asteroid and the number of its craters, it looks like a giant golf ball floating in space. "Pallas is heavily cratered," the study's co-author Miroslav Broz told Space.com. "Its surface might resemble a golf ball."
Artist's rendering of asteroids and space dustNASA/JPL-Caltech
Pallas's Unusual Orbit
According to the researchers, most of the craters that collided with Pallas hit the asteroid while travelling sideways. Previous computer simulations revealed that the asteroids that pelted Pallas were travelling at speeds of over 40,000 kilometres per hour. This figure far exceeds the average speed of impacts in the asteroid belt, which is less than 21,000 kilometres per hour.
The researchers noted that Pallas' unusual orbit might have caused impact velocity and direction of the collisions. Through their observations, the researchers discovered that the massive asteroid travels at a tilted and elongated orbit.
The researchers explained that the asteroid's orbital inclination and eccentricity could be the main reasons why other space rocks are hitting it at high speeds. Since high-speed impacts are more likely to cause craters than slow ones, this could also explain why Pallas appears more pockmarked than other known asteroids such as Ceres and Vesta.
NASA Found Exotic Organic Molecules on Ancient Space Object 'Arrokoth'
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.
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 publishedin the journalScience 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.”
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?
Ten things we’ve learned about the sun from NASA’s SDO this decade
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.
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.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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.
This video, assembled from images taken by NASA’s SDO spacecraft, shows possible plasma tornadoes over a 30-hour period. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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.
Comet Lovejoy is seen here exiting from behind the right side of the sun, after an hour of travel through its closest approach to the sun. By tracking how the comet interacts with the sun's atmosphere, the corona, and how material from the tail moves along the sun's magnetic field lines, solar scientists hope to learn more about the corona. This movie was filmed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in 171 angstrom wavelength, which is typically shown in yellow. Credit: NASA/SDO
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.
Forced magnetic reconnection, caused by a prominence from the Sun, was seen for the first time in images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. This image shows the Sun on May 3, 2012, with the inset showing a close-up of the reconnection event imaged by SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, where the signature X-shape is visible. Credit: NASA/SDO/Abhishek Srivastava/IIT(BHU)
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.
Capturing an image in 10 different wavelengths of light every 12 seconds, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — has provided an unprecedentedly clear picture of how massive explosions on the sun grow and erupt ever since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010. The imagery is also captivating, allowing one to watch the constant ballet of solar material through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. This year marks the 10th anniversary of SDO's launch and the start of its decade watching the sun. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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.
APReconstructie van een mannelijke en een vrouwelijke neanderthaler.
WETENSCHAP Wetenschappers hebben sporen gevonden van een onbekende voorouder van de mens in de genomen van West-Afrikaanse volkeren. Dat is bewijsmateriaal voor een ‘spookpopulatie’ die een half miljoen jaar geleden in Afrika leefde en waarvan de genen vandaag nog altijd terug te vinden zijn in de mens.
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.
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.
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BUITENAARDS BEZOEK VOOR AMERIKAANSE LUCHTMACHTBASIS? ( VIDEO )
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.
Al heel lang doen er verhalen de ronde over buitenaardsen die zouden zijn gevestigd op de Amerikaanse luchtmachtbasis Nellis AFB, vlakbij Las Vegas in de stad Nevadea.
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.
Ship Found On Mars Using Google Map, UFO Sighting News.
Ship Found On Mars Using Google Map, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: February 12, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars
Source: Google Mars map
Google coordinates: 0°51'6.25"S 18°30'21.02"W
While searching Google Mars map, I found something that just was irritating...because it shouldn't be there and yet...it was. I found a ship with structures along it sailing through the sand. I am confident that these are structures sticking up from the ship. Its possible that this ship was taken from Earth and left here when they were done with it. Thousands of ships have been lost at sea, never again being seen. This would explain some of those loses. The ships metallic grey metal is shiny and stands out really well, much like a WWI or WWII battleship. The back part of the ship is partly buried under the sand, so it is pointy like the front...just partly hidden.
This could also be proof of an ancient ocean on Mars. This could be a sea vessel that they used long ago and it kept its shape. Perhaps they used some kind of rust proof material that cannot degrade.
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UFO Fleet Seen During Overcast Weather At Yuma, Arizona, Video, UFO Sighing News.
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
Star Wars Ship Seen About Taipei 101 Building, Taiwan, Feb 2020, UFO Sighting News.
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
Fast moving V-shaped UFO caught on NASA live stream
Fast moving V-shaped UFO caught on NASA live stream
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.
Over 60 Percent of American People Want The Government To Make UFO-Related Information Public
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.
Zealandia, the world’s 8th continent, linked to the forging of the Pacific Ring of Fire
Zealandia, the world’s 8th continent, linked to the forging of the Pacific Ring of Fire
A map of Zealandia. Credit: Nick Mortimer et al.
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.
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.
Sites where scientists with the International Ocean Discovery Program drilled for sediments in Zealandia. Credit: JOIDES Resolution Science Operator.
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.
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.”
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.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.