Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
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
Zoeken in blog
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...
14-03-2020
ExoMars Rosalind Franklin: Rover mission delayed until 2022
ExoMars Rosalind Franklin: Rover mission delayed until 2022
By Jonathan Amos - BBC Science Correspondent
Max Alexander
The rover project was first approved in 2005
Europe and Russia have decided to postpone their Mars rover mission.
The ExoMars "Rosalind Franklin" vehicle was due to launch to the Red Planet in July/August but engineers aren't able to get the vehicle ready in time.
Because an Earth-Mars journey is only attempted when the planets are favourably aligned, the robot's next opportunity won't occur until 2022.
The Russian and European space agencies announced the delay on their websites on Thursday.
The set-back - the latest in a long series for this project - has been signposted for some weeks.
All the hardware is built, but there remains an intimidating list of outstanding checks that must be completed before the mission can be declared flight-ready.
Chief among the obstacles in the timeline are some underperforming electronics boxes in the Russian descent and lander mechanisms that would put the rover safely on the ground; and also the overall flight software from Europe.
Full testing required to achieve confidence in these items necessarily pushes the project beyond July/August.
Matters have been further complicated in recent days by the international coronavirus crisis which has started to disrupt the engineering effort.
Image copyrightTHALES ALENIA SPACEImage captionAll the hardware to carry the rover to Mars is built
"We have made a difficult but well-weighed decision to postpone the launch to 2022. It is driven primarily by the need to maximise the robustness of all ExoMars systems," announced Russian space agency (Roscosmos) Director General, Dmitry Rogozin.
"I am confident that the steps that we and our European colleagues are taking to ensure mission success will be justified and will unquestionably bring solely positive results for the mission implementation."
European Space Agency Director General, Jan Wörner, added that coronavirus was having an impact on the preparations, "because people from different places of industry in Russia, in Italy and France cannot move easily as in the past. So, therefore, there is also an impact, but I would not like to say the coronavirus is the one and only reason - but... it has an impact on the mission, yes."
Launching in late 2022 means the rover will touch down in 2023, given the cruise time to the Red Planet.
NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONAImage caption
The rover was to be targeted at Oxia Planum on Mars. That won't change for 2023
Rosalind Franklin has been built to try to detect life, past or present, on the Red Planet.
Because of this, the rover and its instruments have been prepared to incredibly stringent levels of cleanliness. This status must now be maintained over the coming two years of storage.
The project's industrial prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space of Italy, will do this in an ISO-7 chamber at its Turin factory.
"We will have to make sure that we flush permanently the ultra-clean zone and maybe even have to make an outgassing activity to make sure pollutants are all evacuated before making the rover ready again to be transferred to [the launch pad in 2022], " explained Francois Spoto, Esa's ExoMars Team Leader.
Unclear is precisely how much the delay will cost, but Esa's Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, David Parker, said it wouldn't have a significant effect on his programmes.
"We have a budget, which includes a contingency margin for delayed launch to 2022," he told BBC News.
"Of course, that's based on our estimates; we now have to go and negotiate with industry to get the confirmed costs. But that's our normal life - we have to estimate the cost of things, define it and then negotiate with industry. But no, it should not be a financial crisis."
ESAImage caption
Artist's impression: The robot rover will search for life on Mars
First envisaged as a small technology demonstration mission, the robot vehicle was formally approved by European nations back in 2005, with a launch first pencilled in for 2011.
Then, as ambitions grew and the design was beefed up, the start date was put back. At first, it was shifted to 2013, but further problems saw slippage to 2016, and then again to 2018.
For much of its history, the rover project, codenamed ExoMars, has had to fumble through with budgets that were insufficient to maintain the promised timelines.
At one stage, back in 2009, Esa decided to join forces with America to try to make the mission happen, only to see Nasa walk away three years later when its priorities changed.
Even with this fresh impetus, however, the project continued to stumble. The Esa-Roscosmos 2018 target gave way to 2020. Now the launch date is being moved again.
The rover has been an important component of British space policy. The UK is the second biggest contributor to the ExoMars programme.
Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said: "ExoMars is an important, ambitious mission, with the UK-built Rosalind Franklin rover set to help us understand the past environment of Mars and search for evidence of life. To be successful, the mission must be carried out within an acceptable level of risk, so I support Esa's responsible decision to delay the launch for further testing."
Astronomers were using the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to detect dark energy in space but upon studying the data, they were surprised to come across another major discovery. By analyzing the first four years of data obtained when the DES was in operation (from August 2013 to January 2019), they were able to identify a total of 139 new minor planets.
These minor planets are located far beyond Neptune on the edge of our Solar System. A minor planet can be anything from an asteroid to a dwarf planet. Trans-Neptunian objects (or TNOs) are minor planets in our Solar System that orbit the sun at a farther distance than Neptune. And they’re not easy to find as they are quite small and are very far from us – for comparison, Neptune is 4.5 billion kilometers (30 AU or astronomical units) from the sun.
Gary Bernstein, who is a physicist and astronomer from the University of Pennsylvania as well as one of the authors of the research study, stated, “The number of TNOs you can find depends on how much of the sky you look at and what’s the faintest thing you can find.” The team certainly had a tough job as they studied 7 billion dots that could have possibly been minor planets. They were able to eliminate objects that were located in the same spot for several consecutive nights as they were not moving in the same manner as TNOs would. After extensive work, they were able to conclude that 316 of them were TNOs and 139 had not been previously documented.
The new TNOs were located at distances from 30 to more than 90 astronomical units from the sun – from around the same distance as Neptune is from our sun to more than three times further. As a matter of fact, seven of the new trans-Neptunian objects have been called extreme TNOs, meaning that they have an average orbital distance of more than 150 astronomical units. Once confirmed, these would be the most distance objects ever seen in our Solar System. So far, there have been approximately 3,000 TNOs identified in our solar system.
With the discovery of these new minor planets, and especially the extreme TNOs, researchers are hopeful to finally find evidence of Planet Nine which has been theorized to orbit at a distance of 200 astronomical units. “There are lots of ideas about giant planets that used to be in the Solar System and aren’t there anymore, or planets that are far away and massive but too faint for us to have noticed yet,” Bernstein noted.
With approximately a year and a half left of data still to study, who knows what the scientists will find – maybe they’ll discover hundreds more minor planets or perhaps even proof of the existence of Planet Nine. We’ll just have to wait and see.
INWONERS VAN NOORD NEDERLAND VERRAST DOOR DUBBELE MAAN AAN DE HEMEL
INWONERS VAN NOORD NEDERLAND VERRAST DOOR DUBBELE MAAN AAN DE HEMEL
Een aantal inwoners van noord Nederland wreef zich een aantal dagen geleden in de ogen, want ondanks dat ze geen alcohol hadden gedronken zagen ze toch dingen dubbel. Het gebeurde ’s avonds en mensen die naar de maan keken, zagen opeens duidelijk twee exemplaren aan de hemel.
Als één iemand iets ziet, dan is het soms moeilijk om dat anderen te doen geloven, want men zegt al snel: “Je ziet dingen die er niet zijn”. Als er meerdere mensen zijn die iets vreemds zien, dan wordt het opeens wel echt en als er dan ook nog iemand foto’s neemt, dan heb je een echt mysterie.
Een dergelijk mysterie vond plaats afgelopen maandagavond in Emmen en op andere plaatsen in Noord Nederland.
Hierna wat een lezer uit Emmen ons vertelt (dank!):
Gisteren om 18.00 uur liep ik met mijn hond en keek ik ook naar de maan. Het leek alsof de wolken precies voor de Maan verdwenen. Ik verklaarde dat met lichtsterkte. Ik keek zelf wel heel raar naar de maan. Ik weet nog dat ik dacht dat het wel een tunnel leek.
Nu krijg ik van vrienden uit Breda met een Nikon p900 deze foto's toegestuurd. Ik dacht eerst dat ze ze zelf gemaakt hadden. Maar nee, wat bleek was dat ze de foto's hadden gekregen van iemand die notabene op steenworp afstand bij mij in de wijk woont
Dit zijn de foto’s:
Op onze vraag of het tweede object pas zichtbaar werd na het maken van de foto, krijgen we het volgende antwoord:
Nee zij nam de foto omdat zij het met het blote oog zag. Het was een zij. Was zelfs bij mij in de wijk hahaha. Ik zie ook wel eens gekke dingen maar heb nooit camera bij me. Neem vanaf nu mijn mobiel maar eens mee als ik mijn hond aan het uitlaten ben.
En dan nog de verdere toelichting:
Het zit dus verborgen achter de bewolking volgens de maker van de foto, en toen de bewolking wegtrok zag ze het en maakte een foto van de maan en het Licht dat op een maan lijkt. En toeval bestaat niet. Hier zit dus korte tijd tussen en ze vindt het vreemd dat de andere maan achter die wolk zat.
Wanneer een object zich achter een wolk bevindt en vanuit daar tevoorschijn komt zoals ook duidelijk op de foto’s is te zien, kan er ook geen sprake zijn van een lensflare. Bovendien heeft de dame die de foto maakte het tweede object ook met het blote oog gezien.
Klaarblijkelijk is zij niet de enige, want wij ontvingen nog de volgende aanvulling:
Ik heb inmiddels 5 getuigen in Noord Nederland die deze Maan ook hebben gezien.
Mochten er meer mensen zijn die dit hebben gezien of die denken te weten wat het is dat we hier zien, laat het ons weten via redactie (apenstaart) niburu.co
I was looking over a Mars photo when I noticed two objects that resemble shoes. Each shoe is different in size. One is large and the other small as if they were feet from a parent and child. Why would only feet be left is unknown, but nevertheless, they sit there in front of us. Long ago I suggested that Mars may have had a weapon that could turn flesh and bone into stone...a weapon that would leave statues as reminders of the fear that you should have of the enemy. I still believe this to be true, and in front of us is the evidence. Scott C. Waring
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
We Are Being Watched By Large Alien Ships
We Are Being Watched By Large Alien Ships
Impressive ... this is getting more and more exciting, these formations of UFOs and huge spacecrafts moving freely through space and close to the International Space Station.
The ongoing appearance of these clusters of extraterrestrial spacecrafts is no longer a coincidence, something is going on in deep space forcing these UFOs to move to other locations.
You can clearly see the structure and shape of some of these large alien ships.
A scientist who believes coronavirus came from space by meteor now says prevailing winds are spreading the disease to the hardest-hit countries.
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology has alleged that the meteor that exploded over China in October released viral particles.
Once in the upper stratosphere, the virus either fell to Earth or got caught up in the stratospheric air currents that circle the Earth, he told MailOnline.
From here, the virus has spread along 'a global band of between 40–60° latitude north', with all the 'main strong cases' appearing 'exactly along that range', he said.
Infectious disease experts have debunked Professor Wickramasinghe's claim, however, noting that COVID-19 is similar to other known coronaviruses.
This, they explained, would suggest that it was also transmitted to humans from animals — not from a recent meteorite fall.
Scroll down for video
The scientist who claimed that coronavirus came from space by meteor has said that prevailing winds are spreading the disease to the hardest-hit countries. Pictured, the fireball caused by a meteor burning up in the Earth's atmosphere above China on October 11, 2019
The virus has spread by the prevailing winds along 'a global band of between 40–60° latitude north', with all the 'main strong cases' appearing 'exactly along that range', Professor Wickramasinghe said. Experts have dismissed the claim that the virus could be spread by the air — noting that, even if it did, it would thin out travelling international distances
'The sudden outbreak of a new coronavirus is very likely to have a space connection,' Professor Wickramasinghe told The Express in February.
The astrobiologist is a proponent of 'panspermia' — the theory that life is seeded across the universe by travelling on meteors, comets and space dust.
A meteor was seen as a blazing, bright fireball flying across the sky in the north-east of the country at around 12:16 am on October 11, 2019.
The space rock — which reportedly shone so brightly that it made the night sky look light day — is thought to have disintegrated in the atmosphere.
'We consider the seemingly outrageous possibility that hundreds of trillions of infective viral particles were then released embedded in the form of fine carbonaceous dust,' he added.
In support of the theory, he highlighted the 'remarkable aspect' that the coronavirus outbreak occurred in the same region of China as where the fireball was seen.
He added that he thinks that the meteor 'contained, embedded within it, a monoculture of infective 2019-nCoV virus particles that survived in the interior of the incandescent meteor.'
'We believe infectious agents are prevalent in space, carried on comets, and can fall towards Earth through the troposphere. These, we think, can and have in the past gone on to bring about human disease epidemics.'
The MailOnline asked Professor Wickramasinghe whether the correlation of a single meteor sighting with a virus outbreak proved that the former caused the latter.
'It's an interesting connection to take note of, I suppose, but it certainly doesn't prove that that's the way that it took place necessarily,' Professor Wickramasinghe admitted.
The scientific community, however, has largely dismissed Professor Wickramasinghe's claims.
'The most compelling evidence that SARS-CoV-2 didn’t come from a meteorite is that it is so closely related to other known coronaviruses,' infectious disease specialist Dominic Sparkes of University College London told IFLScience.
'It’s closely related to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus that caused an outbreak in the early 2000s and the MERS (Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome) virus which still causes disease currently,' he added.
'SARS was found to be the result of bats transferring virus to civet cats which transferred on to humans, while MERS is known to be passed on to humans from camels.'
'It therefore is far less of a leap to assume the closely-related SARS-CoV-2 virus has been passed on to humans in the same way.'
The meteor, pictured, was seen as a blazing, bright fireball flying across the sky in the north-east of the country at around 12:16 am on October 11, 2019
Professor Wickramasinghe, however, has dismissed these arguments, suggesting that the similarity of the coronavirus sequences in humans and animals like bat is 'highly questionable' and is 'being re-analysed' — and that even if they were similar, this would not disprove the suggestion that the virus came from space.
Experts have also previously noted that coronavirus is not being spread by the wind.
'Even if the virus could be spread by air, it would be thinned largely to the extent that people could ignore it after it had travelled a few kilometres,' meteorologist Lam Chiu-ying said last month.
'Don’t believe it, preventing the local spread of the virus is the most important thing.'
COVID-19 only survives for 72 hours on surfaces and the US Centre for Disease Control has said that six feet is a safe distance to avoid person-to-person infection.
The space rock — which reportedly shone so brightly that it made the night sky look light day — is thought to have disintegrated in the atmosphere
'Viruses from space is an old chestnut that deserves to be roasted immediately,' said virologist Ian Jones of the University of Reading.
'The sequence of the Wuhan virus is very close to those previously observed in bats.'
'In contrast to the authors’ statement transmission among people is clear, as in the recent Brighton cases, and the epidemiology modelling clearly tracks back to the Wuhan seafood market in December last year.'
'The trouble with this sort of nonsense is that it detracts from the really detailed work that is currently ongoing to track, cope with and prevent infection.'
What the virus really demonstrates is the troublesome side of evolution, everything jostling to gain a toehold somewhere. Getting ahead of it needs a range of dedicated programs, not this sort of guff.'
'We consider the seemingly outrageous possibility that hundreds of trillions of infective viral particles were then released embedded in the form of fine carbonaceous dust,' Professor Wickramasinghe said. His theory has been rebutted by infectious disease experts
Professor Wickramasinghe — along with his colleague Sir Fred Hoyle of the University of Cambridge — has been a leading proponent of the panspermia hypothesis since the mid 1970s.
'The earth is not a disconnected entity in the biosphere — we are connected to the external universe,' Professor Wickramasinghe said.
In the eighties, he proved that some of the dust found in interstellar space contained organic material, most of which was carbon.
Together with Sir Hoyle, he further contended that lifeforms and genetic material continue to enter the Earth's atmosphere to account for new diseases, epidemic outbreaks and the creation of the genetic novelty needed for major-scale evolution.
Professor Wickramasinghe has previously suggested that other deadly diseases came from an extraterrestrial source — including the 1918 flu pandemic, certain strains of mad cow disease and polio, and SARS, which he connected to a 2002 meteorite that exploded over the border of China and Russia.
'There is growing evidence that says this DNA comes from space and it is carried into our atmosphere on micro-meteorites before dissipating,' he told The Express.
WHAT IS PANSPERMIA?
Panspermia is a theory that suggests life spreads across the known physical universe, hitchhiking on comets or meteorites.
Extremophiles, capable of surviving the inhospitable conditions of space, could become trapped in debris that is ejected into space after collisions between asteroids and planets that harbour life.
These dormant life-forms may then travel for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets.
One argument that supports the panspermia theory is the emergence of life soon after the heavy bombardment period of earth, between 4 and 3.8 billion years ago.
During this period, researchers believe the Earth endured an extended and very powerful series of meteor showers.
However, the earliest evidence for life on Earth suggests it was present some 3.83 billion years ago, overlapping with this bombardment phase.
These observations suggest that living things during this period would have faced extinction, contributing to the idea that life did not originate on Earth.
The idea of directed panspermia suggests lifeforms were deliberately sent out through the universe by intelligent civilisations.
Professor Francis Crick, one of the biologists who discovered the structure of DNA, examined the possibility of this in a paper in 1973.
However, Professor Crick and his colleagues concluded that the scientific evidence was 'inadequate at the present time to say anything about the probability'.
A Scientist Claims It’s Possible Novel Corona Virus Has A Space Connection
A Scientist Claims It’s Possible Novel Corona Virus Has A Space Connection
After the news that a US patient got a novel coronavirus (N-CoV) and its origin has baffled medical authorities, a scientist claimed that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is the first wave of space alien biological invasion of Earth.
On the evening of February 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that the patient in California who has infected with the COVID-19 didn’t have a travel history in China and any other countries with confirmed cases. According to the CDC, the patient wasn’t exposed to everyone known to have the disease.
California Rep. John Garamendi said that the affected person is in severe condition. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said that they already explained to doctors in the United States that a person needed to have travel history to any country with confirmed cases or be a near touch of an individual who had been in affected areas before with COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, Cambridge astrobiologist Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe claims that the COVID-19 virus may have come from a fragment of a comet that exploded in North-East China in October last year.
In Wickramasinghe’s perspective, the sudden outbreak of a new coronavirus is very probable to have an extraterrestrial connection. The British scientist brings up the possibility that masses of trillions of infective viral debris that lived in the bright meteor has been then released embedded within the shape of sweet carbonaceous dust.
Wickramasinghe explains that infectious agents are known to be widespread in the area, which might be transported on comets and fell toward Earth through the troposphere.
No matter where people look, there are pyramids scattered across the globe.
And while Europe isn’t that famous for being home to ancient pyramids, the truth is there are quite a few scattered across the European continent.
Whether Pyramids around the globe are the result of an ancient global blueprint of structures or the teachings of an ancient civilization that predates popular ancient civilizations like the Ancient Egyptians or the Maya is a mystery.
For some reason, ancient cultures around the globe, all decided to build massive pyramids, for no apparent reason whatsoever.
One of the Pyramids of Tenerife. Image Credit: Shutterstock
In Europe pyramids are scarce, so every time we write about a pyramidal structure in Europe we try to learn as much as we can about those structures.
The Pyramids of Tenerife—and Historical landmark in Guimar, Canarias
While many were unaware of this fact, Spain has pyramids. However, the mystery structures scattered on a Spanish Island have not been recognized as such by the mainstream archeologists.
The Canary Islands, more specifically Tenerife, features up to 6 pyramids that according to many researchers are aligned astronomically and built, presumably, by a mysterious culture that has long since disappeared.
Explorer Thor Heyerdahl, and the Pyramids of Guimar
On the Island of Tenerife, there is a region called Guiamar the mystery pyramids are located. Today, these incredible structures are part of the Ethnographic Park which was created by explorer Thor Heyerdahl with the financial support of Fred Olsen.
Heyerdahl was the man who, after reading a newspaper report about the pyramids, moved to Tenerife to explore the Pyramids. He lived in Tenerife for the rest of his life.
The Pyramids of Tenerife are believed to be aligned astronomically. Image Credit: Shutterstock
The Norwegian explorer drew connections between the mysterious pyramids on Tenerife, and other similar stepped pyramids he had encountered across the globe.
Heyerdahl believed that such pyramids may have been built by an ancient civilization that had the ability to perform trans-oceanic voyages, and may be the missing link between ancient Egyptian and American Pyramids.
Thorugh his research and study of the Pyramids, Heyerdahl was convinced that the so-called Guanches, inhabitants of the island of Tenerife before the Castilian conquest, may have built those Pyramids initially.
Mainstream scholars disagree, with everything
Mainstream scholars, on the other hand, disagree with the ancient Pyramid theory and say that the alleged structure arent pyramids at all, but are piles of volcanic rocks that farmers erected when preparing their land for cultivation.
A side view of the Pyramids of Tenerife. Image Credit: Shutterstock.
According to mainstream scholars, the alleged pyramids are cultivational terraces and were built sometimes in the nineteenth century, based on ceramics discovered in the excavations carried out by archaeologists from the University of La Laguna.
One of those people was Philip Coppens, a man who visited the pyramids himself and found out that:
“On one plaza between two pyramids, archaeologists excavated into the structure, but stopped at a level they associated with the 18th century – and which was between 50 and 150 centimeters underground. From this, the mistaken conclusion was reached that they had dug down all the way to the bottom, and had realized the oldest layer was two centuries old. Nothing can be further from the truth.”
So, the question here is… why did they stop after digging only 150 centimeters? What was it that convinced them there was nothing noteworthy to be found if they had dug any deeper than that?
A sacred alignment?
The idea that the structures on Tenerife are more than just cultivational terraces has long existed among researchers and authors.
Heyerdahl and his flowers believed the six majestic pyramids of Tenerife were built following an intricate pattern and alignment which was created for ceremonial purposes.
Mainstream scholars disagree that these structures are Pyramids. Image Credit: Shutterstock
In 1991, researchers from the Canary Institute of Astrophysics Juan Antonio Belmonte Avilés, Antonio Aparicio Juan, and César Esteban López demonstrated how the longer sides of the terraces at Güímar were intricately placed in position to mark the direction winter and summer solstices.
Guanches—the builders of the Pyramids of Tenerife?
So, who built these astronomically aligned structures, if it wasn’t farmers?
According to many authors, the enigmatic structures were built by the so-called Guanches people.
The Guanches are a mystery as no one really knows how the white-skinned people came to live on islands so close to the African Continent.
Some archaeologists and anthropologists argue how the Guanche people are descendants of the Berbers from North Africa, and most likely Libya.
However, legends contradict that theory and suggest the Guanches are more than just descendants from the Berbers, and that they are the original inhabitants of Atlantis, and survived the cataclysmic events of the disappearance of the city/continent of Atlantis. The Guanches, aka Atlanteans, only survived because as Atlantis ‘Sank’, they were on the peaks of the mountains which we today refer to as the Canary Islands.
While today myths and history have merged on the Island of Tenerife, the truth is that there are many other structures on Tenerife that resemble Pyramids. The six pyramids at Guimar are just some of the many structures that we can find on Tenerife today. The Village of Santa Barabara has several other Pyramids that until this day have been ignored by experts.
The U.S. Army refused to release any records about its deal with Tom DeLonge’s UFO-hunting group To the Stars Academy (TTSA).
In October of 2019, the former Blink-182 frontman’s UFO organization joined forces with the US Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command, a research and development body. According to the contract, the government is interested in studying some pretty exotic science such as active camouflage, inertial mass reduction, and quantum communication. In particular, the government is interested in the group’s ADAM Project, which Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center described as “a global dragnet for the collection and evaluation of novel materials.” In 2018, TTSA put out a call for individuals and organizations to submit materials from alleged exotic sources as part of the project.
Knowing this, Greenewald instead filed a FOIA Request regarding a copy of all records and emails related to Dr. Joseph Cannon of U.S. Army Futures Command (who is working on the agreement) containing keywords such as "TTSA" and "To The Stars."
The Army got back to Greenewald telling him that 29 documents were found relating to his request, and each page was exempt from his request. The Army stated that it was not going to release any records. Motherboard reached out to Halleaux, the Army’s CCDC spokesperson, who said that any documents related to DeLonge’s organization would be classified as “trade secrets and commercial or financial information [that are] privileged or confidential.”
In other words, the public can’t know what the Army and TTSA is working on because of corporate and commercial secrets, namely intellectual property and finances. This includes related email communications. Halleaux told Motherboard that he personally had no idea what the Army and TTSA were up to, and if he did, he couldn’t talk about it.
TTSA now has roughly four-and-a-half years left on its five-year contract with the Army to research and develop future military technology. Halleaux told Motherboard in 2019 that the government believes the “key technologies or capabilities that [the Army] is investigating with TTSA are certainly on the leading edge of the realm of the possible” and comes at a low cost for the government. Regardless, mounting a complex exploration of the various projects outlined in the CRADA such as “adaptive camouflage,” “beamed energy propulsion,” and “quantum communication” will definitely take some serious collaboration, laboratory set-up, equipment gathering, research and time. It is highly unlikely that any actual technology development has occurred in the last six months.
IMAGE: THE BLACK VAULT
In a written statement to Motherboard, TTSA’s Chief Operating Officer and former director of Advanced Systems Development at Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks, Steve Justice, stated,
“It is easy to assume that TTSA's government [agreement] automatically ‘locks up’ the results of research. However, it must be noted that the discussions with the government that led to the contract language were completed with the knowledge that one of TTSA's prime objectives is public transparency and commercial applications. Note the contract language that specifically identifies two-way sharing of information. The benefit of the [agreement] is to gain access to otherwise inaccessible government laboratories and technical expertise to expose all attributes of unusual materials and share the results. If unusual attributes are found, TTSA may use that information to create applications for public benefit. We cannot speak for any actions the Army might take after studying the results.”
While the whole weird relationship between UFOs and the Army’s research and development arm has left many people scratching their heads, the real question is why would advanced space faring extraterrestrials keep crashing and leaving their scrap in the deserts of Nevada and New Mexico? Perhaps they are leaving humanity some technological breadcrumbs or they are just jerks dumping their garbage on our planet; whatever the case, the government isn’t saying much.
23 years ago today, the people of Arizona witnessed one of the most infamous UFO incidents in history.
A new documentary series by filmmaker Seth Breedlove takes an in depth look into the so-called “Phoenix Lights.” On the Trail of UFOs doesn’t try to prove that the incident was aliens or flares, but instead expertly explores the cultural ramifications of the event on the UFO community.
“As an event, the Phoenix Lights is important simply because it gained so much media attention, was witnessed by so many people, and today, can still not be precisely explained away,” Breedlove told Motherboard. “Every year more witnesses come forward; from airline pilots to military personnel to ordinary people living from places as far removed as downtown Phoenix to Las Vegas.”
On March 13th, 1997, hundreds of Arizonans called their local law enforcement and a popular UFO reporting hotline to report a series of strange lights moving over their cities and towns. The Phoenix Lights case remains one of the largest UFO sightings in history, and continues to be an established fixture of contemporary UFO discourse.
At roughly 7:00 pm, people in northwestern Arizona began reporting a large craft passing overhead. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the first call they received came in at 8:16pm from a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, a town about two hours north of Phoenix. He reported seeing a series of reddish lights arranged in a V-formation.
Over the next couple days, calls continued to pour in regarding the sighting of multiple lights in the sky, some arranged in the shape of a boomerang, and others as odd moving lights with tails and “fireballs.” Ron Regehr, a veteran UFO researcher with the Mutual UFO Network and a former engineer with Boeing and Northrop Grumman, told Motherboard in an interview that he was part of the team that helped in developing the Defense Support Program Satellites (DSP), a series of infrared sensing tactical satellites that detect the launch of missiles, space launches, and nuclear detonations.
Regehr explained that he generated regular reports about what the DSP detected every 60 days. According to Regehr, he received a phone call from a colleague that the DSP picked up an object over South Eastern Nevada. It traveled in that direction until its signal became too weak, and it was lost over Tucson, Arizona.
Regehr told Motherboard that the event was “significant in that so many people witnessed the event and the extent authorities went to to denounce their experience. But, so many people were polarized that it took on an almost immediate ‘cult like’ life of its own. 23 years later folks are still talking about it!”
On the Trail of UFOs follows podcaster and author Shannon LeGro into the murky and weird UFO world. While it explores several other cases, the series spends its time analyzing the UFO community and the people who claim to have encounters with the anomalous. Breedlove’s previous documentary work includes Terror in the Skies (2019), The Bray Road Beast (2018), and The Mothman of Point Pleasant (2017). Much like his previous work, Breedlove’s focus is on the individuals caught up in the event, and how it altered their lives instead of trying to ascertain whether aliens or monsters are real. As for the Phoenix Lights, Breedlove points out that “it’s a culturally important event because it illustrates how at-risk witnesses were of being ridiculed if they came forward.”
“I’m not sure today that the response to the Phoenix Lights would be as over-the-top as it was in 1997 when you had the governor going on television with a man in an alien costume to poke fun at the very idea of a UFO,” Breedlove said. “Things have changed drastically in 23 years and the Phoenix Lights helps illustrate that fact.”
On the Trail of UFOs drops on March 20th on Prime Video.
Scientists Find The First-Ever Animal That Doesn't Need Oxygen to Survive
MICHELLE STARR
Some truths about the Universe and our experience in it seem immutable. The sky is up. Gravity sucks. Nothing can travel faster than light. Multicellular life needs oxygen to live. Except we might need to rethink that last one.
Scientists have just discovered that a jellyfish-like parasite doesn't have a mitochondrial genome - the first multicellular organism known to have this absence. That means it doesn't breathe; in fact, it lives its life completely free of oxygen dependency.
This discovery isn't just changing our understanding of how life can work here on Earth - it could also have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life.
Life started to develop the ability to metabolise oxygen - that is, respirate - sometime over 1.45 billion years ago. A larger archaeon engulfed a smaller bacterium, and somehow the bacterium's new home was beneficial to both parties, and the two stayed together.
That symbiotic relationship resulted in the two organisms evolving together, and eventually those bacteria ensconced within became organelles called mitochondria. Every cell in your body except red blood cells has large numbers of mitochondria, and these are essential for the respiration process.
They break down oxygen to produce a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, which multicellular organisms use to power cellular processes.
We know there are adaptations that allow some organisms to thrive in low-oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions. Some single-celled organisms have evolved mitochondria-related organelles for anaerobic metabolism; but the possibility of exclusively anaerobic multicellular organisms has been the subject of some scientific debate.
That is, until a team of researchers led by Dayana Yahalomi of Tel Aviv University in Israel decided to take another look at a common salmon parasite called Henneguya salminicola.
(Stephen Douglas Atkinson)
It's a cnidarian, belonging to the same phylum as corals, jellyfish and anemones. Although the cysts it creates in the fish's flesh are unsightly, the parasites are not harmful, and will live with the salmon for its entire life cycle.
Tucked away inside its host, the tiny cnidarian can survive quite hypoxic conditions. But exactly how it does so is difficult to know without looking at the creature's DNA - so that's what the researchers did.
They used deep sequencing and fluorescence microscopy to conduct a close study of H. salminicola, and found that it has lost its mitochondrial genome. In addition, it's also lost the capacity for aerobic respiration, and almost all of the nuclear genes involved in transcribing and replicating mitochondria.
Like the single-celled organisms, it had evolved mitochondria-related organelles, but these are unusual too - they have folds in the inner membrane not usually seen.
The same sequencing and microscopic methods in a closely related cnidarian fish parasite, Myxobolus squamalis, was used as a control, and clearly showed a mitochondrial genome.
These results show that here, at last, is a multicellular organism that doesn't need oxygen to survive.
Exactly how it survives is still something of a mystery. It could be leeching adenosine triphosphate from its host, but that's yet to be determined.
But the loss is pretty consistent with an overall trend in these creatures - one of genetic simplification. Over many, many years, they have basically devolved from a free-living jellyfish ancestor into the much more simple parasite we see today.
(Stephen Douglas Atkinson)
They've lost most of the original jellyfish genome, but retaining - oddly - a complex structure resembling jellyfish stinging cells. They don't use these to sting, but to cling to their hosts: an evolutionary adaptation from the free-living jellyfish's needs to the parasite's. You can see them in the image above - they're the things that look like eyes.
The discovery could help fisheries adapt their strategies for dealing with the parasite; although it's harmless to humans, no one wants to buy salmon riddled with tiny weird jellyfish.
But it's also a heck of a discovery for helping us to understand how life works.
"Our discovery confirms that adaptation to an anaerobic environment is not unique to single-celled eukaryotes, but has also evolved in a multicellular, parasitic animal," the researchers wrote in their paper.
"Hence, H. salminicola provides an opportunity for understanding the evolutionary transition from an aerobic to an exclusive anaerobic metabolism."
What you’re seeing, essentially, is part of a corona -- when a rainbow-like halo engulfs the sun or the moon -- and the bands and colors change as the cloud evolves.
Iridescence is most often seen close to the sun.
It's usually spotted when part of a cloud is forming because that's when all of the water droplets have a similar history and similar size.
Police car films something strange on the road in Rabun County, Georgia. What is it?
Police car films something strange on the road in Rabun County, Georgia. What is it?
In Rabun Conty, Georgia, residents have been thrown into a fright after a bizarre story emerged regarding cops being scared at a road location by what has been described as a “something strange”.
That and more strange events caught on tape. Real or fake?
A once-hidden island has been uncovered in Antarctica after melting glaciers caused by record high temperatures revealed its rocky shore to passing scientists.
A group of polar researchers from the Thwaites Offshore Research (THOR) project spotted the island as their ship passed through Pine Island Bay in Antarctica.
The island has been named Sif after the Norse goddess of fertility and family, who was also the wife of the warrior god Thor, by the THOR glacier research team.
Researchers on board the Nathaniel B. Palmer ship are studying the Thwaites glacier in Pine Island bay, one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica.
The team don't know how long the 634,400 sq ft island has been exposed, but say it was likely revealed by higher than usual temperatures caused by climate change.
Scroll down for video
The new island has been named Sif by researchers who say it was uncovered due to warming temperatures causing ice sheets to melt
'After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals,' said Julia Smith Wellner from the THOR expedition team
It is big enough for satellites to spot from space but the never-before-seen island has previously been hidden under thick layers of ice, and was only revealed after parts of the glacier broke off and melted.
Cartographers for the British Antarctic Survey estimate the island, made of granite, is about 1,240ft across by 520ft wide - roughly 634,400 sq ft or about the same size as Windsor Castle.
Researchers hope to be able to reveal more about the composition of the island and how it came to be uncovered when their journey finishes at the end of March.
Ships rarely travel as far south as the Palmer so the crew are probably the first to discover the island and may be the first humans to step foot on its rocky shore.
'After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals,' said Julia Smith Wellner from the THOR expedition team.
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Cartographers for the British Antarctic Survey estimate the island, made of granite, is about 1,240ft across by 520ft wide - roughly 634,400 sq ft or about the same size as Windsor Castle
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This satellite image shows Sif Island and a series of icebergs - Sif is the large white block in the bottom middle of the image
They took samples from the island in the hope of getting a clearer picture of how the frozen continent is shifting, but won't know for sure until they get to a lab in March.
'This one island could hold a lot of clues,' University of Virginia in Charlottesville glacial geologist Lauren Simkins told Nature News.
As glaciers retreat they release pressure on the continent allowing the ground underneath the ice to rise up - a process called rapid rebound.
This sometimes stabilises the ice by anchoring it in place but can also accelerate the break up of the glacier by creating more cracks.
'Rapid rebound could increase stress on the remaining ice sheet, causing it to break apart more quickly', she said.
'But a rising continental shelf could also anchor glaciers, increasing their stability and slowing their march to the sea.'
When they first spotted the new island, there was a commotion on board as everyone rushed to see the rocky land amongst miles of water and ice.
'I think I see rocks,' shouted an officer aboard the ship.
They looked at charts and maps of the area and realised it was a 'brand new island' likely 'never seen before'.
'There was a commotion as everyone on board rushed to see the rocky, ice-covered outcrop and suggest potential names.
'But the hubbub quickly gave way to excitement about the scientific implications of the find,' says Wellner, a marine geologist at the University of Houston in Texas.
Thwaites Glacier is in West Antarctica and is sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier due to its potential impact on global sea levels
Climate scientist Peter Neff examined the new images and satellite data to try and determine how long it has been uncovered for.
He said it looks like 'Sif Island' has been slowly revealed since about 2010.
The THOR project is an international mission tasked with studying the stability of the massive Thwaites glacier in Pine Island Bay, Western Antarctica.
Researchers say the melting ice on the new rock will help them better determine how quickly changes are happening and what this means for the glacier.
Ships rarely travel as far south as the Palmer so the crew are likely the first to discover the island and may be the first humans to step foot on its rocky shore
'New islands emerging as ice sheets retreat is not particularly surprising', Paul Cutler, a programme director in glaciology at the US National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia told Nature News.
'New islands have appeared over the past few years in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland' but this is 'an exciting opportunity to piece together the geological history of a vastly under-studied region of Earth'.
The new discovery comes as NASA recorded a record high temperature for the continent - at 64 degrees Fahrenheit with melted ice spotted from space.
This is also not the first island in Antarctica to be effected by rising temperatures.
The island is big enough for satellites to spot from space but the never before seen island has previously been hidden under thick layers of ice
Satellite images last week revealed 20 per cent of snow on Eagle Island melted in just 10 days due to the extreme temperatures.
The warm spell began on February 5 and ran through to February 13, peaking on February 6, with temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula reaching 64.9°F (18.3°C).
'I haven’t seen melt ponds develop this quickly in Antarctica,' said glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College in Massachusetts.
'You see these kinds of melt events in Alaska and Greenland, but not usually in Antarctica.'
Sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier due to the potential impact its collapse could have on sea levels, Thwaites is unusually broad and fast.
Already, Thwaites accounts for about four per cent of global sea-level rise as warming waters cause it to melt from the underside.
Researchers have long held concerns that a tipping point in the stability at its foundations could result in a run-away collapse of the glacier.
There are multiple teams studying the glacier at the moment to determine the risk it poses to global sea levels and the newly uncovered island will feed into that work.
HOW MUCH WILL SEA LEVELS RISE IN THE NEXT FEW CENTURIES?
Global sea levels could rise as much as 1.2 metres (4 feet) by 2300 even if we meet the 2015 Paris climate goals, scientists have warned.
The long-term change will be driven by a thaw of ice from Greenland to Antarctica that is set to re-draw global coastlines.
Sea level rise threatens cities from Shanghai to London, to low-lying swathes of Florida or Bangladesh, and to entire nations such as the Maldives.
It is vital that we curb emissions as soon as possible to avoid an even greater rise, a German-led team of researchers said in a new report.
By 2300, the report projected that sea levels would gain by 0.7-1.2 metres, even if almost 200 nations fully meet goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Targets set by the accords include cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in the second half of this century.
Ocean levels will rise inexorably because heat-trapping industrial gases already emitted will linger in the atmosphere, melting more ice, it said.
In addition, water naturally expands as it warms above four degrees Celsius (39.2°F).
Every five years of delay beyond 2020 in peaking global emissions would mean an extra 20 centimetres (8 inches) of sea level rise by 2300.
'Sea level is often communicated as a really slow process that you can't do much about ... but the next 30 years really matter,' lead author Dr Matthias Mengel, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Potsdam, Germany, told Reuters.
None of the nearly 200 governments to sign the Paris Accords are on track to meet its pledges.
KLIMAATVERANDERING ONTHULT GLOEDNIEUW EILAND VOOR DE KUST VAN ANTARCTICA
KLIMAATVERANDERING ONTHULT GLOEDNIEUW EILAND VOOR DE KUST VAN ANTARCTICA
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het ons tot voor kort onbekende eiland was altijd bedekt met een dikke laag ijs, die door de opwarming van het gebied nu grotendeels is verdwenen.
Het eiland bevindt zich in de Pine Island-baai, die weer onderdeel uitmaakt van de Amundsenzee, gelegen voor de kust van West-Antarctica. In deze baai komen onder meer de beruchte Pine Island- en Thwaites-gletsjer uit. Beide gletsjers zijn de laatste tijd vaak in het nieuws door de snelle veranderingen die ze ondergaan. Zo laat de Pine Island-gletsjer regelmatig grote brokken ijs los en is de grote, snel smeltende Thwaites-gletsjer momenteel reeds verantwoordelijk voor zo’n 4% van de wereldwijde zeespiegelstijging.
International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration Wetenschappers houden de laatstgenoemde gletsjer – niet in de laatste plaats omdat deze in zijn eentje een zeespiegelstijging van zo’n 65 centimeter kan veroorzaken – nauwlettend in de gaten. En er werd zelfs een expeditie opgezet die helemaal om deze gletsjer en zijn omgeving draait. De International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration doet momenteel ter plekke onderzoek naar de stabiliteit van de gletsjer en de bijdrage die deze gletsjer en omgeving kan leveren aan de wereldwijde zeespiegel. Zo werden er eind vorig en begin van dit jaar diepe gaten in de gletsjer geboord, wat leidde tot de ontdekking van warm water dat het ijs van onderaf aantast en zo waarschijnlijk bijdraagt aan de versnelde smelt van de gletsjer die zich qua oppervlakte grofweg kan meten met Groot-Brittannië.
Nieuw eiland Wetenschappers die aan deze belangrijke onderzoeksexpeditie deelnemen, hadden – afgaand op wat we van de Thwaites-gletsjer weten – ongetwijfeld wel verwacht getuige te zijn van grote en snelle veranderingen in het gebied. Maar dat ze er op een gloednieuw eiland zouden stuiten..dat had niemand zien aankomen.
Sif De onderzoekers hebben het eiland ‘Sif-eiland’ gedoopt. “Ons project (dat onder de vlag van de International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration valt, red.) draagt de naam THwaites Offshore Research, of kortweg Thor,” vertelt onderzoeker Julia Wellner, vanuit Antarctica aan Scientias.nl. “Thor is een Noorse God en zijn vrouw Sif is de godin van de aarde. Haar naam leek goed te passen bij een stukje land dat we tijdens ons project hebben ontdekt.” Wellner is voornemens om de naam – na terugkeer in de bewoonde wereld – officieel in te dienen en hoopt dat deze door instanties bevoegd om het eiland een naam te geven, wordt omarmd. “Ik hoop dat Sif blijft hangen.”
Op Sif Natuurlijk hebben de onderzoekers kort na de ontdekking van het eiland hun werk even neergelegd om het eilandje te bezoeken. Daarmee zijn ze niet alleen de ontdekkers van het eiland, maar waarschijnlijk ook de eerste mensen die het eiland hebben bezocht. “Het eiland was in het verleden bedekt door een ijsplaat: gletsjerijs dat richting de oceaan is gestroomd en op het water is gaan drijven,” zo vertelt Wellner. “Het eiland lag altijd al boven de zeespiegel, maar we hebben het nooit gezien, omdat het onder het ijs lag. De ijsplaat heeft zich in de laatste jaren echter teruggetrokken, waardoor het eiland bloot is komen te liggen.”
Opwarming Onderzoek ter plaatse wijst uit dat het eiland nu slechts nog wat restjes van die ijsplaat herbergt. Het is allemaal zeer waarschijnlijk te herleiden naar de opwarming van de aarde, aldus Wellner. “De Thwaites-gletsjer is de snelst veranderende ijsmassa op West-Antarctica en de reden dat we hier zijn. Dus we wisten al dat het ijs zich hier terugtrekt. Dat is dan ook geen verrassing. Maar het eiland is dat wel.”
Julia Smith Wellner@houston_wellner
After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals. Photos by CD Hillenbrand (BAS) and Laura Taylor (UH). @glacierthwaites@glacieroffshore@GAViglione#nbp2002@BAS_News@UHEAS
Waardevol En de ontdekking van het eiland kan wel eens heel waardevol blijken te zijn voor de missie van Wellner en collega’s. Ze hebben namelijk goede hoop dat het eiland meer kan vertellen over hoe het gebied er in het verleden uitzag en door de tijd heen veranderd is. Daarom hebben ze op het eiland onder meer al enkele stenen verzameld die later uitgebreid geanalyseerd kunnen worden. “Eén van de belangrijkste dingen die we zullen gaan doen, is het dateren van de periode waarin de gesteenten blootlagen. We willen achterhalen of ze in de laatste 100 of 1000 of 10.000 jaren ook al eens ijsvrij zijn geweest en zo meer te weten komen over hoe het ijs zich in het verleden heeft gedragen.”
Het komt niet elke dag voor dat onderzoekers een nieuw eiland ontdekken. Maar Wellner sluit niet uit dat het in de toekomst nog wel vaker gebeurt. “Het is zeker mogelijk dat er doordat het ijs zich steeds sneller terugtrekt, meer nieuwe eilanden worden ontdekt.”
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Julia Wellner Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Gui Bortolotto
DIT LIJKT EEN ONDERGRONDSE TUNNEL OP MARS TE ZIJN - EN WIE WEET WAT ER BINNEN TE VINDEN IS
DIT LIJKT EEN ONDERGRONDSE TUNNEL OP MARS TE ZIJN - EN WIE WEET WAT ER BINNEN TE VINDEN IS
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het gaat mogelijk om een lavatunnel waarin het in een grijs verleden goed toeven was voor eventueel Martiaans leven.
Wie zijn ogen vluchtig over de door HiRISE – een instrument aan boord van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – gemaakte foto laat glijden, ziet misschien enkel een zwarte vlek. Maar in werkelijkheid is het een diepe put, zo blijkt uit een vervolgopname, eveneens gemaakt door HiRISE. En mogelijk zelfs de ingang tot een tunnel die zich wellicht meters of zelfs kilometers onder het oppervlak van Mars uitstrekt.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL / UArizona.
Ontstaan “We weten niet precies hoe de put is ontstaan,” vertelt onderzoeker Rosse Beyer, verbonden aan het NASA Ames Research Center. “Maar we denken dat deze op dezelfde manier ontstaan is als de putten die we in lavatunnels zien in vulkanische gebieden op aarde, zoals op Hawaii.” De tunnels waar Beyer naar verwijst, ontstaan tijdens erupties, waarbij lava zich ondergronds een weg baant en het oppervlak van de lavastroom afkoelt en als het ware een korst vormt, waaronder het warme, vloeibare lava kan blijven stromen. “Wanneer de vulkanische activiteit tot een einde komt, lopen deze grote tunnels leeg. Naarmate de tijd vordert, kan natuurlijke erosie ervoor zorgen dat een deel van de tunnel dat zich dicht bij het oppervlak bevindt, instort. Zo’n gat in het dak van de tunnel wordt ook wel een ‘skylight‘ genoemd. Van bovenaf gezien lijkt het een diepe put, tot je erin gaat en ziet dat een tunnel zich vanuit deze put in twee richtingen uitstrekt.”
Op de beelden die HiRISE heeft gemaakt, is niet goed te zien of we hier met zo’n ‘skylight‘ in een lavatunnel te maken hebben. In de wanden van de put die HiRISE in beeld heeft gebracht, zijn geen openingen te vinden. Maar wellicht bevinden die zich in de wanden die HIRISE niet kan zien. Beyer acht het in ieder geval heel aannemelijk dat we bij afdaling in deze put vertakkingen vinden die zich verder onder het oppervlak van Mars uitstrekken. “De put lijkt heel diep en afgaand op het feit dat deze zich bevindt in een gebied dat ooit vulkanisch actief was, denken we dat het wel om een ‘skylight‘ in een lavatunnel gaat.”
Afmetingen De put is ovaalvormig en zo’n 180 bij 114 meter groot. Van de diepte kan Beyer in dit stadium slechts een voorzichtige inschatting maken. “We weten waar de zon zich bevond (toen deze foto’s gemaakt werden, red.) en aangezien het zonlicht de bodem van de put niet raakt, moet deze zeker 100 meter diep zijn.”
Leven in een lavatunnel Voor onderzoekers zijn deze diepe putten en tunnels – waarvan er al meerdere op Mars, maar ook op de maan zijn aangetroffen – heel interessant. “Meer te weten komen over grotten op Mars en de maan is vanuit een geologisch standpunt heel nuttig, zeker als je beter wilt begrijpen hoe deze werelden door de tijd heen veranderd zijn.” Daarnaast worden de grotten ook wel gezien als een geschikte leefplek voor toekomstige Mars- en maankolonisten. “Waar aardse kolonisten op bijvoorbeeld Mars onder meer mee te maken krijgen, zijn extreem lage temperaturen en het feit dat Mars geen sterk magnetisch veld of een dikke atmosfeer heeft. De combinatie van de aardatmosfeer en het aardmagnetisch veld beschermt ons tegen zonnevlammen en kosmische straling, maar Mars heeft dat dus niet. Als je een leefgebied in een grot zou kunnen creëren, zou de temperatuur wat stabieler zijn; net zoals grotten op aarde een constante temperatuur hebben, zouden ook grotten op Mars dat hebben (ze zijn wel wat kouder dan op aarde, maar de temperatuur schommelt in ieder geval niet enorm). Verder zou ondergrondse huisvesting ook extra bescherming bieden tegen zonnevlammen en kosmische straling.”
Of we toekomstige Marskolonisten in de toekomst in deze lavatunnels aan gaan treffen, is – ondanks de ogenschijnlijke voordelen van een leven ondergronds – echter nog niet zeker. “Eén van de redenen dat we op aarde niet in grotten wonen, is het feit dat het wat onhandig is. En datzelfde zullen we op Mars zien; toegang krijgen tot deze lavatunnels kan wel eens lastig zijn en mogelijk bevinden ze zich ook niet in gebieden waar Marskolonisten willen zijn.”
Als het leven in deze lavatunnels – even afgezien van hun toegankelijkheid – voor ons vrij behaaglijk is, kan het dat natuurlijk ook zijn voor andere, buitenaardse levensvormen. En dat is nóg een reden om deze putten en tunnels eens van dichtbij te bekijken. “Het kunnen goede plekken zijn om te zoeken naar leven,” bevestigt Beyer. “We weten dat grotten op aarde vaak ook florerende ecosystemen kennen.” Maar hij wil daar wel een belangrijke kanttekening bij plaatsen. “Op aarde zien we vrijwel overal waar we kijken, leven en op Mars niet.” Met dat in het achterhoofd acht Beyer het niet zo heel waarschijnlijk dat we in deze grotten sporen van levende Martianen aan gaan treffen. “Misschien is het wel waarschijnlijker dat we er bewijs vinden van vergaan Martiaans leven, uit een tijdperk waarin de omstandigheden voor leven wat gunstiger waren.” Maar ook dat zou natuurlijk wereldnieuws zijn.
Bronmateriaal:
"Staring into a Pit" - HiRISE Interview met Ross Beyer Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: NASA / JPL / UArizona
Time Travel Technology is Real and We Can See The Future Now
Time Travel Technology is Real and We Can See The Future Now
Lurking deep within Einstein’s theories lie the secrets of time travel. We are all subject to the arrow of time as it perpetually pulls us forward into the future. Present moments crumble away into past memories and become times never to be seen or experienced again.
For some, this is simply not acceptable. Theoretical Physicist Ron Mallett explains the reality of time travel technology that we could see in the near future.
Researchers have found over 300 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), minor planets that are located in the far reaches of the solar system, including more than 100 new discoveries according to a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.
The team of researchers, led by graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and professors Gary Bernstein and Masao Sako, believe that the latest findings could aid future searches for the hypothetical Planet Nine and other undiscovered planets as the study describes a new approach to finding similar objects.
Pixabay
Usage of Dark Energy Survey
The researchers used the data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which completed six years of data collection in January, to discover the TNOs. However as DES was designed to study galaxies and supernovas, the researchers had to develop a new way to track the movement. The experts said that the dedicated TNO surveys take measurements as frequently as every hour or two, which allow researchers to more easily track their movements.
Pedro Bernardinelli said: "Dedicated TNO surveys have a way of seeing the object move, and it's easy to track them down. One of the key things we did in this paper was figure out a way to recover those movements."
Chances of finding 500 new TNOs
After several months of method-development and analysis, the researchers found 316 TNOs, including 245 discoveries made by DES and 139 new objects that were not previously published. Pluto, the best-known TNO, is 40 times farther away from the sun than the Earth is, and the TNOs found using the DES data range from 30 to 90 times the Earth's distance from the sun. Some of these objects are on extremely long-distance orbits that will carry them far beyond Pluto.
The researchers said that there are chances of finding new TNOs, possibly as many as 500, based on the data estimates, in the near future.
300 New Minor Planets Found Beyond Neptune in Our Solar System, Hunt for Planet X Continues
300 New Minor Planets Found Beyond Neptune in Our Solar System, Hunt for Planet X Continues
This updated catalog of trans-Neptunian objects and the methods used to find them could aid in future searches for undiscovered planets in the far reaches of the solar system.
Using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), researchers have found more than 300 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), minor planets located in the far reaches of the solar system, including more than 100 new discoveries. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, the study also describes a new approach for finding similar types of objects and could aid future searches for the hypothetical Planet Nine and other undiscovered planets. The work was led by graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and professors Gary Bernstein and Masao Sako.
The goal of DES, which completed six years of data collection in January, is to understand the nature of dark energy by collecting high-precision images of the southern sky. While DES wasn’t specifically designed with TNOs in mind, its breadth and depth of coverage made it particularly adept at finding new objects beyond Neptune. “The number of TNOs you can find depends on how much of the sky you look at and what’s the faintest thing you can find,” says Bernstein.
Because DES was designed to study galaxies and supernovas, the researchers had to develop a new way to track movement. Dedicated TNO surveys take measurements as frequently as every hour or two, which allows researchers to more easily track their movements. “Dedicated TNO surveys have a way of seeing the object move, and it’s easy to track them down,” says Bernardinelli. “One of the key things we did in this paper was figure out a way to recover those movements.”
Using the first four years of DES data, Bernardinelli started with a dataset of 7 billion “dots,” all of the possible objects detected by the software that were above the image’s background levels. He then removed any objects that were present on multiple nights—things like stars, galaxies, and supernova—to build a “transient” list of 22 million objects before commencing a massive game of “connect the dots,” looking for nearby pairs or triplets of detected objects to help determine where the object would appear on subsequent nights.
With the 7 billion dots whittled down to a list of around 400 candidates that were seen over at least six nights of observation, the researchers then had to verify their results. “We have this list of candidates, and then we have to make sure that our candidates are actually real things,” Bernardinelli says.
To filter their list of candidates down to actual TNOs, the researchers went back to the original dataset to see if they could find more images of the object in question. “Say we found something on six different nights,” Bernstein says. “For TNOs that are there, we actually pointed at them for 25 different nights. That means there’s images where that object should be, but it didn’t make it through the first step of being called a dot.”
Bernardinelli developed a way to stack multiple images to create a sharper view, which helped confirm whether a detected object was a real TNO. They also verified that their method was able to spot known TNOs in the areas of the sky being studied and that they were able to spot fake objects that were injected into the analysis. “The most difficult part was trying to make sure that we were finding what we were supposed to find,” says Bernardinelli.
After many months of method-development and analysis, the researchers found 316 TNOs, including 245 discoveries made by DES and 139 new objects that were not previously published. With only 3,000 objects currently known, this DES catalog represents 10% of all known TNOs. Pluto, the best-known TNO, is 40 times farther away from the sun than Earth is, and the TNOs found using the DES data range from 30 to 90 times Earth’s distance from the sun. Some of these objects are on extremely long-distance orbits that will carry them far beyond Pluto.
The location of the objects found in the first four years of DES data. The outline shows DES’s search range and the color of each dot shows how far away the object is in astronomical unit (with one AU the equivalent of 93 million miles). Two of the detections were more than 90 AU, or over 8 billion miles away.
(Image: Pedro Bernardinelli)
Now that DES is complete, the researchers are rerunning their analysis on the entire DES dataset, this time with a lower threshold for object detection at the first filtering stage. This means that there’s an even greater potential for finding new TNOs, possibly as many as 500, based on the researchers’ estimates, in the near future.
The method developed by Bernardinelli can also be used to search for TNOs in upcoming astronomy surveys, including the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This observatory will survey the entire southern sky and will be able to detect even fainter and more distant objects than DES. “Many of the programs we’ve developed can be easily applied to any other large datasets, such as what the Rubin Observatory will produce,” says Bernardinelli.
This catalog of TNOs will also be a useful scientific tool for research about the solar system. Because DES collects a wide spectrum of data on each detected object, researchers can attempt to figure out where the TNO originated from, since objects that form more closely to the Sun have are expected to have different colors than those that originated in more distant and colder locations. And, by studying the orbits of these objects, researchers might be one step closer to finding Planet Nine, a hypothesized Neptune-sized planet that’s thought to exist beyond Pluto.
“There are lots of ideas about giant planets that used to be in the solar system and aren’t there anymore, or planets that are far away and massive but too faint for us to have noticed yet,” says Bernstein. “Making the catalog is the fun discovery part. Then when you create this resource; you can compare what you did find to what somebody’s theory said you should find.”
The Dark Energy Survey is supported by funding from the United States Department of Energy Office of Science; the National Science Foundation; funding agencies in the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and Switzerland; and the participating institutions. A complete list of funding organizations and collaborating institutions is at The Dark Energy Survey website.
Other Penn researchers and graduates involved in this study are Matthew Belyakov, Dillon Brout, Tongtian Liu, Jennifer Locke, William Saunders, Lakshay Sharma, and Aditya Inada Somasundaram. The preprint version of this research article is available on ArXiv.
This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants AST-1515804 and AST-1615555 and Department of Energy grant DE-SC0007901.
Contacts and sources:
Erica K. Brockmeier
University of Pennsylvania
Publication:
Trans-Neptunian Objects Found in the First Four Years of the Dark Energy Survey. Pedro H. Bernardinelli, Gary M. Bernstein, Masao Sako, Tongtian Liu, William R. Saunders, Tali Khain, Hsing Wen Lin, David W. Gerdes, Dillon Brout, Fred C. Adams, Matthew Belyakov, Aditya Inada Somasundaram, Lakshay Sharma, Jennifer Locke, Kyle Franson, Juliette C. Becker, Kevin Napier, Larissa Markwardt, James Annis, T. M. C. Abbott, S. Avila, D. Brooks, D. L. Burke, A. Carnero Rosell, M. Carrasco Kind, F. J. Castander, L. N. da Costa, J. De Vicente, S. Desai, H. T. Diehl, P. Doel, S. Everett, B. Flaugher, J. García-Bellido, D. Gruen, R. A. Gruendl, J. Gschwend, G. Gutierrez, D. L. Hollowood, D. J. James, M. W. G. Johnson, M. D. Johnson, E. Krause, N. Kuropatkin, M. A. G. Maia, M. March, R. Miquel, F. Paz-Chinchón, A. A. Plazas, A. K. Romer, E. S. Rykoff, C. Sánchez, E. Sanchez, V. Scarpine, S. Serrano, I. Sevilla-Noarbe, M. Smith, F. Sobreira, E. Suchyta, M. E. C. Swanson, G. Tarle, A. R. Walker, W. Wester, Y. Zhang. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2020; 247 (1): 32 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/ab6bd8
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