Studying the End of the World: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Throughout the history of civilization, the concept of the apocalypse has been ever present, in one way or another. The envisioned revelation, the feared end of the world that will herald an age of purification through horrific and chaotic means, has been a part of every major religion and belief throughout the centuries. But one of the most interesting prophecies relates to the famous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which are described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.

“…and behold, a black horse…”

Today we’re bringing you this concept in detail. Together we will envision this end of the world, this crumbling of civilizations at the hands of War, Famine, Pestilence, and Disease, and dissect this prophecy and its various interpretations throughout history.

Could there be a speck of truth in this vision? Did the Four Horsemen already thunder across the fields of the earth? Let’s find out.

When Seven Trumpets Shall Sound! The Origins of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

In the New Testament – the second part of the Bible – and in its last book, which is called the Book of Revelation, written by John the Theologian of Patmos, there is a chapter which relates to us the story of a doomsday revelation, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse which descend on the earth to decimate the population.

Each of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse represent different aspects of the cleansing of the earth, by Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov.

(Rillke / Public Domain )

The most straightforward and widely agreed interpretation of this chapter is the description of a period in history when a large part of earth’s population would perish through a combination of wars, diseases, and hunger. In the Bible, these hardships are described as horsemen, riding in succession at the behest of Jesus, in the form of the Lamb of God. This title comes from the Bible, John 1:29, when John the Baptist exclaims: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

The chapter begins by describing a divine scroll, held by God in his right hand, and sealed with seven seals. Their opening, and the subsequent apocalypse, would usher the second coming of Jesus.

Each one of these seven seals represent a different aspect of the apocalypse: the first four relate to the horsemen, the fifth releases the martyr’s cries for the God’s wrath , the sixth ushers a series of cataclysmic natural disasters, while the seventh calls forth the seven angelic trumpeters, who carry seven vials of plagues and divine wrath, which they pour out on the sinful and the wicked. The Lamb of God, being worthy to open the first four seals, does so, and summons forth, one after another, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, setting in motion the ferocious cleansing of the earth.

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The Lamb opening the book/scroll with seven seals. The first four seals summons the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

(Batchheizer / Public Domain )

The White Horseman of the Apocalypse

“And I saw and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”

– Revelation, 6:2

Throughout history, various sources often explained the first rider in various different ways, since his role is the only one not explicitly stated. While most interpreters agreed that the white rider symbolizes disease and pestilence, it wasn’t always the usual claim. There is a widely attested description that places this white horseman as a metaphor for righteousness.

In a world where sin is rampant, a righteous harbinger of justice and righteousness would seem a fitting purifier in an apocalypse. The crown that was “given unto him” could signify the rule of justice above all, or symbolize a truly just leader, if such a one can exist.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

28-03-2020 om 18:49 geschreven door peter  

The Four Horsemen are figures in Christian theology, appearing in the New Testament's final book, Revelation, an apocalypse written by John of Patmos, as well as in the Old Testament's prophetic Book of Zechariah, and in the Book of Ezekiel, where they are named as punishments from God.

In John's revelation:

• The first horseman is on a white horse, carrying a bow, and given a crown, riding forward as a figure of Conques perhaps invoking Pestilence, Deadly Epidemic.
  
• The second carries a sword and rides a red horse and is the creator of War.
  
• The third is a food merchant riding upon a black horse, symbolizing Famine.
  
• The fourth and final horse is pale green, and upon it rides Death accompanied by Hades. They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth.
  
  

With the current corona (covid 19) virus, the fight against this invisible enemy, despite the attempts to stop the invisible enemy the rider on the red horse slays a great number of people.

Next the rider on the black horse arrives, with the world under lockdown and a looming recession, resulting in high unemployment and bankruptcy of many factories and stores which may lead to a shortage of food supplies ultimately resulting in anarchy then Death accompanied by Hades arrive upon the pale green horse.

How true can it be.

Videos, selected by peter2011

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

28-03-2020 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

Naked Science – Alien Contact

Just for a moment, imagine a universe awash with life, where we humans are not the only intelligent beings around. What might these alien races look like? Could we communicate with them, or even recognise them as intelligent? And what would they make of our violent and dangerous species?

Might they take one look, and decide not to bother with such primitive beings? A planetary nursery filled with spiteful, galactic infants. On the other hand, in our imaginary scenario, they may enrich us with scientific knowledge beyond our imagination. Or could an encounter with aliens have a more destructive outcome? It could be a bad day for human kind.

But relax, it’s just make believe, it could never happen, could it? A mysterious crash in Roswell, New Mexico during the 1940s convinced many that our planet is being visited by space aliens. Crop circles in Britain have only added fuel to the fire. Few scientists doubt that life indeed exists elsewhere, but some believe we’re more likely to make contact via radio waves. Join the search for extra-terrestrials and hear from scientists who think we are on the verge of making contact.

other videos, peter2011

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

28-03-2020 om 17:34 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre UFOs filmed releasing orbs over St. Petersburg, Russia 25-Mar-2020

This UFO video was taken over a period of time starting at 8:26PM over St. Petersburg, Russia. At first we see the object in a straight line but after some time the objects group together and begin to drop Orbs to the ground below, upon doing this the witness zooms in on the object and it is in the classic tight triangle formation and just stays there for a while.

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

28-03-2020 om 17:03 geschreven door peter  

Nilometers: Ancient Egypt’s Ingenious Invention Used Until Modern Times

For thousands of years, nilometers measured the water level of the Nile River during the annual flood season. This, in turn, was used to predict the fortunes of the annual harvest, the taxes to be imposed (which determined the revenues of the state), as well as the prices of foodstuffs. Therefore, the nilometer was a vital instrument for the ancient Egyptian civilization. The significance of the nilometer is evident in the fact that even after Egypt was conquered by foreign powers, nilometers continued to be utilized. As a matter of fact, the nilometer only became obsolete during the 20 ^th century, when the Aswan High Dam was completed.

The Nilometers of the Nile

It is well-known that the Nile was the lifeline of ancient Egypt. The Greek historian Herodotus, for instance, referred to Egypt as the “gift of the Nile.” The river not only enabled intensive cultivation along its banks but was also used as a means of transport. The annual flooding of the Nile was the river’s most important natural phenomenon, as it helped to fertilize the agricultural land in the delta by depositing millions of tons of silt each year. In addition, the inundation of the Nile also served to determine when certain religious and civil festivals were to be celebrated, thereby regulating the rhythm of life in ancient Egypt.     

The annual flood season of the Nile lasted from July to October and was caused by the summer monsoon rains over the Ethiopian Plateau. The rainwater flows from the highlands into the Nile via its tributaries, including the Blue Nile and the Atbarah River. The water level of the Nile reaches its peak around the end of August, and this level is maintained till early October, after which it gradually goes down.

In addition to the timing of the annual flood, the amount of water brought by the floods was also a crucial aspect of this natural phenomenon. Too much or too little water would have had a negative impact on the lives of those who depended on the river. Therefore, the ancient Egyptians invented the nilometer, a device that measured the water level of the Nile during the annual flooding.

Drawing of a measuring shaft inside of a nilometer from page 88 of “Up the Nile, and home again. A handbook for travelers and a travel-book for the library,” 1862).

(Internet Archive Book Images / Public domain )

As the nilometer was such an extremely important instrument, it would be reasonable to expect that many of them were built by the ancient Egyptians. Today, however, there are not many examples of the device remaining. According to an article published by National Geographic in 2016, “fewer than two dozen of the devices are known to exist”. It seems likely that some nilometers were destroyed by natural disasters, and not rebuilt. Others were simply not maintained, and left to fall into ruin.

This is the case, for instance, of the nilometer of Helwan, a city to the south of Cairo, on the bank of the Nile opposite the ruins of Memphis. This nilometer is recorded to have been restored or built in 699 AD, about half a century after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. By 714 AD, however, the nilometer was in such a bad state that the Umayyad caliph, Al-Walid I, ordered the governor of Egypt to build a new nilometer.

The Roda Island Nilometer

The new nilometer was built on Roda (or Rhoda / Rawdah) Island, not far from Fustat, Egypt’s capital at that point in time. The island has been an important location since pharaonic times, and served many functions over its long history, including a port, an arsenal, a fortress and a rich garden.  

The island’s nilometer, which may be referred to as the Roda nilometer, is located on the southern tip of the island, and is perhaps the most famous example of this ancient device. It may be mentioned the original 8 ^th century nilometer was destroyed by a flood around 850 AD. A new one, however, was built shortly after the disaster, and is the one that is still standing today.

The current Roda nilometer was designed by the astronomer Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farqhani (known also as Alfraganus in the West). The nilometer has been restored on various occasions, for instance, once between 872 and 873 AD, and again in 1092 AD. Restoration had also been carried out during the Ottoman period, as well as in more recent times.

Ceiling of the nilometer building, an Umayyad era Egyptian water measurement construction, used to measure the level of the Nile, located on Roda Island, River Nile, Cairo, Egypt.

( Khaled El-Adawi / Adobe stock)

The Roda nilometer consists of two main elements – a well and a column. The well is a 10 m (32.8 ft) wide and square-hole-dug to a depth of 13 m (42.7 ft). One of the challenges that faced the builders of this nilometer was the nature of the ground that they had to work with. In order to create the well, at least 1300 m ³ (4265 ft) of earth and clay had to be removed.

Having done that, the builders needed to stabilize the structure, and to prevent it from sinking into the clay. This was achieved by raising the structure on a foundation of thick tree trunks. The well is lined with stone, and is accessible via a staircase on its interior walls. The well, which is circular at the bottom, but rectangular at the top, has three stories, each having an opening turned towards a different direction. These openings are connected to the Nile through tunnels, and therefore allow water to enter the well during the annual flood season.  

How Much was a Good Flood?

The octagonal column is the part of the nilometer that is used to measure the water level of the Nile during its inundation. This column is made of marble, and is set in the center of the well. It is topped with a Corinthian column, and held in place by a wooden beam on the top that spans the nilometer. The column is graded, and is divided into 19 Egyptian cubits, each cubit being about 50 m (164 ft). Therefore, this nilometer was able to measure floods up to about 9.5 m (31.2 ft).

The well of the nilometer at Kom Ombo in Egypt.

Source: Claudio Caridi / Adobe stock

19 cubits of water, however, meant that Egypt was facing severe flooding. When such a situation occurred, children wearing yellow turbans would run in the streets to alert the population of Cairo of the impending disaster. On the other hand, 12 cubits of water was too little, and was a sign that the country would be facing a famine that year. 16 cubits was the ideal amount of flood water that was needed for a bountiful harvest. The Nile’s flood level can also be read using the staircase on the well’s interior walls. The staircase consists of 45 steps, each of which is 24 cm (9.4 in) high. Therefore, the level of the flood waters can be easily calculated by this means.

It may be mentioned that the definition of a ‘good flood level’ was not the same through the ages. The Greek geographer Strabo, for example, wrote that before the time of Petronius (the Roman prefect of Egypt in the 20s BC), “the crop was the largest and the rise the highest when the Nile would rise to fourteen cubits, and when it would rise to only eight a famine would ensue;”. During the time of Petronius, however, “when the nilometer registered only twelve cubits, the crop was the largest, and once, when it registered only eight cubits, no one felt hunger.”    

The Roda nilometer was once covered by a conical dome, which was unfortunately destroyed during the French occupation of Egypt. Fortunately, the scientific mission that accompanied the French expedition made careful and thorough descriptions of the Roda nilometer, including its architecture. Thanks to these records, it was possible to make a reconstruction of the dome. The current structure dates to the reign of Farouk I, the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan.

Reconstructed conical structure over the nilometer on the southern tip of Roda Island on the Nile River at Cairo.

(Prong hunter / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Nilometers from Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Times

One of the differences between the Roda nilometer and its predecessors from the pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods is that the former was not within the compound of a religious structure. Although there is a mosque near the Roda nilometer, this was only built later on, i.e. during the 11 ^th century.

On the other hand, pharaonic and Greco-Roman nilometers were commonly associated with temples, and were therefore under the control of priests. By accurately predicting the flood level of the Nile, the priests must have looked as though they were performing magic, and would have surely impressed the general population.

One of the temples in which a nilometer has been found is the Temple of Kom Ombo, located 48 km (30 mi) to the north of Aswan. This temple was built during the Ptolemaic period, and is unusual for being a double temple. This means that the temple was dedicated equally to two gods – Sobek and Horus, which is reflected in the temple’s perfect symmetry along its main axis. In any case, the nilometer is located within the compound of the temple, though not in the temple itself.

The outside of the nilometer’s well at Kom Ombo.

(JMCC1 / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

The Kom Ombo nilometer is noticeably different from its counterpart in Roda. Unlike the latter, the former does not have a column. Instead, the Kom Ombo nilometer consists only of a well. Like the well of the Roda nilometer, the one at Kom Ombo also has steps along the walls of its interior, which allowed the flood level of the Nile to be read. A tunnel with an opening in the well connects the nilometer to the Nile, which lies beyond the temple’s walls. At ground level, the nilometer is identified by a small cylindrical wall.

One of the most important nilometers in Egypt is the one in Elephantine, an island opposite the city of Aswan. For much of Egypt’s ancient history, Elephantine was the country’s southernmost city. Therefore, it was here that the first measurements of the Nile’s flood level for the season would be made. Although the current Elephantine nilometer dates to the Roman period, archaeologists believe that this is a restoration, and that the original pieces were replaced at some point in time. It has also been speculated that the original device may have been the oldest nilometer in Egypt.

Nilometer on the southeast side of Elephantine Island in Aswan, Egypt.

(Olaf Tausch / CC BY 3.0 )

Strabo provides a detailed description of the Elephantine nilometer, which is as follows, “ the nilometer is a well on the bank of the Nile constructed with close-fitting stones, in which are marks showing the greatest, least, and mean rises of the Nile; for the water in the well rises and lowers with the river.  Accordingly, there are marks on the wall of the well, measures of the complete rises and of the others.  So when watchers inspect these, they give out word to the rest of the people, so that they may know; for long beforehand they know from such signs and the days what the future rise will be, and reveal it beforehand.  This is useful, not only to the farmers with regard to the water-distribution, embankments, canals, and other things of this kind, but also to the prefects, with regard to the revenues; for the greater rises indicate that the revenues also will be greater.”

• The Nile – Its Fertile Past and Its Imperiled Future
• Ancient structure that measured the Nile for tax purposes uncovered in Egypt
• Volcanic Eruptions and Climate Change Incited Upheaval in Ancient Egypt - and Historians Warn of Repetition

The Construction of the Dam Changed it All

Whilst Egypt came to be ruled by different powers over the course of its long history, the nilometer continued to serve its function. In fact, the collection of taxes based on the level of the Nile’s flooding is recorded to have lasted until the middle of the 20 ^th century. The nilometer eventually became obsolete when the construction of the Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970 (and formally dedicated in the following year).

The building of the dam marked a big shift in the relationship between the Nile and the people who lived along its banks. For the first time in Egypt’s history, it was man who controlled the annual flooding of the Nile. The Aswan High Dam allowed the floodwaters to be stored in a reservoir, and released only when needed. On the other hand, one of the negative effects of the Aswan High Dam is that silt, which was brought by the annual floods, no longer reached Egypt’s agricultural lands, thereby gradually reducing their fertility.

Although nilometers no longer serve their original function, they have not been abandoned. Instead, they have found new life as both cultural heritage and tourist attractions. The Roda nilometer, for example, has been nominated by the Egyptian government as a UNESCO World Heritage Site , and is currently on its Tentative List.

• Top image: The inside of measuring shaft of the Roda nilometer. (Baldiri / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

By: Wu Mingren                   

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

28-03-2020 om 01:59 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Egyptian Blue Pigment Revolutionizes Biomedicine

A German research team has produced new nanosheets for near infrared imaging from ancient ‘Egyptian blue pigment’.

In October 2018, I wrote an Ancient Origins article about Egyptian blue, a brilliant blue color first created in ancient Egypt over 4000 years ago and used to adorn the crown of the world famous bust of Nefertiti. A team of scientists from the  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory  in California has now found the ancient color holds unique qualities that can not only reduce building energy consumption and boost solar energy output, but it also “increases the output of certain types of solar cells, through strong infra-red emissions.”

The international research team was led by Dr Sebastian Kruss from the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Göttingen , and in a new paper published in the journal  Nature Communications detailing their production of a new “nanomaterial” based on the Egyptian blue pigment. The researchers say Egyptian blue is ideally suited for applications in imaging using “near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and microscopy,” which according to Zeiss is based on the absorption of electromagnetic (EM) radiation when light interacts with a sample and a detector measures its transmittance and absorbance.

The Science Of Egyptian Blue Pigment

Egyptian blue, or properly, “calcium copper silicate,” is one of the earliest artificial pigments created by humans and the oldest known sample is from about 5000 years old, discovered in a tomb painting dated to the reign of Ka-Sen, the last pharaoh of the First Dynasty.

By the time of the New Kingdom, Egyptian blue pigment was an extremely popular and painted onto statues, tomb paintings and sarcophagi. It was also used to produce a ceramic glaze known as ‘Egyptian faience’. And the manufacture of Egyptian blue spread beyond Egypt’s borders across Greece and Rome, leaving its trace on statues from the Parthenon in Athens, and according to an article in Art in Society , 19th century archaeologists discovered Egyptian blue pigment on wall paintings during excavations at Pompeii.

Egyptian blue pigment shabti figures on display in the Egyptian exhibit at the Louvre in France in 2006.

(sataikasia / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 )

Dr. Kruss said microscopy and optical imaging are important tools in basic research and biomedicine, when light relating substances are excited and release “fluorophores” and these substances stain tiny structures in samples, enabling clear resolution using modern microscopes.

Most fluorophores shine in the range of light in the near infrared spectrum with a wavelength starting at “800 nanometers,” penetrating deep into tissue, therefore, fewer distortions are found in images. And so far, according to the new paper, there are only a few known fluorophores that work in the near infrared spectrum.

Ancient Egyptian Blue Nanosheets 

The research team’s big achievement was in exfoliating extremely thin layers from grains of calcium copper silicate, Egyptian blue pigment, and these particular nanosheets are “100,000 times thinner than a human hair” and in the near infrared range, which according to Dr Sebastian Kruss, makes them “ideal for optical imaging.”

Near-infrared image of nanosheets taken from a plant.

( University of Göttingen )

Egyptian blue emits infrared light when red light is shone onto it, and while it’s an extraordinarily powerful and long-lived light, it cannot be seen by the naked eye, being too deep in the infrared range of the light spectrum.

The scientists followed the movement of individual nanosheets in order to visualize mechanical processes in the structure of animal and plant tissues, for example, in the cell nuclei of the fruit fly. Furthermore, the researchers integrated the nanosheets into plants and identified them without a microscope, which the paper says promises future applications in the agricultural industry. And Dr Kruss said the potential for state-of-the-art microscopy from this material means that new findings in biomedical research can be expected in the future.

• Egyptian Blue – The Oldest Known Artificial Pigment
• History Buff Bakes Ancient Egyptian Bread Using 1,500-Year-Old Yeast Scrapings
• Nilometers: Ancient Egypt’s Ingenious Invention Used Until Modern Times

The Long Blue Light Cycle

Egyptian blue has a new role in advanced biomedical imaging with its near-infrared radiation being able to penetrate through tissue more effectively than other wavelengths, and for this same reason, because Egyptian blue splits into ‘nanosheets’ – a thousand times thinner than a human hair – if stirred in warm ater for several days, it might serve as a future communication system as its emissions are similar to those used in remote controls and telecommunication devices.

• Top image: Egyptian blue pigment: the researchers obtained the nanosheets from this powder. ( University of Göttingen

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

28-03-2020 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

A large asteroid ignored social distancing norms over the weekend

An asteroid as wide as a football field passed through the neighborhood.

 Eric Mack 

One large object did not shelter in place over the weekend. 

NASA

Public health officials advise keeping 6 feet (2 meters) of distance from others during the coronavirus pandemic to avoid potential risks. Astronomers also have a standard distance at which an asteroid is considered "potentially hazardous," and on Sunday a space rock as wide as a football field whipped by us 50 times closer than that threshold.

We obviously have enough to worry about right now, so you can breathe easier knowing that despite coming very close by space standards, there was never any threat the asteroid known simply as 2020 FL2 was going to hit Earth. It passed by Sunday at a distance of 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers).

Northolt Branch Obs@NBObservatories

Apollo-type asteroid 2020 FL2. Diamter 15-34m. First observed at Purple Mountain Observatory. Close approach, yesterday, 145,000km. 2020 FL2 was moving at a rapid 1,800 arc-minutes per hour. #SpotTheAsteroid@AsteroidDay @NEOShieldTeam @QHYCCD @RoyalAstroSoc

• 36

2:55 PM - Mar 23, 2020

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For a little context, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is located about 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, the moon is 239,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) away and many large satellites orbit at an altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers). The threshold at which a large asteroid comes close enough to earn the label "potentially hazardous" and warrant monitoring by astronomers is about 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometers).

So 2020 FL2's close flyby is kind of like the solar system equivalent of tying a bunch of boats together for a spring break party during a time when everyone with a brain is calling for social distancing to stop the spread of a pandemic. The difference, I suppose, is that the huge asteroid flying above us at 45,000 mph (72,420 km/h) doesn't actually pose a threat to anyone. 

John Huddy@JohnHuddyTV

Miami party boat and yacht charters still operating. Plenty of jam packed yachts on Biscayne Bay yesterday. Social distancing be damned indeed.

Social distancing be damned: Miami sandbar jampacked despite coronavirus orders

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241404096.html …

Social distancing be damned: Miami sandbar jampacked despite coronavirus orders

UPDATE: After this story published Saturday night, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced the closure of all marinas and boat ramps countywide. He added that the Miami-Dade Police Departm...

miamiherald.com

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2:27 PM - Mar 22, 2020

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2020 FL2 was significantly bigger than most asteroids that pass within the moon's orbit, measuring at between 49 and 112 feet (15-34 meters) across. Normally the space rocks that come close are more like the size of a house appliance or a small vehicle and would likely burn up in our atmosphere if they did impact Earth. 

This asteroid, however, is more on par with the asteroid that wasn't detected until it was exploding in the sky over Russia in 2013, blowing out thousands of windows in the process. 

But again, asteroid 2020 FL2 has already passed by us safely. So please go back to whatever you were doing, as long as you don't do it within 6 feet of me or anyone I know. 

A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2020 FL2 flew past Earth at a distance of 0.38 LD / 0.00099 AU (148 101 km / 92 026 miles) on March 22, 2020. This is the 22^nd known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year and the 3^rd this month.

{ https://www.cnet.com/ } 

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

It's Not an Alien, Says NASA for Millionth Time

BY JENNIFER LEMAN

Credit: NASA

• NASA has debunked theories about a not-so-mysterious smudge on one of its images.
• The smudge in question is just an artifact of light reflected back on the lens.
• UFO hunters can rest easy.

---

For the millionth time, NASA has issued a statement assuring UFO buffs that what they've seen in an image is not, in fact, an alien.

This time, it was a tiny, pinwheel-shaped smudge in an image snapped by the agency's STEREO camera that captured the interest of extraterrestrial enthusiasts.

Credit: NASA

NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Mission is comprised of twin spacecraft that launched in 2006 to study the sun and its weather. Only one of the mission's spacecraft is still operating today.

"The answer lies on the exact opposite side of the image," the STEREO team wrote in the statement. "At the same time as this strange-looking feature starts being visible, the very bright planet Venus enters the HI2-A field-of-view from the left. Notice that Venus and the feature stay in step almost exactly opposite each other across the middle of the detector."

The object, the note continues, is actually a reflection of the planet within the telescope's optics and is a common occurrence. You can actually see the same shape crop up on otherreadings here and here.

Internal reflections of the planet Earth, as seen in the HI2-B telescope on May 5, 2007. Also visible are the Moon, and the planet Mars. Click on the image to see the full-sized version.

The group also released a graphic explaining what exactly you're seeing in the image.

NASA

Maybe you'll have better luck next time, Agent Mulder.

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{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/ }

28-03-2020 om 00:31 geschreven door peter  

27-03-2020 om 23:58 geschreven door peter  

'Einstein's Biggest Blunder' May Have Finally Been Fixed

By Tim Childers - Live Science Contributor 

The cosmological constant has plagued physicists for more than a century.

An illustration of galaxies bending the fabric of space-time (green), and the smooth effect of dark energy (purple), which dominates the effects of gravity.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

There is a fundamental problem in physics. 

A single number, called the cosmological constant, bridges the microscopic world of quantum mechanics and the macroscopic world of Einstein's theory of general relativity. But neither theory can agree on its value. 

In fact, there's such a huge discrepancy between the observed value of  this constant and what theory predicts that it is widely considered the worst prediction in the history of physics. Resolving the discrepancy may be the most important goal of theoretical physics this century.

Lucas Lombriser, an assistant professor of theoretical physics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, has introduced a new way of evaluating Albert Einstein's equations of gravity to find a value for the cosmological constant that closely matches its observed value. He published his method online in the Oct. 10 issue of the journal Physics Letters B. 

• Related: The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

How Einstein's biggest blunder became dark energy

The story of the cosmological constant began more than a century ago when Einstein presented a set of equations, now known as the Einstein field equations, that became the framework of his theory of general relativity. The equations explain how matter and energy warp the fabric of space and time to create the force of gravity. At the time, both Einstein and astronomers agreed that the universe was fixed in size and that the overall space between galaxies did not change. However, when Einstein applied general relativity to the universe as a whole, his theory predicted an unstable universe that would either expand or contract. To force the universe to be static, Einstein tacked on the cosmological constant. 

Nearly a decade later, another physicist, Edwin Hubble, discovered that our universe is not static, but expanding. The light from distant galaxies showed they were all moving away from each other. This revelation persuaded Einstein to abandon the cosmological constant from his field equations as it was no longer necessary to explain an expanding universe. Physics lore has it that Einstein later confessed that his introduction of the cosmological constant was perhaps his greatest blunder.

In 1998, observations of distant supernovas showed the universe wasn't just expanding, but the expansion was speeding up. Galaxies were accelerating away from each other as if some unknown force was overcoming gravity and shoving those galaxies apart. Physicists have named this enigmatic phenomenon dark energy, as its true nature remains a mystery. 

In a twist of irony, physicists once again reintroduced the cosmological constant into Einstein's field equations to account for dark energy. In the current standard model of cosmology, known as ΛCDM (Lambda CDM), the cosmological constant is interchangeable with dark energy. Astronomers have even estimated its value based on observations of distant supernovas and fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Although the value is absurdly small (on the order of 10^-52 per square meter), over the scale of the universe, it is significant enough to explain the accelerated expansion of space.

"The cosmological constant [or dark energy] currently constitutes about 70% of the energy content in our universe, which is what we can infer from the observed accelerated expansion that our universe is presently undergoing. Yet this constant is not understood," Lombriser said. "Attempts to explain it have failed, and there seems to be something fundamental that we are missing in how we understand the cosmos. Unraveling this puzzle is one of the major research areas in modern physics. It is generally anticipated that resolving the issue may lead us to a more fundamental understanding of physics."

• Related: 8 Ways You Can See Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Real Life

The worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics

The cosmological constant is thought to represent what physicists call "vacuum energy." Quantum-field theory states that even in a completely empty vacuum of space, virtual particles pop in and out of existence and create energy — a seemingly absurd idea, but one that has been observed experimentally. The problem arises when physicists attempt to calculate its contribution to the cosmological constant. Their result differs from observations by a mind-boggling factor of 10^121 (that's 10 followed by 120 zeroes), the largest discrepancy between theory and experiment in all of physics.

Such a disparity has caused some physicists to doubt Einstein's original equations of gravity; some have even suggested alternative models of gravity. However, further evidence of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have only strengthened general relativity and dismissed many of these alternative theories. Which is why instead of rethinking gravity, Lombriser took a different approach to solve this cosmic puzzle.

"The mechanism I propose does not modify Einstein's field equations," Lombriser said. Instead, "it adds an additional equation on top of Einstein's field equations."

The gravitational constant, which was first used in Isaac Newton's laws of gravity and now an essential part of Einstein's field equations, describes the magnitude of  the gravitational force between objects. It is considered one of the fundamental constants of physics, eternally unchanged since the beginning of the universe. Lombriser has made the dramatic assumption that this constant can change. 

In Lombriser's modification of general relativity, the gravitational constant remains the same within our observable universe but may vary beyond it. He suggests a multiverse scenario where there may be patches of the universe invisible to us that have different values for the fundamental constants. 

This variation of gravity gave Lombriser an additional equation that relates the cosmological constant to the average sum of matter across space-time. After he accounted for the estimated mass of all the galaxies, stars and dark matter of the universe, he could solve that new equation to obtain a new value for the cosmological constant — one that closely agrees with observations.

Using a new parameter, ΩΛ (omega lambda), that expresses the fraction of the universe made of dark matter, he found the universe is made up of about 74% dark energy. This number closely matches the value of 68.5% estimated from observations — a tremendous improvement over the huge disparity found by quantum field theory.

Although Lombriser's framework might solve the cosmological constant problem, there’s currently no way to test it. But in the future, if experiments from other theories validate his equations,  it could mean a major leap in our understanding of dark energy and provide a tool to solve other cosmic mysteries.

• From Big Bang to Present: Snapshots of Our Universe Through Time
• 11 Fascinating Facts About Our Milky Way Galaxy
• Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events

Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 22:25 geschreven door peter  

Poor old Uranus just can't seem to catch a break. Something already tipped the planet on its side, so its orbit is perpendicular to those of the other Solar System planets. It probably smells terrible. And now scientists have discovered that the atmosphere of Uranus is leaking out into space.

Hidden in the data from Voyager 2's historic 1986 encounter with the icy planet, and undiscovered until now, was the presence of a plasmoid - a pocket of atmospheric material being funnelled away from Uranus by the planet's magnetic field.

It's the first time a plasmoid has been spotted in connection with an ice giant, and it doesn't just show us that Uranus' atmosphere is leaking. It's also revealing some of the dynamics of this planet's peculiar, twisted magnetic field.

Actually, leaky atmospheres aren't that uncommon. It's called atmospheric escape, and it's how Mars, for example, turned from what we think was quite a damp planet into a dusty barren wasteland. Venus is leaking hydrogen. Jupiter's moon Io and Saturn's moon Titan are leaking. Even Earth is losing about 90 tonnes of atmospheric material a day (don't worry, we have around 5,140 trillion tonnes, it will take a long time to completely disappear).

(David Stern, Reviews of Geophysics, 1996)

There are several mechanisms whereby this can occur, and one of those is through plasmoids. These are large, cylindrical bubbles of plasma - ionised gas - bound by magnetic field lines streaming away from the Sun, the region known as the magnetotail. The image above shows what that looks like for Earth.

Ions from the atmosphere are channelled along the magnetic field into this region. When the solar wind causes the magnetic field to break at the side facing the Sun - the bow shock - they whip around and reconnect in the tail, pinching off spinning plasmoids. Some of the ions bounce back towards the planet (producing, on Earth, auroras), and the plasmoid hurtles off in the opposite direction, taking the atmospheric ions with it.

For Earth, that's pretty straightforward and well understood. And there's evidence solar wind tears plasmoids off Mars on a daily basis in a slightly different fashion, since Mars doesn't have a global magnetic field.

But Uranus is a tricky beast of a planet, and let's be honest, its magnetic field is a straight-up mess.

Where Earth's magnetic field is more or less consistent with the planet's orientation, Uranus' is all twisted sideways, with the magnetic poles angled 59 degrees away from the geographic poles. And it's not even centred. If you were to draw a line between those two poles, it would miss the centre of Uranus by quite a large distance.

There's even evidence to suggest that the magnetic field opens at night and closes during the day. Seriously, look at this. Who came up with this.

(Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

It was this mess of a magnetic field that drew the attention of astronomers Gina DiBraccio and Dan Gershman of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who were planning potential planetary missions and thought this particular oddity would be a good starting point.

They were studying the data collected by Voyager 2's magnetometer in January 1986 in higher resolution than any previous research when they noticed a wiggle in the data, a blip in the magnetic field.

They processed the data and came to the conclusion that, yep. Even though Uranus has a weirdly skewed, wobbly magnetic field, that blip did indeed represent a plasmoid, roughly 204,000 kilometres in length and 400,000 kilometres across (127,000 by 250,000 miles), likely full of ionised hydrogen, moving away from the planet.

And this reveals some new information about that magnetic field. According to the researchers' analysis, it shows that Uranus' magnetic field reconnects at the tail, like Earth's. It also suggests that internal forces play a role in the planet's magnetic dynamics.

And, of course, it reveals a mechanism whereby Uranus could be losing a substantial amount of mass, transported away by plasmoids.

The Voyager data used for this analysis is over two decades old, so the researchers suggest the best way to find out more is to send another probe to check it all out.

"The nature of magnetospheric circulation and mass-loss processes remain outstanding and essential topics at both Uranus and Neptune," they wrote in their paper.

"In order to definitively determine the relative contributions of planetary rotation and solar wind forcing in driving global plasma dynamics, new in situ measurements will be necessary. Until then, the enigmatic ice giant magnetospheres await further exploration."

• The research has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 21:50 geschreven door peter  

Navy Seal Whistleblower! Inside Intel - New Project Camelot Interview!

Robert has a fascinating life story that brought him face to face with the Committee of 300, the ET Controllers and more.  He was a Navy Seal who ended up working for Bush Sr. and John McCain and has traveled in some very dark circles.

ROBERT WIEGAND – NAVY SEAL – INSIDE INTEL

Other  videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 17:46 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Acoustic Levitation is Evident in Egyptian, Mayan, Incan and Indian Cultures

COAST TO COAST AM –

Douglas Stearns argued that the ancients had access to advanced sound technology, which is expressed in the similar architecture and building techniques seen in Egyptian, Mayan, Incan, Indian, and other cultures separated by time and distance.

The ancients were masters of resonance and vibration, changing sound frequencies to alter the atomic forms of matter, he hypothesized, and this was how they created levitation or antigravity technology such as when the Egyptians moved giant and numerous blocks of stone to build the pyramids.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 17:09 geschreven door peter  

Old gas blob from Uranus found in vintage Voyager 2 data

An animation shows the strange magnetic field of Uranus. The yellow arrow points toward the sun and the dark blue arrow represents the planet's axis.

(Image: © NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio/Tom Bridgman)

But by now, plasmoids have earned scientists' respect. A plasmoid is a massive bubble of plasma, which is a soup of charged particles. Plasmoids can break off from the tip of the sleeve of magnetism surrounding a planet like a teardrop. 

Scientists have studied these structures at Earth and nearby planets, but never at Uranus or its neighbor Neptune, since Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to date ever to visit those planets.

Scientists want to know about plasmoids because these structures can pull charged particles out of a planet's atmosphere and fling them into space. And if you change a planet's atmosphere, you change the planet itself. And Uranus' situation is particularly complicated because the planet rotates on its side and its magnetic field is skewed from both that axis and the plane all the planets lie in.

Because Voyager 2 flew straight through this plasmoid, scientists could use the archived data to measure the structure, which they believe was about 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) across and could have stretched 127,000 miles (204,000 km) long, according to a NASA statement.

Ideally, scientists would piece together more observations of Uranus' magnetic field, enough to better understand how this phenomenon has shaped the planet over time. But that will require another spacecraft visit the strange sideways world.

The research is described in a paper published in August in the journal Geophysical Review Letters. NASA announced the finding on Wednesday (March 25).

•  Uranus may have odd, strobe-like magnetic field 
•  Why is Uranus on its side? Incredible simulations could solve the mystery. 
•  How did Uranus form? 

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

Welcome to the future: 11 ideas that went from science fiction to reality

By Lee Cavendish, All About Space magazine 

These modern-day technologies appeared in science fiction decades before their time.

Who knows what quirky ideas will lead to the next technological innovation? (Image credit: NASA)

(Image: © NASA)

 Science fiction has always been a medium for futuristic imagination and while different colored aliens and intergalactic travel are yet to be discovered, there is an array of technologies that are no longer figments of the imagination thanks to the world of science fiction. Some of the creative inventions that have appeared in family-favorite movies like "Back to the Future" and "Total Recall," are now at the forefront of modern technology. Here are a few of our favorite technologies that went from science fiction to reality. 

1. The mobile phone

The communicator was often used to communicate back to the USS Enterprise. 

 (Image credit: Paramount/Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo)

From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

It's something that almost everyone has in their pockets. Mobile phones have become a necessity in modern life with a plethora of remarkable features. The first mobile phone was invented in 1973, the Motorola DynaTAC. It was a bulky thing that weighed 2.4 lbs. (1.1 kilograms) and had a talk time of about 35 minutes.  It also cost thousands of dollars. 

The Motorola DynaTAC was invented by Martin Cooper, who led a team that created the phone in just 90 days. A long-standing rumor was that Cooper got his inspiration from an episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk used his hand-held communications device. However, Cooper stated in a 2015 interview that the original inspiration was from a comic strip called Dick Tracy, in which the character used a "wrist two-way radio." 

 2. The universal translator 

From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

While exploring space, characters such as Captain Kirk and Spock would come across alien life who spoke a different language. To understand the galactic foreigners, the Star Trek characters used a device that immediately translated the alien's unusual language. Star Trek's universal communicator was first seen on screen as Spock tampered with it in order to communicate with a non-biological entity (Series 2 Episode 9, Metamorphosis). 

Although the idea in Star Trek was to communicate with intelligent alien life, a device capable of breaking down language barriers would revolutionize real-time communication. Now, products such as Sourcenext's Pocketalk and Skype's new voice translation service are capable of providing instantaneous translation between languages. Flawless real-time communication is far off, but the technological advancements over the last decade mean this feat is within reach. 

3. Teleportation

From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

The idea behind "beaming" someone up was that a person could be broken down into an energy form (dematerialization) and then converted back into matter at their destination (rematerialization). Transporting people this way on Star Trek's USS Enterprise had been around since the very beginning of the series, debuting in the pilot episode.

Scientists haven't figured out how to teleport humans yet, but they can teleport balls of energy known as photons. In this case, teleportation is based on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. This refers to a condition in quantum mechanics where two entangled particles may be very far from one another, yet remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, regardless of distance. The information exchange between the two photons occurs at least 10,000 times faster than the speed of light.

• Related: Chinese Scientists Just Set the Record for the Farthest Quantum Teleportation

 4. 3D holograms 

From: "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope"

Not long into the first Star Wars movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi receives a holographic message. By definition, a hologram is a 3D image created from the interference of light beams from a laser onto a 2D surface, and can only be seen in one angle. 

In 2018, researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, created a real hologram. Their technique, called volumetric display, works like an Etch-A-Sketch toy, but uses particles at high speeds. With lasers, researchers can trap particles and move them into a designated shape while another set of lasers emit red, green and blue light onto the particle and create an image. But so far, this can only happen on extremely small scales.  

• Related: Cool! 'Star Wars'-Like Tech Warps Light into 360-Degree 3D Images

5. Bionic limbs

From: "Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back"

Imagine getting your hand chopped off by your own father and falling to the bottom of a floating building to then have your long-lost sister come and pick you up. It's unlikely in reality, but not in the Star Wars movies. After losing his hand, Luke Skywalker receives a bionic version that has all the functions of a normal hand. This scenario is now more feasible than the previous one.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, have been developing a way for amputees to control each of their prosthetic fingers using an ultrasonic sensor. In the movie, Skywalker's prosthesis uses electromyogram sensors attached to his muscles. The sensors can be switched into different modes and are controlled by the flexing or contracting of his muscles. The prosthesis created by the Georgia Tech researchers, however, uses machine learning and ultrasound signals to detect fine finger-by-finger movement.

6. Digital Billboards

From: "Blade Runner"

Director Ridley Scott presents a landscape shot of futuristic Los Angeles in the movie "Blade Runner." While scanning the skyscrapers, a huge, digital, almost-cinematic billboard appears on one of the buildings. This pre-internet concept sparked the imagination of Andrew Phipps Newman, the CEO of DOOH.com. DOOH — which stands for Digital Out Of Home — is a company dedicated to providing live, dynamic advertisements through the use of digital billboards. The company is now at the forefront of advertising as it offers a more enticing form; one that will make people stop and stare.

Digital billboards have come a long way since DOOH was founded in 2013. They have taken advantage of crowded cities, such as London and New York, to utilize this unique advertising tactic. Perhaps the more recent "Blade Runner 2049" will bring us even more new technologies.

7. Artificial Intelligence

From: "Blade Runner"

The "Blade Runner" story heavily revolves around the idea of synthetic humans, which require artificial intelligence (AI). Some people might be worried about the potential fallout of giving computers intelligence, which has had disastrous consequences in many science-fiction works. But AI has some very useful applications in reality. For instance, astronomers have trained machines to find exoplanets using computer-based learning techniques. While sifting through copious amounts of data collected by missions such as NASA's Kepler and TESS missions, AI can identify the telltale signs of an exoplanet lurking in the data. 

• Related: Why You Shouldn't Expect to See 'Blade Runner' Replicants Anytime Soon

8. Space stations

From: "2001: A Space Odyssey" 

Orbiting Earth in "2001: A Space Odyssey" is Space Station V, a large establishment located in low-Earth orbit where astronauts can bounce around in microgravity. Does this sound familiar?

The Space Station V provided inspiration for the International Space Station (ISS), which has been orbiting the Earth since 1998 and currently accommodates up to six astronauts at a time. Although Space Station V appears much more luxurious, the ISS has accomplished much more science. The ISS has been fundamental to microgravity research since the start of its construction in 1998. 

The Space Station V wasn't just an out-of-this-world holiday experience, it was also employed as a pit-stop before traveling to the Moon and other long-duration space destinations. The proposed Deep Space Gateway would be a station orbiting the moon that would serve a similar purpose.

• Related: The 25 Greatest Spaceships of Science Fiction

9. Tablets

From: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Tablets are wonderful handheld computers that can be controlled at the press of a finger. These handy devices are used by people across the globe, and even further upwards on the ISS. Apple claims to have invented the tablet with the release of its iPad. However, Samsung made an extremely interesting case in court that Apple was wrong: Stanley Kubrick and Sir Arthur C. Clarke did, by including the device in 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968.

In the film, Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Frank Poole watch news updates from their flat-screen computers, which they called "newspads." Samsung claimed that these "newspads" were the original tablet, featured in a film over 40 years before the first iPad arrived in 2010. This argument was not successful though, as the judge ruled that Samsung could not utilize this particular piece of evidence.  

10. Hoverboards

From: "Back to the Future Part II"

The Back to the Future trilogy is a highly enjoyable trio of time-traveling adventures, but it is Part II that presents the creators' vision of 2015. The film predicted a far more outlandish 2015 than what actually happened just five years ago, but it got one thing correct: hoverboards, just like the one Marty McFly "borrows" to make a quick escape.

Although they aren't as widespread as the film perceives, hoverboards now exist. The first real one was created in 2015 by Arx Pax, a company based in California. The company invented the Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA™) used to provide the levitation of a hoverboard. The board generates a magnetic field, which in turn creates an eddy current, which then creates another opposing magnetic field. These magnetic fields repel each other against a copper "hoverpark" that provides lift. 

11. Driverless cars

From: "Total Recall"

In the 1990 film, set in 2084, Total Recall's main protagonist Douglas Quaid (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) finds himself in the middle of a sci-fi showdown on Mars. In one scene Quaid is on the run from the bad guys and jumps into a driverless car. In the front is "Johnny Cab," which is the car's on-board computer system. All Johnny needs is an address to take the car to its intended destination.

Although the driverless car wasn't seen in action before the protagonist yells profanities and takes over the driving, the idea of having a car that takes you to your destination using its onboard satellite navigation has become increasingly popular. The company at the forefront of driverless cars is Waymo, as they want to eradicate the human error and inattention that results in dangerous and fatal accidents.

In 2017, NASA stated its intentions to help in the production of driverless cars, as they would improve the technologies of robotic vehicles on extraterrestrial surfaces such as the Moon or Mars. 

Additional resources: 

• The 'Star Trek' Holodeck: From Science Fiction to a New Reality
• Star Trek: History & Effect on Space Technology
• Meet CIMON, the 1st Robot with Artificial Intelligence to Fly in Space
• Best Space Movies in the Universe

This article was adapted from a previous version published in All About Space magazine, a Future Ltd. publication.

Email Lee Cavendish at lee.cavendish@futurenet.com.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

27-03-2020 om 01:02 geschreven door peter  

You may want to plan to get a second Mother’s Day and Father’s Day card this year – scientists have discovered the single living creature that all living creatures on Earth descended from. And, in case you’re just filling out your U.S. census form, your original nationality is Australian, mate!

“This organism is consistent with predictions based on modern animal phylogenetics that the last ancestor of all bilaterians was simple and small and represents a rare link between the Ediacaran and the subsequent record of animal life.”

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Scott Evans, a recent doctoral graduate from University of California, Riverside, and Professor Mary Droser, a professor of geology at the school, describe leading a team of researchers to Nilpena, South Australia, where fossilized burrows found in 555 million-year-old Ediacaran Period deposits were believed to have been made by bilaterians – animals whose bodies have a bilateral symmetry — a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other – as well as a front, a back, a head and a gut. If this looks familiar, you’re probably looking in a mirror. Scientists believe bilaterians are the ancestors of all living creatures and this Ediacara Biota– the oldest known complex animal community — should contain the oldest evidence of them. The problem is, no one has found bilaterian fossils there.

Until Evans and Droser found Ikaria wariootia.

With funding from NASA, the team studied the burrows with a 3-D laser scanner and saw tiny grooves that would match a tiny (2-7 mm (.08-.27 in) long, 1-2.5 mm (.04-.1 in) wide – about the size of a grain of rice) cylindrical body with a distinct head and tail. The burrows showed that the creatures moved by contracting muscles like a worm (peristaltic locomotion) and contained evidence that they fed on buried organic matter with a mouth, digested it with a gut and excreted it out an anus. (TMI?) All of that adds up to this:

“Together, these suggest that Ikaria represents one of the oldest total group bilaterians identified from South Australia, with little deviation from the characters predicted for their last common ancestor.”

They named the creature Ikaria wariootia – Ikara means “meeting place” in the Adnyamathanha language, and warioota comes from the nearby Warioota Creek – to signify they are the original custodians of this land. More significantly, since this is the oldest known burrow of bilaterians, they are the “last common ancestor” of every symmetrical creature – basically all animals except sponges, jellyfish, anemones and some tiny multicell organisms. That includes the group at the other end of the bilaterians – humans … or at least those who believe in evolution.

There is significance to this discovery besides the obvious “last common ancestor” … which is why NASA was involved.

“We can also see that Ikaria specifically sought out oxygen rich environments and avoided oxygen poor ones. These indicate that having an appreciable amount of oxygen was really important for the evolution and success of these types of organisms and that we should be looking for exoplanets with similar, well-oxygenated conditions.”

NASA’s exobiology program gave Evans and his team a grant, and the investment paid off. The search for signs of oxygen on exoplanets should lead to signs of life resembling Ikaria wariootia – and its descendants.

If you can’t find an appropriate Mother’s Day or Father’s Day card for Ikaria wariootia, just draw a picture (here’s a photo) and sign your name. it’s the thought that counts.

Artist’s rendering of Ikaria wariootia.

Credit: Sohail Wasif/UCR

These are Ikaria wariootia impressions in stone.

Credit: Droser Lab/UCR

A 3D laser scan that showing the regular, consistent shape of a cylindrical body with a distinct head and tail and faintly grooved musculature.

Credit: Droser Lab/UCR

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

26-03-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

Brent Swancer

Explorers have always sought to go past that next hill, that next horizon in their efforts to tame our planet and push out further past the boundaries of what we know. It is almost a given that they are going to come across the strange and the unusual along the way, and this has most certainly been shown again and again, and sometimes this lodges firmly into the world of the paranormal. One such case of an explorer coming across possible paranormal forces is a venerable mountaineer and explorer who had some very strange experiences up in the clouds that remain unexplained.

The whole odd tale revolves around the English mountaineer author, photographer and botanist, Francis Sydney Smythe, better known as Frank Smythe (1900-1949). He was an incredibly prolific and well respected mountaineer and adventurer of his era, traveling to exotic lands and climbing some of the highest peaks in some of the most inhospitable places around the world, including the Alps, Rocky Mountains, and the Himalayas, and he also wrote vast amounts of work on his adventures. In the 1930s his target was the then very enigmatic, mysterious Mt. Everest, which for many was so remote it might as well have been the face of the moon, and it was as he sought to conquer this treacherous beast of a mountain that he would allegedly have some very bizarre encounters.

Mt. Everest

1933 saw Smythe’s first attempt to climb Everest, and in June of that year he had managed to approach the summit, on the top of the world and at the time higher than anyone had ever climbed before. It was at this time when he was almost within reach of his goal, which beckoned to him yet remained unreachable, as it would for the next two decades, an inscrutable, evasive goal that would pull many to their deaths trying to achieve it. Looking upon that elusive summit Sythe would say:

It was only 1,000 feet above me, but an aeon of weariness separated me from it. Bastion on bastion and slab on slab, the rocks were piled in tremendous confusion, their light-yellow edges ghostlike against the deep-blue sky. From the crest, a white plume of mist flowed silently away. Those who have failed on Everest are unanimous in one thing: the relief of not having to go on. The last 1,000 feet of Everest are not for mere flesh and blood.

It was on this excursion that he would have his brushes with what could be called the paranormal. As he made his way alone up the frigid, wind scorched mountainside he would claim that he had felt as if someone were following him, watching him. This presence haunted him for quite sometime before he was able to make out against that vast sea of white the form of a person out there with him on that slope, standing amongst the snow and rock. This mysterious figure would approach to walk there alongside him, and Smythe would later explain that he seemed t be very real indeed. He was so real, in fact, that the mountaineer felt obligated to break off a piece of Kendal mint cake he kept in his pocket to offer to his unexpected companion. The figure then disappeared into thin air to leave the bewildered Smythe alone once again, and he would say “so near and so strong did this presence seem, that it was almost a shock to find no one to whom to give it.” The mountaineer would later write of this experience in his book Camp Six, and he never would be able to explain what he had experienced.

Frank Smythe

The strangeness would only continue on that same expedition. Defeated in his goal of mounting the actual summit, Smythe was on his way back down the harrowing terrain on his way too camp when he allegedly witnessed something very peculiar in the sky above. There moving about in the clear blue expanse were two odd objects that seemed at first almost like kites, but which pulsated and moving in odd ways. He at first tried to ignore them as he got his bearings straight and clear his head, but when he looked back to that spot the things were still there. As he looked on wondering what to make of it all, a mist apparently congealed out of nowhere to envelope them, and when it cleared they were gone. He would write of this strange sighting:

I was still some 200 feet above C6 and a considerable distance horizontally from it when, chancing to glance in the direction of the north ridge, I saw two curious looking objects floating in the sky. They strongly resembled kite balloons in shape, but one possessed what appeared to be squat underdeveloped wings, and the other a protuberance suggestive of a beak. They hovered motionless but seemed slowly to pulsate, a pulsation much slower than my own heart-beats, which is of interest supposing that it was an optical illusion. The two objects were very dark in colour and were silhouetted sharply against the sky, or possibly a background of cloud.

So interested was I that I stopped to observe them. My brain appeared to be working normally and I deliberately put myself through a series of tests. First of all I glanced away. The objects did not follow my vision but they were still there when I looked back again. Then I looked away again and this time identified by name a number of peaks, valleys and glaciers by way of a mental test. But when I looked back again, the objects confronted me. At this I gave them up as a bad job, but just as I was starting to move again a mist suddenly drifted across. Gradually they disappeared behind it; and when a minute or two later it had drifted clear, exposing the whole of the north ridge once more, they had vanished as mysteriously as they came.

What were these surreal objects? Were they UFOs, mysterious creatures, pure hallucination, something else? Did they have anything to do with that phantom figure he had encountered earlier? Who knows? Smythe would launch two other expeditions to Mt. Everest in the 1930s, but he never did get higher than he did on that first, and he never had any experiences quite as inexplicable either, nor would he never again until his death in 1949. Yet these accounts sit there amongst his journals and writings, evading any easy answers.

There has been a it of speculation as to what he might have encountered out there. Perhaps the most popular theory is that he was experiencing what is sometimes called “The Third Man,” which is a sort of ghostly presence that has been reported by many other explorers, usually in times of crisis. There have been other Everest explorers who have encountered something very similar, such as mountaineer Nick Estcourt, who in 1975 was climbing in approximately the same area where Smythe had had his own experience. Estcourt would explain:

I set off on my own at about 3.30 in the morning (from Camp IV) pulling up the fixed ropes leading up to Camp 5. It was a moonlit night and the shapes of the rocks were etched clearly against the brightness of the snow. I was about two hundred feet above the camp when I turned around. I can’t remember why but perhaps I had a feeling that someone was following me. Anyway I turned around and saw this figure behind me. He looked like an ordinary climber, far enough behind, so that I could not feel him moving up the fixed rope, but not all that far below. I could see his arms and legs and assumed that it was someone trying to catch me up. I stopped and waited for him.

He then seemed to stop or to be moving very, very slowly, he made no effort to signal or wave – I shouted down, but got no reply and so in the end I thought, ‘Sod it, I might as well press on!’ I carried on and turned round three or four times ___ and this figure was still behind me. It was definitely a human figure with arms and legs and at one stage I can remember seeing him behind a slight undulation in the slope, from the waist upwards as you would expect with the lower part of his body hidden in the slight dip. I turned again as I reached the old site of Camp 4 (six hundred above Camp IV in the current expedition) and there was no one there at all. It seemed very eerie. I wasn’t sure if anyone had fallen off or what. He couldn’t possibly have had time to have turned back and drop down the ropes out of sight, since I could see almost all the way back to Camp 4. The whole thing seemed very peculiar.

This seems very similar to what Smythe encountered, and is a good example of this particular phenomenon. Many other explorers have experienced the same thing, and it has been proposed that it could be anything from ghosts, to guardian angels, to the simple effect of stress, physical duress, and oxygen deprivation leading to hallucinations. The same could be said of the strange objects in the sky that Smythe claimed to have witnessed. How can we explain what this seasoned explorer saw? Was this all illusion and hallucination, or something more? It only adds to the vast number of accounts of people venturing to the ends of the earth and coming back with mysteries, ones which perhaps may be best left to the remote wildernesses from which they sprang.

{{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

26-03-2020 om 22:57 geschreven door peter  

There are perhaps more UFO crash reports than some people might realize. Far from being merely the realm of the famous Roswell, New Mexico crash there have been a plethora of such incidents reported throughout history, and these are not always recorded out in the middle of nowhere, either. One rather obscure supposed UFO crash, considering its location, is the time one apparently exploded and crashed right on the fringes of the neon studded gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas.

The whole odd affair actually began all the way across the country over in Oneida, New York, where on April 18, 1962 military radar stations began picking up an anomalous object that seemed to be moving west rapidly. As it did so, there began a series of reports marking its progress, as panicked witnesses from across the country saw what looked like a glowing red ball or “flaming sword” that was at times bright enough to make night seem like day. These reports came on from several states along its trajectory, including Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, and most remarkably of all in Eureka, Utah, where there would be a report that it had actually landed and caused massive electrical disruptions before taking to the sky again. Throughout all of this the object was reportedly as largely completely silent, and there was such a deluge of calls to authorities that fighter jets were even scrambled and put on alert at Luke Air Force Base, in Arizona. The object headed towards Nevada, where it continued to be seen by hundreds of people as it approached Reno, then was witnessed to make a turn to head in the direction of Las Vegas, and this is where things would get even stranger. There was reportedly heard an enormous rumbling and then a thunderous boom and blinding flash of light, after which the object vanished both visually and off of radar somewhere over Nellis Air Force Base, right out in the badlands just past the lights of Las Vegas.

Las Vegas

The sheriff’s office for Clark County, Nevada, was apparently so flooded by calls from terrified residents who had heard the boom that it was thought that there had been an explosion and that perhaps an aircraft had gone down. A sheriff’s search party was sent out to the area that the object was last seen, yet there could be found no sign of a downed aircraft and there were furthermore no reports of a missing aircraft from any airports in the region. Considering this, it was assumed that what had been seen was a meteor that had exploded in midair, and the military was quick to use this explanation as well. There was only a single newspaper article related to the odd incident at the time, which appeared the next day in The Las Vegas Sun with the headline “Brilliant Red Explosion Flares In Las Vegas Sky,” and for the most part everyone just sort of forgot about it. Despite the fact that thousands of people across the country had seen the mysterious object and several hundreds had heard the massive explosion, it seemed the meteor explanation was good enough. Case closed. Or so it seemed.

It would not be until decades later that anyone would blow the dust off the case, when UFO researcher Kevin Randle began snooping around for more information in military reports and declassified reports from the Air Force’s Project Blue Book UFO investigation, and he also went about interviewing numerous witnesses to the events in order to shed more light on what happened on that evening, which would all be covered in his book A History of UFO Crashes. What Randle would manage to uncover would begin to paint a picture of something perhaps quite a bit stranger than a meteor, and which the military quite possibly knows more about than it is letting on.

Even a casual look into the old reports began pointing out oddities. One declassified military report that was completely free to read by anyone who cared came from a Captain Herman Gordon Shields, who on the evening of the incident had been flying a C-119 aircraft near La Van, Utah. He would report that both he and his co-pilot had witnessed a very bright light, that continued to get brighter even as they maneuvered their plane to get away from it. Whatever it was, it was apparently “as bright as daylight,” completely illuminating the landscape, and as they tried to further evade and avoid what they felt might be an incoming collision they were able to get a clear look at the source of the light. According to pilot Shields, it was a long, cigar shaped object with a yellow top surface and the bottom of which was an extremely bright light. Shields would say in his report of the object:

And this object which I saw was illuminated. It had a long slender appearance comparable to a cigarette in size, that is, the diameter with respect to the length of the object. The fore part, or the lower part of the object was very bright, intense white such as a magnesium fire. The second half, the aft section, was a clearly distinguishable yellowish color. I would say the object was just about divided in half, the fore part being intensely white, the aft section having a more yellow color to it. There was no exhaust, no trail following after it. It was clearly defined. I saw it for a period of maybe one to two seconds.

Both the pilot and co-pilot were certain that this was no meteor. Another very curious report uncovered by Randle was that of witnesses Bob Robinson and Floyd Evans, who saw it fly low as they were driving along a highway near Eureka, Utah. The witnesses said it was clearly some sort of flaming cylinder with a “series of windows” along its side, and that its approach caused their vehicle to stall. They also claimed that it slowed to a stop to hover momentarily over them before continuing on its way, after which their engine promptly started up again. Other witness reports seemed to point towards something under intelligent control as well, including reports of the object making turns, speeding up or slowing down, reversing its course, and even landing, all things that you might realize meteors do not do. Another interesting eyewitness report uncovered by Randle comes from the declassified Blue Book files from a witness whose name had been redacted, and which reads:

As the object passed over Robinson [Utah), it slowed down in [the] air, and after, [a] gasping sound was heard, the object spurted ahead again. After this procedure was repeated three or four times, the object arched over and began descending to earth after which the object turned bluish color and then burned out or went dark. After the object began to slow down it began to wobble or “flshtail” in its path.

Military reports also showed some other intriguing details surrounding the case. It would turn out that not only had there been significant military activity in the area of Nellis Air Force Base after the explosion, including the scrambling of jets, but an investigator Douglas Crouch, from Hill Air Force base, would interview many witnesses and officially state that he did not believe the object seen to be a meteor. Crouch would also confirm that there had been no military tests in the area at the time, nor any unusual atmospheric phenomena on the night in question, and additionally no aircraft in the area that could have caused the disturbances. Far from the official government stance that this was a meteor, Crouch would clearly state that “no explanation has been developed for the brilliant illumination of the area, the object itself, or the explosion.”

Another detail that seems to not fully line up is that Air Force investigation reports state that an orange, glowing object in Eureka, Utah, was so low and bright that it actually knocked out photoelectric cells in the area. There was plenty of other evidence offered up by Randle that did not fit into the meteor theory either, such as that the directions of the various reports across states often described it going in a different direction, the speed was too slow to be that of a meteor, and on many occasions it was far too low to be a meteor, often wildly changing altitude in mid-course. Also, the official reports show that fighter jets had indeed been scrambled in response to the event, so would they do that for a simple meteor? Regardless, a follow-up investigation made by a J. Allen Hynek and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend would come to the conclusion that the object had been a rare type of bright meteor called a “bolide,” and Friend would say of this:

This investigation was completed in one full day and it was concluded that the object was a bolide. An attempt was made to locate the object but this effort failed due to the general nature of the data. Further study of this sighting indicates that the meteor probably struck in the area of the Wasatch National Forest; however, the Air Force has made no further at tempts to recover it.

One day to come up with that, and that seemed to be the end of it as far as the Air Force was concerned, but there were also some ominous hints of a cover-up found speckled throughout these files that did not add up. Randle noticed that Nellis air Force Base first labeled the object as “Unidentified,” but it was later changed to “Insufficient Data for a Scientific Analysis” without further explanation. Perhaps even weirder is the assertion in the report that “no visual” was made of the object captured on radar, despite the fact that there were literally thousands of reports made to police of people seeing this thing. It was also found that the Air Force reports were intentionally and deceptively dated to make it seem as if the Utah accounts and Nevada accounts had happened on different days, possibly to make them seem like two separate events and throw off anyone snooping around. Randle says of this:

The reports, as filed in Project Blue Book, were deceptively dated. The Utah case had the time logged in “Zulu,” or Greenwich Mean Time, which means it was advanced at that time of the year by six hours. Add six hours to the 8:15 time, and you advance it to early morning the next day. A quick glance at the file shows the Utah case dated April 19, and the Las Vegas case logged in local time as April 18. On paper it looks as if they take place on separate days when, in reality, they happened within minutes of each other on the same day.

There were also inconsistencies throughout, such as the files at differing points claiming that the object was a weather balloon or a U-2 spy plane, before coming back to meteors again, almost as if they couldn’t decide which explanation to go with. It must also be remembered that at the time U-2s and balloons were tracked very carefully and there were none scheduled to be in the area at the time of the events. Much of this suggested to Randle that the military was being misleading at best, and downright lying at worst in an effort to muddy the waters and promote a mundane, palatable explanation. Randle believes that this was no meteor or balloon or conventional aircraft, and that somewhere out there in the desert outside of Las Vegas an alien craft of some sort crashed and is being covered up. He says of this in his book:

It is a case that demonstrates the air force’s policy of explaining UFO sightings, even if they have to change dates to make the explanations work. It shows that the air force would lie to the public about the UFO situation. And it shows that air force investigators, when handed a solution, wouldn’t ask the basic questions. They accepted the solution quickly. This also reveals that the air force was not interested in investigation or solving riddles. They were interested in clearing cases, slapping a label on them and letting it go at that. They ignored the information that didn’t fit with the bolide theory. Something extremely extraordinary happened on the night of April 18, 1962. The air force offered a series of explanations ignoring the facts. But the witnesses who were there know the truth. They saw something from outer space, and it was not a meteor. It was a craft from another world.

We are ultimately left to wonder just what happened out there on that night back in 1962. Was this just a meteor or was something more mysterious going on? If so what could it have been? Did a UFO actually crash right outside of Las Vegas, perhaps, as some conspiracies say, because it was actually engaged and shot down by the fighter jets that had been scrambled? Did the government willingly cover it all up? In the end there is no evidence at all to fall back on either way, and that time a UFO supposedly exploded out into the Las Vegas desert will likely remain for some time to come.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

26-03-2020 om 21:59 geschreven door peter  

Silver UFO Shoots Past SpaceX Rocket On Live Broadcast, Video, March 18, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: March 18, 2020
Location of sighting: Earths orbit at SpaceX starlink rocket

Guys this was live streamed on March 18th and was reported to me by a friend on Facebook who noticed it. I went back to the original SpaceX live stream video and checked it out and yes it was there. There seems to be two of them within a 20 seconds, but the closer one is easier to see. Its detail is like a silver bowl...its domes on top and bottom are huge and fat, the side disk edges are small and thin. 

This UFO reminds me of the old Shuttle Atlantis UFOs that were silver orbs seen on live cam following the space shuttle near its payload bay doors long ago. 

I would be very interested in what Elon Musk thinks of this UFO and why he thinks its near his starlink rocket? I think the aliens are interested humanities latest and greatest technology. Aliens are constantly researching humanity, but not allowed to change things. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

26-03-2020 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

Daytime UFO & military helicopters over Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea – Marc 2020

This really interesting daytime footage was just submitted to me through our Facebook page. It was recently recorded in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. It show some strange UFO craft that is escorted by military helicopters and planes.

What’s your opinion about this sighting? Please leave your comments below!

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

26-03-2020 om 20:44 geschreven door peter