Upper layers of frozen carbon dioxide have melted to reveal layers of frozen water ice at the south pole of Mars in this image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, via NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

A new Mars mission is finally underway. On December 20, 2020, the United States government’s two houses of Congress agreed on NASA’s final budget for fiscal year 2021, which includes plans for a Martian ice-mapping satellite currently targeting a 2026 launch. The budget request for the mission, formally called the Mars Ice Mapper, is reported to have surprised planetary scientists when it was submitted by the Trump administration in February 2020. Those initial documents gave only scarce details, making it hard to understand the mission. This is why announcements made at a November 30 virtual Planetary Science Advisory Committee meeting provided exciting insight on the satellite, and on what the mission aims to accomplish for NASA, commercial space companies, and humanity.

According to TheSpaceReview.com, the mission is a precursor to support later human missions to Mars.

At the November 30 meeting, NASA said the Mars Ice Mapper will serve a host of purposes. In particular, it will use familiar technology to make new discoveries, creating the best geographic maps of water ice, geologic activity, and environmental changes on the surface of the red planet.

Adhering to the 2026 launch timeline is crucial to NASA’s preparation for human exploration of Mars. Eric Ianson, NASA’s planetary deputy director, commented:

Finding accessible ground ice is a critical in situ resource for exploration, and it will really help inform where the best places to land on Mars are. If we’re planning for human exploration in the mid-2030s, we need to start getting information as early as the mid-2020s on where we should be planning these future missions.

Another facet of the Mars Ice Mapper mission is the planned involvement from commercial space companies and international partners. The Canadian Space Agency, for example, will play an instrumental role in the mission planning, quite literally. They will provide the satellite with its vital radar instrument, which will have a complex antenna and software capable of the geometry necessary to perform detailed mapping.

As reported by Space.com,

Such an instrument would not be the first radar capability orbiting the red planet: Both the [European Space Agency’s] Mars Express spacecraft and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter carry shallow radar instruments. And Venus in particular has been the target of synthetic aperture radar instruments before, because its thick atmosphere makes studying the surface from a distance difficult.

Furthermore, Ianson said at the November 30 meeting:

There have been lots of studies that have identified near-surface ice – that is, the top 10 meters (33 feet) – as critical both for science as well as preparing for human exploration. It can tell us a lot about astrobiology, geologic and climate history and modern processes.

Ianson also noted that in addition to the Canadian Space Agency, other international partners in the Mars Ice Mapper project include the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA officials also hinted that the mission could prompt commercial satellite deployment, pointing to SpaceX’s controversial Starlink satellites, which are designed to provide global broadband coverage for high-speed internet access for people in rural and remote areas. This wouldn’t be the first time satellites were released in tandem with a launch mission, but the discussion on this topic has so far been vague. Other statements hinted at a constellation of communication satellites in Mars orbit, to provide resourceful relay assets not only for Ice Mapper, but also for other spacecraft currently on Mars.

NASA’s Perseverance rover will land on the surface of Mars in February 2021. Subsequent plans are not completely settled, but include an endeavor to fetch samples collected by Perseverance, using multiple spacecraft, in the coming years. Mars Ice Mapper may fill some of the gaps in NASA’s future agenda, making it a relatively significant and important mission to look forward to. Lori Glaze, a planetary science director at NASA, commented:

NASA is currently working to establish the framework for enabling international, potential commercial partnerships for the implementation of the Mars Ice Mapper as part of the agency’s plan. We have to get those identified in order to understand what the mission architecture actually looks like.

Other documents in the Trump administration’s budget request lay out plans to cut funding for 2001 Mars Odyssey: the longest surviving, continuously active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth.

Mars Ice Mapper’s mission-planning process is still moving faster than the budgeting process that first brought the Mars Ice Mapper to the scene, despite the uncertainties caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The proposal for the budget released in February is for the 2021 fiscal year, which began last October 1.

• Read more from Space.com: NASA honing plans for its Mars Ice Mapper mission
• Read more from TheSpaceReview.com: The future of Mars exploration, from sample return to human missions
• Read more from EarthSky: Will SpaceX’s Starlink satellites ruin stargazing?
• Bottom line: The U.S. government recently finalized NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2021. It includes plans for the Mars Ice Mapper, a proposed Mars satellite being developed by NASA in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. Its goal will be to create detailed geographic maps of water ice across the surface of the red planet.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

05-01-2021 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

2020’s science superlatives include the oldest, highest and grossest discoveries

The earliest known modern bird and other record-breaking animals are among the highlights

Vertebrate paleontologist Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge holds a 3-D printed skull of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, also known as the “Wonderchicken,” which lived nearly 67 million years ago and is the earliest known modern bird.

D.J. FIELD/UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE

By Erika Engelhaupt

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

05-01-2021 om 22:54 geschreven door peter  

This is what a supernova sounds like, according to NASA

The Crab Nebula sounds oddly beautiful.

(Image: © NASA)

The agency posted two more videos in a statement. One shows the Bullet Cluster — two clusters of galaxies slowly colliding with one another, about 3.7 billion light-years from Earth. This collision provided the first direct evidence of the existence of dark matter, which is causing distant galaxies in the two blue regions of the image to appear larger and closer through a process called gravitational lensing, according to NASA. Those blue, dark-matter-y regions are represented with the lowest sound frequencies in the video below, with X-ray light represented with the highest frequencies.

The final video shows a supernova explosion called Supernova 1987A, named for the year its light first reached Earth from the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy about 168,000 light-years away). Unlike the other two videos, which pan over the image from left to right, this supernova gets a special time-lapse treatment. As a crosshair swoops around the edge of the nova's gassy halo, the image gradually transforms to show the explosion's evolution between 1999 and 2013. The brighter the halo becomes, the higher and louder the pitches sound. The ring of gas reaches peak brightness as the supernova shock-wave ripples through it, according to NASA, resulting in the loudest, highest pitches at the video's end.

So, now you can tell your friends what a supernova, a neutron star and a great heap of dark matter sound like … in one sense, anyway.

• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 22:35 geschreven door peter  

Orb Recorded Moving Through Living Room, Possible Alien Entity, 10-20-2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: 10-20-2020

This orb was caught traveling through a guys living room and the person had his infrared camera recording at the time. The orb is an alien entity, a living being, superior to us in every way, and can even change themselves to look like us, but prefer this shape. Some call them spirit orbs, and in essence they are...the spirit...the energy...the being of an alien entity. Very amazing how it moves around the home so casually. 100% proof aliens not only watch outside our homes, but also enter our homes too. 

Scott C. Waring 

 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 22:13 geschreven door peter  

UFO Tunnels Seen Over Central Serbia, Jan 4, 2021, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 4, 2021
Location of sighting: Central Serbia

 

This is some amazing cloud transportation tunnels over Centeral Serbia today. I say transportation tunnels because my first UFO sighting...occurred with a similar beginning. I was in the USAF SAC Ellsworth AFB South Dakota, walked out to my parking lot...saw four long tunnel clouds that started, yes, started over the parking lot and disappeared over the horizon. About 20 of us were watching the sky directly above us...half were wearing a USAF uniform.  The tunnel clouds where the only clouds in the sky and they were perfectly lined up side by side with a small space between. Each cloud was perfectly contained...no whiffs of cloud around it...just tunnel. A giant 747 size glowing ball inside the end of the cloud tunnel...then it began to move down it...still inside the cloud tunnel...faster and faster till it disappeared in the horizon. This happened 25 times before I had to leave, being late for work at the base back in 1989. At my base when I talked to my commander, he said its aliens and we don't talk about that here. So...never did, but did mention on my site several times. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 22:05 geschreven door peter  

White Sphere Caught On Door Cam, Franklin, Kentucky 1-3-2021, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 3, 2021
Location of sighting: Franklin, Kentucky, USA

 

This is just in from MUFON. A persons door cam captured a glowing white sphere passing over the neighborhood. The glowing ball is flying low and looks to be car size. Strangely enough...the most commonly reported UFOs worldwide are white spheres. This is a great example of such a craft. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 22:01 geschreven door peter  

UFO's over Spain at Nerja, Costa Del Sol Over Ocean, 12-31-2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Dec 31, 2020
Location of sighting: Nerja, Spain

 

Glowing UFOs appeared over some buildings on Dec 31, but the UFO was not several objects but actually a single craft. When I put it into slow motion I can see a diamond shaped craft. It seems to have four corners and five or more glowing lights on it that light up at different times. I will try to put a close up of that above to better understand. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 21:53 geschreven door peter  

Blue UFO Crashing Into Ocean At Hawaii Was Top Secret Area 51 Spacecraft! Videos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 1, 2021
Location of sighing: Hawaii, USA

 

A blue UFO was seen falling very slowly in an almost controlled fall over Hawaii this week. I know what it is and I have reported a similar occurrence...back in 2008 when in Needles, California a similar blue object was seen falling over the desert and eyewitnesses reported that within 30 minutes they saw helicopters coming in with a cargo helicopter and carry it off...to area 51. I say Area 51, because at that same moment...two top secret Janet Planes landed at the Needles airport...which is unheard of. I lived in Needles when I was in elementary school for two years, but that was 20 years before this happend. This UFO over Hawaii...its from Area 51, its a top secret alien tech craft flown by a human pilot. But...it's still hard for humans to control it...since it's controlled by the mind. Yes, like bluetooth tying in the earphones with a computer, the alien craft links to the pilots mind...which can overwhelm the human pilots. This is 100% USAF technology. Check the FAA landings in Hawaii...I would bet money that two Janet planes landed there a few hours later. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

 

I will include a news video of the Needles, California 2008 info below for you to check it out and compare. 

Scott C. Waring 

 

 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

Alarge object approaches the moon, then before it catches fire, a jet flame comes out of the end of the object, going down and crashes into the surface of the moon. 

According to sky-watcher Bruce Swartz who captured the object with his 14 inches telescope and infrared camera it looks like it is something like a small rocket, as the object's behaviors are similar to a NASA rocket that lands straight on the moon's surface or like a SpaceX rocket that lands straight on a platform. 

Although it looks like the object crashed into moon, it could also have landed on the moon's surface. 

Footage of the unknown space object starts at 2.02 minutes in the video.

  

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

05-01-2021 om 20:39 geschreven door peter  

Really good episode on UFOs on The Joe Rogan Experience – Jacques Vallée & James Fox

The Joe Rogan Experience #1574 – Jacques Vallée & James Fox

Jacques Vallée is a venture capitalist, technologist, and world-renowned figure in the field of unidentified aerial phenomena. James Fox is the director of The Phenomenon: a new documentary about UFOs and a global effort to conceal their existence.

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

05-01-2021 om 20:32 geschreven door peter  

UFOs Will Appear In 2021

Tucker Carlson with Nick Pope – UFOs Will Appear In 2021.

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

05-01-2021 om 18:47 geschreven door peter  

Here’s a preview of what to expect in space and astronomy in the year to come.

 By Michael Roston

About a month after the new year has started on Earth, three spacecraft will pull into the vicinity of Mars. These explorers, which launched in July last year, will be heralds of a busy year of space exploration, launches and astronomical occurrences.

What follows is a preview of some of 2021’s most notable expected events. Private companies and the world’s space agencies are likely to announce more. The Times’s Space and Astronomy Calendar will help you keep up with these dates, and you can subscribe to it here.

Sync your calendar with the solar system

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other astronomical and space event that's out of this world.

Martian meetup

The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched robotic missions to Mars last summer, seeking shortened voyages during the period every two years when Earth is closest to the red planet. The three spacecraft will join a bustling community of explorers either in orbit or on the planet’s surface.

The first to arrive will be the Emirati Hope orbiter, the first deep space explorer of the Arab country’s small but ambitious space program. The mission will study the Martian atmosphere, sending valuable data back to scientists on Earth. It is to reach its destination on Feb. 9.

China’s Tianwen-1 mission is also to arrive at Mars on Feb. 10. After orbiting the planet for a time, it will send a lander containing a rover to the surface in May. Landing intact on the solar system’s fourth planet is perilous, and only NASA has done it more than once. A successful landing there would extend China’s record of impressive spaceflight achievements, especially after last year’s Chang’e-5 mission to the lunar surface then back to Earth with a fresh cache of moon rocks.

Soon after, on Feb. 18, NASA’s Perseverance rover will arrive and immediately plunge toward the surface of Mars. If it lands successfully, the rover will seek signs of extinct life in a dried out crater lake and riverbed. But first it will deploy Ingenuity, a small helicopter. That device has its own mission of carrying out the first powered flight from the surface of another planet.

Locking on to the lunar surface

While China has landed spacecraft on the moon three times in the last seven years, NASA has not landed there since 1972, the last Apollo mission. That could change in 2021, deepening the commercial transformation of American space efforts.

NASA has in the past decade relied on private companies to build and operate spacecraft that could ferry cargo, and now people, to the International Space Station. It is trying a similar approach with Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The program has contracted with a number of private companies to build robotic lunar landers that will carry cargo from NASA and other customers to the moon’s surface.

The first company, Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic, is scheduled to launch its Peregrine lander to the moon in June. It could be followed in October by Nova-C, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston.

NASA also has its eye on returning astronauts to the moon this decade. Its first step will be an uncrewed test flight of the massive Space Launch System built for future American deep space launches. The rocket has faced numerous delays and ballooning costs, but NASA still plans a journey in 2021 known as Artemis-1. It will send Orion, a capsule for astronauts, around the moon and back to Earth. That test is tentatively scheduled for November.

Deeper into deep space

The most scientifically important mission of 2021 has been a long time coming. The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, effectively a successor to the Hubble telescope, has been postponed for years, plagued by technical problems and mounting costs. NASA and the world’s astronomers and planetary scientists are eager to see it get off the ground at the end of October. The agency settled on that time frame after the coronavirus pandemic and other problems added another delay to the existing schedule.

Two other NASA explorers will also head out into the solar system.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, launching in July, aims to test whether a spacecraft could deflect a future asteroid that was headed toward Earth’s surface. To do that, it will visit Didymos, a pair of near-Earth asteroids that travel around the sun together, and attempt a collision to nudge the orbit of the smaller rock.

A second mission, Lucy, will launch in October and travel much farther, making flybys through Jupiter’s orbital path. There it will study the Trojans — asteroids that travel in the same orbit as Jupiter but hundreds of millions of miles ahead or behind, trapped there by the giant planet’s gravity. Scientists think these space rocks could conceal secrets of how the solar system’s outer planets were formed.

Odysseys to orbit

Human spaceflight was transformed in 2020 as SpaceX successfully launched a pair of crews to the space station. The company is likely to send more astronauts to orbit in 2021, and not all of them may be working for NASA and other government space agencies. Multiple companies are working with SpaceX to launch paying customers on the Crew Dragon capsule. One of them, Axiom Space, could send its first private tourists to the space station late in the year.

When NASA picked SpaceX to build transport for its astronauts, it also hired Boeing to do the same. During an uncrewed test to orbit in December 2019, a series of errors nearly led to the catastrophic loss of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. To make up for that unsuccessful flight, Boeing will carry out a second test flight as early as March.

Other human journeys to space also beckon this year. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin may send paying customers on short trips to the edge of space and back in 2021. China could also start launching pieces of its next generation space station during the year, setting it on a course to have a regular human presence in low Earth orbit in the years to come.

Solar system showtime

If 2020 taught people anything, it was to expect the unexpected. While Covid-19 darkened the world as it traveled around the sun, humanity was surprised by views of Comet NEOWISE in the summer months and enthralled with the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn during the winter solstice. It’s a big universe, and there is so much of it to be seen from our small part of it.

A lunar eclipse on May 26 will overlap with a period when the moon is closer to Earth than usual, what some call a “super blood moon.” People in Australia and on Pacific islands as well as in the Western United States will get the best views of the occurrence, and some of the event will be visible in other parts of the Americas as well as East and South Asia.

Most people in North America will have to wait until 2024 to experience the next total solar eclipse like the one in August 2017. But on June 10, some North Americans will get a taste of what’s to come in three years when an annular solar eclipse darkens some skies.

Also known as a “ring of fire” eclipse, it happens when the moon is too far from Earth to fully obstruct the sun, leaving a halo of sunlight around its edges. This unusual eclipse will cross over the North Pole as it travels, and only people in small parts of Canada and Russia will get the full effect. But those willing to wake early enough on parts of the East Coast and wear their safety glasses will get to see a partial eclipse around sunrise that morning.

TO READ TOO

• 

Exploring the Solar System

A guide to the spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit.

• 

The Year in Spaceflight

It started with a literal bang.

{ https://www.nytimes.com/  }

05-01-2021 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

The ISS Recorded Again A Fleet Of Hundreds Of UFOs Approaching Our Planet

We have long believed, even claimed, that we are not alone in the cosmos, and scientists said a few months ago that there may be hundreds of intelligent alien societies not far from Earth. Any of them might also be enough advanced to engage with us.

Scientists at the University of Nottingham, UK, estimate that there are at least 36 extraterrestrial cultures highly advanced in the Milky Way, according to a report published in the science journal The Astrophysical Journal last June.

But they go on to claim that the calculation is simply conservative: it is based on the premise that intelligent life, using what they call the Astrobiological Copernican Limit, forms on other planets in a similar fashion as it does on Earth.

Researchers believed that the World is not special: if an Earth-like planet developed around a Sun-like star in an orbit identical to our planet, hosting a society that evolves technologically similar to humans, in our galaxy there will be around 36 civilizations.

In this scenario, in a timeframe close to that of humanity, other advanced cultures will also be transmitting messages, such as radio broadcasts from satellites and televisions, seeking to discover other modes of life. So if scientists are so convinced of the alien presence of our galaxy, images showing a fleet of hundreds of UFOs above Earth shouldn’t be shocking to us.

Fleet Of UFOs

Another A fleet of over 150 unidentified flying objects in Earth’s orbit has been captured by the International Space Station (ISS) camera. This is not, though the first time in recent months that a similar sighting has occurred.

The ISS was traveling in an undetermined location on Earth last April, as we had already published exclusively, but as the camera captured the progress, hundreds of formation lights were emerging in our path. Uh, earth.

In August, even the Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, currently onboard the International Space Station (ISS), noticed the appearance of a number of unusual lights. The 60-second film, taken from inside the ISS, showed, from Vagner’s viewpoint, at least five unidentified objects traveling in formation, emerging behind Earth.

The arrival of the UFO fleet was caught by the ISS camera in this new sighting during the night of November 15. The appearance in the orbit of Earth of unusual objects is so many that they do not reach the field of view of the camera, but it can be seen that there are at least more than 150.

The most cynical Internet users have indicated that some city lights are these UFO formations, but because the ISS circles the Earth in about 93 minutes, doing 15.5 orbits every day we can see these types of supposed city lights every day on the live stream, but that’s not the case.

But it’s obvious that mysterious luminous objects are not the lights of major cities, and they’re not fishing boats or Starlink satellites because of their height.

It can also be added that on ISS live broadcasts, these light formations do not continuously appear, but rather appear suddenly and then vanish as if they never were. Today, the question that many are wondering is where do they go and in such numbers for what reason do they travel?

There are numerous hypotheses at this stage that might justify its real intent. One explanation is that owing to the coronavirus pandemic, it is alien spacecraft leaving our world in shape.

Another hypothesis, and one of the most famous, is that they are conclusive proof that some otherworldly civilization is preparing for a quiet attack, strategically positioning its fleet as if it were a chessboard. We should not rule out that it is the US Space Force, however.

It must be said that the Space Delta 9 unit of the Space Force was formally awarded its first mission: orbital warfare. It formally took charge of the enigmatic experimental unmanned mini space shuttle X-37B, which completed a number of classified orbits for unspecified reasons, the latest of which involved a Space Force mission, as part of the strengthening of the armament of the Space Force.

So it should come as no surprise that hidden Space Power instruments are the hundreds of objects stealthily flying about in Earth’s orbit.

The fact is that if more than 150 unexplained space objects travel in our planet’s orbit, apart from all these hypotheses, why does the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) or the European Space Agency (ESA) not feel it appropriate to clarify the mysterious objects that appear in the live broadcast of the ISS?

Source:

• Infinity Explorers
  

{ https://extraterrestrialblog.net/ }

05-01-2021 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Bright blue UFO seen crashing into ocean near Hawaii prompts calls to 911, FAA

HAWAII -- An unidentified flying object spotted in Hawaii caught enough people's attention to get the Federal Aviation Administration involved.

FAA agents confirm they did receive reports about the UFO from police, who were getting several 911 calls about it.

The callers all said they saw a large blue object fall out of the sky and into the ocean.

Multiple videos show the object flying in the night sky near Haleakala Avenue in Nanakuli.

"I look up and then I was like oh s***," Mistina Sape said in an interview with a local news station "(I) started calling my husband then because they were all in the garage. I was like 'hey. Come look up there. See if you see what I see.'"

They all did.

"I don't know what it was. This one was going so fast," Sape said.

Navy pilots report mid-air encounters with UFOs up and down East Coast

ABC's Gio Benitez reports on the investigation into the UFO sightings.

Sape has never been a believer in UFOs, but the bright blue object intrigued her so much that she jumped in the car and followed after it.

Her investigation ended three miles later when the blue light, which she described as being larger than a telephone pole, appeared to fall into the ocean. It crashed through the water without making a sound.
That's when Sape and her husband called 911. When officers arrived, they all spotted a second light in the sky.

"My husband went (to) look up and he saw the white one coming. The white one was smaller; (it) was coming in the same direction as the blue one."

The white light passed over a nearby town and disappeared from view.

Honolulu Police Department said it did not have any information about the case it could release. However, the FAA said it received a report from the department about a possible airplane down in the area.

The FAA said it did not have any aircraft disappear off the radar nor any reports of overdue or missing aircraft.

"To this day I don't know," Sape said.

RELATED VIDEO, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://abc11.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 17:48 geschreven door peter  

Insane Video of Triangle Shaped UFO Flying over Texas

A team of UFO enthusiasts have managed to film one of the best videos of the enigmatic triangle UFO.

The sighting took place in Longview, Texas on October 26, 2015, at approximately 20:50 P.M. When the witnesses saw the triangular craft quietly gliding “above Texas neighborhoods, unaware to the masses,” they immediately knew they had to film it.

One and a half minutes into the video, another triangular UFO made a silent entry into the picture and when they slowly distanced themselves, the guys filming the video jumped in the car and drove to a better vantage point.

Since the video is described as [Raw chase footage], the next three minutes are a mix of blurry, shaky footage and Guns N’ Roses. Whoever needs to complain about this must first understand that a certain amount of excitement accompanies UFO sightings and even professional hunters make mistakes. However, the video has two very good portions of footage at the beginning and near the end that make up for the shaky middle.

The UFO manages to cover a lot of ground (technically, sky) during the video. Coupled with its apparent size, the drone hypothesis seems to deteriorate. With what details can be gathered from the footage, the object fits the description of a classic triangle UFO. It is hard to discern whether this craft was built and operated by extraterrestrials or a military prototype such as the TR-3B.

As usual, the sighting sparked controversy on the internet, with users chipping in with their opinions on the matter.

“This is a few hours from where the Cash-Landrum incident happened,” one Reddit user commented. “I wonder if there is a military base in the area.”

The Cash-Landrum incident is one of the best documented UFO sightings to occur in the United States, one that left its witnesses in a state of shock and with palpable physical evidence.

Classified as a close encounter of the second kind, this incident involved Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and her seven year-old grandson Colby. The three of them were traveling on an isolated road to their home in Dayton, Texas when they encountered a huge diamond-shaped object hovering above the treetops. The UFO spewed flames and emitted a large amount of heat; it was enough to make the metal parts of the car so hot they were painful to the touch.

The aftermath of the incident saw Cash fall ill and her symptoms were consistent with radiation poisoning. Large, painful blisters appeared on her body and she bagan losing patches of skin and clumps of hair.

We have strong evidence that these patients have suffered secondary damage to ionizing radiation. It is also possible that there was an infrared component as well.” – MUFON radiologist who examined the patient.

It is possible. The fact that the diamond-shaped UFO was closely followed by a squadron of unmarked military helicopters could attest to the presence of a nearby secret base. The UFO itself could have been a prototype they were testing out and for whatever reason they decided to see the effects of an interaction with humans.

If this is the case, the area might be home to a number of other anomalies and we should be on the lookout for skywatchers’ videos and testimonies.

{ https://ufoholic.com/ }

05-01-2021 om 17:34 geschreven door peter  

World’s Most Famous ‘Alien Abductee’ Slams Skeptics – 16 Lie Detector Tests Prove His Theory is True

In case you didn’t know already, Travis Walton is by far one of the most famous alien abductees of all time because he’s been claiming his story to be real since 1975.

Recently however he came forth during an interview with the Sun Online where he actually told them that from the 16 lie detector tests that he’s undertaken so far, he has passed every single one of them.

His story begins alongside his five crew members as he was driving around his truck in the mountains of Arizona on November 5th, 1975.

This is when he heard a loud noise in the distance alongside a very bright light that he’d seen from a mile away.

He was quick to stomp out any fires started by the local teens but as he approached the scene, he couldn’t help but notice the fact that a massive flying saucer was right ahead of him.

Soon after he disappeared and the crew member hadn’t found him again until five days later when he began telling his story to the world.

That is when he talked about the creatures that took him to their ship and began experimenting on him.

He talks about how these creatures were the typical big-eyed, big-headed, small-bodied stereotypical Grey Aliens that we see everywhere nowadays. With his story confirmed, the father of four believes that he now truly has the upper hand over his haters.

RELATED VIDOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{  https://ancientblog.net/ }

05-01-2021 om 17:07 geschreven door peter  

Japan orders military pilots to report UFO sightings

Despite the Defense Ministry claiming there have been no official reports of military personnel encountering unidentified flying objects, UFO watchers insist that Japan is a hotbed of extraterrestrial activity.

Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have been issued with new protocols for what they should do when encountering an unidentified flying object (UFO) that could potentially pose a threat to national security.

Former Defense Minister Taro Kono told a press conference earlier in September that members of the military need to make a visual recording of any unexplained phenomena they encounter and that the footage must be analyzed to the fullest extent. 

The military is also being tasked with looking into reports of UFO sightings from the public.

The announcement was one of Kono's last acts as defense minister before Japan's government reshuffled ministerial positions in mid-September. 

Kono has in the past expressed skepticism over the existence of alien craft from outer space visiting Earth, telling a press conference in April: "Frankly speaking, I don’t believe in UFOs."

Nevertheless, the issue was brought up when Kono met with US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in Guam in late August for a regularly scheduled talk on regional security issues.

The US side is understood to be keen to collaborate with Japan on UFOs, particularly after the Pentagon released three video clips in April captured by US pilots that apparently show "unidentified aerial phenomena."

• Read more: The US Pentagon's secret investigation into UFOs

The footage had already been circulating online, and US authorities have confirmed that they have been unable to positively identify the objects in the clips.

In 2008, 'The Science of Aliens' museum exhibit in Tokyo featured a model depicting an 'alien autopsy'

Government denies multiple sightings 

According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, there are no known cases of SDF personnel encountering UFOs, although a leading UFO researcher said he was surprised the government would claim ignorance. 

Greg Sullivan, director of the Japan Center for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (JCETI), said Kono and the ministry should be aware of at least six alleged encounters between Japanese pilots and UFOs, all of which he said have been reported to the government. Sullivan also cited a number of civilian UFO sightings across Japan.

"There were previously no protocols in place, as the pilot witnesses that I have spoken with have confirmed, so there was no way of officially reporting these sorts of incidents," Sullivan told DW.

"The reports were filed and the authorities have that data, but they did not previously know what to do with it, so I hope that is going to change now," he added. 

• Read more: Why look for life in 'alien oceans' on distant moons?

One of the people that Sullivan has interviewed is Mamoru Sato, who served as a wing commander in the Air Self-Defense Force and who decided to collect testimonies from a number of other military pilots who had encounters with UFOs.

"Those reports were met with ridicule and the authorities refused to take him seriously," said Sullivan.

Among the incidents that Sato documented was a sighting of a flying "saucer" at close range before the craft disappeared at a rapid speed, and an entire squadron of Japanese pilots on the ground at an air base witnessing a series of highly reflective craft that were also moving at a speed beyond the capabilities of a conventional aircraft.

Shigeru Ishiba, a politician with the Liberal Democratic Party, also filed a request for information about UFO sightings while he was serving as defense minister in 2007.

• Read more: Area 51: Why does a military compound in the desert attract millions from all over the world?

Japan's close encounters 

Japan appears to be something of a hotbed for UFO sightings, with a "flashing green orb" reported in the skies above Niigata in November 2016 and "10 white globes" floating above Osaka in July 2015. "Mystery lights" were also witnessed by dozens of people over Okinawa in January 2014.

In September 2009, Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, attracted headlines over a book in which she claimed to have had an extraterrestrial experience 20 years previously.

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she wrote. "It was a very beautiful place and it was really green." Her husband reportedly told her that it was probably just a dream.

'Alternative explanations'

However, there are also UFO skeptics. For them, events like the sighting of a shiny sphere at high altitude over northern Japan earlier in the summer, and the Pentagon videos, are just unsolved mysteries. 

This newspaper image shows a UFO over northern Japan in June 2020

"There are alternative explanations to at least some of these sightings," Jun Okumura, an analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told DW. 

"Just as some crimes are 'unsolved,' some flying objects are 'unidentified' until they can be identified. And then they are no longer UFOs."

UFO enthusiast Sullivan said he has had countless interactions with Japanese who have sighted UFOs and are keen to know more about unexplained phenomenon.

There are numerous "sky-watching" events across the country for people who believe Japan is destination for intelligent life forms from outer space.

"Japan is one of the very few places in the world where four tectonic plates meet and there is a high level of volcanic activity," said Sullivan, claiming that UFO activity is often found around volcanoes. 

Sullivan hopes that military personnel who may have been reluctant to report an encounter with a UFO for fear of being ridiculed will now be able to follow the official protocols and the data will be revealed to a wider audience.

{ https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097 }

05-01-2021 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

Astronauts Spending Long Time in Space Have Greater Dementia Risk, Claims New Study

• This article was originally published in Sputnik on 15 April 2020.

Researchers are now working to solve all these issues as space agencies prepare to launch manned missions to Mars. The journey to the Red Planet lasts between 200-300 days.

Astronauts, who spend long periods of time in space, have a greater risk of developing dementia, says a new study conducted by scientists from the University of Texas. They analysed MRI scans of 11 astronauts taken before and after their flights to the International Space Station and concluded that the lack of gravity in space makes their brains swell and cerebrospinal fluids expand.

“What we identified that no one has really identified before is that there is a significant increase of volume in the brain’s white matter from preflight to postflight”, said Dr Larry Krammer, the study’s lead author from the University of Texas. “White matter expansion in fact is responsible for the largest increase in combined brain and cerebrospinal fluid volumes postflight.”

Microgravity experienced by humans in space redirects blood from the arms and legs to the brain making the pressure inside the skull increase. Increased exposure to low gravity could cause the brain’s volume to balloon and the pituitary gland – which is part of the endocrine system – to shrink.

“We found that the pituitary gland loses height and is smaller postflight than it was preflight. In addition, the dome of the pituitary gland is predominantly convex in astronauts without prior exposure to microgravity but showed evidence of flattening or concavity postflight. This type of deformation is consistent with exposure to elevated intracranial pressures”, said Dr Krammer.

Moreover, the scientists noticed that cerebrospinal fluids ran faster thought the brain than before the space trip. They attributed such brain changes to hydrocephalus, a condition found in people on Earth who are not astronauts. In this condition, the brain ventricles enlarge anomalously. Researchers said changes may lead to walking issues, problems with bladder control, and a high risk of developing dementia.

Researchers are now working to solve all these issues as space agencies prepare to launch manned missions to Mars. The journey to the Red Planet lasts between 200-300 days. Artificial gravity is one of the solutions that can be implemented with large centrifuges. Another option is to impose negative pressure on lower limbs to balance the headward flow of fluid.

New threat for astronauts heading to Mars – dementia, brain damage

NASA’s 4-Year Twin Experiment Takes Us Closer To Mars Than Ever Before

Watch Elon Musk Reveal SpaceX’s Most Detailed Plans To Colonize Mars

Colonizing Mars may require humanity to tweak its DNA

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

{ http://churchandstate.org.uk/ }

05-01-2021 om 14:38 geschreven door peter  

Astronauts Spending Long Time in Space Have Greater Dementia Risk, Claims New Study

• This article was originally published in Sputnik on 15 April 2020.

Researchers are now working to solve all these issues as space agencies prepare to launch manned missions to Mars. The journey to the Red Planet lasts between 200-300 days.

Astronauts, who spend long periods of time in space, have a greater risk of developing dementia, says a new study conducted by scientists from the University of Texas. They analysed MRI scans of 11 astronauts taken before and after their flights to the International Space Station and concluded that the lack of gravity in space makes their brains swell and cerebrospinal fluids expand.

“What we identified that no one has really identified before is that there is a significant increase of volume in the brain’s white matter from preflight to postflight”, said Dr Larry Krammer, the study’s lead author from the University of Texas. “White matter expansion in fact is responsible for the largest increase in combined brain and cerebrospinal fluid volumes postflight.”

Microgravity experienced by humans in space redirects blood from the arms and legs to the brain making the pressure inside the skull increase. Increased exposure to low gravity could cause the brain’s volume to balloon and the pituitary gland – which is part of the endocrine system – to shrink.

“We found that the pituitary gland loses height and is smaller postflight than it was preflight. In addition, the dome of the pituitary gland is predominantly convex in astronauts without prior exposure to microgravity but showed evidence of flattening or concavity postflight. This type of deformation is consistent with exposure to elevated intracranial pressures”, said Dr Krammer.

Moreover, the scientists noticed that cerebrospinal fluids ran faster thought the brain than before the space trip. They attributed such brain changes to hydrocephalus, a condition found in people on Earth who are not astronauts. In this condition, the brain ventricles enlarge anomalously. Researchers said changes may lead to walking issues, problems with bladder control, and a high risk of developing dementia.

Researchers are now working to solve all these issues as space agencies prepare to launch manned missions to Mars. The journey to the Red Planet lasts between 200-300 days. Artificial gravity is one of the solutions that can be implemented with large centrifuges. Another option is to impose negative pressure on lower limbs to balance the headward flow of fluid.

New threat for astronauts heading to Mars – dementia, brain damage

NASA’s 4-Year Twin Experiment Takes Us Closer To Mars Than Ever Before

Watch Elon Musk Reveal SpaceX’s Most Detailed Plans To Colonize Mars

Colonizing Mars may require humanity to tweak its DNA

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

{ http://churchandstate.org.uk/ }

05-01-2021 om 14:13 geschreven door peter  

Bad space weather may make life impossible near Proxima Centauri

By Andrew Zic, Tara Murphy

(Image: © NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger)

• This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

If you look up in the southern sky you can see the "pointer" stars, pointing towards the Southern Cross. One of these pointers is Alpha Centauri, which is actually a pair of Sun-like stars that are too close together to tell apart by eye.

There is a third member of the Alpha Centauri system as well: Proxima Centauri (Proxima Cen for short), which circles the central two stars in a wide orbit. This is the Sun’s nearest neighbour, at a distance of just 4.2 light years.

It is possible one of Proxima Cen’s planets is suitable for life. However, we recently detected the signature of fierce space weather from Proxima Cen, which implies an orbiting planet could be blasted with hazardous particles and magnetic fields.

Our neighbour is not like the sun

Our sun is a relatively unremarkable yellow dwarf star, hosting the only known life-bearing planet in the Universe: our Earth.

Proxima Cen is very different. It is a red dwarf star, with a diameter only 15% of the sun's, and a surface temperature of 3,000 K (degrees Kelvin), much cooler than the sun's 6,000K.

Because Proxima Cen is relatively cool, the "Goldilocks zone" of orbits around it – where the temperature is just right for liquid water – is around one-twentieth the Earth's distance from the sun. We are interested in planets in a star's Goldilocks zone because liquid water is necessary for life as we know it.

• Read more: Say hello to the Earth's nearest exoplanet neighbour: Proxima Centauri b

We know Proxima Cen has at least two planets: Proxima Cen b, a rocky "super-Earth" located in the middle of Proxima Cen’s Goldilocks zone, and Proxima Cen c, a “sub-Neptune” located further out.

For years, astronomers have suspected planets like Proxima Cen b may be a dangerous home for life because they are so close to their host stars. Many red dwarf stars produce frequent, powerful flares – intense bursts of radiation travelling out into space. If planets like Proxima Cen b don’t have protective features such as a thick atmosphere or a strong magnetic field, they would be exposed to perilous levels of radiation.

But what’s the weather like around these stars?

The “space weather” of red dwarfs is another important factor in determining how hospitable they are to life. While flares involve intense bursts of light, space weather events mean the magnetic field and charged particles from the star can interact with planets directly.

The most energetic space weather events are known as coronal mass ejections (or CMEs). These massive eruptions escape the atmosphere of a star and travel through space at millions of kilometres per hour.

If the space weather conditions are extreme enough, the planetary atmosphere can be blown away and its magnetic field can be pushed backwards, leaving the surface exposed to deadly flare radiation.

CMEs have been detected around the Sun since the 1970s, but detecting space weather events around distant stars is much harder.

For updates on the weather, tune into the radio

CMEs on the Sun produce characteristic bursts of radio noise, such as “type II” and “type IV” bursts. By detecting similar signatures on other stars, we can indirectly identify stellar CMEs.

In early 2019, we pointed our telescopes at Proxima Cen for 11 nights. We used CSIRO’s new radio telescope, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), as well as the Zadko Telescope, the ANU 2.3m Telescope, and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Our goal was to detect the signature of a CME.

On the night of May 2, 2019, we observed a massive optical flare with an estimated total energy output of 16 septillion joules. (That’s nearly 17 million years’ worth of Australia’s current electricity output.) On the Sun, flares this big happen only once every decade or two. But on Proxima Cen, they happen every few weeks.

Using ASKAP, we observed a spectacular sequence of intense radio bursts.

With the amazing detail revealed with ASKAP, we could see we had detected the best example of a solar-like type IV radio burst from another star to date.

This blast of radio waves implies the space weather environment around Proxima Cen is quite violent.

‘One swallow does not make a summer’

In 1859, British astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson made the first observations of a solar flare, which was followed by a massive space weather storm named the “Carrington event”. We now know the storm was caused by a massive coronal mass ejection hitting Earth.

Carrington noted the coincidence between these extraordinary events, but was cautious to draw any connection between them, famously stating “one swallow does not make a summer”. We now find ourselves in a similar situation to Carrington.

We have observed a radio burst signature implying a CME erupting from Proxima Cen. But to confirm the relationship of these stellar radio bursts with CMEs, we need to harness information from other wavelengths. Once we can do this, we should soon know exactly how hazardous it is to live next to a star like Proxima Centauri.

• Read more: Is Alpha Centauri the right place to search for life elsewhere?
• This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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05-01-2021 om 01:49 geschreven door peter