Strange space object 2020 SO was discovered on September 17, 2020, on approach to Earth. On November 8, it slowly drifted into Earth’s sphere of gravitational dominance, to become a new mini-moon. It’ll escape back into a new orbit around the sun in March 2021. During that time, it’ll make 2 large loops around our planet. In this image, Earth is the blue dot. The moon’s orbit is the yellow circle. 2020 SO’s trajectory is the looping pink line.

Image via Phoenix7777/ Wikimedia Commons.

Astronomers first noticed the object now known as 2020 SO last September. Orbit models quickly showed that both the low speed and trajectory of the approaching object were unusual. The models showed that Earth would capture this object – temporarily – as a new mini-moon. And that’s what happened. 2020 SO has been orbiting Earth since November 8. Following further analysis of its motion – and a very close approach of the object (just 30,000 miles, 50,000 km or 0.13 lunar-distances) on December 1 – NASA was able to confirm that the object is a relic of the early Space Age, a Centaur upper-stage rocket booster, once called America’s workhorse in space. Now 2020 SO is about to make one more close approach to Earth on February 2, 2021. It’ll pass farther away this time, but still within 0.58 lunar-distances (140,000 miles, or 220,000 km). Afterwards, in March 2021, Earth’s gravity will relinquish its hold on the object.

It’ll no longer be a mini-moon for Earth. Instead, it’ll be orbiting the sun.

You have a chance to see 2020 SO online. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will be showing the object online on the night of February 1. Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi wrote:

We will say it goodbye, live: join us from the comfort of your home!

• EarthSky 2021 lunar calendars still available! Order now.

The live feed is scheduled for the night of February 1, 2021, starting at 22:00 UTC (that’s February 1 at 4 p.m. Central, 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific in North America; translate UTC to your time). That’s when, Gianluca said, 2020 SO will be at its best above the Virtual Telescope’s robotic telescopes in central Italy. See the poster below for details and read more about this event via Virtual Telescope.

Poster of the February 1, 2021 online event, via Virtual Telescope.

Astronomers first sighted the object on September 17 using the 71-inch (1.8-meter) Pan-STARRS1 telescope at Haleakala, Hawaii. They gave it its designation – 2020 SO – and added it as an Apollo-type asteroid in the JPL Small-Body Database.

However, 2020 SO was quickly seen to have some features that set it apart from ordinary asteroids. According to NASA/JPL calculations, the object sped past Earth’s moon at a speed of 1,880 miles per hour (3,025 km/h) or 0.84 km per second (.5 mi/sec). That is an extremely slow speed for an asteroid.

These calculations also show the apparent “slow asteroid” orbiting the sun every 1.06 years (387 days). The low relative velocity, along with the Earth-like orbit, both suggest it as an artificial object launched from our planet. Radar images showed that 2020 SO had an elongated shape estimated to be between 20 and 45 feet (6 to 14 meters), a match for the dimensions of an Atlas LV-3C Centaur-D (approximately 41 feet or 12 meters).

The confirmation that SO 2020 was indeed a lost-and-found rocket booster came from data collected at NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on Maunakea, Hawaii, and from orbit analyses conducted at the the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This particular rocket launched the ill-fated Surveyor 2 spacecraft toward the moon in 1966.

Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, first suggested the object might be Surveyor 2’s lost rocket booster. Surveyor 2 was a robotic spacecraft that was launched to the moon on September 20, 1966. It was meant to be the second lunar lander in the uncrewed American Surveyor program to explore the moon. The spacecraft blasted into space atop an Atlas LV-3C Centaur-D rocket from Cape Kennedy, Florida.

A mid-course correction failure caused ground controllers to lose contact with the craft three days later, after a thruster failed to ignite. The failure caused the spacecraft to tumble and ultimately to crash near the moon’s Copernicus crater.

Unlike some rocket boosters today (which return to Earth and land on ships at sea), Surveyor 2’s rocket booster remains in space and was lost. It appears to have been pushed from its original trajectory by a small but continuous pressure from sunlight.

As it turns out, the defunct booster – now known as 2020 SO – had passed Earth unnoticed several times in the past, including a close approach in 1966, not long after it launched.

This 1964 photograph shows a Centaur upper-stage rocket before being mated to an Atlas booster. A similar Centaur was used during the launch of Surveyor 2 two years later and is currently known as 2020 SO … a new temporary mini-moon for Earth.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

An Atlas LV-3C Centaur-D launch on June 30, 1964.

Image via AstroNautix.

A model of the ill-fated Surveyor 2 lander, which crashed on the moon in 1966.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

How could we have lost an entire 41-foot-long rocket? Space archaeologist Alice Gorman of Flinders University in Australia told ScienceAlert that – before our modern era of reuseable rockets – the rockets that launched craft into space were surprisingly easy to lose. She said:

There are so many factors in the space environment, like gravitational factors and other things that affect movement, that it can sometimes be quite unpredictable.

You have to keep tracking these things, or you can just sort of lose sight of them really easily. And if they do something a little bit unpredictable, and you look the wrong way, then you don’t know where it’s gone. It is quite astonishing, the number of things that have gone missing.

NASA explained that pressure from the sun’s radiation caused the object to change its trajectory:

The pressure exerted by sunlight is small but continuous, and it has a greater effect on a hollow object than a solid one. A spent rocket is essentially an empty tube and therefore is a low-density object with a large surface area. So it will be pushed around by solar radiation pressure more than a solid, high-density clump of rock, much like an empty soda can will be pushed by the wind more than a small stone.

This animation shows the orbit of 2020 SO as it was captured by Earth’s gravity on November 8, 2020. It will escape in March 2021. Its motion has been speeded up a million times faster than real time.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

This isn’t the first time Earth has captured a mini-moon.

As you might have realized by now, space is chock-full of small asteroids. Once in a while, one of these space rocks is captured, temporarily, by our planet’s gravity, before being cast out back into the solar system at large. Two confirmed mini-moons are 2006 RH120 (in Earth orbit between 2006 and 2007), and 2020 CD3 (in our orbit between 2018 and 2020).

It’s also not the first time we’ve mistaken space junk for an asteroid.

Another small object that was initially thought to be an asteroid was WT1190F, detected in October 2015 on approach to Earth. Its trajectory suggested it was about to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere near Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean, an event that happens with ordinary asteroids several times every year.

As WT1190F was disintegrating in our atmosphere on November 13, 2015, scientists analyzed its light via spectroscopy.

This analysis suggested the object might be a spacecraft component or part of a spent rocket, another wandering piece of space junk returning home.

In the case of 2020 SO, its return home won’t last long. After March, the spent rocket body will be on its way again, back into a larger solar orbit. Who knows how long we’ll keep track of it this time?

2020 SO isn’t the first object thought to be an asteroid, and later realized to be human-made space junk. Here’s an object tagged as WT1190F entering Earth’s atmosphere south of Sri Lanka on November 13, 2015.

Image via IAC/ UAE/ NASA/ ESA.

• Bottom line: An “asteroid” spotted in September 2020 became a new mini-moon for Earth in November. In early December, NASA confirmed the object is a lost rocket from the Surveyor 2 mission, originally launched from Earth more than 50 years ago. Now 2020 SO is about to make a final close approach to Earth. That’ll happen on February 2. The night before, February 1, you can join an online viewing of this object.
• Via NASA
• Via ScienceAlert
• Via Popular Mechanics
• Via Virtual Telescope

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

28-01-2021 om 23:43 geschreven door peter  

Photos And Videos: The Ancients Had Knowledge That Surpass Ours?

Many preserved buildings and artefacts points out that the ancients had advanced control technology. A number of ancient buildings and paintings of deities shows all too similar to the existing people – with aircraft, missiles and space suit. The oldest working model “glider” comes from the excavations of ancient Egypt 3000 years ago before Christ.

EGYPT

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28-01-2021 om 23:21 geschreven door peter  

Researchers Say Humanity Will Be Officially Screwed If Artificial Intelligence Keeps Learning To Teach Itself

#ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Based on some of the advancements in artificial intelligence that have been unveiled in recent years, it seems like there are way too many people out there who’ve watched an episode of Black Mirror and thought, “Hey, that’s a great idea,” as you’re kind of missing the point if you use a show that’s devoted to highlighting the potential pitfalls of our crippling reliance on technology as a good source of inspiration.

I’m sure most of the people who’ve devoted their lives to figuring out how to harness the power of artificial intelligence have good intentions, but the same could be said for the researchers who brought Jurassic Park to life (and we all know how well that worked out for them). There’s no denying that it’s wild to live in a world where we can “talk” with people after they’ve died and even have a computer predict when you’re going to die, but as the aforementioned movie taught us, it’s easy to get so preoccupied with whether or not you can do something to take a second to ask yourself if you should. 

Natural and artificial intelligence

DEPOSITPHOTOS ENHANCED BY COGWORLD

Whenever Boston Dynamics releases a video showcasing a new skill one of its robots has learned, there’s always an avalanche of people who respond by joking about the “robot overlords” that will eventually bring humanity to its knees. However, there’s plenty of evidence that suggests that outcome isn’t a laughing matter, as some people who more know about A.I. than I ever will believe that dystopian future is a very real possibility.

Now, we have even more proof courtesy of researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Humans and Machines, who recently published a paper in The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research with a fun little title containing the words “Superintelligence Cannot Be Contained,” which is totally, definitely not a cause for concern whatsoever.

The authors of the paper took a closer look at the “Three Laws of Robotics” author Isaac Asimov famously said could prevent an I, Robot scenario from unfolding, which appear to be about as foolproof in the real world as they were in that work of fiction.

Shutterstock

While some experts have posited you can control A.I. by limiting its access to the internet or writing algorithms in an attempt to control its behavior, the chance of those strategies actually working becomes increasingly unlikely as humans willingly push the limits of what artificial intelligence can do, with researcher Iyad Rahwan saying:

“The ability of modern computers to adapt using sophisticated machine learning algorithms makes it even more difficult to make assumptions about the eventual behavior of a superintelligent AI.”

Oh well. At least society had a good run.

• [Business Insider]

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28-01-2021 om 22:49 geschreven door peter  

The Devil’s Sea Zone: Secrets of the Dragon’s Triangle of Japan

28-01-2021 om 22:18 geschreven door peter  

Spontaneous Human Combustion: A Burning Mystery

For some time, people have debated whether or not human beings could spontaneously combust, or burst into flames, without an external heat source. However, over the past 300 years, there have been more than 200 reports of such incidents occurring. This phenomenon is called spontaneous human combustion (or SHC) and it occurs when a person supposedly burns to death by a fire believed to have started from within the body of that person. Of the hundreds of accounts on record, there seems to be a similar pattern.

A solitary victim is often consumed by flame, usually inside his or her home. However, the extremities, such as the hands, feet, or parts of the leg, often remaining intact. The torso and head are charred beyond recognition and, in rare cases, the internal organs of a victim remain unscathed.

The room the victim was in usually shows little to no signs of fire, aside from a greasy residue left on furniture and walls. Often there is a sweet, smoky smell in the room where the incident has occurred.

Historic Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion

The history of SHC can be traced back to medieval literature and some even believe there are several passages in the Bible making reference to it.

In 1641, the Danish physician, Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680), described the death of Polonus Vorstius in his book Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum , a collection of strange medical phenomena.

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Vorstius was an Italian knight, who, while at his home in Milan, Italy in 1470, drank some strong wine and started vomiting flames before bursting into fire. This is considered to be the first recorded account of spontaneous combustion in human history.

Illustration of person spontaneously combusting

( Public Domain )

In 1673, French author Jonas Dupont, published a book entitled De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis, which is a collection of cases and studies on the subject of spontaneous human combustion.

One famous incident from France dates back to 1725, when a Parisian innkeeper was awoken by the smell of smoke and discovered that his wife, Nicole Millet, had been reduced to ashes while lying on a straw pallet, which itself had been untouched by the flames.

All that remained of Madame Millet, a chronic alcoholic, was her skull, a few bones from her back, and lower legs. Wooden items found around her were undamaged. Her husband was charged with murder and initially found guilty.

On appeal, however, the judges agreed with his defense of “spontaneous human combustion,” thanks in part to the testimony of a surgeon named Dr. Claude-Nicolas Le Cat. Le Cat was at the inn when the smell of smoke awoke the house and Nicole’s body was discovered. Her death was later declared to be the consequence of “a visitation of God.”

Spontaneous human combustion became popularized in the 19th century after famous English author Charles Dickens used it to kill off one of his characters in the novel Bleak House . When critics accused Dickens of trying to validate something that didn’t exist, he simply pointed to existing research showing 30 historical cases at the time.

Illustration of the spontaneous human combustion case in Bleak House by Charles Dickens

( Public Domain )

Common Characteristics of Spontaneous Human Combustion Victims

The topic of SHC received coverage in the British Medical Journal in 1938 when an article by L.A. Parry cited a book published in 1823 called Medical Jurisprudence . It stated that cases of spontaneous human combustion shared several common themes including:

• the victims were chronic alcoholics;
• they were usually elderly females;
• the body had burned spontaneously, but some lighted substance had also come into contact with it;
• the hands and feet usually fell off;
• the fire had caused very little damage to many other combustible things in contact with the body;
• the combustion of the body has left a residue of greasy and fetid ashes, very offensive in odor.

Alcoholism seems to have played a heavy role in early references to SHC, partially because some Victorian era physicians and writers believed spontaneous human combustion was caused by it.

The Wick Effect: A Scientific Explanation for SHC

There are several theories as to what causes SHC apart from the above-mentioned alcoholism. These include: flammable body fat, acetone buildup, static electricity, methane, bacteria, stress, and even divine intervention.

The theory explaining SHC which is most approved by science is called the “wick effect.” It likens the body of an SHC victim to a candle. A candle is composed of a wick on the inside surrounded by a wax made of flammable fatty acids. Fire ignites the wick and the fatty wax keeps it burning.

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In the human body, the body fat acts as the flammable substance, while the victim's clothing or hair is the wick. A cigarette might set fire to a person’s clothing then split their skin, releasing subcutaneous fat, which in turn is absorbed into the burned clothing. As the fat melts from the heat, it soaks into the clothing, acting as a “wax-like substance” to keep the "wick" burning. The burning continues for as long as there is fuel available. Proponents of this theory say it explains why victims' bodies are destroyed yet their surroundings are barely burned.

The three stages of the Wick Theory

( arzbmad16/Slideshare)

There is More to Consider About This Phenomenon

Author and biology professor Brian J Ford offers another explanation for SHC. He says that an acetone build-up is likely at the root of this bizarre phenomenon:

“When a person is ill they sometimes naturally produce traces of acetone in the body, and acetone is highly inflammable. I experimented with scale model humans using pig flesh that had been marinated in acetone; they burn like incendiary bombs. Alcoholism can cause people to produce acetone, as can many diseases. My conclusion is that an unwell individual produces high levels of acetone which accumulates in the fatty tissues and can be ignited, perhaps by a static spark or a cigarette.”

Something that should be taken into consideration is the fact that cases of SHC almost always occur indoors, to lone humans, and often near sources of heat. For example, there are almost no known instances of spontaneous human combustion happening in the middle of the street.

Another point to consider is that the phenomenon only seems to happen to humans, there are no known reported cases of animals suddenly catching fire.

Also, the "wick effect" doesn’t seem to fully explain why the victims remain motionless during the episode of combustion and burning, nor does it provide enough explanation why surrounding furniture is so often unaffected by the fire.

Furthermore, believers in SHC point to the fact that the human body has to reach a temperature of roughly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 degrees Celsius) in order to be reduced to complete ashes, which has been the case with many of the victims found. By comparison, cremating a human body is carried out at a temperature between 1400 and 1800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius).

Modern Spontaneous Human Combustion Cases

Cases of SHC aren’t simply the stuff of old wives tales or confined strictly to books of antiquity. For instance, a more modern example took place in Ireland in 2010.

The burned body of an elderly man was found lying with his head near the fireplace of his apartment in a room that had virtually no fire damage. There were no burn marks on the floor, on the ceiling directly above him, or anywhere else in the room. An Irish coroner would later rule that spontaneous combustion was the cause of the death of 76-year-old Michael Faherty.

Another modern case of possible SHC occurred in 2017. The Independent reported that a 70-year-old man suddenly burst into flames “in unexplained circumstances in a London street.” The Fire Brigade’s investigation “found no evidence of an “accelerant” that would have spread the flames” and the man’s death was treated as “unexplained.” Could this be another case of spontaneous human combustion?

Many people believe that there is much about the human body which makes it unique among earthly beings and there are aspects of humans that are still unknown to us. One such feature is the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion, which remains an unsolved mystery .

Spontaneous human combustion remains an unsolved mystery.

(Matthew/ CC BY NC ND 2.0 )

• Top Image: Spontaneous Human Combustion is an unexplained phenomenon. Source: lucas le coadou/EyeEm /Adobe Stock

By Bryan Hill

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28-01-2021 om 21:21 geschreven door peter  

The Lost Continent of Kumari Kandam

Most people are familiar with the story of Atlantis, the legendary sunken city as described by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Till this day, opinion is still divided as to whether this story should be understood literally or taken merely as a morality tale. Further east in the subcontinent of India is a similar tale, though it probably is less well known compared to that of Atlantis. This is the ‘lost continent’ of Lemuria, frequently connected to the legend of Kumari Kandam by speakers of the Tamil language.

The term Lemuria has its origins in the latter part of the 19 ^th century. The English geologist Philip Sclater was puzzled by the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India but not in mainland Africa and the Middle East. Thus, in his 1864 article entitled ‘The Mammals of Madagascar’, Sclater proposed that Madagascar and India were once part of a larger continent, and named this missing landmass ‘Lemuria’. Sclater’s theory was accepted by the scientific community of that period as the explanation of the way lemurs could have migrated from Madagascar to India or vice versa in ancient times. With the emergence of the modern concepts of continental drift and plate tectonics, however, Sclater’s proposition of a submerged continent was no longer tenable. Yet, the idea of a lost continent refused to die, and some still believe that Lemuria was an actual continent that existed in the past.

One such group is the Tamil nationalists. The term Kumari Kandam first appeared in the 15 ^th century Kanda Puranam, the Tamil version of the Skanda Puranam. Yet, stories about an ancient land submerged by the Indian Ocean have been recorded in many earlier Tamil literary works. According to the stories, there was a portion of land that was once ruled by the Pandiyan kings and was swallowed by the sea. When narratives about Lemuria arrived in colonial India, the country was going through a period when folklore was beginning to permeate historic knowledge as facts. As a result, Lemuria was quickly equated with Kumari Kandam.

Bhagavata-Purana, 10th Skanda. 

Image source .

The story of Kumari Kandam is not regarded as just a story, but seems to be laden with nationalistic sentiments. It has been claimed that the Pandiyan kings of Kumari Kandam were the rulers of the whole Indian continent, and that Tamil civilisation is the oldest civilisation in the world. When Kumari Kandam was submerged, its people spread across the world and founded various civilisations, hence the claim that the lost continent was also the cradle of human civilisation.

So, how much truth is there in the story of Kumari Kandam? According to researchers at India’s National Institute of Oceanography, the sea level was lower by 100 m about 14,500 years ago and by 60 m about 10,000 years ago. Hence, it is entirely possible that there was once a land bridge connecting the island of Sri Lanka to mainland India. As the rate of global warming increased between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the rising sea levels resulted in periodic flooding. This would have submerged prehistoric settlements that were located around the low-lying coastal areas of India and Sri Lanka. Stories of these catastrophic events may have been transmitted orally from one generation to another and finally written down as the story of Kumari Kandam.

One piece of evidence used to support the existence of Kumari Kandam is Adam’s Bridge (also called Rama’s Bridge), a chain of limestone shoals made up of sand, silt and small pebbles located in the Palk Strait extending 18 miles from mainland India to Sri Lanka.  This strip of land was once believed to be a natural formation, however, others argue that images taken by a NASA satellite depict this land formation to be a long broken bridge under the ocean's surface. 

The location of Adam's Bridge between India and Sri Lanka

The existence of a bridge in this location is also supported by another ancient legend.  The Ramayana tells the tale of Sita, Rama’s wife, being held captive on the island of Lanka. Rama commissions a massive building project to construct a bridge to transport his army of Vanara (ape men) across the ocean to Lanka. 

As with most so-called myths, it seems likely that there is at least some truth to the ancient Tamil legends of Kumari Kandam, but just how much, is yet to be determined.

By Ḏḥwty

References

Jayakaran, S. C., 2011`. The Lemuria Myth. [Online] Available at: 

• http://www.frontline.in/navigation/?type=static&page=archiveSearch&aid=20110422280809000&ais=08&avol=28

Mahalingam, N., 2010. Lemuria and Kumari Kandam. [Online] Available at: 

• http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/lemuria-and-kumari-kandam/article482101.ece

Parameswaran, N., 2005. Tamil civilisation - is it the oldest?. [Online] Available at:

•  http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=256

Wikipedia, 2014. Kumari Kandam. [Online] Available at: 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_Kandam

Wikipedia, 2014. Lemuria (continent). [Online] Available at: 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_(continent)

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28-01-2021 om 21:01 geschreven door peter  

VIDEO: Secret Video Archive Of UFO Recordings Released.

Area 51 is the most secret and most protected area of ​​the world by the US military. What is hidden in the bowels of an inaccessible base?
North of Las Vegas, near the Nevada desert territory is the size of 15,000 km square. It is the most secret and most protected area of ​​the world by the US military – Area 51. This is an area where the first conducted underground tests of nuclear weapons and where was the secret US military exercises. Later, there began research and training flights with the latest types of combat aircraft of the US Air Force. The base circulating different stories and myths, in particular regarding the existence of UFOs. It was built in 1957 as a military research center in drying lake.

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28-01-2021 om 20:42 geschreven door peter  

Edwin Starr once asked the musical question: “War – what is it good for?” and provided the musical answer: “Absolutely nothing.” You could “say it again” about black holes. While all of their negative qualities are well known – sucking up everything within their gravitational pull, including light – no one seems to have figured out what they might be good for … until now. An astrophysicist at New York’s Columbia University claims their energy can be harvested and used to power anything that needs massive amounts of fuel – and that is the best way for us to discover black-hole-sucking extraterrestrials. If they can do that, do we really want to meet them?

“Black holes are commonly surrounded by a hot ‘soup’ of plasma particles that carry a magnetic field. Our theory shows that when magnetic field lines disconnect and reconnect, in just the right way, they can accelerate plasma particles to negative energies and large amounts of black hole energy can be extracted.”

Physicists Luca Comisso from Columbia University and partner Felipe Asenjo from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile explain in a university press release the essence of their new paper, published in the journal Physical Review D. They theorize that this “hot soup of plasma” is generating energy just outside the event horizon of the black hole where it can be collected in a theoretical giant receptacle by a civilization intelligent enough to pull it off. Knowing we’re not that civilization, Comisso sticks with food to explain in simpler terms how this all works.

“It is like a person could lose weight by eating candy with negative calories. This might sound weird, but it can happen in a region called the ergosphere, where the spacetime continuum rotates so fast that every object spins in the same direction as the black hole.”

You heard what he said — negative calories!

It certainly does sound weird, but Asenjo further explains that it’s the high velocity between captured and escaping plasma particles that shoots out the stream of energy-charged – a process that beats the efficiency of any power plant on Earth.

“We calculated that the process of plasma energization can reach an efficiency of 150 percent, much higher than any power plant operating on Earth. Achieving an efficiency greater than 100 percent is possible because black holes leak energy, which is given away for free to the plasma escaping from the black hole.”

And it’s FREE! No wonder the smart aliens are pumping it into the galactic spaceships or fueling their death stars or whatever they might be using it for. We pitiful humans obviously can’t do this, even if we were less than 1,000 light years from the nearest black hole. However, we’re smart enough to figure out what this black hole energy extraction process might look like from far away, and that is what Comisso says will lead us to that superior alien civilization.

And maybe them to us?

We would LOVE to meet you pitiful humans.

Perhaps the words of Edwin Starr apply here too:

“What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Say it again.”

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28-01-2021 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

Every once in a while there is a case in the field that really raises eyebrows. These are the cases in which even the most open-minded and willing to believe are sometimes left speechless and wondering what to think. Such stories have become almost legendary within the field, and one of these is certainly the time a supposed Venusian emissary was a guest at the Pentagon.

In the winter of 1967, Harley Andrew Byrd, nephew to the late Rear Admiral Richard R.E. Byrd of the United States Navy, who was a high ranking official at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and a part of Project Blue Book, got a harried and panicked call from the Police Department in Alexandria, Virginia. According to him, two policemen reported that they had seen a UFO had landed in a field, and a that tall man dressed in white had emerged, claiming to be from “The High Council” and calling himself “Valiant Thor.” This being was then purportedly picked up and taken to the Pentagon, where he was introduced to the Under Secretary of Defense, as well as Secretary of Defense Neil H McElroy, and then given VIP status and hurried off to see the president of the United States himself, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as the vice-president at the time, Richard Nixon. According to Byrd, Valiant Thor was from Venus, and spent some amount of time at the Pentagon speaking to the president about the world’s problems, and Byrd would say:

Commander James was on duty at the Security Clearance and Review for the branch officer of the Project Blue Book. He oversaw the meeting through official channels and reported the landing and meeting of the “space emissary”, as he was labeled by the Department of Defense, to a governing group of high military officials including Secretary of Defense F.F. Forestall and other scientific men of which there were twelve. They in turn made recommendations to the President and Cabinet members, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and so on. The landing of Valiant Thor was perhaps the first documented landing of a human-type alien by military officials. He contacted an individual in the Pentagon who was an advocate of the UFO alien situation. “Nancy Warren” in turn contacted a minister, who was also a private investigator and theologian, a Dr. Frank E. Stranges, who then met with this individual. Dr. Stranges had been a guest speaker at the National Evangelistic Center for two weeks.

Val Thor landed in Alexandria and met with the President to discuss the world’s problems and offer advice and counsel on how to deal with and eliminate them. He indicated to Mr. Eisenhower that the world was in a precarious situation and that if the world continued to proceed on a war footing – it would cause an economic imbalance throughout the world. He indicated that his race of people lived and dwelled underground and that many of the planets throughout the universe sustain life in this same manner. He also mentioned the waves of aliens who would land around the world to help with the Earth’s seemingly insurmountable problems. He stated that a group from a distant planetary system would be coming to give aid and data to help the Earth’s progress.

Alleged photo of Valiant Thor

Richard Nixon was apparently fascinated by Val Thor, and allegedly said to him:

You have certainly caused a stir… for an out-of-Towner. Of course, we are not totally convinced of anything just yet. But suffice it to say we are checking and double checking everything you say and do. When Sergeant Young from Alexandria radioed in and stated that you had just landed in a flying saucer, we thought Sergeant Young had flipped. Say, were you in on that UFO flap over Washington? You certainly had us all in a dither, if you were.

Frank E. Stranges would have a personal meeting with the entity and give much information of these interactions between Valiant Thor and the government in his book on the matter, the 1967 Stranger at the Pentagon, and would also go into depth about the alien’s appearance and behaviors. Stranges said that Val Thor looked like a perfectly normal human being, except that he had six fingers on each hand and could live for 500 years, and it also turned out that he wasn’t alone, having actually arrived with three companions, called Donn, Jill, and Taniya. Val Thor supposedly told him that they had been watching humanity closely since the atomic bombs in World War II, and sought to “begin a new era in knowledge, wisdom and understanding on our planet.” Curiously, Stranges would also claim that Valiant Thor had a deep interest in Christianity, even going as far as to say that Jesus was in fact an alien from outer space, and had spread His word across the galaxy. This might not be so surprising since Stranges just happened to be a travelling Evangelical preacher, and he would say:

He told me that his purpose in coming was to help mankind return to the Lord. He spoke in positive terms…always with a smile on his face. He said that man was further away from God than ever before, but there was still a good chance if man looks in the right place.

Apparently, Valiant Thor stayed there in Washington D.C. for a full 3 years on his mysterious mission, before suddenly dematerializing in 1960 to return to his home planet. The story was published in Stranges’ book and went on to become firmly entrenched in UFO lore as one of the most completely bizarre accounts on record, going on to be much discussed and debated, and even appearing on TV shows and in the media. However, if you have been paying attention so far you may perhaps see why it has all drawn skeptics to it like moths to a flame. The list of gripes against this outlandish tale is long. For one, Venus is far from what one would consider a traditionally habitable planet, so why would it produce a race of beings nearly indistinguishable from humans? Also, where is all of the evidence? He was here for 3 years, yet the only evidence that has been offered are some photographs of a man in a suit said to be him and one of a group of some clean-cut young people who Stranges claims to be Val, Donn, Jill, and Tanyia, but who seriously could be anyone at all. it is all pretty flimsy at best.

Valiant Thor and his Venusian friends

Another is that the credentials of Stranges and others involved in this case have been seriously called into question. There is no independent verification that Stranges ever had top security clearance at the Pentagon, and his self-proclaimed credentials have also been challenged, such as his assertion that he has Ph.Ds. in psychology, philosophy, and criminology, as there is no evidence that he ever earned such diplomas. It is curious, as he often calls himself Dr. Stranges despite being unable to prove that this actually fits. Indeed, there is no real corroboration on any of the people involved in any way. There is no evidence that a Harley Andrew Byrd ever had such top clearance at the Pentagon, or even that he had any relation to Admiral Byrd at all. Brian Dunning at the site Skeptoid would say of him:

“Harley Andrew Byrd” is probably not who he says he is. Records on Ancestry.com can’t really confirm or disprove the possibility that Admiral Byrd had a nephew by this name, but his story requires that he would have held a senior role at Project Blue Book with top security clearance and over a year of training behind him, all by the age of 18. When he went on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM radio show in 1995 it went south very quickly. He told ridiculous stories of Admiral Byrd’s adventures, including that the admiral entrusted him as a young boy with secret diaries telling of his contacts with aliens and Nazis. One listener wrote:

“[Harley Byrd] talks nonsense, makes all manner of bizarre claims about greys, sasquatch, Aryans, and other alien types, and assiduously commercializes the whole for profit… Harley Byrd is actually a huckster [who] merely poses as Byrd’s grandson to sell these bogus diaries.”

It certainly is all pretty out-there, and is likely to be scoffed at by most in the general mainstream. There are plenty of inconsistencies and red flags in the story, and yet it has become a pretty indelible mainstay within the field. For some it is one of those persistent stories we like to brush under the carpet and pretend doesn’t exist. For others it is a point of debate and discussion. For others still it is enough to make one just shrug their shoulders and wonder. Was Stranges telling the truth or is this all complete woo woo nonsense? Whichever side you fall on, the story of Valiant Thor has become fairly legendary, and at the very least is another one of the many other truly bizarre cases that inevitably pop up from time to time.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-01-2021 om 17:47 geschreven door peter  

The Five Most Mysterious & Shocking UFO Sightings Ever Reported in Ireland

28-01-2021 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

If you live in Ireland, you may want to look up towards the sky as the country has the most UFO sightings in all of Europe. According to data collected by Psychic World from the National UFO Reporting Center State Report Index, Ireland has the most UFO sightings, followed by France and then Spain.

A total of 105 recorded UFO sightings have occurred in Ireland with the encounters lasting an average of 13 minutes each. Most of the sightings in Ireland consist of mysterious bright lights. However, bright lights are the second most common form of sightings in all of Europe (the lights are usually red, blue, or white) while unidentified flying disks are the most common occurrences in the entire continent.

Northern Ireland reported a total of 6 UFO sightings last year in 2020 (two more than the previous year) which may have been partly because of the pandemic where so many people were staying home and spending time outside.

As for the Northern Ireland sightings in 2020, the first one was reported on March 13^th of a UFO “with many flashing lights making no noise” in Dunmurry which lasted about half an hour. Six days later, a “flying object” that looked like solar panels in Bangor was reported. Then there was a “UFO going down the Springfield Road” on April 3^rd.

The most interesting report came in on May 12^th when a man claimed to have been dropped off at Bangor Marina by a UFO. The last two reports consisted of one sighting on August 22^nd where three UFOs were witnessed flying over Belfast, and then on September 26^th when a man in the Ballygomartin area claimed to have seen six UFOs flying over his house.

David Moore, who is the editor of Astronomy Ireland Magazine, stated that more people were stargazing during the lockdown. He went on to say, “About 90% of all reports end up having a straightforward explanation,” adding, “It’s the few that don’t that are really intriguing. But the guy claiming to be dropped off at Bangor Marina, that’s very difficult to explain.”

Chris McMurray, who is a chairperson of the Northern Ireland UFO Society, weighed in by stating that the majority of the increased sightings of “unknown aerial phenomena” have occurred around the Cavehill and Black Mountain area in addition to the Mourne region. “A common theme that we notice is that sightings of anomalous lights tend to be seen near certain geographical features, such as the granite mountains and other areas of a crystalline nature,” he noted, adding, “This could be because, as widely accepted by ufologists and paranormal investigators alike, these can help amplify the natural energies of the Earth.”

France came in second place with a total of 71 sightings, but their encounters only lasted an average of 6 minutes. Spain is a close third with 70 sightings lasting an average of 12 minutes, but their encounters consisted mostly of diamond-shaped objects in the sky.

As for the longest sightings in all of Europe, they occurred in Monaco where the estimated time lasted 45 minutes. And if you don’t want to see a UFO, your best bet is to move to San Marino where they hadn’t had any official encounters or Georgia where there were only two short sightings of mysterious fireballs that each lasted about 15 seconds.

In the entire continent of Europe, there were a total of 994 UFO sightings with an average duration of 12 minutes each.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

4

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

28-01-2021 om 17:08 geschreven door peter  

According to the terrified photographer he was ducking and flinching as it flew past and could not believe what he witnessed. 

We can rule out that it would be an insect or bird that flies by just in front of the camera lens as the slow motion footage shows the object moving away from the photographer's location at a high speed until it disappears. Mufon. 

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

28-01-2021 om 15:59 geschreven door peter  

Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Naples, Florida 27-Jan-2021

This was filmed over Naples, Florida on 27th January 2021.

Witness report: 

Went to the beach for sunset. Noticed a very bright object.

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

28-01-2021 om 15:51 geschreven door peter  

Can you name the top 12 brightest objects in the solar system? How many have you seen without the aid of binoculars or a telescope?

South Carolina sunrise through a piece of beach glass.

Image via Fran Aquino.

What are the brightest objects in our solar system that you can see in your sky? The sun is the very brightest, of course, but you might be surprised by some of the other objects that make the list. You can see the first seven objects on this list using just your eyes, even from cities and suburbs. The last items on the list are fainter and therefore more challenging, and likely require a dark-sky site and some optical aid.

In astronomy, the brightness of objects is measured by what’s called magnitude. The lower the number, the brighter the object. So, 1st-magnitude objects indicate the brightest stars in our sky, 2nd-magnitude fainter ones, 3rd-magnitude fainter still, and so on. Note that some objects, some planets for example, are even brighter than 1st magnitude, peaking in negative numbers at their brightest.

Without optical aid, the human eye can see objects to around 6th magnitude, in optimum conditions and under dark skies. There are about a dozen natural solar system objects that are, in theory, visible to the unaided eye. In practice, the fainter ones are very difficult to see with the eye alone, but perhaps possible for those keen vision and true darkness.

Transient objects, such as very bright meteors or comets, aren’t included in this list. Extraordinary meteors can turn the night sky as bright as day, and some comets reach stunning brightnesses, too, such as Ikeya-Seki in 1965, which reached a whopping -10 magnitude and could be seen at noon. But because they’re only in the sky on a temporary basis, and not something that can regularly or consistently be observed, these objects aren’t included here. We also don’t include manmade objects, such as satellites and the International Space Station. Try the Heavens-Above website, if you’re interested in observing human-made Earth-orbiting objects.

Here are the top 12 brightest natural solar system objects, in order from brightest to dimmest:

1. The sun.

No surprise here. The sun shines at magnitude -26.7. Technically, the sun can’t even be looked at without special safety filters to protect your eyes. Gazing at the sun directly without special protective filters can cause blindness. That said, now would be a good time to equip yourself with filters for solar observing, and to begin a program of regular sun viewing. You might know that the sun increases and decreases in activity in a cycle lasting 11 years. The new cycle – Solar Cycle 25 – was officially announced in September 2020. At EarthSky Community Photos, we’re beginning to see more sunspots! And more are surely coming, increasing in number to a peak five or so years from now.

• Read more: Top 7 tips for observing the sun safely

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Victor C. Rogus wrote on January 20, 2021: “The sunspot formerly known as AR2797 has split in two: AR2797 and AR2798. Trailing sunspot AR2798 is crackling with C-class solar flares.” Thank you, Victor!

2. The moon.

The moon varies in brightness depending on what phase it’s in. At its full phase when it’s the brightest, it tops out at magnitude -12.7. On the other hand, the moon in its crescent phase shines at only about magnitude -6. If you’re a deep-sky observer, the moon is bright enough to ruin your night vision, meaning it’ll prevent you from getting the best view of distant, faint star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. If you’re using a telescope, the moon should be your last stop during a night of observing. To the eye alone, though, there’s nothing more beautiful than a bright moon shining in the night sky, casting its light and creating moon shadows in the landscape all around you. Visit EarthSky’s moon phases page to learn the dates of major moon phases throughout 2020.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Kannan A in Singapore captured this image on January 26, 2021, and wrote: “The waxing gibbous moon rising from behind the apartment block. The moon was 94.1% illuminated and distance from Earth was 391,375 km [243,000 miles] away from Earth when this photo was taken. It was still very much a day moon, as the skies were still bright at this time.” Thank you, Kannan A!

3. Venus.

The closest planet to Earth, one step inward in orbit around the sun, is also the brightest planet. It can shine as brightly as magnitude -4.7, bright enough to be seen in daylight if you know just where to look. The brightness of Venus is thanks in part to its proximity to Earth and also, largely, to its thick, reflective clouds. As with all the other solar system objects, Venus varies in brightness depending on a number of factors, including how close it is to Earth and what phase it’s in. Yes, as a planet orbiting inward from Earth, Venus shows phases! Venus was in our morning sky – in the east before sunrise – throughout late 2020. Soon, though, it’ll be gone from our skies for a few months, traveling behind the sun from Earth. Venus will return to our evening sky in May 2021. Find Venus’ location for each month in EarthSky’s planet guide.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Catherine Evans caught Venus near daybreak on January 17, 2021, from the Edna Valley in San Luis Obispo, California. She wrote: “Closer and closer to the sunrise, so it won’t be seen much longer.” So true, Catherine! Thank you. Even into early February 2021, if you have a clear sky to the eastern horizon, you might still be able to snag a last look at Venus. Look very low in the east before sunup. If you can’t see it, try sweeping with binoculars.

4. Mars.

The red planet is the second-closest planet to Earth after Venus, and it doesn’t often reach its maximum magnitude of -2.9. But when it does … wow! What a sight to behold. Just like other planets outside Earth’s orbit, when Mars is brightest around the time of its opposition, when it’s opposite the sun from Earth, rising in the east as the sun sets in the west. Mars’ oppositions come when our faster Earth moves between Mars and the sun. That happens about every two years. Some Mars oppositions are better than others. Mars was particularly bright in 2018, and its last opposition – around mid-October 2020 – was a good one, too. For about a month around the 2020 opposition, Mars was brighter than Jupiter. At other times (in fact, most of the time), Mars is relatively faint. Sometimes it’s very faint indeed, when it’s on the far side of the solar system from us, shining across its nearly-maximum distance from Earth (about 250 million miles, or 400 million km). After all, Mars is just a little planet, littler than Earth. So its brightness waxes and wanes dramatically as we and Mars move around the sun. Find Mars’ location for each month in EarthSky’s planet guide.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Niko Powe in Kiwonee, Illinois, captured Mars next to the Harvest Moon on October 2, 2020. Niko said: “There was a layer of clouds but these two’s appearance would not be denied.”

5. Jupiter.

Because Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, some mistakenly believe it’s the brightest planet. But not so. Jupiter’s greater distance from us lets Venus and Mars, our neighbors, shine more brightly. Jupiter is nearly always brighter than Mars, though (except when Mars is at its best). At its maximum, Jupiter shines at magnitude -2.8, nearly as bright as Mars’s peak of -2.9, and brighter than Sirius, the sky’s brightest star, which shines at magnitude -1.4. Jupiter was named for the ancient king of the gods. And it has a king-like aspect, always shining at the same dazzling brightness, not changing in brightness like Mars. Plus Jupiter moves in a stately way around the sky; it isn’t tied to the sunrise or sunset like Venus. Come to know Jupiter, and you’ll enjoy spotting in your sky for much of every year. Find Jupiter’s location for each month in EarthSky’s planet guide.

6. Mercury.

Surprise! The rarely-seen planet Mercury shines more brightly than Saturn at its best. Mercury can reach -1.9 magnitude. That’s brighter than Sirius, the sky’s brightest star. But – because Mercury is our solar system’s innermost planet – this world, more than any other in our solar system, is tied to the sun in our sky. It’s always seen shortly before sunrise, or shortly after sunset, and never gets very high in the night sky. Therefore its brightness is often offset by the fact that you’re viewing the planet in twilight and not in a nice dark sky. Still, Mercury’s brightness will surprise you!

7. Saturn.

The ringed planet Saturn is stunning in a telescope, and it’s also an easy catch without optical aid. With the eye alone, you won’t see its rings, but you will see Saturn’s golden color and steady light. At magnitude +0.7, Saturn outshines most stars and is on a par with most of the brightest stars. Plus – because it orbits our sun beyond Earth’s orbit – it’s seen more often than Mercury by casual observers. Saturn is often around deep into the night, when its brightness contrasts with the depths of a dark night sky.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Dan Wyman in Oceanside, California, captured Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and a flock of birds on January 11, 2021. Thank you, Dan! Find Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury each month in EarthSky’s planet guide.

8. Ganymede.

If you’re a sky-watcher, you’ve probably seen all the objects mentioned so far without optical aid, knowingly or not. But have you seen Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede? Binoculars will let you spot Ganymede circling Jupiter when the satellite is at its brightest, approximately 4.6 magnitude. Ganymede takes about seven Earth-days to complete an orbit around Jupiter, and the other Galilean moons take varying amounts of time (Io nearly two days, Europa about four days, Callisto 17 days). So on any given night, you’ll find the moons in ever-shifting locations with respect to Jupiter. They look like little “stars” strung out in a line that bisects Jupiter. Thus you’ll want to use software, for example SkyandTelescope.com’s interactive Jupiter moon page, to let you know which dot circling Jupiter is Ganymede, from the location, date and time at which you’re looking. Which leads us to …

9. Io.

The next item on the solar system brightness list is Jupiter’s volcanic satellite, Io. At a little larger than our moon, Io is the innermost Galilean satellite and shines at magnitude 5.0 when it’s at its best. Can you see Io – or Ganymede – with the eye alone? In theory, you should be able to. But in practice they’re not that easy to see in the glare from Jupiter itself. Some observers with renowned vision (for example, Steven James O’Meara) have claimed to have seen Ganymede with the unaided eye. But such claims are rare. You’ll likely need binoculars for Ganymede or Io, or Europa (see below). Small telescopes show all four Galilean moons in their never-ending dance around Jupiter.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | John Nelson was at Puget Sound, Washington, on September 24, 2020, when he captured this image. See Jupiter and its moons in the upper left? You might need to view this photo larger to see Jupiter’s moons. John wrote: “All four Galilean moons were visible. I brightened them up just a bit in Photoshop Elements so they would be easier to see in a photo that you can’t zoom in on. From left to right, the moons are Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and just to Jupiter’s right is Io.” Thank you, John.

10. Vesta.

The fourth asteroid to be discovered, Vesta, is the only asteroid to make our list of brightest solar system objects. Vesta is the second-largest asteroid, after Ceres. Vesta can reach magnitude 5.1 at its closest approach to Earth. Its opposition – a highlight of the year for asteroid observers – is coming up on March 4, 2021. This is when Earth will sweep more or less between Vesta and the sun, bringing the asteroid closest to us for this year. Because it doesn’t have a bright nearby locator, as Ganymede and Io have with Jupiter, it’s best to watch for Vesta for a couple of nights in a row to see which dim “star” in the area appears to move slowly in front of the fixed star background. Try TheSkyLive for charts and other information on how to observe Vesta.

11. Europa.

We bounce back out to Jupiter for the next item on the list, Europa, another of Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons. Europa is a great object to attempt to view and ruminate on, because it may harbor an ocean – and possibly life – beneath its icy crust. Europa just makes our list of the brightest objects in the solar system at magnitude 5.2. Again, we recommend using observing software, such as SkyandTelescope.com’s interactive Jupiter moon page, to know which Galilean moon is which.

12. Uranus,

finally. Many know that planet Uranus is theoretically visible to the unaided eye. The seventh planet from the sun appears at magnitude 5.6 at its best. Uranus is most easily picked up with the unaided eye after first pinning down its location with binoculars or a telescope. It has a disk instead of a pinpoint image through an optical device and may even appear faintly bluish green. It is particularly easy to find on the occasions that it pairs up closely with objects easier to locate, such as Mars.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Victor C. Rogus in Sedona, Arizona, captured this image of Uranus and Mars through his telescope on January 20, 2021. He wrote: “The sky this evening was fair at best, but I was able to capture this image of an over-exposed Mars and the planet Uranus through thin clouds. Light takes 2 hours, 43 minutes and 27 seconds to travel from Uranus and arrive to us.” Thank you, Victor!

• Bottom line: Here are the top 12 brightest natural solar system objects, in order from brightest to dimmest. If you’ve seen every one of these objects, with or without optical aid, congrats!

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

28-01-2021 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s space helicopter is one month away from landing on Mars

Helicopter to Mars, submarine to Titan, what’s next? A subway on Venus?

 by Alexandru Micu

Did you ever dare to dream of the day you’d see a helicopter in space? Well, rest easy, your watch has come to an end — NASA’s Ingenuity, the “Mars Helicopter”, is one month away from touching down on the red planet.

Ingenuity is currently onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, the US’ latest Mars-bound rover. It’s the first American mission to Mars since 2018’s InSight, but it was only one of three missions sent out to Mars in 2020 alongside the UAE’s Hope orbiter and China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter, lander, and rover.

While all of them are very exciting, Ingenuity will be the first helicopter to actually be sent to space, ever. NASA is expecting it to touch down on Mars on February 18.

Flying on new horizons

“NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is the first aircraft humanity has sent to another planet to attempt powered, controlled flight,” NASA explains in a press kit. “If its experimental flight test program succeeds, the data returned could benefit future explorations of the Red Planet – including those by astronauts – by adding the aerial dimension, which is not available today.”

The helicopter is pretty small, similar to a medium-large commercial drone, and comes equipped with two carbon-fiber rotors. These will spin at around 2,400 rpm in different directions so as to stabilize the craft in flight. That speed of rotation is many times faster than those used by passenger helicopters on Earth, due to their smaller size and Mars‘ thinner atmosphere both. Since the air is thinner there, rotors have to put in a lot of extra work to generate the same lift they would produce on our planet.

If all goes well, Ingenuity could completely change how we explore Mars, and other planets with atmospheres. Up to now we’ve been using rovers, which have quite a few benefits (ground vehicles have great energy efficiency since they don’t need to stay aloft, and weight is much less of an issue, for example). However, they’re also much slower than any other vehicles in general, as they have to contend with terrain features. If Ingenuity manages to do its job, and do it well — and, especially, if it can withstand Mars’ harsh environment — space helicopters will definitely become much more common in the future.

But until then, Perseverance still needs to reach its target, and Ingenuity still needs to prove it can fly on Mars. Fingers crossed.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

27-01-2021 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

Although the intelligence communities, military and government agencies of numerous nations have undertaken countless official (and off-the-record, too) projects pertaining to both mind-control and mind-manipulation, without any doubt whatsoever, the most notorious of all was Project MKUltra: a clandestine operation that operated out of the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence, and that had its beginnings in the Cold War era of the early 1950s. It was, I believe, MK-Ultra that created the fabricated “alien encounters” of 1950s-era “UFO Contactee” Orfeo Angelucci. The date of the project’s actual termination is a somewhat hazy one; however, it is known that it was definitely in operation as late as the latter part of the 1960s – and, not surprisingly and regretfully, has since been replaced by far more controversial and deeply hidden projects.

To demonstrate the level of secrecy that surrounded Project MKUltra, even though it had kicked off at the dawn of the fifties, its existence was largely unknown outside of the intelligence world until 1975 – when the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission began making their own investigations of the CIA’s mind-control-related activities – in part to determine if (a) the CIA had engaged in illegal activity, (b) the personal rights of citizens had been violated, and (c) if the projects at issue had resulted in fatalities – which they most assuredly and unfortunately did. Rather conveniently, and highly suspiciously, too, it was asserted at the height of the inquires in 1975 that two years earlier, in 1973, CIA Director, Richard Helms had ordered the destruction of the Agency’s MKUltra files. Fortunately, this did not stop the Church Committee or the Rockefeller Commission – both of whom had the courage and tenacity to forge ahead with their investigations, relying on sworn testimony from players in MKUltra, where documentation was no longer available for scrutiny, study and evaluation.

The story that unfolded was both dark and disturbing –in equal degrees. Indeed, the scope of the project – and allied operations, too – was spelled out in an August 1977 document titled The Senate MK-Ultra Hearings that was prepared by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Human Resources, as a result of its probing into the secret world of the CIA. As the document explained: “Research and development programs to find materials which could be used to alter human behavior were initiated in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These experimental programs originally included testing of drugs involving witting human subjects, and culminated in tests using unwitting, non-volunteer human subjects. These tests were designed to determine the potential effects of chemical or biological agents when used operationally against individuals unaware that they had received a drug.”

The Committee then turned its attention to the overwhelming secrecy that surrounded these early 1940s/1950s projects: “The testing programs were considered highly sensitive by the intelligence agencies administering them. Few people, even within the agencies, knew of the programs and there is no evidence that either the Executive Branch or Congress were ever informed of them. The highly compartmentalized nature of these programs may be explained in part by an observation made by the CIA Inspector General that, ‘the knowledge that the Agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles and would be detrimental to the accomplishment of its missions.'”

The research and development programs, and particularly the covert testing programs, resulted in massive abridgments of the rights of American citizens, and sometimes with tragic consequences, too. As prime evidence of this, the Committee uncovered details on the deaths of two Americans that were firmly attributed to the programs at issue; while other participants in the testing programs were said to still be suffering from the residual effects of the tests as late as the mid-1970s. And as the Committee starkly noted: “While some controlled testing of these substances might be defended, the nature of the tests, their scale, and the fact that they were continued for years after the danger of surreptitious administration of LSD to unwitting individuals was known, demonstrate a fundamental disregard for the value of human life.”

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

27-01-2021 om 23:42 geschreven door peter  

That's according to the founding documents of Way of the Future, a group intended to "develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society", according documents published by Wired. Mr Levandowski is the group's CEO and president, and it isn't clear how many members it has or what it is actually doing.

A range of scientific experts and technology billionaires, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have warned that our relaxed attitude towards artificial intelligence could mean we're at risk of being killed by it. Mr Musk has likened artificial intelligence to "summoning the demon", suggesting that while we might think we could control such a force we ultimately couldn't – and has founded an organisation called OpenAI focused specifically on stopping such a thing from happening.

Wired, which revealed the strange new church as part of a long profile on Mr Levandowski, pointed out that his interest in self-driving cars and our robot god are far from separate from each other. The engineer is among the foremost experts on self-driving cars in the world – and those vehicles give artificial intelligence its most powerful embodiment, as well as being a look at how AI will change the world.

{ https://www.independent.co.uk/ }

27-01-2021 om 23:24 geschreven door peter  

Here's what we learned about aliens in 2020

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer

An artist's illustration of the evolution of the interstellar object 'Oumuamua, whose weird, elongated shape may have come from tidal forces.

(Image: © YU Jingchuan from Beijing Planetarium)

In a year when mysterious monoliths literally appeared out of nowhere, you'd think the first real detection of alien life would be a stone's-throw away. Well, 2020 didn't bring any little green men, but it did bring astronomers closer to finding extraterrestrial life than ever before. From organic molecules turning up around the solar system to mysterious radio signals finally being traced back to their source, here are some of the biggest findings of the year about where aliens may be (and definitely aren't) hiding in the universe.

1. There could be alien life in the clouds of Venus

In September, Venus became the most popular planet on Earth when scientists discovered possible traces of the molecule phosphine in the planet's atmosphere. On Earth, phosphine (made from one phosphorous atom and three hydrogen atoms) is mostly associated with non-oxygen-breathing bacteria, as well as some human activities. The molecule is produced naturally by gas giants, but there's no good reason why it should be on the hot and hellish world of Venus, the researchers concluded — unless, perhaps, there is some sort of life breathing it into the planet's mysterious clouds?

2. … But it's not likely

Exciting as it was, the phosphine discovery was met with strong skepticism from the scientific community. For starters, it's not even clear that the researchers detected phosphine at all; their observations contained so much noise that something mimicking phosphine's chemical signature could have appeared by accident, John Carpenter, an observatory scientist at the Atacama telescope in Chile, previously told Live Science. 

And even if the reading was accurate, phosphine could very easily be created totally randomly through a number of geological processes that don't involve life at all, said Lee Cronin, a chemist at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. The processes that shape Venus' scorching surface and sky are largely a mystery, and one trace of an inexplicable molecule is, sadly, not enough to confirm alien life exists there. Significant study of the planet is required to solve this chemical conundrum.

3. There could be 36 alien civilizations sharing our galaxy

How many intelligent alien civilizations are lurking among the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way? According to a study published June 15 in The Astrophysical Journal, the answer is 36.

How did the researchers arrive at that number? By taking a fresh stab at a decades-old alien-hunting riddle known as the Drake equation. Named for astronomer Frank Drake, who debuted the equation in 1961, the puzzle attempts to guess the likely number of alien civilizations in our galaxy based on variables like the average rate of star formation, the percentage of stars that form planets and the much-smaller percentage of planets that have the right stuff for life. Most of these variables are still unknown, but the authors of the new study tried to resolve them with the most up-to-date information on star formation and exoplanets available.

Their result? There are precisely 36 planets in the Milky Way that could host intelligence life similar to that on Earth. But even if the researchers nailed all those unknown variables, it'll still be a while before we meet one of our intelligence neighbors; assuming an even distribution of civilizations throughout the galaxy, the closest one is 17,000 light-years away from Earth.

4. And more than 1,000 alien stars could be watching us

Will they find us before we find them? We could find out in this lifetime. Two stars on the list host known exoplanets, one of which will have a direct line of sight to Earth in the year 2044.

But while we hunt for alien worlds, are aliens also hunting for us? That's the question that motivated an Oct. 20 study in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in which astronomers calculated the number of alien star systems that have a direct line of sight to Earth — and therefore could be watching us right now.

The team calculated that approximately 1,000 star systems within about 300 light-years of Earth could feasibly see our planet as it passes between their location and Earth's sun. Those sky-watching aliens would see our sun dim as Earth passes over it, just as humans have detected thousands of exoplanets by watching for suddenly-dimming stars in the night sky. What's more, if those alien astronomers have similar technology to ours, they could even detect traces of methane and oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which would be potential signs of life, the researchers noted.

5. Aliens aren't responsible for FRBs (at least, not this one)

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-long pulses of radio light that blast through space thousands of times a day. Until recently, nobody had any idea what they were. Could it be aliens, pulsing the jets on their hyper-speed spacecraft? The idea had crossed at least one astronomer's mind. But for better or worse, that idea may be dead after astronomers successfully traced an FRB to a known source in the Milky Way for the first time ever.

The source, it turns out, was a magnetar: the fast-spinning, highly magnetized corpse of a long-dead star. For thousands of years after their formation, these temperamental objects cycle through periods of violent activity, beaming powerful pulses of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation into the universe around them at seemingly random intervals. While astronomers were watching one such outburst, they also caught an FRB beaming out of the dead star. Perhaps not all FRBs in the universe come from magnetars (aliens, you're still on notice), but this discovery goes a long way toward solving a decade-old mystery of the cosmos.

6. White dwarfs may be alien strongholds

About 4 billion years from now, Earth's sun will swell into a red giant, then collapse into a small, smoldering white dwarf. This fate is inescapable, and the odds of humankind fleeing to another star system are near-impossible. Maybe, if we're still around at the time, we could find a way to harness the dim light of our dead star and keep on trucking as a civilization. And maybe, a paper published earlier this year to the preprint database arXiv suggests, other alien civilizations are already doing the same.

White dwarfs have been largely ignored in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the paper's authors claim, as a dead star is unlikely to host a thriving civilization. But white dwarfs do sometimes have planets in their orbit – and a highly advanced civilization might be able to make their tiny sun work for them, even after death. Astronomers therefore shouldn't cut white dwarfs out of their SETI equations, the authors write; in fact, maybe we should be looking to them first.

7. Aliens might not breathe oxygen

Another underrated target in the search for alien life: oxygen-free planets. While it has been long assumed that alien life needs air to breathe, a study published May 4 in the journal Nature Astronomy argues that maybe "air" and "oxygen" aren't always synonymous. Hydrogen and helium are far more common elements in our universe (Jupiter's atmosphere is 90% hydrogen, for example), so what if an alien species evolved to breathe that stuff instead?

It turns out, it may be possible. The study authors exposed a type of non-oxygen-breathing bacteria called E. coli to two different "atmospheres" fabricated inside some test tubes. One set of flasks was pure hydrogen, the other pure helium. They found that the bacteria were able to survive in both conditions, though their growth was stunted. This experiment "opens the possibility for a much broader spectrum of habitats for life on diverse habitable worlds," study author Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT, wrote in the paper.

8. Aliens (probably) didn’t build 'Oumuamua

The strange, cigar-shaped rock named 'Oumuamua has puzzled scientists since it was first spotted in our solar system in October 2017. The object was traveling too fast to have originated in our solar system, and seemed to be accelerating for no good reason. Some astronomers — particularly Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb — said it could be an alien spacecraft, powered by a paper-thin sail. That theory met with ongoing skepticism this year, however, thanks to several studies that describe the object's potential natural origins.

One of the leading theories: 'Oumuamua is a "hydrogen iceberg" – essentially, a solid chunk of hydrogen gas that strayed away from its local star and into the icy heart of a giant molecular cloud. After leaving the core of the cloud, the berg was battered by radiation and molded into an elongated shape. Once it entered our solar system, hydrogen began boiling off of the icy rock, causing it to accelerate without leaving a visible trail of gas. It's a tantalizing theory that explains many of 'Oumuamua's quirks; still, Loeb believes aliens are the more likely explanation.

9. Four worlds hold the most promise

In our solar system, four worlds seem to have the right stuff for the possibility of life. The foremost is Mars — one of the most Earth-like worlds in our solar system. Earlier this year, a large lake was detected beneath the southern polar ice cap, giving new hope that tiny microbes could be present there (assuming they have something to eat).

The other three candidates are all moons: Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan. Like Mars, Europa hold the promise of water; its surface is a vast expanse of ice, which may conceal a gargantuan global ocean more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) deep. Enceladus, too, is an icy world that may holds liquid water deep beneath its surface. Recently, gargantuan geysers were spotted spraying water, grains of rocky particles and some organic molecules off of the moon and into space. Titan, meanwhile, is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere, which is rich in nitrogen — an important building block of proteins in all known forms of life.

10. Alien hunting just got a little harder

On Tuesday, Dec. 1, the Arecibo Observatory's iconic radio telescope in Puerto Rico finally collapsed, after hanging on by a literal thread for nearly five months (two mysterious cable-snapping incidents in August and November left the telescope in dire condition).

The tragic collapse ends Arecibo's 57-year legacy of searching the cosmos for signs of extraterrestrial life. In 1974, the telescope broadcast the now-famous "Arecibo Message," declaring the technical prowess of humanity to any intelligent extraterrestrials that might be listening. So far, there have been no answers – but that message to the stars inspired the 1997 film "Contact," in which the Arecibo telescope plays a starring role. The telescope's loss leaves a gap in SETI that won't easily be filled.

• Originally published on Live Science

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27-01-2021 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

'Resident Alien' launches from comics to Syfy this week

27-01-2021 om 22:36 geschreven door peter  

EXPERTS: WE SHOULD HIDE FROM THE APOCALYPSE IN UNDERGROUND CITIES

JULIAN HERZOG

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

27-01-2021 om 22:13 geschreven door peter