Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
11-10-2022
Huge bright UFO filmed over North Carolina 9-Oct-2022
Huge bright UFO filmed over North Carolina 9-Oct-2022
This UFO sighting was submitted to me through my Facebook page. It was filmed over North Carolina on 9th October 2022.
Horace Burns & William Blackburn witnessed separate UFO landings in Virginia, 1964-65
Horace Burns & William Blackburn witnessed separate UFO landings in Virginia, 1964-65
On the evening of December 21, 2018, gunsmith Horace Burns was driving along Route 250 in Virginia when he saw a massive cone-shaped object flying across the highway.
The object was moving at a speed of about 15 mph. It was flying in a north-to-south direction. Its cone-shaped point was slightly pointed forward as it flew across the highway.
It flew about 200 feet ahead of Burns’ vehicle. It then settled in a meadow near the road, and it gently landed in the field behind it as Burns’ car stopped. The object’s movement caused the motor of his vehicle to fail.
Burns got out of his vehicle to take a closer look at the object. According to him, it was about 125 feet in diameter and spanned 80 to 90 feet tall. Its curved and circular sides were sloped toward the top. Its six large concentric convolutions were also covered by a dome.
According to Burns, when it flew across the road, it filled the entire width of his car’s windshield. Although he was not able to determine the exact nature of the object, he noted that it looked like it had a metallic finish.
Although he didn’t see any visible features such as doors, windows, or seams on the object, he saw a band of bluish-white light extending from its base at a height of around six feet. The light was steady and did not dim or turn. It also appeared to be resting lightly on the ground. No landing gear was visible, and the object seemed to be relatively curved on the surface.
For about 60 to 90 seconds, Burns watched the object as it moved across the road. Suddenly, it rose up and tilted to a height of several hundred feet. It then flew northeasterly at a high rate of speed and disappeared from his view in a matter of seconds. The object’s top tilted slightly in the direction of its movement.
After the object disappeared, Burns drove back home and talked to his wife about his strange experience. He then claimed that he wouldn’t tell anyone about his sighting since he thought they might think he was crazy.
Then, a local radio station announced that a group of UFO enthusiasts was being formed at Eastern Mennonite College. Burns then reached out to Dr. Ernest Gehman, a professor of German, to report his sighting.
On December 31, Dr. Gehman went to the area where the object landed. He conducted a geiger counter test to analyze the data collected by his device. An extremely high reading was then confirmed by two engineers from the chemical company, who had been to the area the previous day.
Burns later verified that Dr. Gehman was able to find the landing area using the readings from his Geiger counter.
In what US prosecutors have called the biggest military hack of all time, Scottish hacker Gary McKinnon says it was all done in an effort to end secrecy regarding UFOs and free energy technology. McKinnon has been accused of hacking into computer systems belonging to NASA, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, and the U.S. Air Force. He is fighting extradition to the United States to be held on trial. If extradited, McKinnon faces spending the rest of his life in prison, but were his efforts in vain or did he really find something?
In all of his interviews, McKinnon talks about two UFO related finds. He told the Guardian newspaper that he thought what he found was so important that he tried to barter with the government. When first caught he was offered the chance to take a plea bargain and get a three to four year sentence. He turned the offer down to get a lesser sentence and threatened to release everything he found if they didn’t give him a better deal. Unfortunately for McKinnon, the U.S. government wasn’t too worried about his revelations. Now he faces spending a 70 year sentence in a US prison.
Lucy Clarke, McKinnon’s girlfriend, is comforted at a protest.
(credit: Cate Gillon/Getty Images Europe)
McKinnon was inspired by physician Dr. Steven Greer’s Disclosure Project. Greer had brought together a number of witnesses to testify in front of the Washington National Press Club that they had knowledge of the existence of Extraterrestrial visitation and that it was being hidden from the public. One of the witnesses said they knew that pictures from space were being altered at NASA’s Johnson’s space center; UFOs were allegedly being taken out of pictures.
McKinnon hacked into Johnson’s systems and said he found a high definition picture of a large cigar shaped object over the northern hemisphere. He said that he was so shocked by the picture that he didn’t think to immediately save it. He also said that the file size was so large that is was difficult to view it on his computer. Eventually his connection was lost and so was the picture.
The most shocking find to McKinnon, the one he thought would be his ace in the hole negotiating with the US.. government, was what he found hacking into the systems of U.S. Space Command. McKinnon says he found a log that listed non-terrestrial officers. He doesn’t believe that these were aliens, but he believes this to be evidence that the U.S. military has a secret battalion in space. Some of these logs were ship to ship transfers, but he says he was usually smoking pot while he hacked, so that prevented him from remembering the names of the ships. McKinnon told the Gaurdian: “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”
There are rumors that he has talked about the names of two of the ships he saw on the transfer logs, the names of the ships allegedly being the USSS LeMay and the USSS Hillenkoetter. Typically Navy ship names just have two S’, an acronym for United States Ship, however there are three S’ here, presumably standing for United States Space Ship. The names of the ships are also significant.
General Curtis LeMay
(credit: USAF)
General Curtis LeMay was friends with retired Air Force Reserve Major General and former U.S. Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater. Goldwater believed there was a UFO cover-up deep within the government, and suspected that his friend LeMay knew about it. There were rumors that there was UFO evidence being held in a secret room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base called the blue room. Goldwater told the media several times that when he asked LeMay about this room, LeMay got upset and told him, “Not only can’t you get into it but don’t you ever mention it to me again.” Open Minds magazine will have an article going more into depth on Goldwater in the second issue.
The second ship’s namesake, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, was the first director of the CIA, and was also a member of a UFO research organization, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). In 1960, the New York Times reported that Hillenkoetter had sent a letter to Congress that included this statement: “Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”
Admiral Hillenkoetter
(credit: USN)
Although Hillenkoetter fought for the end of UFO secrecy, he eventually stopped commenting on the matter. Conspiracists also find Hillenkoetter intriguing because his name appears in debunked alleged secret documents that were leaked to UFO researchers. They list Hillenkoetter as a member of the infamous Majestic 12 group, an organization rumored to have been made up of high ranking military officers and civilians that was supposedly created by President Truman to initially manage the UFO issue.
However, the fact that McKinnon actually released names of these ships is also a just a rumor, thus far there are no sources for this claim.
So there we have it, the UFO picture that McKinnon saw and the ship rosters were all he had, and unfortunately for him, they were not enough to scare the government into going easy on him. Instead he has been fighting a long multi-year battle to keep from being extradited to the US, a fight that he is losing. So far every British court he has appealed to has denied his stay.
The US government is really throwing the book at him, alleging that he took down military computers making the U.S. vulnerable soon after 911. McKinnon denies those claims, and says that he was able to observe many hackers from around the world accessing the networks he was on at the same time he was on them. Many believe that McKinnon may just be a scapegoat.
UPDATE
In 2012, U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May announced she would not extradite McKinnon to the U.S. saying “she had to consider his human rights.”
“The home secretary told MPs there was no doubt Mr McKinnon was “seriously ill” and the extradition warrant against him should be withdrawn,” according to the BBC.
Soon after, it was also determined he would not face trial in the U.K. According to an article in the Guardian, “A joint statement from Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, and Mark Rowley, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, cited the huge difficulties of charging him in the UK, and said the chances of conviction would be poor.”
A view of Jupiter's moon Europa captured by NASA's Juno mission during its Sept. 29 close flyby at the moon. The spacecraft was 945 miles (1,500 kilometers) above the moon's surface when the image was taken.(Image credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS.
Image processing by Björn Jónsson CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Fabulous portraits of Jupiter's mysterious icy moon Europa captured by NASA's Juno mission during its close flyby last week reveals the moon, which may possibly harbor extraterrestrial life, in unexpected colors.
The new images were taken by Juno's JunoCam camera during the probe's pass of Europa on Sept. 29, then went to enthusiastic image processors who gave them at times an almost artistic treatment.
"Starting with our flyby of Earth back in 2013, Juno citizen scientists have been invaluable in processing the numerous images we get with Juno," Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Center in Texas said in a statement. "During each flyby of Jupiter, and now its moons, their work provides a perspective that draws upon both science and art. They are a crucial part of our team, leading the way by using our images for new discoveries."
The newly released images highlight previously unexplored surface features that could shed light on processes occurring in the potentially life-bearing ocean underneath Europa's thick ice crust. The images, taken during an imaging window just a few minutes long, include JunoCam's closest image of the moon, which was taken from an altitude of 945 miles (1,500 kilometers) above Europa's surface. The image shows a region called Annwn Regio, known for what scientists call chaotic terrain, a maze of ridges, grooves and cracks scaring the icy surface.
The image, processed by Björn Jónsson, depicts the surface with a resolution of about 0.6 miles (1 km) per pixel, revealing numerous bright and dark troughs and previously unknown pits. Callanish Crater, which NASA's Galileo probe studied in the late 1990s and early 2000s, appears in the lower right as a circular dark spot.
A comparison of a minimally processed and heavily processed image of the same section of Europa's surface. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Navaneeth Krishnan S)
Two of the images show the same portion of Europa's surface, comparing different processing approaches; one with minimal treatment, the other with enhanced color contrast that makes the surface features stand out. In the more processed image, shadows cast by the hodgepodge of scars are visible.
Finally, a highly stylized image by Fernando Garcia Navarro lends the rather plain white and brownish moon an extravagant psychedelic look.
A highly stylized view of Jupiter's icy moon Europa created by reprocessing an image captured by JunoCam during the mission's close flyby on Sept. 29, 2022. (Image credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Kevin M. Gill / Fernando Garcia Navarro CC BY 2.0)
"Juno's citizen scientists are part of a global united effort, which leads to both fresh perspectives and new insights," Candy Hansen, lead co-investigator for the JunoCam camera at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, said in the statement. "Many times, citizen scientists will skip over the potential scientific applications of an image entirely, and focus on how Juno inspires their imagination or artistic sense, and we welcome their creativity."
Juno zipped 256 miles (412 km) above Europa's frozen surface last week, making its closest approach to the moon and the closest by any spacecraft since the Galileo spacecraft flew by in 2000. Hurtling through space at 15 miles per second (24 km per second), Juno snapped its most detailed image of Europa to date. The maneuver wasn't just for sightseeing; it also adjusted the probe's trajectory around Jupiter, reducing the time it takes to orbit the gas giant from 43 to 38 days, NASA said in the statement.
Last year, Juno visited Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system; a visit to the volcanic moon Io is planned for next year.
While all four of the main Jovian moons are fascinating, Europa is particularly intriguing because scientists believe it might be the likeliest body in the solar system to host extraterrestrial life.
Juno is unlikely to address whether anything lives in the depths of Europa's ocean, but NASA's planned Europa Clipper mission, expected to launch in 2024, may be able to find the needed evidence. Fitted with a suite of nine cutting-edge scientific instruments, Europa Clipper will turn Europa into the best explored moon in the solar system with the exception of our own natural satellite.
Alex Collier, a long-time Andromedan Contactee, reveals what he knows about the return of Enki, the Anunnaki geneticist who played a leading role in the genetic modification of humanity. Alex explains how the Anunnaki’s genetic experiments were the latest in a series of modifications of early humans by up to 22 extraterrestrial civilizations stretching back millions of years in time. He describes some of the races that preceded the Anunnaki’s genetic intervention, and why humanity’s innate potential was recognized by Enki, but opposed by his half brother and rival, Enlil.
Alex shares his insights about Elena Danaan’s claims in her latest book, The Seeders, that Enki has returned with the code of humanity’s 12 stranded Adamic DNA. After Enki’s departure due to an Anunnaki civil war, humanity’s Adamic DNA was corrupted by the victorious Enlil faction, which wanted to degrade surviving humans to a simple slave species. Alex believes that restoration of the Adamic DNA can be achieved through both technological and spiritual means, and that an alliance of extraterrestrials and White Hats will expedite the process.
He also discusses the ongoing war in Ukraine and why extraterrestrials will not allow nuclear weapons to be used in the conflict. A gray area however involves a dirty bomb which could be detonated as part of a false flag operation by the Deep State.
Alex Collier’s insights on the Anunnaki, nuclear weapons, the final days of the Deep State, and realization of humanity’s galactic potential, are a series of eye opening revelations that outline the incredible future that lies ahead for humanity.
The war in Ukraine is approaching eight months in length and the skies over many parts of the country continue to be filled with planes, drones, missiles … and UFOs. In September 2022, a number of scientists researched the large number of unidentified aerial phenomena over that war-torn country in an attempt to explain them – or at least identify all that can be identified and then ponder over what the rest might be. Secret new technology? Aliens? There was even a rumor early in the war that alien arks were secretly buried in Ukraine and the war was over gaining or retaining possession of them. While that research continues, a noted Harvard astronomer known for his hunts for alien technology and speculations that recent visit by interstellar asteroids from outside of our solar system might actually be extraterrestrial ships – or the remains of them – has weighed in on the Ukraine UFOs. His analysis may surprise you.
“Recently, astronomers in Ukraine reported about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) that fall into two categories: bright and dark. The dark objects with no optical emission were labeled as “Phantoms”. They were characterized by a size of 3–12 meters (10 to 40 feet) and speeds up to 15 km s−1 at a distance of up to 10–12 km (6.2 to 7.5 miles). If real, such objects exceed the capabilities of human-made aircrafts or rockets.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Harvard astronomer is Abraham ‘Avi’ Loeb, the physicist Time magazine named as one of the 25 most influential people in space and the proponent of the theories that the strange cigar-shaped ‘Oumuamua’ interstellar object might be an alien ship and that other interstellar objects which crashed into the oceans should be searched for and recovered to prove – or disprove – his theory. In a recent article on Medium, and in a paper published on arXiv, he reiterates that his interests lie in this type of unidentified aerial phenomena as part of his involvement with the Galileo Project at Harvard and conducting scientific searches for evidence of extraterrestrial life and technology – Loeb believes interstellar objects could be autonomous ships with no life forms onboard. However, his fame brings him numerous queries to examine ‘evidence’ of UAPs in videos, and Loeb says that is what happened one day recently when Sean Kirkpatrick, the new head of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) came to Loeb with a favor.
“But last evening I received a special request from a high-level official in the US government to summarize my thoughts on observable signatures of UAP and so this morning I checked the UAP report from Ukraine and wrote a paper about it a few hours later.”
This was not the first request Loeb had received to study the high number of UFOs over Ukraine, and it was precisely that high number that kept him from getting involved. As he puts it in his Medium article, Ukraine is in a military conflict with a lot of human-made activity in the sky creating “noise” that massively interferes with the precise analysis needed to isolate and identify strange objects. However, when the Pentagon calls …
“I concluded that the reported speeds and sizes of the ``phantom’’ objects would have generated fireballs of detectable optical luminosity at their suggested distances, and so these objects could not have appeared dark.”
Loeb was puzzled by the “Phantoms” or dark objects reported by Ukrainian astronomers. “Dark” to Loeb means the objects are blocking the background light from the sky. However, the speed the objects appeared to be traveling at should have made them “bright” – an object whose frontal area is 10 square meters, moving at a supersonic speed of 10 kilometers per second, “must create a bow shock in the Earth’s atmosphere and dissipate a mechanical power of 1.5 terra-Watt at an elevation of 10 kilometers” which would “result in fireball of visible luminosity above 150 giga-Watt” and last at least a second. To top it off, Loeb emphasizes that a fireball of that magnitude and duration “cannot be missed.”
If Loeb’s calculations are correct – and who is going to argue with a distinguished Harvard professor – then what caused the dark “Phantom” UAPs witnessed by the Ukrainian astronomers? Loeb has an answer … and it’s one that didn’t please those astronomers.
“The observations of Zhilyaev and his colleagues are original, but the processing and interpretation of the results was done at an inadequate scientific level and with significant errors in determining the distance of the observed objects.”
The observations by the astronomers were made while they were doing their job – watching a meteor shower. Thus, Loeb believes they made errors in their analysis due their lack of familiarity with the non-meteor objects they were seeing. Specifically, they erred in the distance away from their telescopes that the objects appeared to be. Loeb speculated that they were mistaken in judging this distance and, when he simulated the sightings with a distance ten times closer than the astronomers thought, he found that the angular motion of the dark Phantoms on the sky corresponded to a physical velocity ten times smaller or 1.5 kilometers per second, and their size would be 0.3–1.2 meters, not 3-to-12 meters. What would be flying in the sky over Ukraine at those speeds and sizes?
“After correcting the factor of ten overestimate in distance, everything falls into place with the parameters of artillery shells.”
That wasn’t what the astronomers were expecting. Loeb even gave them the benefit of the doubt on one object that differed in size and speed from the rest, but that one turned out to be a satellite. Loeb obviously commiserated with his Ukrainian colleagues trying to conduct astronomy in a war zone, so he saluted them with quote from Oscar Wilde:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Sadly, the Ukrainian media was not as diplomatic as Avi Loeb towards its own astronomers. The online publication Raketa had this to say:
“Instead of a critical analysis of the observations (possible errors, the adequacy of the models, the accuracy of the post-processing), the authors postulate unjustified conclusions about the characteristics of the observed objects as UAPs. The MAO Academic Council of NASU believes that the above-mentioned B.E. Zhilyaev’s conclusion was hasty and did not meet the professional requirements for publishing the results of scientific research.”
Ouch! It sounds like the author of that article was looking at the gutter instead of the stars.
The ways and means by which we are currently being controlled are many and varied. We have seen how information has been hidden – even denied access to via the Freedom of Information Act. Entire aspects of history are being denied to us. There is, however, yet another way in which we are being controlled: it involves not so much the denial of information, but the destruction of it. There are numerous examples which show the controllers have successfully destroyed certain data that, had it not been relegated to the shredder and the furnace, could have answered key questions about some of the world’s mysteries and conspiracies. Moreover, this has been going on not just in the United States, but all across the planet – which suggests a combined effort on the part of several nations to, essentially, not only hide history but to wipe it off the face of the Earth. Let’s now take a look at a number of perfect examples of this widespread activity of making the past disappear – as a means to prevent us knowing certain things that it should be our right to know about. We’ll begin with UFOs and the most famous case of all: Roswell.
It was in the summer of 1947 that somethings crashed on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico. Whatever it was, it left huge amounts of strange debris across the ranch. There was talk of strange bodies also having been found in the area, thrown out of the craft that exploded on impact. Within no time at all, personnel from the Roswell Army Air Field were on the scene, preventing anyone outside of the military from getting anywhere near the crash site. Cordons were created and people were warned never to talk about what they had seen. The problem for the military, though, is that the rancher who found the materials, William Brazel, had told fellow ranchers in the area, and friends, about his find before the military was informed – which meant that at least parts of the story were out there before the military’s cover-up began.
(Nick Redfern) The Roswell crash site: significant files cannot be found
There was even confusion at the Roswell Army Air Field: before orders were put into place to prevent anyone talking, the press-office at the base issued a statement saying that a flying disc (as UFOs were known back then) had been recovered and was due to be inspected. One such statement, from the media of the time read as follows: ““The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chavez County. The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”
The military quickly knocked that statement down, claiming that what had been recovered was nothing stranger than a weather-balloon. As for the bodies, the Air Force would not even address that matter until 1997, when they claimed that the bodies were, in fact, crash-test dummies used in high-altitude parachute experiments. It was also in the nineties that the Air Force changed its mind again on what came down on William Braazel’s ranch. It was no longer a weather-balloon, but a Mogul balloon, designed to monitor for Soviet atomic bomb tests. In 1993, all of this chopping and changing caught the attention of Steven Schiff, at the time the Congressman of New Mexico – the state in which the Roswell event occurred. Far from happy by what he saw as some kind of cover-up, Schiff approached the Government Accountability Office (at the time, it was known as the General Accounting Office) and asked them to look into the Roswell affair and see what might be found. The GAO was enthused about the idea of looking into Roswell. It was, however, not so much what the GAO found that intrigued them, but what they couldn’t find. As the GAO dug deeper and deeper, they learned to their amazement and concern that every single outgoing message from the old Roswell Army Air Field, from 1945 to 1951, could not be located. The files were gone. All of them. The GAO approached the Air Force and the National Archives for answers. There were no answers. Only puzzles. The National Archives checked their files: no luck. The Air Force came up blank, too.
(Nick Redfern) When records are "unavailable"
Rumors began to surface that when Steven Schiff approached the GAO in 1993, someone who was sitting on the Roswell story quickly realized that the truth of the 1947 incident was now in danger of being compromised, so a decision was quickly taken to have the original papers – wherever they were stored – destroyed. There is a very good reason for that: the GAO is an extremely powerful office of the U.S. Government and certainly had the power and ability to demand access to just about anything it wanted access to. Shredding the old Roswell Army Air Field papers may have been the only way to have ensured that the GAO didn’t get what it and Congressman Schiff wanted. It was just another layer of conspiracy in the quest to understand what really happened at Roswell. The outcome: the GAO concluded the files had been destroyed. Congressman Schiff was irate. The cover-up remained in place.
It’s much the same in the U.K., with the nation’s most famous UFO incident: the landing of an extraterrestrial spacecraft at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England in December 1980 – an incident which involved numerous military personnel from the nearby Royal Air Force Bentwaters facility. Witnesses saw a strange, roughly triangular-shaped object come down. Strange lights filled the skies over the base, and a huge cover-up was put into place. Attempts to try and understand what happened in Rendlesham Forest have been thwarted by the fact that a sizeable number of official files on the case have been destroyed. Or, rather, that’s the story told to us. It wasn’t long after the events occurred that rumors began to circulate that on the second night of what were three nights of encounters, the U.K. planned to evacuate a very nearby prison HM Prison Highpoint North. Other stories surfaced, suggesting that Blundeston Prison and Hollesley Bay Youth Correctional Center were also primed for evacuation. Clearly, something of a deeply serious nature was going on at the height of the encounters.
One of those who took a deep interest in the Rendlesham Forest events was Lord Hill-Norton, who, from 1971 to 1973 was the Chief of the U.K.’s Defense Staff. He pressed for answers – not just on the case itself but on those evacuation orders too. Just like Roswell, the paperwork was gone. It was on January 23, 2001 that Lord Hill-Norton raised the evacuation issue with the Government’s House of Lords. Hill-Norton wanted answers to what he said were “instructions to prepare for a possible evacuation at some time between 25 and 30 December 1980.” It didn’t take long for the government to get back to the by-then-retired Lord Hill-Norton. Available records from Blundeston Prison and Hollesley Bay Youth Correctional Center didn’t reveal anything odd at all. HM Prison Highpoint North, however, was quite another story. It turned out the December 1980 log-book from the base could not be found. Log-books for the other months were intact. When pushed for further information, the only thing that was offered by the government was the notion that the log-book had been mistakenly destroyed. Right.
(Nick Redfern) Rendlesham Forest UFO files go missing
Lord Hill-Norton didn’t stop there: he demanded access to the radar tapes of various military bases in the area, on the nights in question. Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean responded that all of the tapes had been routinely wiped clean: there was nothing to see. A trend was clearly developing. What was certainly the most amazing – and suspicious - aspect of all this reared its head in May 2011. Freedom of Information Act documents on the Rendlesham Forest case surfaced that caught the attention of not just UFO researchers, by the U.K.’s media, too. The files were notable because of what they said about the case specifically. Rather, they were files which revealed that there was a massive gap in the Defense Intelligence papers where the Rendlesham papers should have been kept. Internal memos released via FOIA legislation showed that the Ministry of Defense suspected that “a deliberate attempt had been made to eradicate the records covering this incident.” Precisely who had done the eradicating was never proved. Like the Roswell files, though, the papers were gone and no-one had any kind of solid answer.
Further files were found to have been destroyed too: not just on Rendlesham but on other cases too. Film-footage of a UFO taken by a military pilot, in U.K. airspace, in 1956, was said by the government to have been destroyed. In 1999, the crew of a military vessel, the HMS Manchester, encountered a UFO during a naval operation in the North Sea. All aboard were unanimous that they had seen a large, circular-shaped craft flying in close proximity to the ship. I am not exaggerating when I say that the U.K. government failed to respond properly for data on the case because “an unusually strong gust of wind” below the ship’s log-book overboard! Can you believe that crap?
Moving onto Australia, in the summer of 2011, the Australian Department of Defense admitted to having, ahem, misplaced, a UFO file that should have been packed with reports. Natalie Carpenter, of the nation’s Freedom of Information Office, responded to media inquiries by stating that, “The files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost.” UFO researcher-author Whitley Strieber made a very good observation, on June 6, 2011: “Last week, the Australian government announced that it has ‘lost’ its UFO files. Thus it joins the United States, which ‘lost’ all the files relating to the Roswell AFB dating from 1947 through 1952, and the United Kingdom, which recently announced that it has ‘lost’ all the files relating to the Rendlesham Forest UFO Case. Rendlesham and Roswell are the two most important UFO cases ever to have taken place. Australia is a UFO hotspot, and sightings are frequent in the area of the US’s Pine Gap signals intelligence facility.”
Strieber later said: “Recently, many of the Rendlesham witnesses have spoken frankly about their experiences, and there is no longer any question but that an encounter between base personnel and an unknown presence took place there. Congressman Steven Schiff, who initiated the General Accounting Office's investigation of the Roswell Incident said to me that the files were illegally destroyed – ‘if they were destroyed.’ I asked him, ‘Do you think they might not have been destroyed?’ He said, ‘We are being told that they were destroyed.’ So the investigation came to an end.”
Unfortunately, what all of this tells us is that it's very difficult for us to find amazing UFO data, but it's very easy for government agencies to shred, burn, or deny the existence of important data. Of course, governments are human, just like us. That means, the day may come when we'll stumble on something that was thought by governments to be hidden away, but that will blow open the doors to more than a few top secrets of the UFO type. Such a thing is not impossible. And, when one door opens, it makes another one easier to open. And so on...And so on...
The Most Bizarre UFO Sighting Caught on Camera Till Date
The Most Bizarre UFO Sighting Caught on Camera Till Date
Over the years, there have been numerous UFO sightings in Puerto Rico. In April 2013, a group of US Customs and Border Protection agents was taking off from a mission in the town of Agudiya when they saw a strange light. The pilot then turned on his thermal imaging camera.
The aircraft’s camera immediately captured the object. This was by far the most bizarre UFO sighting that we have seen so far. If an alien race has the technology to produce such footage, what else can they do?
Over 800 Ancient Monuments Found in Polish Forest with LiDAR!
Over 800 Ancient Monuments Found in Polish Forest with LiDAR!
One of the last primeval forests in Europe, Białowieża forest in Poland, is the subject of a fascinating new LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey. It has yielded a vast and incredible array of hidden treasures from prehistory all the way up until World War II, including 577 ancient burial barrows, 246 charcoal kiln sites, 54 tar plants, 19 complexes of ancient farmlands, 51 semi-dugouts and 17 war cemeteries.
Some of the mounds are dated to the early Middle Ages, but most are from the Roman period, i.e., 2nd – 5th century AD. In total, the 800+ ancient monuments are of various functions, as explained by the team of scientists and archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University (IA UKSW) in Warsaw.
The project was headed by Prof. Przemysław Urbańczyk. They have brought to a close a lengthy 5 year research project of the Polish half of the Białowieża Forest, which lies on the border with Belarus, reports PAP. The research has been funded by the National Science Center of Poland.
"Thanks to the use of innovative research methods, combined with numerous natural analyzes, we have obtained, despite the initial pessimism, amazing results”, the main project coordinator, Dr. Joanna Wawrzeniek from the IA UKSW told PAP. “In accordance with the current conservation doctrine, we mainly used non-invasive tests. The output information was provided by aerial laser scanning,” she added.
Aerial laser scanning is a highly efficient non-invasive research method, that allows for a comfortable bypassing of the need for archaeological excavations, by allowing a top-down view of the topography. Dense forests and tough terrain do not act as a hindrance and allow for all kinds of structures to be seen and identified – natural and human-made (like burial structures and mounds for example).
The purpose of the ancient barrows in the Polish forest is not certain, but they are thought to be burial mounds. This is where LiDAR’s efficiency draws a line. Therefore, archival queries, geophysical surveys, drilling, and survey research methods were also employed.
Mounds from the Middle Ages contained skeleton and cremation burials, but the ones from the ancient periods lacked human remains, reports Heritage Daily and may have been ritualistic .
Some of the ancient structures spotted with LiDAR in Białowieża Forest in Poland
(M. Szubski, M. Jakubczak)
Occupation Through Time
Earlier on in pre-history, people inhabited the forest on small elevations that had access to a river or a stream, which could be places inhabited for a long time. Evidence of habitation is also gained from two structures, first of which is located in the Strict Reserve of the Białowieża National Park, and the other is in the Wilczy Jar Forest District.
They did not play a defensive role, or act as strongholds, but are more likely to have played some kind of ritualistic role. Only archaeological excavations can provide insight into what this ritualistic role potentially could be.
The first structure that was examined has a diameter of 36 meters (118.1 feet), with a small embankment that is 3 meters (9.8 feet) wide. From this structure, Slavic pottery from the early and late Middle Ages was found, along with ancient flint relics. The second structure was less than half of the first in diameter – 17 meters (55.77 feet). Here, there is evidence of the site being used in two distinct periods – first in prehistory (4th-3rd century BC), and the second from the 7 th-10th century AD.
The second structure had, alongside it, a compact pavement, a shallow pit, and traces of a dowel discovered on the embankment. Also found was the fragment of a courtyard, with lightly burned animal bones in the vicinity. It also possessed a vessel from the Roman period, though there was no other proof of occupation from the Roman period.
Further publications are planned, which will describe the results of this exciting archaeological research, and with over 800 monuments discovered, there is still much to be revealed!
Top image: An ancient burial mound in Poland, Tumuli in Wesiory (representational image). Artur Henryk / Adobe Stock
From HG Wells’ “The Time Machine” to the “Back to the Future” franchise, time travel has been a hallmark of science fiction for more than a century.
Part of its appeal has been that famous physicists like Albert Einstein have come up with theories that explain weather phenomena in ways that don’t rule out the possibility of time travel.
Einstein’s special theory of relativity proposes that time moves relative to an observer and is an illusion.
In his 1905 theory, space and time combined into a singular entity known as “space-time”, which physicists have been able to verify.
However, in an article published in The Conversation , Barak Shoshany, an assistant professor of physics at Brock University in Canada, wrote about the possibility of time travel, but with certain conditions.
One of the biggest obstacles to time travel is the practical requirement of “exotic matter,” which is matter with negative energy, as opposed to the matter around us, which consists of positive energy.
However, Professor Shoshany adds that there is no evidence that it is impossible to create exotic matter in sufficient quantities.
“In addition, other equations can be discovered that allow time travel without requiring exotic matter,” explains Professor Shoshany.
Another hurdle is the possibility of time paradoxes, where an action done in the past could have ripple effects in the present that undo the need for time travel.
A classic example of this is the famous “ grandfather paradox ”, where pundits ponder whether a time traveler would cease to exist if he went back in time to kill his grandfather when he was young.
“In physics, a paradox is not an event that can actually happen, it is a purely theoretical concept that points to an inconsistency in the theory itself,” adds the Canadian physicist.
“In other words, the paradoxes of consistency not only imply that time travel is a dangerous endeavor, but that it simply cannot be possible.”
Theoretical physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov attempted to solve the problem of time travel paradoxes with a self-consistency conjecture, which essentially states that you can travel to the past, but you cannot change it.
But Professor Shoshany, along with his students Jacob Hauser and Jared Wogan studied time travel, and in a recent study they discovered that there are time travel paradoxes that the Novikov conjecture cannot resolve.
“We show that allowing for multiple histories (or in more familiar terms, parallel timelines) can resolve paradoxes that the Novikov conjecture cannot,” Shoshany writes.
“In fact, it can solve any paradox you throw at it.”
According to his theory, when a person steps out of a time machine, they arrive in a different timeline, where they can do whatever they want, including destroying their time machine five minutes before they were supposed to use it.
In this theory, changes to this new timeline would have no effect on the original timeline.
“After working on time travel paradoxes for the past three years, I have become increasingly convinced that time travel might be possible, but only if our universe can allow multiple histories to coexist,” he continues. explaining the physical
The team of researchers now seeks to formulate a concrete theory of time travel that complies with the law of general relativity.
Professor Shoshany adds that even if they do manage to find such a theory, this would not be enough to prove that time travel is possible, but it would at least mean that time travel is not ruled out by consistency paradoxes.
In short: multiple timelines would allow you to travel to a different timeline and kill your grandparents, let’s ignore the ‘why’ for the sake of debate, without causing a paradox.
Of course, once this happens, there is no reason to believe that that Universe will continue exactly as ours has.
It is likely that the “butterfly effect” of your arrival has changed it, it is also likely that you have selected a limited number of similarities, no matter how great they are.
Still, this would be a (still extremely far-fetched) way to experience the past, without affecting the present or creating paradoxes.
Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe – Equations Predict
Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe – Equations Predict
Like part of a cosmic Russian doll, our universe may be perfectly nested inside a black hole that is itself part of a larger universe. In turn, all the black holes found so far in our universe—from the microscopic to the supermassive—may be ultimate doorways into alternate realities.
According to a mind-bending new theory, a black hole is actually a tunnel between universes—a type of wormhole. The matter the black hole attracts doesn’t collapse into a single point, as has been predicted, but rather gushes out a “white hole” at the other end of the black one, the theory goes.
In a paper published in the journal Physics Letters B, Indiana University physicist Nikodem Poplawski presents new mathematical models of the spiraling motion of matter falling into a black hole. His equations suggest such wormholes are viable alternatives to the “space-time singularities” that Albert Einstein predicted to be at the centers of black holes.
According to Einstein’s equations for general relativity, singularities are created whenever matter in a given region gets too dense, as would happen at the ultra-dense heart of a black hole.
Einstein’s theory suggests singularities take up no space, are infinitely dense, and are infinitely hot—a concept supported by numerous lines of indirect evidence but still so outlandish that many scientists find it hard to accept. If Poplawski is correct, they may no longer have to.
According to the new equations, the matter black holes absorb and seemingly destroy is actually expelled and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality.
And our universe may sit in another universe's black hole, equations predict.
BYKER THAN FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS
Like part of a cosmic Russian doll, ouruniverse may be nested inside a black hole that is itself part of a larger universe.
In turn, all the black holes found so far in our universe—from the microscopic to the supermassive—may be doorways into alternate realities.
According to a mind-bending new theory, a black hole is actually a tunnel between universes—a type of wormhole. The matter the black hole attracts doesn't collapse into a single point, as has been predicted, but rather gushes out a "white hole" at the other end of the black one, the theory goes.
In a recent paper published in the journal Physics Letters B, Indiana University physicist Nikodem Poplawski presents new mathematical models of the spiraling motion of matter falling into a black hole. His equations suggest such wormholes are viable alternatives to the "space-time singularities" that Albert Einstein predicted to be at the centers of black holes.
According to Einstein's equations for general relativity, singularities are created whenever matter in a given region gets too dense, as would happen at the ultradense heart of a black hole.
Einstein's theory suggests singularities take up no space, are infinitely dense, and are infinitely hot—a concept supported by numerous lines of indirect evidence but still so outlandish that many scientists find it hard to accept.
If Poplawski is correct, they may no longer have to.
According to the new equations, the matter black holes absorb and seemingly destroy is actually expelled and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality.
The notion of black holes as wormholes could explain certain mysteries in modern cosmology, Poplawski said.
For example, the big bang theory says the universe started as a singularity. But scientists have no satisfying explanation for how such a singularity might have formed in the first place.
If our universe was birthed by a white hole instead of a singularity, Poplawski said, "it would solve this problem of black hole singularities and also the big bang singularity."
Wormholes might also explain gamma ray bursts, the second most powerful explosions in the universe after the big bang.
Gamma ray bursts occur at the fringes of the known universe. They appear to be associated with supernovae, or star explosions, in faraway galaxies, but their exact sources are a mystery. (Related: "Gamma-Ray Burst Caused Mass Extinction?")
Poplawski proposes that the bursts may be discharges of matter from alternate universes. The matter, he says, might be escaping into our universe through supermassive black holes—wormholes—at the hearts of those galaxies, though it's not clear how that would be possible.
There is at least one way to test Poplawski's theory: Some of our universe's black holes rotate, and if our universe was born inside a similarly revolving black hole, then our universe should have inherited the parent object's rotation.
If future experiments reveal that our universe appears to rotate in a preferred direction, it would be indirect evidence supporting his wormhole theory, Poplawski said.
Wormholes Are "Exotic Matter" Makers?
The wormhole theory may also help explain why certain features of our universe deviate from what theory predicts, according to physicists.
Based on the standard model of physics, after the big bang the curvature of the universe should have increased over time so that now—13.7 billion years later—we should seem to be sitting on the surface of a closed, spherical universe.
But observations show the universe appears flat in all directions.
What's more, data on light from the very early universe show that everything just after the big bang was a fairly uniform temperature.
That would mean that the farthest objects we see on opposite horizons of the universe were once close enough to interact and come to equilibrium, like molecules of gas in a sealed chamber.
Again, observations don't match predictions, because the objects farthest from each other in the known universe are so far apart that the time it would take to travel between them at the speed of light exceeds the age of the universe.
To explain the discrepancies, astronomers devised the concept of inflation.
Inflation states that shortly after the universe was created, it experienced a rapid growth spurt during which space itself expanded at faster-than-light speeds. The expansion stretched the universe from a size smaller than an atom to astronomical proportions in a fraction of a second.
The universe therefore appears flat, because the sphere we're sitting on is extremely large from our viewpoint—just as the sphere of Earth seems flat to someone standing in a field.
Inflation also explains how objects so far away from each other might have once been close enough to interact.
But—assuming inflation is real—astronomers have always been at pains to explain what caused it. That's where the new wormhole theory comes in.
According to Poplawski, some theories of inflation say the event was caused by "exotic matter," a theoretical substance that differs from normal matter, in part because it is repelled rather than attracted by gravity.
Based on his equations, Poplawski thinks such exotic matter might have been created when some of the first massive stars collapsed and became wormholes.
"There may be some relationship between the exotic matter that forms wormholes and the exotic matter that triggered inflation," he said.
The new model isn't the first to propose that other universes exist inside black holes. Damien Easson, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University, has made the speculation in previous studies.
"What is new here is an actual wormhole solution in general relativity that acts as the passage from the exterior black hole to the new interior universe," said Easson, who was not involved in the new study.
"In our paper, we just speculated that such a solution could exist, but Poplawski has found an actual solution," said Easson, referring to Poplawski's equations.
Nevertheless, the idea is still very speculative, Easson said in an email.
"Is the idea possible? Yes. Is the scenario likely? I have no idea. But it is certainly an interesting possibility."
Future work in quantum gravity—the study of gravity at the subatomic level—could refine the equations and potentially support or disprove Poplawski's theory, Easson said.
Wormhole Theory No Breakthrough
Overall, the wormhole theory is interesting, but not a breakthrough in explaining the origins of our universe, said Andreas Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, who was also not involved in the new study.
By saying our universe was created by a gush of matter from a parent universe, the theory simply shifts the original creation event into an alternate reality.
In other words, it doesn't explain how the parent universe came to be or why it has the properties it has—properties our universe presumably inherited.
"There're really some pressing problems we're trying to solve, and it's not clear that any of this is offering a way forward with that," he said.
Still, Albrecht doesn't find the idea of universe-bridging wormholes any stranger than the idea of black hole singularities, and he cautions against dismissing the new theory just because it sounds a little out there.
"Everything people ask in this business is pretty weird," he said. "You can't say the less weird [idea] is going to win, because that's not the way it's been, by any means."
Astronomer Have Discovered A Mysterious Object, Which Is 570 Billion Times Brighter Than The Sun
Astronomer Have Discovered A Mysterious Object, Which Is 570 Billion Times Brighter Than The Sun
So bright that it pushes the energy limit of physics.
Billions of light years away, there is a giant ball of hot gas that is brighter than hundreds of billions of suns. It is hard to imagine something so bright. So what is it? Astronomers are not really sure, but they have a couple theories.
They think it may be a very rare type of supernova — called a magnetar — but one so powerful that it pushes the energy limits of physics, or in other words, the most powerful supernova ever seen as of today.
This object is so luminous that astronomers are having a really difficult time finding a way to describe it. “If it really is a magnetar, it's as if nature took everything we know about magnetars and turned it up to 11,” said Krzysztof Stanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University and the team's co-principal investigator, comedically implying it is off the charts on a scale of 1 to 10.The object was first spotted by the All Sky Automated Survey of Supernovae (ASAS-SN or “assassin”), which is a small network of telescopes used to detect bright objects in the universe. Although this object is ridiculously bright, it still can’t be seen by the naked eye because it is 3.8 billion light years away.
ASAS-SN, since it began in 2014, has discovered nearly 250 supernovae, however this discovery, ASASSN-15lh, stands out because of its sheer magnitude. It is 200 times more powerful than the average supernova, 570 billion times brighter than the sun, and 20 times brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy combined.
“We have to ask, how is that even possible?” said Stanek. “It takes a lot of energy to shine that bright, and that energy has to come from somewhere.”
Todd Thompson, professor of astronomy at Ohio State, has one possible explanation. The supernova could have generated an extremely rare type of star called a millisecond magnetar — a rapidly spinning and very dense star with a crazy strong magnetic field.
This is how crazy magnetars are: to shine as bright as it does, this magnetar would have to spin at least 1,000 times a second, and convert all of that rotational energy to light with pretty much 100 percent efficiency — making it the most extreme example of a magnetar that is physically possible.
Given those constraints,” Thompson said, “will we ever see anything more luminous than this? If it truly is a magnetar, then the answer is basically no.”
Over the coming months, the Hubble Space Telescope will try to solve this mystery by giving astronomers time to see the host galaxy surrounding this object. The team may find that this bright object lies in the very center of a large galaxy — meaning the object is not a magnetar at all — and the gas around it is actually evidence of a supermassive black hole.
If that is the case, then the bright light could be explained by a new kind of event, said study co-author Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State. It would be something that has never, ever been seen before at the center of a galaxy.
Whether it is a magnetar, a supermassive black hole, or something else entirely, the results are probably going to lead to new thinking about how objects form in the universe.
Dit is de beste close-upfoto van Europa in decennia (en de chaos is niet te missen)
Dit is de beste close-upfoto van Europa in decennia (en de chaos is niet te missen)
Ruimtesonde Juno scheerde vorige week rakelings langs de maan Europa en toen kon het ijsmaantje zijn verfomfaaide uiterlijk echt niet langer verhullen.
CAROLINE KRAAIJVANGER
Dat de scheervlucht in mooie close-upbeelden heeft geresulteerd, is geen verrassing. Vorige week lichtte NASA namelijk al een tipje van de sluier op door onderstaande foto vrij te geven.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SWRI / MSSS.
Op deze foto zien we een gebied iets ten noorden van de evenaar, ook wel aangeduid als Annwn Regio. “Het is nog een beetje vroeg, maar alles wijst erop dat Juno’s scheervlucht langs Europa een groot succes was,” vertelde Scott Bolton, hoofdonderzoeker van Juno, toen. “Deze eerste foto geeft slechts een glimp van de nieuwe inzichten die zullen voortkomen uit de gegevens die Juno tijdens zijn scheervlucht langs de ijzige maan verzamelde.”
Nieuwe foto En nu heeft NASA dus een nieuw kiekje vrijgegeven. Voor deze foto heeft Juno nog wat verder op het oppervlak van Jupiters maan Europa ingezoomd en wordt de totale chaos die daar heerst nog beter zichtbaar.
Beetje licht in de nacht Op de foto zien we een gebied dat ongeveer 150 bij 200 kilometer groot is. Ruimtesonde Juno fotografeerde het gebied toen deze zo’n 412 kilometer van het oppervlak van Europa verwijderd was en terwijl deze met een snelheid van zo’n 24 kilometer per seconde langs de maan vloog. Op dat moment was het nacht op het stukje Europa dat je hier ziet. Gelukkig werd het stukje oppervlak toch nog enigszins belicht en wel door zonlicht dat door de wolkentoppen van Jupiter gereflecteerd werd.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI.
Dankzij dat kleine beetje licht is het oppervlak toch nog goed zichtbaar. Dat oppervlak bestaat uit ijs; Europa is namelijk bedekt met een kilometers dikke ijskap. Dat ‘jasje’ van ijs is echter tamelijk verfomfaaid; het wordt gekenmerkt door breuken en richels. En dat is op de close-upbeelden van Juno wel heel goed te zien.
Breuken Zo zien we tal van dunne lijntjes over het oppervlak lopen. Dat zijn breuken in de ijskap. Wat daarnaast opvalt, zijn de lijnen die in tweetallen en paralel aan elkaar over het oppervlak lopen. Het zijn waarschijnlijk omlijnde verhogingen of richels in de ijskap. Ook zijn op de foto donkere vlekken te zien. Onderzoekers vermoeden dat ze ontstaan zijn door erupties, waarbij materiaal afkomstig van onder de ijskap aan het oppervlak komt.
Waardevol “Deze foto onthult een gebied dat we nog niet eerder in zo’n hoge resolutie en onder zo’n onthullende belichting, in beeld hebben gebracht, in ongelofelijk detail,” stelt onderzoeker Heidi Becker. “Deze oppervlaktekenmerken zijn zo intrigerend. Een beter begrip van hoe ze ontstaan zijn – en hoe ze in de geschiedenis van Europa passen – kan ons weer vertellen welke interne en externe krachten de ijskap vormgeven.”
Uniek De beelden zijn daarmee heel waardevol én tamelijk uniek. De laatste keer dat een ruimtesonde Europa van zo dichtbij bekeek, is alweer twee decennia geleden. Toen scheerde ruimtesonde Galileo langs Europa.
Hoewel Juno fantastische foto’s van Europa heeft gemaakt, was dat niet het primaire doel van de ruimtesonde. Juno is namelijk specifiek ontworpen om Jupiter te onderzoeken. Maar toen die missie er bijna opzat, besloot NASA deze te verlengen en daarbij ook tijd te maken om eens een blik te werpen op enkele interessante manen van Jupiter. Eerder scheerde Juno bijvoorbeeld ook al langs Ganymedes. En in 2023 staat nog een scheervlucht gepland langs Io.
Europa mag zich de komende tijd in aanzienlijk meer aandacht verheugen. Zo maakt NASA zich zelfs op voor een missie waarin de maan centraal staat; in 2024 moet ruimtesonde Europa Clipper koers zetten richting de ijzige maan, om daar vervolgens in 2030 aan te komen. De sonde moet onder meer uit gaan zoeken hoe leefbaar Europa is. Want hoewel de maan met die kilometersdikke ijskap niet meteen heel gastvrij lijkt, wordt deze toch gezien als één van de beste kandidaten voor leven. Onder de ijskap lijkt namelijk een vloeibare oceaan schuil te gaan waarin de omstandigheden – voor zover we dat nu in kunnen schatten – gunstig kunnen zijn voor het ontstaan en gedijen van leven.
In Ancient Mesopotamia, Sex Among The Gods Shook Heaven And Earth
In Ancient Mesopotamia, Sex Among The Gods Shook Heaven And Earth
The “Burney Relief,” which is believed to represent either Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, or her older sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the underworld (c. 19th or 18th century BC).
Credit: British Museum
Sexuality was central to life in ancient Mesopotamia, an area of the Ancient Near East often described as the cradle of western civilisation roughly corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and parts of Syria, Iran and Turkey. It was not only so for everyday humans but for kings and even deities.
Mesopotamian deities shared many human experiences, with gods marrying, procreating and sharing households and familial duties. However when love went wrong, the consequences could be dire in both heaven and on earth.
Scholars have observed the similarities between the divine “marriage machine” found in ancient literary works and the historical courtship of mortals, although it is difficult to disentangle the two, most famously in so-called “sacred marriages”, which saw Mesopotamian kings marrying deities.
Divine sex
Gods, being immortal and generally of superior status to humans, did not strictly need sexual intercourse for population maintenance, yet the practicalities of the matter seem to have done little to curb their enthusiasm.
Sexual relationships between Mesopotamian deities provided inspiration for a rich variety of narratives. These include Sumerian myths such as Enlil and Ninlil and Enki and Ninhursag, where the complicated sexual interactions between deities was shown to involve trickery, deception and disguise.
In both myths, a male deity adopts a disguise, and then attempts to gain sexual access to the female deity — or to avoid his lover’s pursuit. In the first, the goddess Ninlil follows her lover Enlil down into the Underworld, and barters sexual favours for information on Enlil’s whereabouts. The provision of a false identity in these myths is used to circumnavigate societal expectations of sex and fidelity.
Sexual betrayal could spell doom not only for errant lovers but for the whole of society. When the Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, is abandoned by her lover, Nergal, she threatens to raise the dead unless he is returned to her, alluding to her right to sexual satiety.
The goddess Ishtar makes the same threat in the face of a romantic rejection from the king of Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is interesting to note that both Ishtar and Ereshkigal, who are sisters, use one of the most potent threats at their disposal to address matters of the heart.
The plots of these myths highlight the potential for deceit to create alienation between lovers during courtship. The less-than-smooth course of love in these myths, and their complex use of literary imagery, have drawn scholarly comparisons with the works of Shakespeare.
Love poetry
Ancient authors of Sumerian love poetry, depicting the exploits of divine couples, show a wealth of practical knowledge on the stages of female sexual arousal. It’s thought by some scholars that this poetry may have historically had an educational purpose: to teach inexperienced young lovers in ancient Mesopotamia about intercourse. It’s also been suggested the texts had religious purposes, or possibly magical potency.
Several texts write of the courtship of a divine couple, Inanna (the Semitic equivalent of Ishtar) and her lover, the shepherd deity Dumuzi. The closeness of the lovers is shown through a sophisticated combination of poetry and sensuousness imagery - perhaps providing an edifying example for this year’s Bad Sex in Fiction nominees.
Ancient Sumerian cylinder seal impression showing Dumuzid being tortured in the Underworld by the galla demons.
Credit: British Museum
In one of the poems, elements of the female lover’s arousal are catalogued, from the increased lubrication of her vulva, to the “trembling” of her climax. The male partner is presented delighting in his partner’s physical form, and speaking kindly to her. The feminine perspective on lovemaking is emphasised in the texts through the description of the goddess’ erotic fantasies. These fantasies are part of the preparations of the goddess for her union, and perhaps contribute to her sexual satisfaction.
Female and male genitals could be celebrated in poetry, the presence of dark pubic hair on the goddess’ vulva is poetically described through the symbolism of a flock of ducks on a well-watered field or a narrow doorway framed in glossy black lapis-lazuli.
The representation of genitals may also have served a religious function: temple inventories have revealed votive models of pubic triangles, some made of clay or bronze. Votive offerings in the shape of vulvae have been found in the city of Assur from before 1000 BC.
Happy goddess, happy kingdom
Divine sex was not the sole preserve of the gods, but could also involve the human king. Few topics from Mesopotamia have captured the imagination as much as the concept of sacred marriage. In this tradition, the historical Mesopotamian king would be married to the goddess of love, Ishtar. There is literary evidence for such marriages from very early Mesopotamia, before 2300 BC, and the concept persevered into much later periods.
The relationship between historical kings and Mesopotamian deities was considered crucial to the successful continuation of earthly and cosmic order. For the Mesopotamian monarch, then, the sexual relationship with the goddess of love most likely involved a certain amount of pressure to perform.
Some scholars have suggested these marriages involved a physical expression between the king and another person (such as a priestess) embodying the goddess. The general view now is that if there were a physical enactment to a sacred marriage ritual it would have been conducted on a symbolic level rather than a carnal one, with the king perhaps sharing his bed with a statue of the deity.
Agricultural imagery was often used to describe the union of goddess and king. Honey, for instance, is described as sweet like the goddess’ mouth and vulva.
A love song from the city of Ur between 2100-2000 BC is dedicated to Shu-Shin, the king, and Ishtar:
In the bedchamber dripping with honey let us enjoy over and over your allure, the sweet thing. Lad, let me do the sweetest things to you. My precious sweet, let me bring you honey.
Sex in this love poetry is depicted as a pleasurable activity that enhanced loving feelings of intimacy. This sense of increased closeness was considered to bring joy to the heart of the goddess, resulting in good fortune and abundance for the entire community — perhaps demonstrating an early Mesopotamian version of the adage “happy wife, happy life”.
The diverse presentation of divine sex creates something of a mystery around the causes for the cultural emphasis on cosmic copulation. While the presentation of divine sex and marriage in ancient Mesopotamia likely served numerous purposes, some elements of the intimate relationships between gods shows some carry-over to mortal unions.
While dishonesty between lovers could lead to alienation, positive sexual interactions held countless benefits, including greater intimacy and lasting happiness.
Written by Louise Pryke - Lecturer, Languages and Literature of Ancient Israel, Macquarie University
TicTac During Lightning Storm Over Albuquerque, New Mexico Photos, UFO Sighting News.
TicTac During Lightning Storm Over Albuquerque, New Mexico Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 8-7-2022
Location of sighting: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
UFOs are often recorded around violent weather phenomenon, leading me to conclude that the UFOs are either causing the disturbances or recording data about the effects of violent weather. Its not rare to catch a UFO during lightning storms, its actually very common. Making me think that there must be a base in New Mexico desert somewhere 5km below the ground.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Eyewitness states:
Videoing lightning and reviewing video and taking screenshots of the lightning. In one of my screenshots there appeared a white tic tax looking object.
Strange UFO light hovering in evening sky and changing direction and light intensity – Canton, MI
Strange UFO light hovering in evening sky and changing direction and light intensity – Canton, MI
Check out this latest UFO sighting video of a bright orb making maneuvers in the night sky above Canton, charter township of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. This happened yesterday, on 7th October 2022.
Witness report:
Walking dog at 730 pm on Friday, Oct 7. Evening sky with low cloud cover. Saw a white light hovering in the west over Ridge Rd. in Canton, near Proctor Rd. Light intensity seemed to change, which caught my attention. At first thought it was a drone, but no red or green lights visible. It hovered and moved and changed directions. Flickered out a few times and returned. Started to descend behind houses. Seemed to change to red as descended. No idea what this was. Never seen anything like this. Sound of jets were audible, but didn’t seem to be coming from the light. We live in area with lots of airport traffic overhead. This was too low and slow to be a plane. Took video and tried to convince myself it was a drone, but I’m not so sure.
The map above shows the planet Mars during the late Noachian Period, around 3.8 billion years ago, labeled with modern feature names.
Until around 3.5 billion years ago, Mars had a thicker atmosphere and was warmer than the present day, and evidence suggests that liquid water flowed on its surface, carving the many river channels that remain there today. The lakes shown on this map are lakes that are theorized to have existed around this time. In the north was an ocean, though it was probably never as high a sea level as shown here. At the north pole of the red planet was the ocean hundreds of meters deep. It is believed that much of this water was lost to space, carried away over time by the solar wind, and that which remains on Mars today is frozen in the polar ice caps and is also likely to be found frozen and buried across the planet under the surface layer of dust.
Bryce Zabel, a CNN reporter has done a marvelous job in presenting the detailedRoswell incident in his personal blog. He collectively mentioned top witnesses’ statements that assure Roswell disclosure is on a fast track. The legendary incident that happened in 1947 was indeed real, according to moon-walking astronaut Edgar Mitchell. He claimed in his interviews that he had informants that had told him about the inside story of Roswell, but he never disclosed their names.
“Make no mistake, Roswell happened. I’ve seen secret files which show the government knew about it — but decided not to tell the public,” claimed Edgar Mitchell, Ph.D., Apollo 14 Astronaut.
In February 1971, after the successful completion of the mission, the Apollo 14 crew returned to Earth. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell became the fifth and sixth astronauts to walk on the moon’s surface. While Shepard chose to live in the glory, Mitchell became the main troublemaker for many years.
He publicly accepted the existence of aliens after being on the Moon and stuck to it until his death. He accused the US government of hiding the truth about contact with aliens. Immediately after his return, Mitchell left NASA and immersed himself in studying UFOs, ancient history, and human consciousness.
Edgar Mitchell, 1971. Image credit: NASA
Mitchell grew up in the small town of Artesia, a few miles from the very Roswell airbase where the crash allegedly occurred. The astronaut claimed that many of his neighbors, acquaintances, and friends worked at that base, and what he heard from them is enough for him to consider the Roswell incident a real UFO crash. Mitchell did not disclose the names of his informants, referring to the fact that they all signed a non-disclosure agreement and he did not want them to have any problems.
Michell, who claimed he briefed the highest members of the Pentagon, said the reality is that there was an advanced civilization that could penetrate our air defenses at will and that we could not stop them in any way, shape, or form, immediately doomed the Roswell incident to become one of the greatest coverups in history.
ET stopped Nuclear War
According to Mitchell, he once had a confidential conversation with a Navy admiral, who secretly told him that in fact, aliens had established contact with the government back in the early 1940s. They were interested in earthly weapons, primarily the atomic bomb. At the very beginning of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, aliens often came to Earth because they feared nuclear war and tried to influence the world elites in some way. (Source)
Growing up in New Mexico gave him a unique insight to the Roswell area, he told the UK’s Mirror in 2015.
“White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that’s what the extraterrestrials were interested in… They wanted to know about our military capabilities. My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.”
According to a 2015 story, Apollo 14 astronaut said: “My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.”
However, he clarified in hisinterview with Observerthat he did not make those statements but at the same time, he somewhat agreed with those words. He said: “I don’t remember speaking to them personally. I don’t know where they got that information. I didn’t make those statements. Somebody has added to my words. Those weren’t my exact words but I don’t necessarily disagree with those statements.”
However, the 2016 Wikileak emails say Mitchell was worried about space weaponization. Despite the fact that aliens might be violent as shown in various sci-fi, the notable astronaut called them nonviolent in his email. In January 2015, he sent an email to Podesta, asking him to have an urgent meeting to discuss Disclosure and Zero Point Energy (ZPE). He was concerned about the peace in space.
Mitchell wrote: “My Catholic colleague Terri Mansfield will be there too, to bring us up to date on the Vatican’s awareness of ETI. Another colleague is working on a new Space Treaty, citing involvement with Russia and China. However, with Russia’s extreme interference in Ukraine, I believe we must pursue another route for peace in space and ZPE on Earth.”
Mitchell emailed Podesta again on September 18, 2015. He wrote: “Because the War in Space race is heating up, I felt you should be aware of several factors as you and I schedule our Skype talk. Remember, our nonviolent ETI from the contiguous universe are helping us bring zero point energy to Earth. They will not tolerate any forms of military violence on Earth or in space.”
Why Believe the Roswell Crash?
Bryce Zabel writes: “That storyline has hundreds of witnesses testifying to roughly the same fact trail. Some were first-hand witnesses to debris and even the recovery of bodies, and several accounts came from death bed confessions. Many more witnesses were family members who learned of the secret their fathers and husbands had kept inside them for decades. There were many dozens who attested to extremely tight security and transportation of material in the aftermath of what crashed at Roswell.”
Jesse Marcel was an intelligence officer of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field and was tasked with investigating the 1947 Roswell crash
Moreover, the hype of Roswell stories has increased. The New York Times started covering this issue in the summer of 2020 and is continuing its investigation into crash wreckage. Besides, the former head of the AATIP Luis Elizondo gave his candid take on the 1947 Roswell crash in New Mexico and more in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record.
Elizondo: “I’ll share with you… some of the observations that were made by some people. Before I was part of AATIP, I had no idea about Roswell, other than that there was sort of some alleged crash at some point and some farmer found debris — but during my time with AATIP, there was some very interesting anecdotal information that suggests there wasn’t just one crash, there may have been two crashes, and that somehow it may have been related to some sort of testing that was being done at the time at White Sands, and that material was recovered.
And that material that was recovered, samples of that material found their way into the hands of private citizens, some of them, but that the … allegedly the larger sections of debris were all recovered by the U.S. Government.”
During the interview, Elizondo said that while he headed the AATIP, his job was to concentrate on current UAP incidents, however, he added that he had conversations with so-called “graybeards” at the Pentagon who had been involved with UAPs since Project Blue Book. It was from these individuals that Elizondo learned what probably occurred at Roswell in 1947.
Elizondo: ”These individuals were convinced that the events in New Mexico were not fiction. In fact that it was a, very much a real event and that some very exotic material was recovered… And then there was a subsequent effort to try to be very dismissive about what occurred in New Mexico. But again, I will share with you that it was, from my understanding, it wasn’t one, it was two crashes, and it may have been related to some sort of nuclear-type testing of technology that we were doing, atomic and/or nuclear technology at Los Alamos at the time.”
NASA is planning to send an army of mini swimming robots to find the aliens in the oceans of other planets. Such a plan could be used to detect signs of alien life beneath the miles-thick icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus. But what about our home planet? Does NASA have any plan to explore our oceans? Have they already found everything about the only Blue planet in the Solar system? Or is something stopping them to do it? Interestingly, UFO expert Anna Whitty came forward with a strange theory that says “Aliens have been living under Earth’s ocean for protection and have always been here on the planet.”
Anna Whitty, an author of the book “UFO: A Fundamental Truth,” made the claim on the official statement of Dr. Shirley Wright, who interviewed aliens found at the Roswell crash site in 1947. Whitty stated that aliens are actually just humans – but an advanced form.
In a recently aired two-hour documentary on the UFO crash called “Roswell 75: The Final Evidence,” Anna Whitty was featured alongside expert Philip Mantle, director and producer Spyros Melaris, and Dr. David Hall.
The documentary also featured an interview where Dr. Shirley Wright, a former colleague of Albert Einstein stated that the aliens inquired about human exploration inside the ocean, they asked: “how far into the ocean” the humans traveled.
Anna Whitty. Image credit: Daily Star
Whitty did an interviewer with the Daily Star, elaborating more on her claim, she said that if whatever Wright had documented through her interview is correct, then it is more believable for the aliens to come from under the sea rather than from another planet.
“If what Shirley said is right, it is more likely that aliens come from somewhere under the sea or caves or something like that, rather than another planet, it makes sense because there’s a lot of evidence on the planet that there has been a massive cataclysm every few thousand years,” Whitty said.
“If humans on the surface are being reset to the Stone Age every several thousands of years, and these people are somewhere where they are more protected because they are underground, then perhaps their development in technology and intelligence is continuing on an upwards trajectory whereas we’re reset. It’s also possible that maybe they aren’t beings at all, but they can make you think you’re seeing what you’re not seeing,” she added.
The documentary dives deep into the incident, examining the eyewitness accounts, the involvement of the space propaganda by the major powers, as well as several secret projects that were assumed to be covered up with the help of this incident.
Whitty’s theory of aliens being “underwater entities” could have some meaning as after all, there are videos of UFOs diving into the water. Below is the footage filmed in the CIC (Combat Information Center) of the USS Omaha on July 15, 2019, in a warning area off San Diego. This footage depicts a UAP event series that reached the culmination with one of the unknown targets entering the water. No wreckage was found, and none of the unknown craft was recovered.
Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French had served in the US army for more than 27 years. He was an alleged lead investigator of the Project Blue Book in the 1950s, his job was to shoot down false reports of UFOs. In Newfoundland, Canadian Province, he saw two aliens repairing their ship submerged underwater.
US Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French during his interview with openmindstv
French testified about his work on UFOs in 1952, in front of 6 former members of Congress at the Citizen Hearing in 2013. He recalled seeing two alien crafts below the water surface, 6 meters from the shoreline. He also saw two extraterrestrials near the ships. He remembered the water was clear, so he could see those beings doing something at the bottom of the craft.
“The water was fairly clear and I could see without any trouble. They weren’t down at the bottom of the [seabed] — they were about halfway down,” French said. He believed the aliens were repairing the ships and tested them before leaving. Whatever happened in Newfoundland is the classic UFO story ever given by the army official. Even though he was chosen to debunk UFO stories, he undoubtedly said that it was a UFO and there were extraterrestrials.
The idea that the ocean is inhabited by extraterrestrials can be backed by these incidents.
An incredible account of spotting underwater UFOs, or Underwater Submerged Objects (USOs), was shared by former Gunner’s Mate John Baughman, who served in the U.S. Navy from 2008 to 2013. He was stationed on the United States Navy’s third Nimitz-class supercarrier “The USS Carl Vinson” in 2010 when he first saw Tic Tac UFO underwater.
Capt. Kent D. Whalen and John Baughman, 2011
He said: “I was staring into the water from above when a large, flat, white ’Tic Tac’ object, approximately twenty feet in length, suddenly appeared in my view below me, moving right and darted into the depths as fast as it appeared. I couldn’t really comprehend what I saw. It was definitely a solid object, but when it descended, its forward end rapidly collapsed in on itself and disappeared.”
Another USO encounter occurred with the crew of the Soviet Submarine in the south of the Pacific ocean. At the depth of 260 meters, the six disc-like objects were moving toward the submarine at the speed of 426 km per hour. The crew could not escape their pursuit, and the commander ordered the crew to rise to the surface. The crew saw through the periscope that the objects came out of the water and took off at an absurdly fast speed.
There are classic alien abduction cases where the witnesses recalled being taken to secret underwater bases. The abduction of Betty Andreasson Luca is considered to be one of the most documented cases in the history of Ufology. The woman from Massachusetts experienced multiple abductions, and her case is widely studied by UFO researchers. (Click here to read the story of Betty Luca)
During one of her hypnotic regression sessions, Betty remembered one of the early abductions that occurred to her in her childhood. It took place in 1950, when she was taken from her home into a spacecraft as usual. But this time, the craft was flying toward an ocean or sea. She was terrified that the craft would crash into the water. But the ship submerged into the water and entered into a kind of tunnel. Betty could see everything underwater, as the place was filled with light.
Next is “Filiberto Cardenas Encounter,” where he claimed to have been taken to a secret underwater hangar, and interestingly, his abduction was witnessed by his friend’s family.
He remembered being taken to some unknown beach where he saw deep blue water. He said one of the aliens got out of the object and opened a secret tunnel, from where a similar craft came and flew away. The craft which he was in also went into the tunnel with great speed underwater. Soon, he was at the secret “large hangar” under the sea.
Uranus is tipped on its side and scientists aren't sure why.
(Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W.M. Keck Observatory)
Uranus is just plain weird, and one of the weirdest things about it is its tilt.
Uranus has the largest tilt in the solar system, at 98 degrees, which means it spins almost perfectly perpendicular to the direction of its orbit. Astronomers have long suspected that a series of giant impacts early in the planet's formation did the job of flipping Uranus on its side, but new research suggests a much less violent cause: a satellite of Uranus that wandered away.
All the planets of the solar system have orbital tilts less than 30 degrees — except Uranus. The whole Uranus system is flipped onto its side, affecting not just the planet's rotation but also its rings and moons, too, which orbit around the planet perpendicular to the planet's motion around the sun.
The odd tilt of Uranus is especially weird considering that the neighboring ice giant, Neptune, has a normal tilt despite the two likely sharing similar formation histories. So what went wrong for Uranus?
Astronomers have long suspected that at least one giant impact occurred when Uranus was forming. It's easy enough to imagine: The right collision at the right time would deliver enough energy to push Uranus over while it was still in its protoplanetary stage, and the planet never picked itself back up before forming its system of planets and moons.
And scientists have some evidence to support this picture. The solar system was a rather violent place in its youth, so there are plenty of large rocks around to wreak havoc. And Neptune does display slight differences, such as a different temperature and a set of moons with different characteristics (like Neptune's being much larger), indicating the two planets experienced distinct conditions at some point in their formation.
The unluckiest planet
But the impact hypothesis has weaknesses, too.
There wasn't just one large rock whizzing around the early solar system looking for an unlucky target — there were many. All the planets, especially the outer ones, likely suffered many collisions during their formation. Even the inner planets weren't spared; Earth got smacked by a Mars-size protoplanet early on, forming the moon.
So if Uranus got hit hard enough to tip it over, why didn't the other planets? Jupiter and Saturn eventually developed thick clouds of gas, which could, over time, have gotten them upright again. But Neptune had a similar history to Uranus, and despite their small differences the two ice giants are extremely alike: they have similar atmospheres, both have tangled magnetic fields, and have similar sizes, masses and spin rates.
We're left with a dilemma. Perhaps poor Uranus was just extremely unlucky — and there are simulations that support the idea of just the right impact tilting the world. But "pure luck" doesn't really satisfy the typical astronomer; we should exhaust all the other options before resorting to it.
So perhaps the answer doesn't have anything to do with impacts. Perhaps it has to do with moons, as a team of scientists propose in a new paper accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics and posted to the preprint site the arXiv.org.
An image of Uranus taken by Voyager 2 on Jan. 14, 1986. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
Lost children
The early solar system did not look much like the solar system of the present day. The giant planets in particular probably formed much closer together and much closer to the sun. Over time, interactions among them and with wandering planetesimals outward, with Uranus and Neptune migrating the farthest. (In fact, some models of the solar system even predict the existence of a fifth massive planet that got ejected during all this migration.)
Each of the giant planets formed with a collection of moons, but those moons got reshuffled as the planets migrated. With all the complicated gravitational dynamics going on, some planets lost moons while others gained new ones.
So Uranus, could have been born with or quickly captured a massive moon. And if the moon was big enough, it could have started playing games with the planet's spin.
Uranus likely started out with a random but small tilt. Over time, that tilt will precess, as astronomers call it, with the direction of the planet's rotation wobbling like a gigantic top. (Earth does the same thing.) Usually, a moon doesn't care about its planet's precession of tilt. But it's possible for a moon to get locked into a resonance pattern, in which the length of time needed to precess matches up with a whole number of orbits of the moon.
This resonance allows the gravitational force of the moon to gently tug on the planet, reinforcing the precession. It's like an invisible string attached to the top of the planet: Over the course of millions of years, that tilt gets worse and worse. As this goes on, the moon's orbit would creep steadily closer to the planet.
The researchers found that if Uranus once had a large enough moon, it would, within a few hundred million years, be capable of pulling the planet's tilt over 80 degrees. To finish the job, the satellite would then crash into Uranus, locking the planet's tilt at its present value.
This scenario would explain why Uranus is so unique: it just had a large enough moon, which is common enough, that slipped into resonance — not so common that we should expect the same to happen to Neptune. And then it all went sideways from here.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.