Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
29-12-2022
Mysterious UFO Sighting in Florida Leaves Witnesses Baffled
Mysterious UFO Sighting in Florida Leaves Witnesses Baffled
Here’s one interesting UFO sighting video that was submitted to me through our Facebook page. This strange event happened on October 31st, 2022 around 2pm in Ocala, Florida.
Over the years, various reports of UFO sightings have been reported in Florida. Many of these incidents remain unexplained, and the public has been debating if these are actually extraterrestrial visitors or if they are the result of man-made or natural phenomena.
In 1997, a group of witnesses claimed to have spotted a UFO flying over the Everglades. It was described as a large triangular object that had bright lights on its corners. It disappeared into the clouds as it hovered over the swamp.
In 2002, a group of people claimed to have spotted a glowing and mysterious object in the sky over Gainesville. The object was described as having a cigar-shaped body and a dome-like top. It was seen hovering over the area for around 10 minutes before it disappeared.
In 2010, a group of individuals, including an employee of NASA, claimed to have spotted a UFO over the Kennedy Space Center. The object was described as a bright and glowing object that flew in the sky for several minutes before it disappeared.
See NASA's SWOT satellite deploy its antennas in space
NASA's Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's large mast and antenna panels of the spacecraft’s main science instrument were full deployed over the course of 4 days. The "two antennas belong to the groundbreaking Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument," according to NASA.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CNES
Why Nuclear Starship could solve all Elon Musk's Problem "Colonizing Mars"?
Why Nuclear Starship could solve all Elon Musk's Problem "Colonizing Mars"?
China launches 'experiment' satellite atop Long March 3B rocket
A Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched the Shiyan-10 02 satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Dec. 29, 2022.
The satellite "will be used for in-orbit verification of new technologies, including space environment monitoring," according to China Central Television.
The English translation of Shiyan is "experiment."
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)
Future Technologies That Will Revolutionize Our World | Tech Effect Compilation | Spark
Murky Waters Threatens Deep Dive Search | The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters (Season 1)
Mark and his team dive into deep waters to search for remains from the Snowy Grouper wreck. See more in this clip from Season 1, "Alien Abyss."
Watch new episodes of The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters, Tuesdays at 10/9c, and stay up to date on all of your favorite The HISTORY Channel shows at history.com/schedule
New Mysterious Discovery in Sahara Shocks Researchers! What Are These Shapes All About?
In the midst of the barren desert, far from roads, cities or any sign of life, the Sahara is adorned with some striking details in the sand. These are dozens of geometrically arranged structures that stretch along a straight line for kilometers through central Algeria. Typically, these structures have a central point that is surrounded by 12 others - just as we know it from the dials of our watches. The first recordings of these mysterious circles spilled over the web last year - but the lively discussions in the comment columns were not intended to definitively answer the question of who created the objects. Today we would like to get to the bottom of this great mystery together with you!
The strange conical shapes light looks like a torch’s beam, but it’s far too high in the sky and the light appears from nowhere, as the Daily Star reports. At the beginning of the trail, there is a small glowing orb that resembles a meteorite or a reversed rocket launch, but witnesses said the light disappeared in an instant – ruling out both explanations.
Some local UFO buffs claimed the sight was of an alien ship, while others reckoned it was a satellite, with one resident saying: “It is very close,” with another commenting: “Doesn’t it look like a UFO. The light has vanished.”
Initially, officials were just as concerned and launched an investigation into what could have caused the phenomena.
As social media in India was flooded with people wanting an explanation for the strange UFO, many guesses were made.
Some expressed that they believed the object was a meteor or comet.
“People are scared of what is this. We didn’t listen to any sound like aircraft totally silent we see only light, sometimes after it disappeared in the sky,” one Twitter user wrote.
After much speculation, India Today claimed that what locals actually witnessed in the night sky was just “the latest operational test of Agni-V, India’s long-range, nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface ballistic missile.”
The missile was launched from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast and the government had cleared massive airspace for the test launch, which spread over 5,000 kilometers. Agni-V can bring almost the entire Asia, including the northernmost part of China, as well as some regions in Europe under its striking range. The Agni 1 to 4 missiles have ranges from 700 km to 3,500 km.
If true, is that any less scary than a UFO? And why did it suddenly vanish?
And does it also explain these other UFO sightings near the same location?
Multiple witnesses across rural Wisconsin captured video of strange UFOs shooting across the night skies from different locations.
Footage of the UFOs was taken by several independent witnesses around West Bend and Fredonia in rural Wisconsin on December 1.
The Daily Mail reports that the witnessses “did not know each other and filmed the lights at the same time from different locations, according to their video metadata.”
Two of the witnesses, Kimberly, 52, a salon owner from West Bend, and Ken, 54, a former police officer and financial services worker in Fredonia, shared their footage with the Mail.
“All of a sudden we saw what looked to be a white owl swoop from the upper right hand top of the trees, down in front of the headlights, and up to the left,” Kimberly told DailyMail.com.
She and her husband were driving home at around 10:45 p.m. when they saw the lights.
“And as we’re both leaning forward into the windshield, we start seeing these lights, similar to what I caught in the video,” she said. “We just couldn’t wrap our heads around what we were seeing.”
Ken shot his UFO video at the same time as Kimberly only about five miles northeast of her.
Another witness, Andrea Lynn, wrote on social media about a similar UFO sighting on Facebook. She was located 80 miles north and her sighting took place around 7 p.m.
“Has anyone in the Green Bay area seen the random groups of lights in the sky flying around? Any idea on what they are?” she asked.
“I reached out to the National Weather service, and they told me they saw the same lights again a week later.”
The next day, teacher Chris Nowak was about 35 miles away when he too saw similar odd lights in the sky at around 6:55 p.m.
“I’ve really never seen anything like it before,” Nowak told DailyMail.com. “It was like a row of illumination through the clouds, and it would pulse through the sky incredibly quickly.”
After stopping to film the phenomenon, Nowak says “it shot through the clouds and broke off into like three different beams from there. It moved at an incredible speed. It cleared down to the edge of the entire sky very, very quickly.”
He, like Kimberly, dismissed the idea that the UFOs were just spotlights.
“I’ve seen spotlights, we’ve taken our kids to Disney,” he said. “You see spotlights on clouds… That just has a much different look than what we were seeing.”
When asked about the strange UFO footage shot by multiple people in Wisconsin, former FBI agent Ben Hansen, host of the show UFO Witness on Discovery+, “Not only is there no evidence that any advertising spotlights have recently been permitted or used in this very rural area, the intensity and speed of the lights doesn’t comport with conventional technology.”
A meteorologist and a Milwaukee Federal Aviation Administration controller both stated that they saw nothing on their radars during the UFO sightings in Wisconsin.
“These latest sightings are kind of reminiscent of the ‘Foo Fighter‘ lights that were described by pilots during WWII or the lights that buzzed Washington D.C. in 1952,” said Hansen.
Pentagon’s UFO office inundated with unexplained sightings
Pentagon’s UFO office inundated with unexplained sightings
By: Liam McAneny
Ever wondered whether humans were alone in the universe? A new office at the US Pentagon has received hundreds of reports of unidentified flying objects since it was set up in July.
The new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was created back in July this year and was tasked with the job of tracking and investigating reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.
The phrase unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) was chosen several years ago as a replacement for the moniker of UFO, to reduce stigma and to widen the net of unidentified objects that would be investigated.
As defined by the US Department of Defense, a UAP is any object in space, air, or land or in or under the sea that cannot be identified. The second prong of the definition for the purpose of the AARO office is that the object may pose a threat to US military operations or installations.
The AARO began their investigations starting with the historical reports of UAP encounters reported between 2004 and 2021, which encompassed 144 events. Of these 144 encounters, the AARO said that 80 of them were captured on “multiple sensors”.
These statistics were announced publicly by the director of national intelligence in June last year. This announcement, in addition to the establishment of the AARO office for the express purpose of investigating these phenomena and a rare Congressional hearing in May into UAPs has led to significant increases in reports of UAPS.
The director of the AARO, Sean Kirkpatrick, said that the office has “had lots more reporting” since it was set up, before going on to clarify the number was in the “several hundreds”.
Some of the AARO’s findings and investigations will be revealed in an updated report due to be produced by the director of national intelligence before the end of the year.
Kirkpatrick provided more comments on his agency’s mission, as well as emphasising their commitment to producing accurate and scientific findings.
“We have an important and yet challenging mission to lead an interagency effort to document, collect, analyse and when possible, resolve reports of any unidentified anomalous phenomena.
"We apply the highest analytic and scientific standards,” he said.
"We execute our mission objectively and without sensationalism and we do not rush to conclusions.”
One of the difficulties of past “UFO” investigations was that often, the US government’s own activities were to blame, but due to high-level classification, those reporting or investigating the incidents could not be informed of the true nature of the object they had witnessed.
Kirkpatrick said that this time, the AARO has made sure to work closely with various military and intelligence services within the government to avoid the same situation happening again.
“We are setting up very clear mechanisms with our ‘blue’ programs, both our DOD and IC programs, to deconflict any observations that come in with ‘blue’ activity to ensure that we weed those out and we can identify those fairly early on.”
We didn’t get full disclosure on what exactly all these unidentified flying objects/aerial phenomena (UFOs/UAPs) are in 2022, but we did learn some pretty weird things about our neighbors in the universe.
We went through a “UFO turning point” in 2022, according to Space. “The effort to detect, track and measure the UFO phenomenon in the field, in real time, has recently entered a new phase,” scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago Mark Rodeghier told the outlet. “The technology has gotten better, software tools have improved and the current interest in UFOs has attracted new, qualified professionals. As a consequence, we will have even more evidence — as if it was needed — that the UFO phenomenon is real and can be studied scientifically.”
It’s unclear whether the specific scientific advancements described by Rodgehier are being employed by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a group funded by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and tasked with investigating all cases and incidents relating to UFOs/UAPs.
Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 2022 for disclosure on AARO investigations were rejected, with the Navy claiming the videos they’ve collected would “harm national security” if released.
Warnings from late physicist Stephen Hawking about potential threats to our national and planetary security were utterly ignored throughout 2022. Hawking cautioned that broadcasting messages throughout the cosmos could lead to a violent takeover of our humble little planet. Still, various groups decided to beam Earth’s exact location and various other information about our species into space in April using the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array in California and the Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope in China.
Another message was sent out in May, alerting any alien listeners to Earth’s climate crisis, according to Space. This particular message was sent to the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system that is believed to host at least seven planets with a similar makeup to our own.
In June, a report from China stated that a radio telescope had detected alien signals, but the report was quickly deleted. Scientists suggested that the Chinese actually picked up signals of human origin, but just days before, NASA joined the hunt for UFOs. Coincidence? Perhaps.
It would be really great if 2023 gave everyone on Earth conclusive evidence that we are not alone in the universe. It’s going to be a tough year, if you’re capable of listening to financial and sociological experts, and we might need all the help we can get.
Over the centuries many stories related to the existence and mysterious disappearance of Atlantis have been written . That is why it is considered one of the most widespread and interesting myths of classical prehistory. According to the legend, this advanced civilization sank under the waters without leaving any trace.
Unfortunately, ruins or archaeological remains could never be located, suggesting its possible location somewhere on the planet. Although different personalities throughout history have published their research providing interesting data on the subject.
One of those characters was the famous Greek writer Plato, who described a probable place where Atlantis would have been . But he was not the only one who dared to do it, in recent times other researchers have done it too. As incredible as it may seem, there is a coincidence on these possible places, it is about what is currently Tunisia.
Evidence of the existence of a Tunisian Atlantis
The country that we know today as Tunisia , has one of the oldest historical records of humanity. Archaeological excavations carried out to the south revealed that the region was inhabited by people 100,000 years ago .
Hence, Tunisia has been the cradle of some of the most developed cultures and civilizations in Europe. It was also recognized and mentioned by both ancient Greek and Egyptian writers.
Even the prestigious philosopher Plato of Greece, 2,400 years ago, came to point out that in ancient Tunisia there was a specific place, where the extinct Atlantis could have been based. It is not a secret that Plato dedicated himself for many years to that unsuccessful search and the tests led him to that conclusion.
In particular, Plato was referring to a place that by his description corresponds to the current city of Tozeur, very close to the many salt lakes that exist in the region.
Modern scholars agree with Plato
Efforts to try to find the location of the disappeared Atlantis have lasted over time, involving people of different times and nationalities. There are two personalities who, in the 1920s, agreed with Plato, when mentioning a certain place in Tunisia as the location of the lost civilization.
One of them was the scholar Albert Herrmann, who by deduction managed to establish a connection between the Chott el Djerid salt lake , with the Tritonis lake mentioned by Plato in his investigations. According to several writings made by the Greek literati, they located said lake in some part of the south of present-day Tunisia.
On the other hand, Dr. Paul Borchardt , a great scholar of the 20s, toured Tunisia driven by his research to establish the location of Atlantis. After years of collecting information and comparing ancient data, he concluded that under the sands of that country was the lost civilization.
Specifically, he pointed out that it could have been found somewhere between the modern city of Gabes ( Tacapae ) and the dry lake of Tritonis or Chott el Djerid. Gabes’s roots are very ancient, so much so that the ancient Greeks mention her by name in several of their reviews.
The salty lakes of Tunisia: a great enigma
Borchardt ‘s research highlights that the Hammeina dry lake was possibly an offshoot of the Chott el Djerid. This led him to conclude, by simple deduction, that on some occasion this lake had the name ” The Lake of the Atlanteans “, which was later called Tritonis.
It is interesting to note that Paul Borchardt himself led, for some time, a series of excavations around the Gabes dry lakes. The results were surprising, since ruins of an ancient city were found , as well as parts of an irrigation system. Unfortunately he was forced to suspend the excavations.
The change in topography
The historical records of the region where Tunisia is currently located, has undergone great changes in its topography. This is pointed out by several historians, among whom is the Greek Diodorus Siculus . According to him, a cataclysmic event devastated that vast area of North Africa around the year 1250 BC. c.
These devastating earthquakes may be the same ones that caused the collapse during the so-called ” Bronze Age ” . They are also credited with being responsible for the appearance of the many salt lakes that are now dry, because seismic activity separated the great Gulf from the rest of the Mediterranean.
So far they are just theories based on many coincidences, but nothing concrete due to the lack of physical evidence. The truth is that Atlantis continues somewhere under the earth, it may really be in Tunisia.
Over the centuries many stories related to the existence and mysterious disappearance of Atlantis have been written . That is why it is considered one of the most widespread and interesting myths of classical prehistory. According to the legend, this advanced civilization sank under the waters without leaving any trace.
Unfortunately, ruins or archaeological remains could never be located, suggesting its possible location somewhere on the planet. Although different personalities throughout history have published their research providing interesting data on the subject.
One of those characters was the famous Greek writer Plato, who described a probable place where Atlantis would have been . But he was not the only one who dared to do it, in recent times other researchers have done it too. As incredible as it may seem, there is a coincidence on these possible places, it is about what is currently Tunisia.
Evidence of the existence of a Tunisian Atlantis
The country that we know today as Tunisia , has one of the oldest historical records of humanity. Archaeological excavations carried out to the south revealed that the region was inhabited by people 100,000 years ago .
Hence, Tunisia has been the cradle of some of the most developed cultures and civilizations in Europe. It was also recognized and mentioned by both ancient Greek and Egyptian writers.
Even the prestigious philosopher Plato of Greece, 2,400 years ago, came to point out that in ancient Tunisia there was a specific place, where the extinct Atlantis could have been based. It is not a secret that Plato dedicated himself for many years to that unsuccessful search and the tests led him to that conclusion.
In particular, Plato was referring to a place that by his description corresponds to the current city of Tozeur, very close to the many salt lakes that exist in the region.
Modern scholars agree with Plato
Efforts to try to find the location of the disappeared Atlantis have lasted over time, involving people of different times and nationalities. There are two personalities who, in the 1920s, agreed with Plato, when mentioning a certain place in Tunisia as the location of the lost civilization.
One of them was the scholar Albert Herrmann, who by deduction managed to establish a connection between the Chott el Djerid salt lake , with the Tritonis lake mentioned by Plato in his investigations. According to several writings made by the Greek literati, they located said lake in some part of the south of present-day Tunisia.
On the other hand, Dr. Paul Borchardt , a great scholar of the 20s, toured Tunisia driven by his research to establish the location of Atlantis. After years of collecting information and comparing ancient data, he concluded that under the sands of that country was the lost civilization.
Specifically, he pointed out that it could have been found somewhere between the modern city of Gabes ( Tacapae ) and the dry lake of Tritonis or Chott el Djerid. Gabes’s roots are very ancient, so much so that the ancient Greeks mention her by name in several of their reviews.
The salty lakes of Tunisia: a great enigma
Borchardt ‘s research highlights that the Hammeina dry lake was possibly an offshoot of the Chott el Djerid. This led him to conclude, by simple deduction, that on some occasion this lake had the name ” The Lake of the Atlanteans “, which was later called Tritonis.
It is interesting to note that Paul Borchardt himself led, for some time, a series of excavations around the Gabes dry lakes. The results were surprising, since ruins of an ancient city were found , as well as parts of an irrigation system. Unfortunately he was forced to suspend the excavations.
The change in topography
The historical records of the region where Tunisia is currently located, has undergone great changes in its topography. This is pointed out by several historians, among whom is the Greek Diodorus Siculus . According to him, a cataclysmic event devastated that vast area of North Africa around the year 1250 BC. c.
These devastating earthquakes may be the same ones that caused the collapse during the so-called ” Bronze Age ” . They are also credited with being responsible for the appearance of the many salt lakes that are now dry, because seismic activity separated the great Gulf from the rest of the Mediterranean.
So far they are just theories based on many coincidences, but nothing concrete due to the lack of physical evidence. The truth is that Atlantis continues somewhere under the earth, it may really be in Tunisia.
CHINA TAKES INCREDIBLE CLOSE UP SHOT OF MARS' MOON PHOBOS
CHINA TAKES INCREDIBLE CLOSE UP SHOT OF MARS' MOON PHOBOS
THAT IS ONE LUMPY MOON!
Glamor Shot
China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft has taken an incredible image of Phobos, one of the two moons orbiting Mars, from just 3,160 miles away — and the level of detail is breathtaking.
Tianwen-1's shot of the seven-miles-across natural satellite is so detailed, you can spot individual craters on its surface, including Öpik, an impact crater named after the Estonian astronomer and astrophysicist Ernst Julius Öpik.
Mars Snapshots
The Tianwen-1 satellite launched just over two years ago, alongside a lander and rover, and entered Martian orbit in February 2021. The rover, dubbed Zhurong, safely made it down to the Martian surface but is currently in hibernation due to the Martian winter.
Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons, orbiting the planet from just 3,700 miles, meaning that Phobos orbits its parent planet in under eight hours. For perspective, Earth's Moon is over 238,000 miles away and takes 27 days to complete one rotation.
Last month, the Tianwen-1 orbiter completed all of its assigned tasks, which involved taking medium-resolution images of the entirety of the Red Planet. Despite having wrapped up on its mission, the orbiter will continue to prepare for future scientific endeavors, according to CNN.
In short, China's first Mars mission has already proved to be a resounding success — and we can't wait to see what the rover and orbiter still have in store for us.
Power on the Moon. What Will it Take to Survive the Lunar Night?
With the help of international and commercial partners, NASA is sending astronauts back to the Moon for the first time in over fifty years. In addition to sending crewed missions to the lunar surface, the long-term objective of the Artemis Program is to create the necessary infrastructure for a program of “sustained lunar exploration and development.” But unlike the Apollo missions that sent astronauts to the equatorial region of the Moon, the Artemis Program will send astronauts to the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, culminating in the creation of a habitat (the Artemis Basecamp).
This region contains many permanently-shadowed craters and experiences a night cycle that lasts fourteen days (a “Lunar Night“). Since solar energy will be limited in these conditions, the Artemis astronauts, spacecraft, rovers, and other surface elements will require additional power sources that can operate in cratered regions and during the long lunar nights. Looking for potential solutions, the Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI) and the NASA Glenn Research Center recently hosted two space nuclear technologies workshops designed to foster solutions for long-duration missions away from Earth.
NASA’s Glenn is the home of NASA’s power systems research, where engineers and technicians work to develop advanced power generation, energy conversion, and storage methods – with applications ranging from solar, thermal, and batteries to radioisotopes, fission, and regenerative fuel cells. The Clevand-based OAI is a non-profit research group dedicated to fostering partnerships between government and industry to further aerospace research. The OAI has a long history of collaborating and contracting with NASA and the DoD.
These workshops were the latest step in NASA and the DOE’s collaborative development of nuclear technologies for crewed space exploration programs. In terms of propulsion, these efforts have aimed to advance proposals for nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion systems (NTP/NEP). In the former case, a nuclear reactor is used to heat propellants like liquid hydrogen (LH2); in the latter, the reactor generates electricity for a magnetic engine that ionizes an inert gas like xenon (aka. Ion Propulsion).
In 2021, NASA and the DoE selected three reactor design proposals for a nuclear thermal system that could send cargo and crews to Mars and science missions to the outer Solar System. The contracts, valued at around $5 million apiece, were awarded through the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In June 2022, they followed up by selecting three design concept proposals for a Fission Surface Power (FSB) system that would expand on NASA’s Kilopower project and could be sent to the Moon as a technology demonstration for the Artemis Program.
The nuclear technologies workshops saw over 100 engineers, managers, and experts in power systems from across government, industry, and academia come together to discuss topics ranging from Fission Surface Power to space nuclear propulsion systems. The event featured speakers and panelists from NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the commercial sector to share knowledge, results, and lessons learned from past efforts to develop nuclear technology. Todd Tofil, NASA’s Fission Surface Power project manager, explained in a NASA press release:
“Reliable energy is essential for exploration of the Moon and Mars, and nuclear technology can provide robust, reliable power in any environment or location regardless of available sunlight. As we move forward with projects like Fission Surface Power and nuclear propulsion, it makes sense to look at work that’s been done in the past at NASA and other agencies to see what we can learn.”
The first workshop (in November) included discussions on mission requirements that call for nuclear power, such as long-duration missions beyond Earth where solar power isn’t always an option. This includes the Moon’s southern polar region but also on Mars, where the increased distance and periodic dust storms can also limit solar energy. The workshop also included discussions about test hardware from previous programs that could be relevant to today’s projects. Things concluded with a tour of the seven Glenn facilities engaged in nuclear research. Said Lee Mason, associate chief of Glenn’s Power Division:
“The workshop provided an excellent opportunity to discuss technology advancements and provide the new industry teams an opportunity to learn from the past and build on the foundation that’s been established. Strong industry-government collaboration and knowledge sharing will help us be successful with Artemis and missions beyond.”
The second workshop took place in early December and saw over 500 people from 28 countries meeting (in-person and virtually) to discuss how to address the extreme challenges of operating in the Lunar Night. During the three-day workshop, attendees learned about relevant developments in the field from power and thermal technology experts from NASA and other organizations. These included those funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and Exploration System Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD).
Status updates were also provided by several commercial entities that are partnered with NASA through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which will begin delivering experiments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface in early 2023. Most of these missions rely on solar panels or batteries and will face power and thermal challenges as they land in the South-Pole Aitken Basin. Since these systems need to remain in operation longer than a Lunar Day (also 14 days), CLPS providers will also benefit from advanced power systems.
Artist’s impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA
As Tibor Kremic, chief of the Space Science Project Office at NASA Glenn, summarized:
“The Moon is rife with extreme conditions, especially during the lunar night, that we must prepare for. We do that by bringing together leading experts from NASA, commercial partners, academia, and other government entities to share insights, review technical capabilities, and discuss the challenges and solutions ahead. The workshop was a learning experience for all of us, helping better prepare our CLPS providers and increase our understanding of the various technical capabilities and constraints as we continue to prepare for ever more ambitious payload deliveries to some of the toughest places in the solar system.”
These workshops also build on NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which is dedicated to fostering partnerships that will lead to technologies needed to live and explore on the surface of the Moon. The Initiative is particularly focused on technologies that allow for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), power generation, mitigating lunar dust, excavating and constructing on the Moon’s surface, exploring the lunar environment, and other methods that will ensure a sustainable human presence on the Moon for decades to come.
Another long-term objective of the Artemis Program is to establish the infrastructure and expertise that will allow for crewed missions to Mars in the early 2030s. This presents even greater challenges, ranging from logistics and transportation (transit times of up to nine months) to power systems for surface operations. Here too, nuclear propulsion (which could reduce transit times to 100 days) and nuclear reactors that can power surface habitats and vehicles for long-duration missions are in high demand.
This is yet another example of how this age of renewed space exploration (Space Age 2.0) is spurring the development of technologies that have been dreamt of for decades!
The Bermuda Triangle’s Strange Encounter: A Government Plane Captures a Mysterious Object Splitting
The Bermuda Triangle’s Strange Encounter: A Government Plane Captures a Mysterious Object Splitting
The Bermuda Triangle, located between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, is known for its unexplained phenomena and UFO sightings. In 2013, a United States Customs and Border Patrol plane caught a strange pinkish light on thermal imaging camera as it approached the airport in Agua Dia, Puerto Rico. The footage showed a metallic sphere moving quickly around the airport before heading out to sea and appearing to splash down before resurfacing and splitting into two separate craft. The object then disappeared from view after nearly four minutes.
The footage, captured by a government plane’s infrared camera, has been analyzed by experts from the Scientific Coalition for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. The telemetry from the camera matched radar data, indicating that the object was real. The object’s temperature was also analyzed and found to be roughly 104 degrees, eliminating the possibility of it being a jet engine. The object’s size was estimated to be between three and five feet in diameter, ruling out the possibility of it being a balloon or a drone. The experts were also skeptical that it was a bird, due to the object’s ability to go in and out of the water and split into two separate craft.
While it is difficult to explain the exact nature of the object, the experts concluded that it is most likely a UFO. Puerto Rico has a long history of interesting sightings and encounters with USOs (unidentified submerged objects) in the area. The credible footage and analysis make this case a strong example of a possible UFO sighting.
SPLITTING ORB UFO ABOVE PUERTO RICO | The Proof is Out There: Bermuda Triangle Edition (Season 1)
U.S. customs and border patrol spot something strange while on a routine flight. See more in this clip from Season 1, "USOs & Underwater Forces."
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Massive Unidentified Object Heading To Earth Detected On NASA Live Feed!
Massive Unidentified Object Heading To Earth Detected On NASA Live Feed! The International Space Station is the largest single structure that humans have ever put into space. NASA will use lessons learned on the ISS to prepare for human missions that reach farther into space than ever before.
As with exploring any unknown terrain or space, there are bound to be encounters with the unknown. And now, the ISS might also be the place that has finally provided us with answers to the age old question “Are We Alone?”. The answer being a faint, but terrifying “No”. What does NASA know? And why does it keep cutting the Live Feed?
What SpaceX just did with Starship Nosecone is unbelievable and unlike no one...
What SpaceX just did with Starship Nosecone is unbelievable and unlike no one...
Is There Life on Mars? We Asked a NASA Scientist
Is there life on Mars? No, we have never discovered life on the Red Planet, but we have found lots of evidence that suggests Mars could have once supported life in its ancient past. There’s even a chance that Mars could be habitable beneath its surface. NASA astrobiologist Heather Graham explains more.
Strange Water Worlds and a Habitable Planet Found In Orbit of Kepler 138
TERRIFYING Update About Betelgeuse, MASSIVE Supernova Explosion Happening Soon!
Betelgeuse, Orion constellation’s most famous star, and now a bright red supergiant star, is nearing the end of its life. It will likely explode as a supernova and be visible during the daytime from Earth. And while we do not know as of yet if it is a threat or not, scientists have already discovered a telltale way to detect when a star is about to go supernova.
James Webb Telescope Finds More Mysteries: TRAPPIST-1, Red Spiral Galaxies and More
Aliens Tombs Found Within The Great Pyramid?
Why NASA's Next Telescope Will Be Even Better Than James Webb | Unveiled
In this video, Unveiled takes a closer look at NASA's next big telescope - the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope! Experts believe that this incredible machine will be even better than the James Webb... and, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, it will form a three-pronged strategy for the future of space exploration! This is Unveiled, giving you incredible answers to extraordinary questions!
Solomon and Sheba: Were a Famous Pharaoh and Queen the Real Protagonists in this Love Story?
Solomon and Sheba: Were a Famous Pharaoh and Queen the Real Protagonists in this Love Story?
The story of Solomon and Sheba is well known as one of love. But it is only when we learn their true identities that we see how much affection and adoration Solomon had for his favorite Queen. He literally moved mountains to express that love for her - well mountains of sand and soil to be precise. They still stand as long lines of great Hills today which we can look upon and sense a greater love than what went into the building of the Pyramids.
The Famous Meeting of Sheba and Solomon
Let us look back at that famous meeting when Sheba first entered Solomon’s Palace.
“She was bidden to enter the Palace, and when she saw it she thought it was a pool of water, and bared her legs. But Solomon said, ‘It is a palace paved with glass.’ Koran, Chapter of the Ant.
‘Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’ by Giovanni Demin.
“Steadying herself on Solomon’s arm, she bent down, and removing her sandals modestly lifted the hem of her robe, and stretched out a toe to test the water. The King was taken back with surprise, fooled automatically into a momentary belief that she really did believe a river in some way flowed through the hall.
Now it was his turn to express confusion. “It isn’t water. They are only glass tiles.” Then he saw that she was only teasing, and stammered, “Well, some of my guests have thought it very true to life. But it is well done isn’t it?” The Tutankhamen Code.
Fragments of glazed tiles depicting water, fish, reeds and birds have only ever been found in the ruins of one ancient Palace, that of Ymn Htp III at Malqata near Luxor.
This fact, along with a number of other finds in Luxor, are examined in “Out of Egypt” by the British/Egyptian historian Ahmed Osman and every-one of them points only to one man as having been the legendary King Solomon , namely the Pharaoh YmnHtp III.
We are told in the Book of 1 Kings that Solomon’s Temple and Palace were so grand and sumptuous that there has to be some archaeological evidence for them - yet nothing has ever been found in modern day Israel despite umpteen digs over more than a hundred years. The fabulous remains in Luxor not only match all we are told in the Bible, but many of the ancient walls and columns still stand, shouting out their message that these were built by the 18th Dynasty Kings David and Solomon, otherwise known in Ancient Egypt as Dayhut and Salim Amen.
Top: Artistic interpretation of Solomon’s Temple ( CC BY 4.0 ). Bottom: Temple of Amenhotep III, Luxor, Egypt.
I can only put the blindness of those who do not see down to a religious zeal that just will not allow any belief that the Bible time-line is out by four centuries or that Israel was once a large part of Egypt, a country that they have been taught to hate, even though the Bible itself places Israel in Egypt in the Book of 1 Samuel.
Solomon and Sheba: Pharaoh Ymn Htp III and Queen Etiye Azeb
Ahmed Osman not only identified both Kings but also Solomon’s father-in-law, Joseph. The evidence is so extensive that there cannot be any doubt about either of them. The full details of such proof can be studied in Osman’s books and, if one prefers a lighter approach, in my novel The Tutankhamen Code .
Apart from some 13 facts pointed out be Ahmed Osman which match quite precisely all we are told in the book of 1 Kings I have been fortunate in recognizing 11 more. When these are also taken into account then not one iota of doubt can remain. Solomon was the Pharaoh Ymn Htp III and the love of his life was his Queen Etiye Azeb, better known to us as Sheba. Here are a few of the most significant matches of my own finds with the Bible account.
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Gates of Paradise).
It was the Greek Egyptian historian Manethos who wrote, “Thus it came about that 80,000 unclean individuals were rounded up and dispatched to the stone quarries”. This is the same figure given in 1 Kings 5:15. The term ‘unclean’ was used to denigrate anyone not conforming to the writer’s own religious beliefs.
In year 10 of Solomon’s reign he married a foreign princess named Gilukhepa and a Marriage Scarab was issued with these words, “Gilukhipa, persons in her harim: 317 women”. 1 Kings 11:3 gives it as 300 concubines, a very close match.
A commemorative scarab of Amenhotep III. This scarab belongs to a class called the "marriage scarabs," which affirm the divine power of the king and the legitimacy of his wife, Tiye. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
The Bible tells us that Solomon’s father was King David. The father of Ymn Htp III was actually named in separate hieroglyphs as DHWT, which has to be the same for it would have been spoken something like ‘Dayhut’. A shortcut hieroglyph was occasionally used, hence a different translation of ‘DJHWT’. Like many other names this sometimes had the letter ‘Y’ added on the end just as we do in English and another suffix ‘Ms’ simply meant ‘Born of’.
The Kebra Nagast names MenyELEk as the eldest son of Solomon and that he was also known as David. MenyELEk has the very same meaning as YmnTwtAnkh, better known today as ‘King Tut’.
The Hall of Columns at Malqata, Luxor has the same length and breadth as the measurements given in 1 Kings 7:6, within two to three centimeters.
The clincher is in his name Ymn Htp III. Ymn, the God name for the setting Sun in the West was always written as ‘AMEN’, even in Greek letters, by Manethos who was still versant with the old Egyptian language. Hetep or Hotep was the Egyptian word for Peace or Rest, which at that time in Hebrew was Salim. As a Hebrew King of Egypt, his own family and his own people would have called him Salim Amen which evolved into Salomon then Solomon. Foreign Kings ruling other countries speaking other languages and for many generations is not that unusual. Guillaume I of England is a case in point as is Georg I of England (who never spoke English.)
Colossal statue of Amenhotep III in the British Museum.
Robert Feather in his “The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran” suggests that the Egyptian word ‘Heprew’ is the origin of the name Hebrew and this has to be true for the hieroglyph for Heprew (Creations) was a Scarab Beetle - in Greek ‘Scarabaeus’ - and this is what St. Ambrose called the mythical Ever Coming Son, IWSA - Iesous - in the 4th century AD.
More Evidence on Solomon and Sheba’s True Identities
Ralph Ellis tells us in his “Jesus Last of the Pharaohs” that the names of Biblical patriarchs are nearly all those of other Egyptian Kings and some are even spelled exactly the same such as the Pharaoh Jacob. But there were also Kings called Joshua, Abel, Cain, Abram, Salah, Isaac, as well as Jacob, David, and Solomon.
Ahmed Osman also notes in his book that both the Koran and Jewish traditions have it that Joseph’s brothers entered the City by different gates. Ancient Thebes, now Luxor, was renowned for its many Gates and Pylons and there wasn’t another city in those days that could compare.
It is quite surprising that not one Egyptologist has ever noticed the legend found by Sir Wallis Budge which tells us that Solomon’s Queen was an Abyssinian girl named Eteye Azeb and then realized that the name of Ymn Htp III’s Queen they translate as ‘Tiye’ should begin with an ‘E’. This vowel was never written in Egyptian but we now know that it was from the Ethiopian spelling. Syllables were often reversed in writing so Azeb has to be Zeba or Sheba. The Kebra Nagast even tells us that Solomon and Eteye’s son was called Meny EL Ek and that he was also known as ‘David’ which is ‘Dwd’ in Hebrew and ‘Twt’ or Tut in Egyptian. Both EL and TWT were seen as Moon Gods, which explains the variation from Ymn Twt Ankh to Meny EL Ek.
We do know that the mother of Etiye, namely Tuya or Etuya, the wife of Joseph, came from the south and what is today Northern Sudan. That places a question mark over the lovely story told by Ahmed Osman about Ymn Htp having a pleasure lake built for Etiye at Zarw and presenting her with a Summer Palace. The loving Royal Couple ‘sailed thereon in the Royal Barge ‘Aten Gleams’. Osman then places Zarw as being somewhat east of the Suez Canal, which would have been close to her Israelite relatives in Goshen.
A Question of Location
The problem with that location is that the King did build a lake in front of her Palace at Malqata, with a ‘T’ shaped channel running from the Nile at Luxor and terminating in a large harbor by the Palace. A marriage scarab commemorating this wonderful gift from the King to his wife gives its length as 3,700 cubits (about 1,020 yards), and breadth about 700 cubits. One kilometer is 1093.61 yards, which is near enough the same.
Today a long line of hills marks the route of the Channel from the Nile to Malqata, each one once topped with a glorious shining Temple. Truly a Gift of Great Love.
Top Image: The visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon.
From an Ox to an “A”: The Ancient Egyptian Origins of the Latin Alphabet
From an Ox to an “A”: The Ancient Egyptian Origins of the Latin Alphabet
As crazy as it sounds, it’s now well attested that the letter “A” started out its evolution as the Egyptian hieroglyph for an ox. But its truly mind-blowing transformation came when turquoise miners in ancient Egypt adapted the hieroglyph, turning it into graffiti. This seemingly unimportant simplification actually spearheaded the creation of syllabic alphabets, such as the Latin alphabet, used all over the world today.
But who were these miners and why did they do this? The story starts in Egypt almost 4,000 years ago when the turquoise mines on the Sinai Peninsula gained importance on an industrial scale. Many people from different strata of Egypt’s Bronze Age society were involved in mining activities at this mountainous location now known as Serâbît el-Khâdim. In fact, there were many mining sites for different raw materials all over the Sinai Peninsula making it a quarrying hub.
From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to the Latin Alphabet
At that time, around 1900 BC, the Egyptian language was written using hieroglyphs. These were mostly logographic which meant each symbol represented a word rather than a sound. There were thousands of Egyptian hieroglyphs making learning, memorizing and writing them a specialist skill.
Similarly, the Bronze Age Mesopotamians wrote their Sumerian language using cuneiform pictographs on clay tablets. In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, the written language played a number of different roles from the cultic to the profane. Dedications to deities, pharaohs and kings were common, as were records of produce and land ownership.
However, in spite of the widespread use of these early writing systems , they were still incredibly complicated. It was the invention of the alphabetic system that was to revolutionize the way people could read and write because it simplified the whole process of literacy.
Temple of Hathor in Serâbît el-Khâdim in Egypt. (Felipe Ligeiro FL / CC BY-SA 4.0 )
Graffiti That Revolutionized Literacy: The Temple of Hathor in Serâbît el-Khâdim
Close to the Serâbît el-Khâdim mines, located in the southwestern Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, a temple to Hathor was in use for 800 years and offered spiritual protection to those working in them. The temple went through several phases of reconstruction, taking a central role in the lives of those who spent time or passed through this desert location.
This large sanctuary consisted of a processional avenue, multiple buildings and rooms and many stelae engraved with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Priests, miners, officials, interpreters, scribes and others all left inscriptions at the temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor who was known as the “mistress of turquoise,” amongst her other epithets.
Serâbît el-Khâdim was first discovered in 1762. Over the next hundred years, various visits were made by antiquarians who were interested in the area, especially after Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered in 1822. It was during an expedition to the abandoned mines and the temple in 1905 that two Egyptologists realized they had made an exceptional discovery. The married couple William and Hilda Flinders Petrie noticed graffiti in and around the mines which appeared to be a different script to the Egyptian hieroglyphs etched all over the site.
During their visit they documented, mapped and photographed fourteen turquoise mines, circular enclosures near the temple and the temple itself. References to many different pharaohs were found which showed how long the area had been in use, as well as tools, altars, figurines, amulets, pottery, seals and jewelry.
The unusual graffiti symbols were on fallen stones in the vicinity of the mines, as well as on several statues within the temple grounds. This was in contrast to the more formal stelae decorated with finely carved hieroglyphs leading up to the temple. There were very few etchings to work with compared to the many hieroglyphic inscriptions, but Petrie analyzed what there were and became convinced they had found the earliest evidence for an alphabetic system.
The Irish-born British Egyptologist Hilda Petrie and her husband the British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie were the first to notice the graffiti markings at Serâbît el-Khâdim. ( Public domain )
Ancient Graffiti as Earliest Evidence of an Alphabetic System
It took until 1916 for the graffiti to be translated by fellow Egyptologist Alan Gardiner. He noticed the repeated use of several characters that he thought spelled out the word Baalat when considered phonetically. In Canaanite this meant “the mistress” which he took to be the equivalent to the Egyptian goddess Hathor.
But the real key to understanding these inscriptions came when he analyzed bilingual engravings etched onto the sides of a tiny sphinx figurine found in the temple. On one side there was an inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs saying “the beloved of Hathor,” while on the side there was an inscription in the strange graffiti saying “the beloved of Baalat.”
This was the Rosetta Stone of the day, but it went further than translating a second language. It showed that the second language was expressed in an adaptation of Egyptian hieroglyphs and was being used syllabically. It soon became apparent that Petrie’s hunch had been correct. Here was a simplified version of Egyptian hieroglyphs where each character had been used to represent a sound rather than a word. It was the earliest known syllabic script and was celebrated as the potential forerunner to alphabetic systems in general.
Now known by experts as Proto-Sinaitic, it was to evolve and spread through trade and a significant input from the Phoenicians. But who drew the graffiti and exactly when they did it is still debated. It’s most likely that these graffiti first appeared during the reign of Amenemhet III in the middle Bronze Age. The general consensus is that it was created by Asiatic people, most likely of Caananite origin hence the inscriptions featuring Baalat.
The stelae with hieroglyphic dedications by interpreters also suggest that people speaking different languages were making trips to the mines. At that time in Egypt, many Asiatic people lived in the eastern delta region and there are records of Egyptians discussing their mixed parentage. So it’s perfectly possible that these groups were part of the expeditions to the mines recorded as having taken place.
A Serabit inscription found by Flinders Petrie at Serâbît el-Khâdim which spell out the name of the goddess Baalat. ( Public domain )
Semi-Literate Origins of a Revolutionary Concept
Whether the people writing the graffiti were learned or not is another debatable point. It's been argued that they were probably drawn by semi-literate people who were not well-versed in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and so used this abstract version to express themselves in their own language. The crude and inconsistent forms of these early letters and their location on random rocks, certainly lend weight to this theory.
But there are experts who think it’s just as likely these workers were skilled and educated. If it was barely literate mine workers who invented the alphabet for their own personal use, then it’s a remarkable accident of history because it completely changed the way language is written and read in many countries and cultures.
In 1993, similar inscriptions to those at Serâbît were discovered in the Wadi el-Hôl near Luxor. The inscriptions consisted of two lines carved into limestone rocks in the valley. At first it was thought they might be older than those at Serâbît, but experts now think that they came later so it’s possible that miners from Serâbît, who were familiar with the script, travelled to Wadi el-Hôl.
The graffiti went through several transformations over a long period before forming the base of multiple alphabets in use today. Experts aren’t clear on exactly when and how these symbols travelled outside of the Sinai Peninsula to take center stage in the future of literacy. But it’s certain it took many years.
The Evolution of Egyptian Hieroglyphs into the Latin Alphabet
What’s fascinating is to see how certain Egyptian hieroglyphs evolved via this Proto-Sinatic script into the Latin letters used today. For example, the letter “B” was the Egyptian hieroglyph for a house. The letter “H” started its life as the Egyptian hieroglyph for a fence and the letter “K” originated as the Egyptian hieroglyph for a hand. The Proto-Sinaitic, Ugaritic, Phoenician and Greek alphabets all stemmed from these early symbols and made their changes to them.
Interestingly, the early alphabets were abjads, which means they only had consonants. In Phoenician their version of the Egyptian hieroglyph for an ox represented a glottal stop, something that was of no benefit to the Greeks when they started to use the alphabet. Therefore, they changed the Phoenician letter known as “aleph” into the letter “alpha” and made it represent the vowel sound “a.”
Anyone who studies and analyses the past knows how important written language is. Texts and inscriptions give a lot of insight into the historic period that is unfortunately absent in the Neolithic and earlier. But, if it wasn’t for the introduction of the syllabic alphabet, it’s possible even less textual evidence from the past few thousands years would exist.
Of course, other factors helped the proliferation of the written language. The manufacture of paper, the improvement in education and the invention of the printing press to name but a few. However, it's clear that the syllabic alphabet made a significant contribution to the way information was recorded and passed on from the end of the Bronze Age onwards.
The origins and evolution of alphabetic systems and the Latin alphabet are complex subjects quite simplified here. But the point is that many useful inventions often start as happy accidents of history. Spoken languages also have long and convoluted stories which cannot be isolated from the multitude of factors that influenced their development.
Top image: Archaeologists have deciphered what could be the origins of the Latin alphabet in graffiti found at the Temple of Hathor near the Serâbît el-Khâdim mines. Serâbît el-Khâdim in the background and the evolution of the letter “A” in the foreground.
Colless, B.E. (2014). The Origin of the Alphabet: An Examination of the Goldwasser Hypothesis. Antiguo Oriente: cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente , (12), pp.71-104.
Gardiner, A.H. (1916). The Egyptian origin of the Semitic alphabet. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology , 3(1), pp.1-16.
Goldwasser, O. (2010). How the Alphabet was Born from Hieroglyphs. Biblical Archaeology Review, 36/2 pp. 40-53.
Mumford, G. (2015). The Sinai Peninsula and its environs: Our changing perceptions of a pivotal land bridge between Egypt, the Levant, and Arabia. ASAA Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections, 7(1), pp. 1-24.
Traditional mining has been subject to a negative stigma for some time. People, especially in developed countries, have a relatively negative view of this necessary economic activity. Primarily that is due to its environmental impacts – greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction are some of the effects that give the industry its negative image. Mining in space is an entirely different proposition – any greenhouse gases emitted on the Moon or asteroids are inconsequential, and there is no habitat to speak of on these barren rocks. So what is the general public’s opinion on mining in space? A paper from a group of researchers in Australia, one of the countries most impacted by the effects of terrestrial mining, now gives us an answer.
Strangely, as the paper points out, no one had previously studied this particular aspect of space resources. Despite the general media interest in ventures such as Planetary Resources and the success of missions such as Hayabusa-2, no one had attempted to understand how the general public felt about space mining.
It was not a foregone conclusion, as there are some potentially negative environmental factors to mining in space. While it might not cause any immediate harm to ecosystems as it does here on Earth, it does destroy “pristine” environments that have arguably been around since the dawn of the solar system, at least in the case of the asteroids. As excellently portrayed in the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, there will always be a part of humanity that will want to leave space as it is.
UT video on asteroid mining.
Another confounding factor is that the resources mined in space could, ostensibly at least, be used for products back on Earth. They could therefore end up in landfills, causing a longer-term environmental problem than if we simply recycled the material we already have in these large deposits of everything that humanity has created. So there was still an outstanding question of whether these potential downsides outweighed the risk in the eyes of the public.
Simply put, the public in a variety of countries broadly supports space mining, especially on asteroids. To get these results, the researchers performed two different studies, one involving almost 5,000 people in 27 (mostly rich) countries and another involving around 600 people in the US.
In the first study, the researchers asked a series of questions that focused on the participant’s attitudes towards mining – specifically four different kinds: in the Antarctic, on the ocean floor, on the Moon, or on asteroids. In particular, the researchers were interested in the positive and negative reactions that mining in each area elicited in their subjects.
UT interviews Dr. Phil Metzger, one of the world’s leaders in ISRU technology.
The results were unambiguous – people generally had negative feelings toward mining on the ocean floor, especially in the Antarctic, and they generally had positive feelings towards mining on the Moon, especially on asteroids. People across all 27 countries had reasonably similar responses, no matter what their income level or the environment they inhabited.
However, results from the first study were relatively shallow and did not delve too deeply into factors such as the participant’s political affiliation or individual morals. These are known to profoundly impact an individual’s stance toward terrestrial mining and its potential environmental impacts. Still, it was unclear what, if any, effect it would have on a person’s views of space mining.
Similar in structure to the first study, the second looked at people’s responses to questions about how they felt about mining in several different locations – this time including “tundra” instead of the Antarctic. However, it also delved into the individual inclinations of the person responding to the questions, including their political orientation, which is currently one of the more polarizing aspects of American life.
Isaac Arthur is also keen on asteroid mining, as he describes in this video. Credit – Isaac Arthur YouTube Channel
Neither a person’s political persuasion nor their moral foundations were found to be clear indicators of whether or not that person would support mining in space. However, there was a negative correlation with support for lunar mining, specifically by those that scored higher on a test that assessed their interest in environmental sustainability. Assumedly that is because they think of the Moon as a pristine “environment” and view mining activities as potentially harmful to it.
Overall these studies seem like a glowing endorsement of public support for asteroid mining. However, there are some other confounding factors, including, as the authors point out, that both lunar and asteroid mining are, at this point, highly abstract concepts, the real impact of which may be hard to grok for many study participants. But studies such as this have to start somewhere, and waiting until after there is already a fully-fledged mining mission on the Moon to see if it has public support might be a little late. For now, at least, those interested in moving forward with this aspect of the economic development of space have the public on their side.
Planetary Interiors in TRAPPIST-1 System Could be Affected by Solar Flares
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Planetary Interiors in TRAPPIST-1 System Could be Affected by Solar Flares
In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, an international team of researchers led by the University of Cologne in Germany examined how solar flares erupted by the TRAPPIST-1 star could affect the interior heating of its orbiting exoplanets. This study holds the potential to help us better understand how solar flares affect planetary evolution. The TRAPPIST-1 system is an exolanetary system located approximately 39 light-years from Earth with at least seven potentially rocky exoplanets in orbit around a star that has 12 times less mass than our own Sun. Since the parent star is much smaller than our own Sun, then the the planetary orbits within the TRAPPIST-1 system are much smaller than our own solar system, as well. So, how can this study help us better understand the potential habitability of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system?
“If we take Earth as our starting point, geological activity has shaped the entire surface of the planet, and geological activity is ultimately driven by planetary cooling,” said Dr. Dan Bower, who is a geophysicist at the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern, and a co-author on the study. “The Earth has radioactive elements in its interior which generate heat and enable geological processes to persist beyond 4.5 Gyr. However, the question arises if all planets require radioactive elements to drive geological processes that may establish a habitable surface environment that allows life to evolve. Although some other processes can generate heat inside a planet, they are often short-lived or require special circumstances, which would advance the hypothesis that geological activity (and habitable environments?) are possibly rare.” What makes this study intriguing is that TRAPPIST-1 is known as an M-type star, which is much smaller than our Sun and emits far less solar radiation.
“M stars (red dwarfs) are the most common star type in our stellar neighborhood, and TRAPPIST-1 has garnered significant attention since it was discovered to be orbited by seven Earth-sized planets,” explained Dr. Bower. “In our study, we investigated how stellar flares from TRAPPIST-1 impacted the interior heat budget of the orbiting planets and discovered that particularly for the planets closest to the star, interior heating due to ohmic dissipation from flares is significant and can drive geological activity. Furthermore, the process is long-lived and can persist over geological timescales, potentially enabling the surface environment to evolve towards habitable, or pass through a series of habitable states. Previously, the influence of stellar flares on habitability has mostly been deemed to be destructive, for example by stripping the protective atmosphere that enshrouds a planet. Our results present a different perspective, showing how flares may actually promote the establishment of a habitable near-surface environment.” Ohmic dissipation, also known as ohmic loss, is defined as “a loss of electric energy due to conversion into heat when a current flows through a resistance.” Essentially, it’s what scientists used to calculate the amount of heat a planet loses, also known as planetary cooling, which all terrestrial planetary bodies—even Earth—encounter.
The study’s findings indicate that the planetary cooling occurring on the TRAPPIST-1 planets is enough to drive geological activity, which would lead to thicker atmospheres. The researcher’s models also predict that the presence of a planetary magnetic field can enhance these heating results.
Recently, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope made its first observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system, finding that one of the planets in its system has a low probability of possessing a hydrogen atmosphere like the gas planets in our own solar system. This could indicate that at least one of TRAPPIST-1’s planets could possess a more terrestrial-like atmosphere like Earth, Mars, and Venus. With TRAPPIST-1 holding potential for the field of astrobiology, what follow-up research is planned for this study?
“There are two obvious avenues to pursue,” explains Dr. Bower. “First, our stellar neighborhood is dominated by M stars, so observational campaigns can assess the flaring nature of many more M stars besides TRAPPIST-1. Second, enhanced characterization of the TRAPPIST planetary system through observations and models will improve our understanding of the planetary interiors. This will enable us to refine our model in terms of whether the planets have an iron core and whether they have a large Earth-like silicate mantle.”
“We plan to run more elaborated physical simulations to better understand the effect intrinsic magnetic fields,” said Dr. Alexander Grayver, who is a Heisenberg Junior Research Group Leader at the University of Cologne, and lead author of the study. “The long-term goal is to couple our model with models of atmosphere formation and erosion.”
Do any of the TRAPPIST-1 planets contain the ingredients for life as we know it, or maybe as we don’t know it? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
The U.S. government’s investigation into unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, has gained renewed attention in recent years, with the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act expanding the authority and scope of the investigation. In the video below, Chris Lehto explores some of the most notable UFO cases over the past 72 years, starting with the Roswell Incident of 1947.
The Roswell Incident remains one of the most well-known UFO cases to this day. It all started when a UFO allegedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, and the U.S. military initially claimed to have recovered the wreckage of a flying saucer. However, the story quickly changed, and the military claimed that the wreckage was actually from a weather balloon. Major Jesse Marcel was dispatched to the crash site and reported finding a piece of metal that was incredibly lightweight and couldn’t be bent, even with a sledgehammer. Marcel was ordered to transport the strange debris to Fort Worth Army Airfield, where he was met by the commanding general and told to keep quiet about the incident.
Another notable UFO case involves astronaut Gordon Cooper, who claimed to have witnessed a flying saucer while on a mission in 1951. He described seeing multiple silver and circular craft flying at higher altitudes than his jet fighter could reach. Cooper also reported seeing a negative film of a flying saucer landing on three telescoping legs, which flew off as the film crew approached.
In 1964, Robert Jacobs, a U.S. Air Force officer, claimed to have witnessed a UFO disabling an intercontinental ballistic missile during a test launch. He reported seeing a beam of light being fired at the warhead, causing it to tumble out of outer space. Jacobs faced harassment and his mailbox was destroyed after the story became public.
The Westall UFO incident of 1966 saw hundreds of students and teachers at a school in Westall, Victoria, Australia witness a low-flying UFO. The UFO was described as being disc-shaped and metallic, and it reportedly hovered over the school for several minutes before suddenly disappearing. Multiple witnesses reported seeing military personnel arrive at the school shortly after the UFO sighting, leading some to speculate that the government was involved in covering up the incident.
These are just a few examples of the many UFO cases that have garnered attention over the years. While it is impossible to say for certain what these sightings represent, they continue to fuel speculation and intrigue.
Mystery in Space: NASA Sun Satellite Observes Object Changing Course
Mystery in Space: NASA Sun Satellite Observes Object Changing Course
NASA’s sun satellite recently captured a mysterious space object that appeared to suddenly change direction. The object was seen approaching the top left portion of the sun before shooting up and away, which has led to speculation about its nature.
There are several possible explanations for the object’s behavior. One possibility is that it is not actually close to the sun, but simply passed by the satellite at a high velocity. Another possibility is that it is an unidentified flying object (UFO), although there is no way to confirm this theory.
A third possibility is that the object is a clump of dust, gases, or other material that is being pushed in towards the solar system as part of the galactic current sheet. This would explain why the object appears to get bigger and brighter before becoming smaller as it moves away. If this is the case, it is possible that we will see more of these aggregated clumps as time goes on.
Regardless of what the object is, it is clear that it is a fascinating and unusual phenomenon. It will be interesting to see if further observations or analysis can provide more insight into its nature.
What's happening to these spiral galaxies? Although details remain uncertain, there sure seems to be a titanic battle going on. The upper galaxy is labelled UGC 1810 by itself, but together with its collisional partners is known as Arp 273. The overall shape of the UGC 1810 -- in particular its blue outer ring -- is likely a result of wild and violent gravitational interactions. The blue color of the outer ring at the top is caused by massive stars that are blue hot and have formed only in the past few million years. The inner part of the upper galaxy -- itself an older spiral galaxy -- appears redder and threaded with cool filamentary dust. A few bright stars appear well in the foreground, unrelated to colliding galaxies, while several far-distant galaxies are visible in the background. Arp 273 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation of Andromeda. Quite likely, UGC 1810 will devour its galactic sidekicks over the next billion years and settle into a classic spiral form. Arp 273: Battling Galaxies from Hubble Image Credit:
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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 74 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.
