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.
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
14-04-2023
The Hazards of Investigating the Men in Black Phenomenon: Sickness, Paranoia and Parasitic Creatures
The Hazards of Investigating the Men in Black Phenomenon: Sickness, Paranoia and Parasitic Creatures
Today, I am talking about the Men in Black. No, not Hollywood’s versions of the MIB: Agents J and K, as portrayed on the big screen by actors Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Tinsel Town did a very good job of creating a trilogy of MIB movies that entertained and excited audiences the world over – and made those same audiences laugh loud and hard, too. But, there is nothing to laugh about when it comes to the real Men in Black. In the movies, the MIB are in the employ of an agency more powerful, and far more secretive, than even Edward Snowden’s old “friends” at the National Security Agency. But, we should not forget that the Men in Black movies are fiction. As is so unfortunately often the case, the real world often outdoes the domain of fiction – and seldom in a positive fashion. The so-called “modern era” of UFOs began in the summer of 1947, specifically on June 24. That was the date upon which a pilot named Kenneth Arnold encountered a squadron of strange-looking aircraft flying near Mount Rainier, Washington State – as the man himself noted in his 1952 book with Ray Palmer, The Coming of the Saucers.
As an experienced pilot, Arnold was deeply puzzled that he was unable to identify the things ahead of him. As he got closer, Arnold realized exactly why he was unable to figure out what the objects were: they were not regular airplanes, but futuristic-looking half-moon shaped vehicles that resembled absolutely nothing in the United States’ arsenal at that time. And that was surely the case for the Russians, too. It was not long before word of Arnold’s encounter reached the eyes and ears of the media – in fact, less than a day. The terms “flying saucer” and “flying disk” all-but-immediately became the talk of 1947. Today, the term “UFO” is far more popular than the now largely antiquated flying saucer. Now, to the Men in in Black, those skinny, pale, cadaverous creeps who follow UFO witnesses.
(Nick Redfern) M.I.B.: Stay away
Although the latter part of the 1940s proved to be a period in which sightings of apparent unearthly craft abounded, it wasn’t until the early 1950s that the Men in Black stepped out of the shadows – in force –and set about snaring us, manipulating us, and ultimately digesting us. And, no, the “digesting” term is not an exaggeration. Over the years there have been numerous investigators of the Men in Black phenomenon, such as UFO researchers Gray Barker, Jim Keith, and Harold Fulton – all of whom are now long gone. None of them, however, came anywhere close to Albert K. Bender – the man without whom our knowledge of the MIB and their agenda would be sorely lacking, and who created the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Born in 1922, Bender was someone who served his country during the Second World War in the United States Army Air Corps. Post-World War Two, Bender lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in a somewhat creepy-looking old house that stood at what was, at the time, the junction of Broad Street and North Frontage Road. Today, the house is no more, the secrets it once held now being just memories and stories in books.
Adding to the creepy atmosphere, Bender lived in the attic. Of course! Where else? As a fan of the worlds of sci-fi-, fictional horror (H.P. Lovecraft was one of Bender’s favorites), and the real world of the paranormal, Bender radically altered his attic-room into what he termed his “Chamber of Horrors.” Paintings of grotesque monsters filled the walls. Imagery of skulls and black cats abounded. A gothic-style painting of an old cemetery dominated the room. And, plastic spiders hung from the ceiling. Then, there was Bender’s altar – it was at the foot of that unsettling place of worship that Bender would engage in infernal rites designed to provoke a supernatural response from…well…who knew what? Bender didn’t care what “it” was, he just wanted that reply. He got it, alright. He opened the kind of door that it’s never, ever wise to open. And, something came through.
As Albert Bender noted in his 1962 book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men (zero prizes for guessing who the “three men” were…), in practically no time after he called forth something supernatural from the other side, he was paid a visit. Yes, the Men in Black had picked up on Bender’s request for communication – and they responded in kind. Bender was replying to a mountain of mail from the readers of the latest issue of his Space Review magazine when he received his first visit of what, finally, amounted to several. It was late one night in 1953 when the MIB turned up. There was no slow, loud, knock at the door, though. Nor were any U.S. Government ID cards flashed. Bender’s Men in Black walked through the walls and door of the attic. They were blazing-eyed, skinny, pale monsters. Their mode of dress was black suits, black fedoras, skinny black-ties, black shoes, and crisp white shirts. Imagine a 1950s-era member of the Mafia mixed in with a liberal amount of a resurrected zombie that has seen better days, and the image swirling around your mind won’t be too far off what it was that Bender encountered.
As the Men in Black got closer, so Bender started to feel sick. Nausea overwhelmed him and an odor of sulfur filled the attic. Worse still, Bender felt himself becoming weak. His energy levels plummeted like those of a diabetic who has missed breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was freezing cold and the shakes had suddenly set in. Even in his hazy, sickly state, Bender couldn’t fail to see something which chilled him to the bone: the weaker he got, the brighter and more fiery the eyes of the terrible trio got. Weaker, brighter. Weaker, brighter. You get the picture. Bender certainly did. In a macabre and terrifying way…Albert Bender was, bit by bit, being eaten; devoured, even.
(Nick Redfern) The Men in Black: Beware of them
With Bender sprawled out on the bed, and as helpless as a newborn puppy, the Men in Black telepathically warned him to leave the UFO subject well alone. If he didn’t only something terrible would befall the man himself. The three turned on their heels (black, of course) and dematerialized as mysteriously as they had first appeared. Bender was no fool: he knew that if he didn’t quit chasing flying saucers that the MIB were surely likely to turn his life into a living hell. But, the allure of the space-beings and their silvery, saucer-shaped craft was way too strong. So, it was all but inevitable that Bender would get another visit. And another. He did. Things got worse and worse: like those ghoulish drivers who can’t keep their eyes off of a fatal car accident on the highway, the MIB couldn’t keep away from Bender: they would always arrive at night and hover over the bed, as Bender fell into that same state of sudden illness and weakness that hit him on the first occasion. And then, Bender decides he's going to quit the UFO scene. It doesn't surprise me.
By the second visit, Bender’s health was suffering significantly: he had gotten progressively weaker. He started to develop stomach problems. From his descriptions, it may have been ulcers and a dose of ulcerative-colitis. His energy levels had fallen off the scale and he lost weight. He was constantly out of breath. And migraines plagued him day and night. As for those MIB? Well, their eyes just proceeded to get brighter and brighter with every visit. It didn’t take Bender long to realize that he was effectively being bled dry. It was, in a strange way, very similar to the actions of those black-cloaked vampires who drained bevies of buxom babes of their blood in the likes of Universal Studios’ 1931 version of Bram Stoker’s classic novel, Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. In a very strange state of twisted irony, the movie was one of Bender’s all-time favorites.
Come the third visit, Bender was not in a good condition at all: he was now seeing the MIB in the darkened streets of town. They would stand on the street-corner, leering at him – entities that no-one but Bender could see. The stomach problems were getting worse. He was losing more weight. Bender knew he had to do something. And, he did. Bender, albeit somewhat reluctantly, walked away from UFOs and closed down Space Review. Bender shut the doors on the International Flying Saucer Bureau, too, and quit the subject. He made a very brief reappearance in 1962, to write the aforementioned Flying Saucers and the Three Men, after which he left the subject behind and never returned. From the 1960s, and until his death in 2016, Bender was, when it came to UFOs, permanently AWOL. Albert Bender was not only the man who effectively birthed the MIB enigma; he was also the first person to astutely realize that the Men in Black were feeding on him. And, on who knew how many more people? Bender didn’t even want to think about that.
So, what did happen to Albert Bender? He walked away from UFOs and began corresponding with an Englishwoman named Betty Rose, who had subscribed to Bender’s journal. They actually corresponded for a number of years, finally marrying and settling down in the States and running a motel in California; but not before Betty came to visit Bender in New York – a period that totally changed his life. As Bender put it, when it was time for Betty to fly back to the U.K.: “As she walked up the stairs to enter the plane, she gave me one last wave, then moved quickly through the doorway. A strange feeling hit my stomach. I stood there still waving and could not move from the spot until I saw the plane taxi to the runway and take off. As the plane vanished in the distance I realized I had left something important undone, an unasked question which she now had no opportunity to hear from my lips. And so it was that I found out, for the first time, that I was in love.” Marriage in 1954 to Betty, emotional stability, and a complete end to ill-health, were – thankfully - the orders of the day (Despite his worries about his health, Bender lived to the ripe old age of ninety-four, no less). The M.I.B. were gone. UFOs were finally behind Bender – for a while, as will soon become clear. And, as time progressed, Bender set up yet another project; a very different one: he established the Max Steiner Music Society. Steiner wrote the music for, among others, the original King Kong, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind and became a great friend to Bender. The organization ran until 1981.
It has to be said that although Bender fled the UFO scene, it certainly didn’t prevent his fellow UFO researchers from still digging into those claims Bender made of M.I.B. threats in 1952/1953. In 1956 Gray Barker – author, publisher, cinema-booker and publisher of dubious tomes – wrote a book on Bender’s experiences of a few years earlier. It was titled They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. Notably, Barker largely backed-away from the paranormal aspect of the Bender affair – mainly because Bender had not shared with him the full story. Barker, then, was forced to fill in the gaps. In doing so, he presented the three mysterious men as agents of the U.S. government.
For Barker, that was no problem: he was known for his ability to, ahem, “embellish” stories when such a thing was required. Hunter S. Thompson-style “Gonzo”-type writing became more and more present in Barker’s writings. Unfortunately, as time went on, embellishment became outright lying – and all for the sake of an exciting page-turner. Such is the nature in certain portions of They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. After Barker’s hardback hit the bookshelves, Bender made a tactful retreat. That is, however, until 1962. That was the year in which Bender made a brief comeback with his very own book on the controversy. It was titled Flying Saucers and the Three Men. No guesses who those three characters were. The book is a bizarre one. And it’s also one that Bender almost certainly regretted writing. It's fair to say that Bender - looking back at things and all his illness - wished he never got in the UFO field. And specifically the Men in Black phenomenon.
The UFO is between two tall canyon walls, hidden there for a long time, since we can clearly see two areas on each side where landslides took place on the front top of the UFO. The UFO really stands out and is easy to make out since its hull is made of an entirely different material than the asteroid. The metal hull of the ship looks like its a very powerful material to withstand the debris and the sharpness of the surface of the astroid. I don't think it landed here for fun or research, it looks like it crashed landed. Its tilted to once side and stuck in a crevice. So yeah, defiantly crash landed, so if the aliens were not rescued, either they are still there after thousands of years if their ship can provide enough life-support, or they died and are entombed within. But if this technology was recovered, it would give humanity a thousand years jump in technology overnight. We would be able to build cities on any planet, any moon in our solar system and beyond.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
UFO Seen Over Jakarta, Indonesia On April 13, 2023, UFO Sighting News. Video
UFO Seen Over Jakarta, Indonesia On April 13, 2023, UFO Sighting News. Video
Date of sighting: April 13, 2023
Location of sighting: Jakarta, Indonesia, USA
Source: MUFON
Some viewers are calling this UFO a tictac, which is shaped like the candy. Very true, many UFOs do have a tictac appearance, even disks seen from the side appear as this tictac shape. The eyewitness seemed to be confused at that he was looking at saying...is it a jet, nah, at one point in the video. Whatever it is it has no wings, no tail, no contrail, no windows or lights. This seems like a UFO trying to disguise as a plane, make itself fit in that way, yet its doesn't fit in at all.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Eyewitness states:
Object 1st appeared near the sky line, was Cigar Shaped sometimes almost looked like a saucer. It was traveling from the SW towards the NE (30 degrees) at a steady speed below the clouds. Weather was mostly clear with strong West winds. This occurred just as the sun had set. There was no sounds or flashing lights. I filmed this at the maximum zoom on my hand phone...
UFO Sightings Take Center Stage: US Senate Committee Schedules Open Hearing Next Week
UFO Sightings Take Center Stage: US Senate Committee Schedules Open Hearing Next Week
The US Senate Committee on Armed Services has announced an open hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) scheduled for April 19. This groundbreaking event, confirmed by press secretary Cole Stevens, aims to address the growing concerns surrounding the increasing number of UAP incidents and to push for greater transparency and funding for UAP investigations.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), will be speaking at the hearing, which will be conducted by the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee. This announcement comes after Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of AARO, publicly criticized the Department of Defense for not providing funds for the AARO for the second consecutive year.
Gillibrand stated that “the lack of full funding for AARO is a significant concern. We need to ensure that our government is taking the UAP issue seriously and dedicating the necessary resources to improve our understanding and response capabilities.” She has been pushing for more funding for the AARO and greater openness from the Department of Defense regarding UAP incidents.
In recent years, the Pentagon has taken steps to investigate military sightings of UFOs, resulting in the release of hundreds of classified reports, suggesting that Earth may not be the only planet with intelligent life. In May 2022, two top Pentagon officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, appeared before the US House of Representatives’ intelligence subcommittee and showcased declassified UFO videos. They revealed that reports of UFOs have been frequent and on the rise for more than a decade, with some sightings remaining unexplained.
Despite these revelations, the US Navy announced last year that it would not release any more unseen UFO videos to the public, as doing so would harm national security. Gregory Cason, deputy director of the Navy’s FOIA office, explained that releasing this information could provide adversaries with valuable intel regarding Department of Defense and Navy operations, vulnerabilities, and capabilities.
The upcoming open hearing on UAPs signifies a crucial turning point for lawmakers and officials, providing an opportunity to discuss the importance of funding the AARO and addressing the growing concerns about UAPs over US airspace. As the issue gains traction in both government and public spheres, the hearing may shed light on the challenges and potential solutions surrounding this enigmatic phenomenon.
Scientists reveal the first EVER full resolution photo of a supermassive black hole: Incredible image shows M87 is like a 'skinny donut' - and could help to explain how the stellar phenomenon 'eats' matter
Scientists reveal the first EVER full resolution photo of a supermassive black hole: Incredible image shows M87 is like a 'skinny donut' - and could help to explain how the stellar phenomenon 'eats' matter
The black hole M87 sits at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, which is around 55million light-years from Earth
In 2019 the 'fuzzy, orange donut' became the first black hole to be directly imaged by astronomers
Now, scientists have released a full-resolution photo of the black hole, showing it is more of a 'skinny donut'
It is a thing of mesmerising beauty: humanity's first glimpse at the only full-resolution photo of a supermassive black hole ever produced.
This 'orange donut', as it has been dubbed, sits at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth and in 2019 became the first black hole to be directly imaged by astronomers.
Now, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning, it has received its first official makeover — and the results reveal that rather than being a 'fuzzy donut', it is actually more of a 'skinny donut'.
Scientists say this new perspective of the supermassive black hole will 'play a critical role in our ability to understand its behaviour' and could help explain how the stellar phenomenon 'eats' matter.
They called it a 'golden opportunity' to learn more about black hole physics.
Striking: The first-ever full resolution photo of a supermassive black hole has been revealed by astronomers
The machine learning algorithm could also allow scientists to better study Sagittarius A* — the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.
WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?
Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light.
They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around.
How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun collapses into a black hole.
Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy.
Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the Sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.
When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space.
Researchers said their full-resolution image of the M87 black hole had revealed a central region that is larger and darker than first thought, surrounded by a bright accreting gas shaped like a 'skinny donut'.
The width of the ring in the image was also found to be much smaller than previously believed.
Researchers produced the photo with the help of data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
In 2017, the EHT used a network of seven pre-existing telescopes around the world to gather data on M87, effectively creating an 'Earth-sized telescope'.
However, because it is simply not possible to cover the Earth's entire surface with telescopes, gaps arise in the data — much like missing pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
That is where their new AI trick comes into its own.
'With our new machine learning technique, PRIMO, we were able to achieve the maximum resolution of the current array,' said lead author Lia Medeiros, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
'Since we cannot study black holes up-close, the detail of an image plays a critical role in our ability to understand its behaviour.
'The width of the ring in the image is now smaller by about a factor of two, which will be a powerful constraint for our theoretical models and tests of gravity.'
The M87 black hole is estimated to be about 6.5billion times the mass of our sun and spewing out intense jets of energy.
These bright jets, which emerge from M87's core and extend at least 5,000 light-years from its centre, are one of the galaxy's most mysterious and energetic features.
Comparison: In 2019, the M87 black hole was the first to be directly imaged by astronomers
Old data: These models and observations reveal what scientists originally saw four years ago
If you were to visit M87, you'd see light produced by matter in its death throes as it crosses over the event horizon, radiating light in all directions.
HOW THE EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE WORKS
The team behind the Event Horizon Telescope has spent the last few years probing black holes like the one at the heart of M87.
These observations rely on a network of widely spaced radio antennae situated all over the world - including at the South Pole, in Hawaii, Europe and America.
These radios mimics the aperture of a telescope that can produce the resolution needed to capture a supermassive black hole.
At each of the radio stations there are large hard drives which store the data.
These hard drives are then processed at the MIT Haystack Observatory just outside Boston, Massachusetts.
The effort is essentially working to capture a silhouette of a black hole, also commonly referred to as the black hole's shadow.
Not all of it reaches an observer - some falls in and some goes into orbit around the black hole and appears as a series of rings surrounding the black hole, astronomers say.
Experts have relied on different models of how matter behaves near the black hole to better understand this process.
But they still don't know exactly how jets larger than the galaxy are launched from its central region, which is comparable in size to our solar system, nor how matter is 'eaten' or falls into the black hole.
On April 10, 2019, scientists released the first-ever image of the black hole, revealing a bright ring-like structure with a dark central region which was the black hole's shadow, matching what was predicted.
Since then, the EHT team has delved deeper into the data collected that was used to reveal the first image.
PRIMO, which stands for principal-component interferometric modelling, relies on dictionary learning — a technique that enables computers to generate rules based on large sets of training material.
For example, if a computer is shown a number of different images of bananas, once it has received enough training it will ultimately be able to determine if future pictures are of the fruit or not.
This type of machine learning has previously been used to create Renaissance-style works of art, or even completing some of Beethoven's unfinished work.
'PRIMO is a new approach to the difficult task of constructing images from EHT observations,' said Lauer.
'It provides a way to compensate for the missing information about the object being observed, which is required to generate the image that would have been seen using a single gigantic radio telescope the size of the Earth.'
The M87 black hole is estimated to be about 6.5billion times the mass of our Sun and spewing intense jets of energy. These jets, which emerge from M87's core and extend at least 5,000 light-years from its centre, are one of the galaxy's most mysterious and energetic features
How did scientists first capture an image of a black hole? As explained in the graphic, the method relies on observing the material that swirls around the edges before falling into the black hole itself. This heats up to extreme temperatures, causing it to emit bright light that appears as a ring around the black hole
With PRIMO, computers analysed more than 30,000 images of black holes accreting gas.
These simulations provided a wide range of examples for how the black hole M87 might possibly accrete matter, leaving PRIMO to look for common patterns to cross-reference with data from EHT observations.
This resulted in the newly rendered full resolution image, which builds on the detail revealed in the 2019 picture.
Scientists hope it will in turn lead to more accurate determinations of the mass of the M87 black hole, while also allowing them to develop a better understanding of its event horizon.
'We are using physics to fill in regions of missing data in a way that has never been done before by using machine learning,' said Medeiros.
This chart shows the position of giant galaxy Messier 87 in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The map shows most of the stars visible to the unaided eye under good conditions
Messier 87 (M87) is an enormous elliptical galaxy located about 55 million light-years from Earth, visible in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781, but not identified as a galaxy until the 20th Century
'The 2019 image was just the beginning.
'If a picture is worth a thousand words, the data underlying that image have many more stories to tell. PRIMO will continue to be a critical tool in extracting such insights.'
Psaltis added: 'Approximately four years after the first horizon-scale image of a black hole was unveiled by EHT in 2019, we have marked another milestone, producing an image that utilises the full resolution of the array for the first time.
'The new machine learning techniques that we have developed provide a golden opportunity for our collective work to understand black hole physics.'
The elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of roughly 15,000 globular star clusters.
For comparison, our Milky Way galaxy contains only a few hundred billion stars and about 150 globular clusters.
The monstrous M87 is the dominant member of the neighbouring Virgo cluster of galaxies, which contains some 2,000 galaxies.
Discovered in 1781 by Charles Messier, this galaxy is located 54 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
It can be easily observed using a small telescope, with the most spectacular views available in May.
The elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of roughly 15,000 globular star clusters. This Hubble image is a composite of individual observations in visible and infrared light
M87's most striking features are the blue jet near the centre and the myriad of star-like globular clusters scattered throughout the image.
The jet is a black-hole-powered stream of material that is being ejected from M87’s core.
As gaseous material from the centre of the galaxy accretes onto the black hole, the energy released produces a stream of subatomic particles that are accelerated to velocities near the speed of light.
At the centre of the Virgo cluster, M87 may have accumulated some of its many globular clusters by gravitationally pulling them from nearby dwarf galaxies that seem to be devoid of such clusters today.
Unknown space structure larger than the Milky Way is discovered
Unknown space structure larger than the Milky Way is discovered
Astronomers have uncovered fresh facts about one of the universe’s oddest structures. Odd enough to be called “Radio Circles” (ORC)
These enormous occurrences are unexplained and may have a million light-year diameters.
Five ORCs have been found, with six more potential. Scientists can’t describe these unfathomable monsters to humans.
A March 20 report gives new light on the first phenomenon. The South African MeerKAT radio telescope caught the amazing photos of ORC1 (ORC J2103-6200). Never before has an ORC been this detailed. Alice Pasetto, a radio astronomer at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, told Nature that “this discovery will start new scientific research among astronomers.”
Mysterious
According to radio astronomer Bärbel Koribalski of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Sydney, it resembles a Fabergé egg or a soap bubble. The outer circle measures more than a million light-years in diameter, ten times the Milky Way’s diameter.
ORCs are new astronomical objects. Astronomer Anna Kapinska identified them three years ago using Australian radio telescopes. Initially, scientists thought they were instrument calibration problems. We know they’re real, but we don’t know how they were made. Edge-brightening circles are a mystery. We know they can only be viewed in the radio spectrum and that three out of five have a core that corresponds with a visible galaxy.
The Universe Calls
This new study offers three explanations. First, it’s the leftovers of an impossibly massive explosion in galaxy centers. We can only hypothesize about the cause of this explosion, which may be the merger of two supermassive black holes.
The second hypothesis is a shock wave from the creation of millions of stars, and the third is jets that shoot out very energetic particles in galaxies.
ORCs are rings of feeble emissions that surround a galaxy with a very active black hole at its center, but astronomers can’t explain why they’re so rare.
Study’s ORC1 readings It’s amazing that we only discovered these weird buildings three years ago. Astronomers believe they created about a billion years ago, but the fact that we’re continuously discovering things shows how much we still have to learn.
Socrates was right: we know nothing. The universe’s mysteries keep surfacing. In the coming years, research must focus on the cosmos and the origin of humans.
The big adventure drives our thirst for exploration, our species’ life, and our civilization. Without it, we’re doomed.
The fossil record is filled with strange marine animals that would look like sea monsters if they were alive today.
From the creepiest Cambrian critters to massive marine reptiles, wonderfully weird sea creatures have inhabited our oceans for over half a billion years. We've put together a list of 25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters ever to have lived, all of which went extinct long before humans came along.
The only reason we know that these evolutionary marvels existed is because some left behind fossilized remains in rocks. Modern researchers are still interpreting these fossils and making fresh discoveries all the time, so be sure to keep up with the latest Live Science fossil news.
Opabinia regalis
An illustration of Opabinia regalis. (Image credit: Nobumichi Tamura/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images)
When paleontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington presented an early reconstruction of Opabinia regalis to a meeting of fellow paleontologists in 1972, everyone in the room laughed, according to the Royal Ontario Museum(opens in new tab). Another small, British Columbian beasty from the middle Cambrian, O. regalis had five eyes and claws on its long, flexible snout to catch prey. The species swam through ancient oceans around 505 million years ago using lateral lobes and a tail fan to steer.
An illustration of Archelon, the largest turtle ever to have lived. (Image credit: Sciepro/Science Photo Library via Getty Images. )
There's nothing particularly strange about the sea turtles we see today, but what if they were bigger — like, much bigger? That would be a little odd, right? Turn back the clock 65 million years, and the ocean featured 15-foot-long (4.6 m) supersize turtles named Archelon ischyros. They would have dwarfed the biggest turtles alive today — leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea), which max out at around 5.9 feet (1.8 m) long.
Megalodon
A computer-generated image of a megalodon with its mouth open. (Image credit: Gil Cohiba/Shutterstock)
Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) was another supersize version of a modern animal. Fossilized teeth suggest that megalodon, which reigned over ocean ecosystems between around 23 million and 2.6 million years ago, was at least three times longer than a modern great white shark, and the biggest shark on record. The beast's exact size is disputed in scientific circles, but it could have been up to 60 feet (18 m), or even 80 feet (24 m), long. This shark was so big, it could have devoured a modern orca (Orcinus orca) in just a few bites.
Titanokorys gainesi
Titanokorys gaines viewed from underneath. (Image credit: Illustration by Lars Fields, copyright Royal Ontario Museum)
Titanokorys gainesi may have been only 2 feet (0.6 m) long, but it was one of the largest predators during the Cambrian period. The early arthropod swam across the ocean floor, hoovering up prey like a Roomba and devouring it with a toothy, circular mouth. Half-a-billion-year-old fossils from British Columbia reveal that the creature's helmeted head was disproportionately large, making up around two-thirds of its total body length.
Websteroprion armstrongi
Head of a living marine worm (Eunice aphroditois), photographed in Indonesia. (Image credit: WaterFrame/Alamy Stock Photo)
Websteroprion armstrongi was a mighty worm of the Devonian period and extinct relative of modern marine worms. The carnivore dwarfed its fellow ancient worms, with an estimated body length of up to 6.6 feet (2 m). It was so large, in fact, that when researchers described the species from Canadian fossils in 2017, it immediately became the largest marine jawed worm on record. And if a giant worm weren't already metal enough, the researchers named its genus Websteroprion after death-metal guitarist Alex Webster from the band Cannibal Corpse.
An illustration of the Devonian-period fish Dunkleosteus. (Image credit: MR1805 via Getty Images)
Dunkleosteus terrelli, or "Dunk" for short, was a bus-size armored fish that lived during the Devonian period. When researchers started discovering Dunk skulls in Cleveland 150 years ago, they estimated that the creature was 30 feet (9.1 m) long. However, a 2023 study published in the journal Diversity(opens in new tab) found that the creatures were actually more like 13 feet (4 m) long, but super chunky. D. terrelli was a superpredator, with blade-like jaws for slicing through any animal it could digest.
Nothosaurs
A 3D illustration of a nothosaur. (Image credit: Warpaintcobra via Getty Images)
A 2014 study published in the journal Scientific Reports(opens in new tab) described a nothosaur species, Nothosaurus zhangi, that had a 26-inch-long (65 cm) lower jaw and an estimated total body length of up to 23 feet (7 m). These predators propelled themselves through the water with their forelimbs and snatched prey with fang-like teeth. N. zhangi lived around 245 million years ago in what is now southwestern China.
Dolichosaurs
A fossilized skeleton of Dolichosaurus. (Image credit: The History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)
Dolichosaurs were slender, serpent-like lizards with small limbs that snaked through the water, chasing prey. They lived during the Cretaceaous period and were discovered in English fossils in the mid 19th century. Caldwell said the largest dolichosaurs he encountered in the fossil record were only around 2 feet long, but their necks were longer than those of modern lizards, and they contained many more cervical vertebrae. "They had this fiendishly long neck, which is bizarre among lizards," Caldwell said.
Diplocaulus magnicornis
An illustration of Diplocaulus. (Image credit: Dottedhippo via Getty Images)
Diplocaulus magnicornis stands out among even the strangest creatures of the ancient aquatics because of its boomerang-shaped skull. Researchers aren't sure why this amphibian evolved such a bizarre head, but it probably played a role in how the species swam. D. magnicornis lived about 275 million years ago, during the Permian period, according to the American Museum of Natural History(opens in new tab). The fossils left behind by this species are found in modern-day Texas.
Shell-dwelling penis worms
An illustration of a Cambrian penis worm inhabiting a hyolith shell. (Image credit: Zhang Xiguang)
And finally, there are the ferocious penis worms of the Cambrian period. Don't let their comical connotations fool you; these marine worms were mighty predators 500 million years ago, with teeth-lined mouths for devouring prey all across the ocean. To avoid becoming prey in the competitive Cambrian seas, penis worms suited up for protection. A 2021 study in the journal Current Biology(opens in new tab) found that these animals inhabited cone-shaped shells like hermit crabs do. The shell-dwelling penis worm fossils belong to the priapulida group, which includes their shell-less living descendants. The name of this group honors the well-endowed Greek god Priapus.
The fossil record is filled with strange marine animals that would look like sea monsters if they were alive today.
From the creepiest Cambrian critters to massive marine reptiles, wonderfully weird sea creatures have inhabited our oceans for over half a billion years. We've put together a list of 25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters ever to have lived, all of which went extinct long before humans came along.
The only reason we know that these evolutionary marvels existed is because some left behind fossilized remains in rocks. Modern researchers are still interpreting these fossils and making fresh discoveries all the time, so be sure to keep up with the latest Live Science fossil news.
Plesiosaurs
An artist's depiction of a short-necked plesiosaur attacking a juvenile long-necked plesiosaur. (Image credit: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images)
Plesiosaurs were a group of marine reptiles with boat-like bodies and four flippers. There were long-necked plesiosaurs (think ancient Loch Ness monster) and short-necked plesiosaurs (imagine a Loch Ness monster with a short neck and a massive head). Plesiosaurs lived from the Triassic period (251.9 million to 201.4 million years ago) until they went extinct alongside the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). They lived across the world's oceans.
"Not only were these animals odd compared to things that we have alive today, but they were also globally distributed and very, very diverse," Michael Caldwell(opens in new tab), a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, told Live Science.
The long neck of Tanystropheus hydroides may have helped the species sneak up on ocean prey.(Image credit: Spiekman et al., Current Biology (2020))
Tanystropheus hydroides lived in the Tethys Sea off the ancient supercontinent Pangaea, when all of the continents were joined together, during the Triassic period around 242 million years ago. Researchers identified these ancient marine reptiles from bizarre fossils located on what is now the border between Switzerland and Italy. They had weird, broomstick-like necks that stretched to 10 feet (3 meters) in length — three times the length of their torsos.
"Like [long-necked] plesiosaurs, tanystropheids have small heads on the front and these tiny, weird little bodies way behind this gigantic neck," Caldwell said. "They are ungainly and awkward."
Helicoprion
An illustration of two Helicoprion individuals.(Image credit: HYPERSPHERE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)
Helicoprion, or the "buzz saw sharks," was a group of shark-like fish with a spiral jaw that made their teeth resemble the edge of a buzz saw. They inhabited Earth's oceans from the Devonian period (419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago) to the Triassic period, according to the Australian Museum(opens in new tab). Fossil records indicate that these fish grew up to around 25 feet (7.7 m) long, making them 5 feet (1.5 m) longer than the largest known modern great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias).
Habelia optata
An artistic reconstruction of the tiny sea predator Habelia optata. Image credit: Joanna Liang/Royal Ontario Museum)
Habelia optata was more of a mini monster, with a body length of up to 1.6 inches (4.1 centimeters). These tiny sea predators had helmet-like heads and creepy mouth appendages for catching and ripping apart their prey. H. optata fossils can be found in British Columbia, Canada, and date back around 505 million years to the Cambrian period (538.8 million to 485.4 million years ago), according to the Royal Ontario Museum(opens in new tab).
Lyrarapax unguispinus
An artist's rendering shows a baby (foreground) and adult Lyrarapax unguispinus hunting the Cambrian seas like the creepy predators they were. (Image credit: Science China Press)
The Cambrian period also saw the reign of a claw-faced sea monster that was totally unlike anything swimming in our oceans today. Lyrarapax unguispinus was one of many bizarre arthropods that lived during the Cambrian period, but even for its time, this species was strange. It grew up to 3.2 feet (1 m) long and had a claw-shaped appendage on the front of its head to grasp prey. This killer arthropod was one of the world's first apex predators.
Mosasaurs
An illustration of two mosasaurs fighting for territory. (Image credit: Mohamad Haghani/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images)
Mosasaurs may not be the strangest animals on this list, but they are certainly worthy of the name "sea monster." Before they fell to the same fate as the nonavian dinosaurs, this group of marine reptiles roamed the world's oceans, chowing down on almost anything that moved, including other mosasaurs. A 2014 study in the journal Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS(opens in new tab) estimated that the mosasaur Mosasaurus hoffmanni grew to be around 56 feet (17 m) long.
An illustration of a Placodus species from the placodontid family. (Image credit: Corey Ford/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images)
Placodonts were an order of turtle-like Triassic marine reptiles that lived in what is now Europe, the Middle East and China. Caldwell told Live Science that placodonts "had incredibly bad buck teeth that they could have picked apples through a picket fence with." They used their front teeth to pluck shells and mollusks off reefs or the ocean floor, and they had flat crushing plates at the backs of their mouths for munching.
Sea scorpions
An illustration of a Eurypterid on the seafloor. (Image credit: Aunt_Spray via Getty Images)
Sea scorpions, or eurypterids, were a group of ocean-dwelling arthropods that resembled modern-day scorpions. What made them strange? Well, some were enormous compared with scorpions living today. For example, one eurypterid fossil found in New York is estimated to have come from a sea scorpion larger than a human. Members of this group could exceed 8 feet (2.5 m) in length, according to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History(opens in new tab) in Connecticut. Sea scorpions terrorized the seas for more than 200 million years, until they went extinct at the end of the Permian period (298.9 million to 251.9 million years ago).
Saccorhytus coronarius
A 3D digital model of Saccorhytus coronarius. (Image credit: Philip Donoghue et al)
Saccorhytus coronarius was essentially a wrinkly sac with no anus(opens in new tab). These weirdos lived during the Cambrian period around 500 million years ago and are known from microfossils discovered in China. The Minion-like creatures may have spent their days catching prey in seafloor sediment, but researchers' understanding of the animals' lives is limited. They are believed to be related to penis worms and mud dragons.
Ichthyosaurs
A 3D science rendering of ichthyosaurs in the Stenopterygius genus. (Image credit: Dotted Yeti via Shutterstock)
Try to picture a reptilian version of a dolphin, and you won't be far off the appearance of an ichthyosaur. This diverse group of pointed-nose predators evolved to have dolphin- or fish-like bodies, but they looked far more menacing. Ichthyosaurs evolved around 250 million years ago and went extinct around 90 million years ago. While there were ichthyosaur species as small as 1 foot (0.3 m) long, the group was home to several giants in the late Triassic period. In 2018, researchers estimated that a fossilized jawbone from the U.K. belonged to an ichthyosaur that was more than 85 feet (26 m) long, which is nearly the size of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).
Tully monsters
An illustration of a Tully monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium). (Image credit: Stocktrek Images/Getty Images)
The Tully monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium) was a soft-bodied species with primitive eyes on stalks and a long, thin appendage that ended in a claw-like feature. These mysterious creatures were so strange that researchers today have had trouble agreeing on the animals' place on the tree of life. Whatever they were, these monsters hunted in marine coastal environments 300 million years ago and are found only in fossils from Illinois, according to the Illinois State Museum(opens in new tab).
An illustration of two members of Odontochelys semitestacea. (Image credit: Marlene Hill Donnelley, Field Museum)
Odontochelys semitestacea swam in the Triassic coastal waters of what is now China 220 million years ago. The species was one of the first known turtles, but it looked very different from its modern relatives.
"These most ancient turtles have got the chest piece, or the plastron, but they don't have the carapace on the back," Caldwell said. "So, here we have early versions of turtles that are lacking the turtle shell, the carapace, and are still toothed."
Typhloesus wellsi left behind such strange fossils that Simon Conway Morris(opens in new tab), an emeritus professor of paleobiology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., gave them the nickname "alien goldfish" in a 2005 article published in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics(opens in new tab). Morris joked that they could have been brought to Earth by a visiting intergalactic commodore who grew tired of keeping them as pets and dumped them here during the Carboniferous period (358.9 million to 298.9 million years ago). The species shot a toothy "tongue" out of its gut to catch prey and may have been an early gastropod.
Basilosaurus
An illustration of Basilosaurus. (Image credit: Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library via Getty Images)
Basilosaurus swam through the ocean like a giant sea serpent from 37.8 million to 33.9 million years ago, with a slender body that stretched up to 59 feet (18 m) in length. The name Basilosaurus translates to "king lizard" because the researchers who named it mistook the gigantic life-form for a marine reptile, like a mosasaur or ichthyosaur. But the species wasn't a serpent or a lizard; it was a mammal, and a relative of modern whales, according to the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology(opens in new tab).
Fanjingshania renovata
A reconstruction of Fanjingshania renovata. (Image credit: ZHANG Heming)
This shark-like fish was heralded as being unlike any vertebrate ever discovered when it was unveiled in 2022. Covered in spiny fins with teeth-like scales and bony armor, Fanjingshania renovata is somewhere between a bony fish and a shark on the fish family tree. It lived in what is now southern China during the Silurian period (443.8 million to 419.2 million years ago).
Submerged Secrets: Sunken Nabatean Temple Discovered Off Italian Coast
Underwater archaeologists searching just off the western Mediterranean coast of the city of Pozzuoli in central Italy discovered the remains of a submerged 2,000-year-old Nabatean temple dedicated to their god Dushara. What they found specifically were two Roman marble altars, which linked the temple to the period when Nabataeans were living freely on the Phlegrean Peninsula 125 miles (200 km) south of Italy’s capital city, in territory fully controlled by the Roman Empire.
The Nabataeans were an Arab tribal group who lived as wandering nomads in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula in the first few centuries of the first millennium. But once they’d formed enough alliances among themselves to establish their own kingdom, they began to settle down and devote themselves to trade and commerce.
The Nabataean Kingdom formed a voluntary alliance with Rome in the late first century BC, officially launching an association that would last for the next several centuries (although the Nabataeans lost their independence to the Roman Empire in the early second century).
It is known that a thriving community of Nabataeans could be found in the now submerged ancient city of Puteoli, which was located adjacent to modern-day Pozzuoli. During Rome’s Imperial era the Nabataean Kingdom chose to establish a base of operations on the Italian coast, and Puteoli was most attractive to these trade-minded people because it was the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean.
The discovery of the religious complex in the sunken ruins of old Puteoli helps verify that the Nabataeans continued to honor their god Dushara once they’d settled on Roman territory, at least for a time.
The ancient Macellum or market building of the Roman city of Puteoli, where a Nabatean temple has been discovered under the sea.
The Nabataeans first emerged as an identifiable people with an advanced culture between the fourth and second centuries BC. They’d lived in the desert areas of Arabia and the southern Levant for several centuries before this, surviving as an untamed nomadic group that somehow thrived in an impossibly arid environment.
They were known to, and had interactions with, both the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the first millennium BC. But they were not conquered by either of these kingdoms, protected as they were by an inhospitable desert where others feared to tread.
As they began to increase in population in the third century BC, they formed a loose confederation of various groups that ultimately became the Nabataean Kingdom . This kingdom, which grew prosperous through the vigorous trade networks it created and nurtured in the region, eventually extended its range of control and influence throughout the Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas and deeply into the Levant. Its capital Petra was located in what is now southern Jordan, and that city’s population grew to over 20,000 as a consequence of its development into a major regional trading center.
The Nabataeans were known for their fierceness and determination to remain independent, and they proved to be a tough opponent to defeat in battle. While they initially clashed with the Romans, by the first century AD they’d formed a strong alliance with the Roman Empire, which boosted their commercial prospects and made them more prosperous than ever.
Unfortunately, the Romans proved to be a treacherous ally in the long run. In 106 AD the Roman emperor Trajan sent his armies in to annex all Nabataean Kingdom lands, which he was able to do because the Nabataeans had become less warlike and nomadic, and more settled and focused on agricultural and commercial development, over the past three centuries.
For the first time in 1,000 years, the Nabataean people were no longer independent. Their cultural practices were profoundly impacted by Roman influence from that point on, so much so that they first abandoned their language in favor of Greek, and later rejected Dushara completely when they converted to Christianity.
The Nabateans gained a reputation as a gifted and talented people, with a rich culture and the skills necessary to produce a bounty of attractive goods for trading. Their painted ceramic pottery was especially prized, and was distributed all throughout the region along the trade routes they’d set up. Even after their lands had been seized by Trajan and their kingdom had been turned into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea , the Nabateans continued to dominate trade in the region.
Remains of the Nabatean temple which was discovered underwater in ancient Puteoli.
Puteoli’s Nabatean Temple: A Legacy Discovered Beneath the Sea
The discovery of the Roman marble altars represents the culmination of a joint archaeological research project that began in late 2021. Underwater archaeologists from two universities in Naples (the University of Campania Vanvitelli and Scuola Superiore Meridionale), supported by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of Naples, have now been searching for artifacts from Roman times in the sunken city of Puteoli ever since.
The latest discovery represents their most exciting find yet. “Ancient Puteoli reveals another of its treasures, which testifies to the richness and vastness of commercial, cultural and religious exchanges in the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world,” declared Italy’s Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, in an announcement of the discovery of the Nabataean temple put out by his agency.
This is not the first evidence of the Nabataean presence in Puteoli that has been found. In the 18th century, searchers found an altar and two cult bases while exploring the underwater ruins of the submerged city.
On the bases they found an inscription that identified the site as “Holy to Dushara.” This deity was exclusively worshipped by the Nabataeans, which revealed the truth about their presence in the ancient Roman port city. Further confirmation of Nabataean residency was discovered at around the same time, when archaeologists unearthed a large bust of Dushara near Pozzuoli.
Underwater ruins believed to have belonged to a Nabataean temple were initially spotted in aerial photographs taken in the 1970s. But only with this new discovery has it been possible to place the temple at a precise location in the sunken city, showing where exactly people congregated to worship a god that no other people recognized.
In addition to pinning down the true location of the underwater Nabataean temple, the latest explorations have also enabled the identification of other structures dating to Roman times. This includes warehouses, administrative buildings, smaller structures that served unknown purposes and the axes of roads built inside Puteoli. Conceivably, more Nabataean ruins could be located in the same general area. If they are, future explorations will undoubtedly find them.
Top image: Underwater archaeologists during excavations of the sunken Nabatean temple.
What Can Be Done to Help Astronaut Vision in Space? Spaceflight takes a serious toll on the human body. As NASA’s Twin Study demonstrates, long-duration stays in space lead to muscle and bone density loss. There are also notable effects on the cardi
Astronauts Kate Rubins (left) and Jeff Williams (right) looking out of the ISS' cupola at a SpaceX Dragon supply spacecraft. Until recently, the effects of long-duration missions on eyesight was something of a mystery.
What Can Be Done to Help Astronaut Vision in Space?
Spaceflight takes a serious toll on the human body. As NASA’s Twin Study demonstrates, long-duration stays in space lead to muscle and bone density loss. There are also notable effects on the cardiovascular, central nervous, and endocrine systems, as well as changes in gene expression and cognitive function. There’s also visual impairment, known as Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS), which many astronauts reported after spending two months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This results from increased intracranial pressure that places stress on the optic nerve and leads to temporary blindness.
Researchers are looking for ways to diagnose and treat these issues to prepare for future missions that will involve long-duration stays beyond Earth and transits in deep space. A cross-disciplinary team of researchers led by the University of Western Australia (UWA) has developed a breakthrough method for measuring brain fluid pressure that could reduce the risk of SANS for astronauts on long-duration spaceflights. This research could have applications for the many efforts to create a human presence on t
he Moon in this decade and crewed missions to Mars in the next.
The team was led byWilliam H. Morgan, a Professor of ophthalmology specializing in glaucoma and diabetic/vascular retinopathies. He is also the head of the UWA Centre for Visual Science (COVS) and the Managing Director of the Lions Eye Institute in Perth, Australia. He was joined by researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), the International Space Centre (ISC), and Murdoch University. The study that describes their findings was published innpj Microgravity, a publication maintained byNature Partner Journals(npj).
Lions Eye Institute Director Professor Bill Morgan in the lab. Credit: UWA
As Prof. Morgan explained in a recent UWA press release, human bodies have evolved to counter the effects of gravity by pushing blood upwards into the head:
“In microgravity, this can lead to an increased average pressure in the cerebrospinal fluid, which adversely affects the retina and deteriorates vision and other important functions. The strength of the pulsations in the tiny veins of the retina should, in principle, depend on the cerebrospinal fluid pressure. All blood vessels experience tiny pulsations coming from the heartbeat.”
Until recently, intracranial pressure could only be measured through a lumbar puncture, a skull burr hole, or other invasive measures that are painful, risky, and difficult to perform in microgravity. For their study, Morgan and his associates used a special eye camera to measure tiny pulsation changes in subjects placed in different positions on a tilt table. This mimicked the effects of variable gravity on the cerebrospinal fluid pressure, simulating what astronauts experience while transitioning to microgravity and back.
According to co-author Danail Obreschkow, an Associate Professor with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and the Director of the International Space Centre, their team has developed the first non-invasive method for measuring cerebrospinal fluid pressure changes that can be performed safely in space. These results study could be crucial to overcoming a type of blindness that frequently develops in astronauts on long-duration space flights. Said Obreschkow:
“The so-called Space Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome is one of the most serious risks for astronauts on long-duration flights and one that NASA identified as a significant challenge on future crewed missions to Mars. Tilt table experiments on Earth are the only way of controllably altering the gravitational force upon the human body and allowed us to alter the cerebrospinal fluid pressure in small definite increments It also forced us to develop systems which can be used in any postural position necessitating portable, small handheld devices which are essential if such systems are to be used in space.”
Astronauts on the International Space Station experiencing freefall.
Credit: NASA/ESA
Their findings could also lead to the development of handheld portable devices that could monitor intracranial pressure among astronauts, providing a cost-effective and low-risk means for rapidly diagnosing SANS. It could also lead to the development of new treatments that mitigate the effects and ensure astronauts maintain healthy eyesight during long-term stays in space. This study is part of a larger constellation of research examining the long-term effects on muscle, bone, and organ health that could lead to new treatments that will facilitate human space exploration (and maybe even settlement).
Navigate a Global Image of Mars (If Your Computer Can Handle It)
The Global CTX Mosaic of Mars allows scientists and the public to explore the planet like never before. It includes different layers of data that can be turned on or off, like these labels for named geographic features on the planet. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS,
Navigate a Global Image of Mars (If Your Computer Can Handle It)
Using data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), planetary scientists have created one of the most unique and detailed maps of Mars ever. But fair warning, the biggest version of this is a could overload your computer.
Global CTX Mosaic of Mars is the highest-resolution global image of the Red Planet ever created and it even allows you see Mars in 3D.
The map is made of 110,000 images from MRO’s Context Camera (CTX). Stitched together, the map covers almost 270 square feet (25 square meters) of surface *per pixel,* meaning they have developed a mosaic with 5.7 trillion pixels. If you printed it out, it would cover 25 square meters – which is about the size of the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, just down the street from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, where the new map was generated.
The interactive version lets you zoom in and out from the surface of Mars, revealing ancient river channels, volcanic shield mountains, giant impact craters, and endless dusty dune-covered rocky landscapes. You’ll be lost in it for hours, and you can even trace the journey of rovers across the Red Planet’s surface.
A screenshot from the Global CTX Mosaic of Marsshowing the a portion of Jezero Crater on Mars and the path traveled so far by the Perseverance rover.
The mosaic took six years and tens of thousands of hours to develop. It is so detailed that more than 120 peer-reviewed science papers have already cited a beta version. It was created at Caltech’s Bruce Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization, and the developers say the mosaic is also easy enough for anyone to use.
“I wanted something that would be accessible to everyone,” said Jay Dickson, the image processing scientist who led the project and manages the Murray Lab. “Schoolchildren can use this now. My mother, who just turned 78, can use this now. The goal is to lower the barriers for people who are interested in exploring Mars.”
While we’ve writtenmanyarticles about another camera on MRO, HiRISE (the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) the CTX, or context imager has had a lower profile for the MRO mission. However, it provides a 6 meter per pixel resolution, better than any other previous camera (except for HiRISE) and over the 17 years of MRO’s time in Mars’ orbit, CTX has imaged nearly all of Mars’ surface, allowing science teams to create detailed maps of Mars.
“For 17 years, MRO has been revealing Mars to us as no one had seen it before,” said the mission’s project scientist, Rich Zurek of JPL. “This mosaic is a wonderful new way to explore some of the imagery that we’ve collected.”
MRO’s Context Camera (CXT) image showing the northern polar sand dunes. Credit: MSSS
While HiRISE imagery provides detailed closeups of Mars, CTX captures wide-area images to provide context for the high resolution images. CTX’s image are in black and white, but with its wide area of coverage, that allows this map to be the highest-resolution global image of the Mars as yet ever created.
JPL said that to create the new mosaic, Dickson developed an algorithm to match images based on the features they captured. He manually stitched together the remaining 13,000 images that the algorithm couldn’t match. The remaining gaps in the mosaic represent parts of Mars that hadn’t been imaged by CTX by the time Dickson started working on this project, or areas obscured by clouds or dust.
Laura Kerber, a Mars scientist at JPL, provided feedback on the new mosaic as it took shape. “I’ve wanted something like this for a long time,” Kerber said. “It’s both a beautiful product of art and also useful for science.”
The Global CTX Mosaic of Mars lets anyone with an internet connection browse the Red Planet. The buttons at the bottom let you jump to notable locations, like Gale Crater and Jezero Crater, areas being explored by NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.
Primordial Black Holes May Have “Frozen” the Early Universe
Artist's logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe with the Solar System at the center, inner and outer planets, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha Centauri, Perseus Arm, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, nearby galaxies, Cosmic Web, Cosmic microwave radiation and the Big Bang's invisible plasma on the edge.
Primordial Black Holes May Have “Frozen” the Early Universe
Primordial holes formed in the exotic conditions of the big bang may have become their own source of matter and radiation.
The standard story of the early universe goes like this. When our cosmos was incredibly young, it underwent a period of incredibly rapid expansion known as inflation. Then inflation went away and flooded the universe with particles and radiation in the hot big bang. Then the universe expanded and cooled, and as it did so the density of that matter and radiation dropped. Eventually the matter got itself together informed stars, galaxies and clusters .
But new research suggests that this simple story may be missing a key ingredient: primordial black holes. Currently we know of only one guaranteed way to create black holes. That’s through the deaths of massive stars. When they collapse in on themselves at the end of their lives, they reach high enough densities to overwhelm every other force and trigger the formation of a black hole.
But the early universe may have been exotic enough to make black holes in its own way. When inflation ended and the universe began to cool off, it was not a smooth and gentle process. Instead it was incredibly violent, with massive shifts in energy and mass from place to place. It’s possible that pockets of the universe may have spontaneously reached high enough densities to form black holes directly on their own, without having to go through the formation of stars first. These are the so-called primordial black holes.
Cosmological observations already placed severe limits on the number of primordial black holes that could inhabit the early universe. But there is still room for them to exist. And a team of researchers have put together a paper exploring an unexpected consequence of the formation of these primordial black holes.
We know from the work of Stephen Hawking that black holes are not entirely black. They actually glow a little bit through an exotic quantum process known as Hawking radiation. For normal-sized black holes this is a very inefficient process. A typical black hole will only emit one particle of radiation every year or so. But smaller black holes emit much more radiation.
If the primordial black holes were small enough, then they would evaporate completely while the universe was still in its infant stages, leaving no trace of their existence behind. But the researchers found that this leads to a curious situation. As these primordial black holes evaporated they released their own floods of radiation and matter.
Despite the expansion of the universe, if enough primordial black holes evaporated then the density of matter and radiation could stay constant. This would lead to a an extended black hole-based big bang scenario.
Eventually all the primordial black holes would go away and the rest of cosmological history would go on without them. But they would leave their mark. The changes in matter and radiation density can potentially have long-lasting impacts that we could detect even to the present day. And the evaporation of primordial black holes themselves trigger the formation of gravitational waves, which might linger still today.
We may not ever find direct evidence for primordial black holes, but the researchers have found that we may find their subtle fingerprints throughout the universe.
The Unending Enigma: A Closer Look at Recent UFO Sightings
The Unending Enigma: A Closer Look at Recent UFO Sightings
The topic of UFO sightings has captivated the imagination of people worldwide for decades. Recently, with the growing availability of technology and the internet, sightings and experiences have been shared more frequently and openly than ever before. As a result, the discussion surrounding the existence of unidentified flying objects and the possibility of extraterrestrial life has gained significant momentum.
One particularly intriguing case involves an individual in Australia who captured a UFO on video. According to the source, this individual had multiple encounters with the unknown phenomenon, with each sighting varying in the type of object observed. The video in question appears to show a clear and compelling image of what could be a spacecraft. These experiences have had a profound impact on the individual’s life, with negative events such as car breakdowns, phone hacking, and being followed by suspicious vehicles occurring since the sightings.
This case is not an isolated incident, as numerous individuals have reported similar sightings and experiences around the world. Experts in the field, such as Ted Roe, the co-founder of NARCAP, have been investigating these encounters and working to raise awareness of the potential existence of non-human intelligence. Roe, who has had multiple encounters with UFOs himself, emphasizes the importance of remaining open-minded and considering the possibility of other forms of intelligence that may be far beyond our current level of understanding.
As these reports of UFO sightings continue to surface, collaboration between researchers and reporting groups is essential. By working together, experts can compare data, investigate sightings from various angles, and potentially reach a better understanding of these enigmatic phenomena. An ideal outcome would involve coordination between European and U.S. reporting groups, as well as fostering communication between countries and the United Nations to contribute to the body of knowledge surrounding this important issue.
The question of whether we are alone in the universe remains unanswered, but the increasing number of UFO sightings and personal accounts of encounters with unknown phenomena suggests that this enigma is far from being solved. As researchers continue to investigate and debate these sightings, one thing is certain: the interest in UFOs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life is not waning anytime soon.
Bryan chats with one of the foremost journalists on UFOs Leslie Kean, about what our government knows, mass sightings, what can travel at 13,000 MPH and what's inside of Area 51.
Dr. Steven Greer - Mystery Behind UFO / UAPs, Alien Phenomenon, and The Secret Government | SRS #048
Steven M. Greer, MD, a retired emergency room Physician turned to a life of research of UFO/UAP Phenomenons, is the Founder of The Disclosure Project, The Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI), The Orion Project, Sirius Technology Advanced Research, LLC and is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on all things UFO / UAP.
In this episode, Dr. Greer lays out exactly how nearly a century of information and discovery of Extraterrestrial life and technology have been hidden from the public and shrouded under a veil of dark money and secrecy. Greer explains the inner-workings of a global government that goes beyond the world's most elite intelligence agencies and infiltrated the circles of pop culture icons like Marilyn Monroe and JFK.
Viruses from Mars, Asteroid Landing, Stars Colliding | Q&A 219
What are the risks of returning samples from Mars? What happens if you bring two stars together? Which galaxies can be seen with the naked eye? What is the system behind naming stars and exoplanets? All this and more in this week's Q&A!
Not of This Earth: Were There Unidentified Orbiting Objects in 1950? With Beatriz Villarroel
There were nine transient objects orbiting Earth in 1950, seven years before the first ever satellite. Beatrriz Villarroel joins John Michael Godier to discuss this mystery.
Do We Share Earth With Someone Else? With Garry Nolan
Garry Nolan is a professor in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His areas of research include hematopoiesis, cancer and leukemia, autoimmunity and inflammation. Most recently he has studied meta materials and cases related to ufo encounters.
The Big UFO Stories of 2022, and Looking Ahead at 2023 With RYAN SPRAGUE | TALKING STRANGE
2022 was a big year in the world of UFO / UAP, and 2023 is already shaping up to be even bigger, and author/host Ryan Sprague of “Somewhere in the Skies” is ready to discuss the “Year of Science” of phenomena. From a Congressional open hearing on phenomena, to the establishment of two investigation bodies from the Department of Defense as well as NASA, and a defense authorization act to examine UFO cases going back to 1945, 2022 was huge. But already, 2023 is has included a U.S. representative claiming there is a UFO cover-up, footage emerging of a metallic sphere in Iraq, and new information about the “Roswell before Roswell” case from 1945.
Ryan Sprague joins host Aaron Sagers (28 Days Haunted, Paranormal Caught on Camera) for a new episode of the paranormal pop culture show Talking Strange to discuss it all.
Ryan Sprague is a regular on Ancient Aliens (History Channel) and Beyond the Unknown (Travel Channel). He is also a lead investigator and co-host of Mysteries Decoded (CW Network). He is the author of Somewhere in the Skies: A Human Approach to the UFO Phenomenon , which was recently implemented into required reading for college courses at Webster University and Mercyhurst University. The book also hit #1 on the Best-Seller’s list on Amazon in 2021. He is the creator and host of the Somewhere in the Skies podcast which hit #1 on Apple Podcasts in 2019. Sprague’s research finds him interviewing witnesses, scientists, military personnel, and intelligence officials directly on UFOs, writing for defense and science news site, The Debrief. Speaking on UFOs, he has been featured on ABC News, Fox News, and 7News Australia. He has consulted for Amblin Entertainment and has been featured in Newsweek, The NY Post, and VICE.
Tracking UFOs over North America with Harvard's Amir Siraj
Tracking the recently shot down UFO backwards to possible points of origin with Amir Siraj.
Jeremy Corbell Debunks Media LIES On UFO Shootdowns | Breaking Points
Krystal and Saagar welcome Jeremy Corbell to the show to break down all the chaos over the last few days with UFO's in American airspace.
Is Our Understanding of Life Wrong? With Dr. Janusz Petkowski
Our understanding of how life starts is incomplete. Could solvents other than water lead to life? Janusz Petkowski joins John Michael Godier to discuss why life could exist on planets like Venus or moons like Titan.
Ancient Aliens: TOP 10 ALIEN ENCOUNTERS OF 2022
Check out these groundbreaking extraterrestrial moments from 2022, in this Ancient Aliens compilation.
Brian Cox - Alien Life & The Dark Forest Hypothesis
The renowned physicist and science communicator, Brian Cox delves into the topic of alien life and in particular, the question about intelligent alien civilization. With his trademark enthusiasm and engaging style, Brian Cox explores the possibility of extraterrestrial life and why we haven't found any.
The video starts with a brief overview of what Brian Cox & astronomers call: "The Great Silence". Cox then goes on to explain the Fermi Paradox and the Dark Forest Hypothesis, which suggest that intelligent life may be intentionally avoiding contact with other civilizations to avoid being destroyed.
Cox uses his expertise in physics and astronomy to explain how alien life may be closer than we think. Like on the surface of the red planet, Mars. He discusses the potential for life to exist in other planets because there are at least 20 billion other earth like planets in our galaxy alone.
Throughout the video, Cox provides easy-to-understand explanations, making complex scientific concepts accessible to a broad audience.
Whether you're a science enthusiast or simply curious about the possibility of life beyond Earth, Brian Cox's insights and knowledge are sure to captivate and inform. Don't miss out on this thought-provoking and entertaining exploration of the universe and our place within it.
Triangle UFOs 'from parallel universe' and have own intelligence says aircraft designer
Triangle UFOs 'from parallel universe' and have own intelligence says aircraft designer
EXCLUSIVE: As the US military takes UFO reports ever more seriously, one British man who has encountered a huge unexplained aircraft 'the size of a house' is examining alien encounters here in the UK
Colin thinks the craft could be not just from another planet, but from another universe entirely(Image: Colin Saunders)
A British man who worked for many years as an aircraft designer says he has seenUFOsover the UK that he believes could be piloted by creatures from another dimension.
Colin Saunders had his own encounter with a triangular UFO “about the size of a house “ in 1999, and the experience changed his life. First he saw its lights, and then the mystery craft “de-cloaked” in front of him.
The fact that the mystery craft seem to have some type of invisibility technology raises the possibility that the unexplained black triangles are hovering unseen above us more often than we think.
“I believe they can be flying around the globe totally invisible to us right at this moment,” Colin told the Daily Star.
Based on witnesses' descriptions, Colin has made a scale model of the mystery craft
(Image: Colin Saunders)
While Colin’s new book 'Triangular UFOs of the United Kingdom' focuses specifically on wedge-shaped phenomena, he says that other unexplained objects seen in our skies could be representatives from different alien races.
He said: “I think Triangles, Saucers, Cigars and Tic-Tac [UFOs] are all the same or similar phenomena,” Colin said, adding “I'm sure they must be aware of each other.
“Whether different species fly different craft I do not know but small grey aliens seem to feature in many sightings of different craft.
“But,” he added, “they may just be biological robots”.
The strange craft could be flying above us right now, using advanced stealth tech to go undetected
(Image: Getty Images)
Colin’s experience has led to a deep fascination with these strange phenomena and their possible explanation, and he has interviewed dozens of people about their own experiences with them.
He’s unconvinced by suggestions that the flying objects seen in the skies over Europe could be experimental stealth aircraft.
“I have worked in the aircraft industry as a designer and I have never witnessed anything like this before,” he says.
He points out that he has researched well over a hundred sightings of these craft and they all appear to be very different from each other.
Colin added: “It’s wouldn’t make sense to build a black budget craft and keep changing the design on each one.
“Plus would the military fly around sometimes over rooftops with a secret aircraft? I think they would probably test in Area 51 rather than the UK countryside."
Colin's new book, due out next month, is already selling well on Amazon(Image: Colin Saunders)
He does concede, though, that some modern military aircraft, such as the USAF’s iconic B2 Spirit stealth bomber, could be in part based on reverse-engineered alien technology.
And, whatever they are, they aren’t simple optical illusions either. For his book, Colin interviewed a few UFO contactees who had actually touched one of the ships:
One of them, Charles Bee describes how the “huge” object blotted out the stars as it glided silently above him.
As he stood transfixed on a hill, the craft came within a “few feet of him,” he said, and he could see black channels etched into its underside, which he speculates may have been some sort of “docking mechanism”.
Some witnesses claim to have even touched the craft(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
It seemed to be made of a slate or graphite material,” Charles recalled. “Very dark-grey and a smooth matt texture. I could feel the presence in my whole body and a dental implant was vibrating in my mouth.
“I could see the channels covered the underside of the craft: they are probably six feet across and of a similar depth.
“I raised my hand and touched part of the craft’s body between the channels. I was terrified and even thought it could harm me but did it anyway. I brushed my fingers over it and then put my entire palm on it. It felt like a hard, kitchen worktop with a matte finish, but it was not cold”.
Colin's book covers over 130 first hand UK witness accounts of close encounters with triangular craft, including 'missing time' and men in black(Image: Colin Saunders)
Despite the UFO phenomenon being taken increasingly seriously by the US military, there’s still no definitive explanation for what people across the world are experiencing.
“My own feeling is that these craft are inter-dimensional,” says Colin. “Like a parallel world running alongside our own."
They are crewed by beings from this other universe, Colin claims, but may also have some intelligence of their own.
He added: “I believe the majority of the larger craft will be manned but one suspects the smaller tic tac types may well be remotely controlled.
“I have to say ‘our’ craft looked like it was alive even though it was clearly manufactured, perhaps having an intelligence of its own”.
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As a cosmic photographer, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken over a million snapshots documenting the universe.
These images illustrate, explain, and inspire us with their grandeur. But how are those images taken and processed? This incredible video explains the answer to that question.
Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has made more than one million observations of the cosmos, broadening humanity's knowledge of the cosmos almost immeasurably.
The somewhat amorphous spiral galaxy UGC 2890 appears side-on in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, with bright foreground stars studding the image. This galaxy, which lies around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis, hosted a powerful supernova explosion that astronomers observed in 2009.
Yet Hubble doesn't see the universe as we do. The telescope views the cosmos across a broad range of light wavelengths, some of which our eyes are incapable of seeing.
If we looked out across space with our own eyes, not only would we not see much of what Hubble sees, but a great deal of what we do see would look very different from the images delivered to us by the iconic space telescope.
So how is the data this pioneering space telescope collects turned into stunning visuals that we can see, understand and marvel at, and how much of this imagery is "real?"
Hubble has two primary camera systems, according to NASA, which the telescope uses to observe the universe from its position roughly 332 miles (535 kilometers) above Earth's surface.
Working in unison, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) are able to provide astronomers with wide-field imaging over a broad range of wavelengths. Both camera systems were installed on Hubble by spacewalking astronauts after the observatory's April 1990 launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
ACS joined Hubble in 2002 and was designed primarily for wide-field imagery in visible wavelengths. The ACS system is composed of three cameras or "channels" that capture different types of images, allowing Hubble to perform surveys and broad imaging campaigns.
Two of those channels became inoperable in 2007 due to an electronics failure. Astronauts were able to repair one of the cameras two years later, restoring the ability of ACS to take high-resolution, wide-field pictures.
That 2009 repair was performed during Hubble's Servicing Mission 4, which also installed the WFC3 system, now the telescope's main imager.
Hubble had cameras prior to the installation of these instruments, of course. The space telescope's previous cameras include the Wide Field and Planetary Camera, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, the High-Speed Photometer and the Faint Object Camera.
Other observational devices among Hubble's total of six instruments are its two spectrometers, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).
The spectrometers break light down so its component parts can be seen. Because elements and chemicals emit and absorb light at characteristic wavelengths, Hubble allows astronomers to learn about the composition of the objects it observes.
One of the advantages that Hubble has as it zooms around Earth about 15 times each day is that it can pick up wavelengths of light that would normally be absorbed by our planet's atmosphere. As a result, the telescope's 7.8-foot-wide (2.4 meters) primary mirror collects an immense amount of light across a wide range of wavelengths that ground telescopes can't see and curves it toward the telescope's instruments and cameras.
Hubble's cameras can see the universe from the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum through visible light wavelengths all the way up to ultraviolet light.
The primary capabilities of the telescope are in the ultraviolet and visible parts of the spectrum from 100 to 800 nanometers, though the telescope can also see light with wavelengths as long as 2,500 nanometers.
ACS is used predominantly to collect light in visible wavelengths but is also capable of seeing ultraviolet and near-infrared light. Meanwhile, WFC3 provides wide-field imagery in ultraviolet, visible and infrared light.
While the STIS spectrometer works with a broad range of wavelengths, COS focuses exclusively on ultraviolet light and is considered the most sensitive ultraviolet spectrograph ever built.
COS has boosted Hubble's sensitivity by a factor of at least 10 in the ultraviolet spectrum, resulting in a net 70-times sensitivity boost when looking at very faint objects, mission team members say.
Why does Hubble take pictures in so many wavelengths?
Hubble sees the universe in many different "shades of gray." Viewing the cosmos in what to us looks like monochrome, Hubble is capable of highlighting subtle differences in the intensity of light at different wavelengths, which helps scientists understand physical processes and the composition of objects.
Observing ultraviolet light is especially useful when Hubble is looking at extremely faint objects and single points of light, like stars and quasars. Seeing in infrared, on the other hand, is vital for the examination of very distant objects that existed in the early history of the universe.
This is because, as light travels from these faraway objects, the expansion of the universe "stretches" its wavelengths. This process is called "redshifting," because longer wavelengths of light in the visible spectrum are red (compared to blue at the shorter end).
The longer this light has been traversing the universe, the more extreme the redshift of its wavelength. This means that ancient objects that emitted visible light are now better seen in long-wavelength infrared light.
Hubble's ability to study such stretched light from early stars has allowed scientists to better constrain the age of the universe, to around 13.8 billion years. The capability to see early galaxies and stars has also massively increased our understanding of how the universe has evolved since its early epochs.
The earliest and most distant object Hubble has been able to image thus far is the highly redshifted galaxy GN-z11, which is located about 13.4 billion light-years away.
From a sheerly practical angle, the ability to see in a wide range of wavelengths means that Hubble is useful to a broad spectrum of researchers working to observe a massive cornucopia of cosmic objects and events.
The wider range of wavelengths that Hubble can observe also means that it won't be replaced by NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Despite being the most powerful telescope humanity has ever put into orbit, JWST is mostly limited to highly detailed observations in infrared light, with Hubble seeing less clearly but over a much wider spread of the electromagnetic spectrum. This ultimately means that JWST and Hubble make an excellent team observing the cosmos.
How 'real' are Hubble's photos? What would we see?
Human eyes only see a small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum that slots between infrared light and ultraviolet light, from about 380 to 700 nanometers. So, most raw images produced by Hubble look black and white to us.
By the time Hubble images reach publications such as Space.com, they have been processed, with colors added to them. The colorization of Hubble's "raw" grayscale images isn't for purely aesthetic reasons, however. Nor is it done arbitrarily.
Some images show "true" colors, while others feature hues that are assigned to represent wavelengths of light that human eyes can't see. These color composite images are generally created by combining exposures captured by Hubble using different filters.
A different color is assigned to each filter, with that color corresponding to the wavelength the filter allows through. So, the long-wavelength filter image is represented in the composite by red, the medium wavelengths by green and the shortest wavelengths by blue.
In some cases, colors might be added to Hubble photos to represent specific chemical elements present in or around the imaged object. Such color processing can reveal a wealth of scientific information that isn't present in grayscale raw images from Hubble.
Images are also processed to remove imperfections and effects that don't come from the objects being observed by Hubble. These undesired features could be the result of aging sensors causing "dead pixels" in images or the dynamic environment of space. For instance, Hubble images can be streaked by lines of bright light caused by passing asteroids, satellites or even flashing cosmic rays. The Hubble team often removes such distractions before releasing an image to the public.
In addition, larger mosaics made of many Hubble images stitched together must have gaps removed to create a single unified image. Hubble image processors also have to decide how to orient images, as there is no actual "up" or "down" in space.
The processing of Hubble images is an intricate and time-consuming procedure. Even simple Hubble photos can take days to process, while large complex mosaics of multiple images can take months, NASA says.
Additional information
If you want to see what Hubble images look like before they undergo processing, a database of "raw images" is available at the Hubble Legacy Archive.
If you'd like to learn more about the electromagnetic spectrum, NASA's Imagine the Universe page has a great concise explanation.
The Accidental Truth, a new UFO documentary being released on April 18, 2023.
The Accidental Truth, a new UFO documentary being released onApril 18, 2023
Here’s the first trailer released by 1091 Distribution. More related content will be dropping into the playlist below, so check back often!
Nick POPE : "Excitement is building about The Accidental Truth, a new UFO documentary being released on April 18. I'm in it, as are Lue Elizondo, Chris Mellon, Rep. Tim Burchett, Dr. Michio Kaku, Dr. Garry Nolan, Col. John Alexander, Ralph Blumenthal and many more."
The truth can no longer be contained by those duty-bound to hide it.
What if there was one film that will bring a mainstream audience up to speed on the modern UFO Reality?
Now there is. “Accidental Truth – UFO Revelations” pulls no punches.
Officials who interact with the public regarding the UFO question openly acknowledge that they know things that they can’t reveal. In “Accidental Truth,” the reality of an advanced intelligence engaging humanity becomes undeniably clear.
You will witness revelations on UFOs / UAPs from government insiders that have never been previously shared with the public. From many years of interviews and investigation, Ron James painstakingly connects the dots.
Colonel John Alexander, Lue Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, Nick Pope, Dr. Garry Nolan, Ralph Blumenthal, Congressman Tim Burchett and others help to “accidentally” weave a story that leaves no doubt that another intelligence is somehow operating around us, above us in our atmosphere, beneath our seas and in outer space. Decades of official denial and debunking are irrevocably put to rest in what is being called “one of the best UFO films of all time”.
Dr. Michio Kaku provides scientific analysis and commentary specific to what we know. Never before has a world-class scientist weighed in so deeply on the topic. Until now. A collection of contributors from across the field all come together to settle the question. The subject is no longer up for debate. You will experience the proof. The acknowledgement of another advanced intelligence is only the beginning.
This irrefutable truth creates more questions than you can possibly imagine.
“Accidental Truth – UFO Revelations” is being called “a masterpiece” and “one of the best UFO documentaries of all time” by early reviewers. It has been accepted into 12 film festivals so far and won 7 awards. It comes out on April 18, 2023.
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Get the SWAG! Although the film is done, we still need your help. Our animation team is in the Ukraine. Despite the war, the guys kept working as best they could. They endured power outages, defense deployments, missile flying over their homes, and still managed to deliver some of the best custom animation ever in an independent UFO Documentary.
Both team members lost equipment due to missile attacks and power fluctuations. They need new computers and additional support.
A portion of the proceeds from our SWAG sales will go to getting this done for them.
The “Accidental Truth” collection is coming online. We are adding new merch daily. Our movie poster art is really cool and people are loving the T-shirts! The shirts are 100% Soft ringspun Gildan Cotton. You’ll love yours! FREE SHIPPING IN THE US! Get your SWAG now and we’ll throw in a free month of access to MUFON TV. You’ll also get access to the “Accidental Truth Insider” section, where deeper interviews and extra material will be found.
The Cast:
Congressman Tim Burchett Ralph Blumenthal Lue Elizondo Dr. Michio Kaku Dr. Garry Nolan Col. John Alexander Christopher Mellon Richard Dolan Dave MacDonald Nick Pope Paul Hynek Don Schmitt Mike Bara Katie Griboski (Paige) Melinda Leslie Elizabeth April Cheryll Jones Danny Sheehan Jimmy Church Richard Lang James Fox Ron James
There has been a rise in the number of reported UFO sightings across many places in the United States since 2020. Moreover, officials have expressed concerns regarding the repeated occurrence of UFO sightings over military bases. Is there any possibility that these UFOs are controlling military actions?
Not so long ago, former US Air Force Captain Robert Salas claimed that UFOs are real and interfere in the military’s nuclear program. Additionally, former head of AATIP Luis Elizondo revealed that the U.S. Military created environments to attract UFOs to study them. He noted that there was much data that showed UFOs are interested in nuclear activities and the latest weaponry systems.
The UFO activity over US army bases has been observed since 1948, with the majority of incidents occurring at Malmstrom, Minot, F.E. Warren, Ellsworth, Vandenberg, and Walker AFBs between 1963 and 1996. Other sources stationed at Wurtsmith and Loring AFBs, where B-52 nuclear bombers were based during the Cold War era, also reported incidents.
In 1967, Captain Salas was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, when he received reports of a red glowing object hovering outside the front gate of the base. A security guard reported that the object had a saucer shape and was constantly hovering near the front gate.
At the same time, the missile system suffered a complete failure, with ten intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) going offline due to a “No-Go” (inoperable) condition, which caused several alarms to go off. After investigating the incident, a team of engineers from Boeing could not find any significant failures, engineering data, or findings that would explain how the missiles had been knocked off alert.
The cause of the failure remains unknown, but it was suggested that it could have been due to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sent from an unknown source. Despite the severity of the situation, Salas believed that the UFO did not have hostile intentions because it could have caused permanent damage to the weapons system if it wanted to.
The incident was reported by a UFO researcher Robert L. Hastings, who collected information from various army personnel, including Staff Sgt. Louis D. Kenneweg, Airman 1st Class David Hughes, Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Chassey, and Lt. Col. Robert Peisher (USAF Ret.) in his 30 years of investigation.
A similar attraction of UFOs toward nuclear bases was noticed in Canada as well. A report from Winnipeg reveals that over 200 years, there have been 2,000 UFO sightings reported in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
In the mid-1970s, there were numerous UFO sightings all along the US-Canadian border, with Manitoba being one of the places where a large number of sightings occurred. These sightings included a high number of cattle mutilations and were often seen over restricted areas where nuclear activities were conducted.
Chris A. Rutkowski, a Canadian UFO researcher, has studied UFO sightings in Canada for over 25 years and concluded that Manitoba has a long history of close encounters with aliens. His UFO research, which contains 30,000 reports, has been donated to the University of Manitoba.
In 2017, author Grant Cameron published a book entitled “Charlie Red Star: True Reports of One of North America’s Biggest UFO Sightings,” in which he described in detail the largest UFO sightings in history witnessed by Manitobans. The province was stunned by the object known as “Charlie’s Red Star,” which was seen almost every night in 1975.
Cameron claims that Manitoba UFO sightings have connections to nuclear weapons because 35 years later, he found out that the government secretly installed nuclear missiles and other weapons in restricted areas just south of the border. He believes that the sightings stopped after the missiles had been removed in November. The author thinks that the nuclear technology that humans possess could be created after extraterrestrial contact. (click here to read the full article)
Strange Occurrences Near Nuclear Bases
The Reddit user “BumblebeeExpensive” claimed to have worked at a now-closed nuclear weapons storage depot in Nevada for six years and shared various strange occurrences. “When people say UFOs are attracted to nukes, they are telling the truth. But so much more goes on,” the user writes. (Source)
The user claimed to have seen a ball of light triggering a sensor on the fence line, causing security to respond and witnessed three mutilated donkeys that were dropped off out of nowhere with various organs removed. The user also claimed to have witnessed a figure on the roof of a structure. He writes it was “30 meters from me and 14 other personnel. I took a spotlight and shined it up there and as soon as the light hit the figure it disappeared – we all saw it happen.”
“I heard a man laughing maniacally once, nothing there. Sweep with night vision and thermals revealed nothing, three other witnesses. We wrote it off as the ‘laughing Colonel,’ an urban legend passed down by the security personnel for ages.”
The user and his partner also heard a soft cooing sound coming from a hot pad loaded with 500 lbs bombs, seemingly luring them past the pad and into the pitch-black desert, but they did not pursue. Dur ing a training exercise, their machine gun overwatch team spotted two figures on thermals in the desert behind them, but their sweep revealed nothing.
The user claimed to have experienced the weirdest event when they were responding to a truck approaching on the side of a nearby mountain. They visually confirmed the truck on NVGs, but suddenly the headlights disappeared, and they believed the occupants had turned them off and were then approaching on foot. They called for K9 and moved to a blocking position where they waited for ten minutes, but their radios died, and they were out of contact for twice as long as they thought.
“We are there for about ten minutes when one by one patrol members overwatching us from high points on the inside call in lights appearing at our 12, 3, and 9 o’clock- in effect flanking us (with fence line about 300 meters behind us). We see and hear nothing, not even on NVGs or thermals, dog never reacts. Suddenly panicked patrol calls in that the lights are ‘rushing’ us. We are already locked and loaded, I tell my partner to put a grenade in the tube. Nothing happens, dog never indicates. Our radios die and after ten minutes we hike back to fence line only to discover we were out of contact for twice as long as I thought we were. Very paraphrased event cuz on phone, but our radios only started working when we were back at fence line.”
The user claimed that those events, combined with the belief that UFOs are attracted to nukes. He says: “There’s more but these were the highlights or events I’m allowed to speak about. The world is not as normal as you believe it is.”
Many other users found the same story in the video published on “The Infographics Show” YouTube channel in 2020 and began doubting BumblebeeExpensive if he copied the story. But the user later clarified that was his story and added that he is the lead writer of the show. He also claimed to be the writer of the “100-day survival series” on the channel.
Haha. Nope, that's my story. I'm the lead writer of the show and when the topic came up I was like huh, I've got my own, I'll do this one.
If you follow the channel I also write the 100 day survival series and a lot of the character names in there are guys I served with at this facility and still stay in touch with. Kind of an easter egg between us.
“There’s things I can’t talk about as I signed a 30-year non-disclosure contract with pretty stiff penalties- but I’ll say this: I know people think that there’s these big conspiracies with the government hiding knowledge of this or knowledge of that. Truth is, yes there are big secrets. But overwhelmingly, the government isn’t actively hiding knowledge of this or that- it’s literally just ignoring it because it can’t do anything about it or it doesn’t pose a threat. It does spend some time and effort investigating it- you can see that there’s a greatly increased effort to investigate UAPs now. But the truth is that a long time ago a choice was made about certain things: do they affect national security, or could we stop it if it did? If the answer is no, we’ve got bigger or more immediate concerns like the Soviet Union starting a nuclear war,” explains Reddit user BumblebeeExpensive.(Source)
Mr. Elizondo suggested that those interested in more information about this subject read “UFOs and Nukes” by Robert Hastings. The book describes the reality of UFO incursions at American nuclear weapons facilities.
In “UFOs and Nukes,” there are documented incidents of UFO interference at the US nuclear weapons facilities. The book describes incidents where unidentified objects were seen hovering near nuclear facilities, causing malfunctions in nuclear missiles and communication systems.
Some of those incidents date back to as early as January 1945, months before the atomic bombings in Japan. Those events suggest that humans’ most dangerous weapons have been under scrutiny by unidentified observers with advanced technology. The author argues that the UFO-nukes connection is significant and may be the reason for the appearance of mysterious aerial crafts in the skies over the past 70 years. Mr. Elizondo recommends this book to those interested in learning more about this subject.
Hubble Sees Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
Hubble Sees Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
There's an invisible monster on the loose, barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.
Rather than gobbling up stars ahead of it, like a cosmic Pac-Man, the speedy black hole is plowing into gas in front of it to trigger new star formation along a narrow corridor. The black hole is streaking too fast to take time for a snack. Nothing like it has ever been seen before, but it was captured accidentally by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
This is an artist's impression of a runaway supermassive black hole that was ejected from its host galaxy as a result of a tussle between it and two other black holes. As the black hole plows through intergalactic space it compresses tenuous gas in front to it. This precipitates the birth of hot blue stars. This illustration is based on Hubble Space Telescope observations of a 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of stars behind an escaping black hole.
"We think we're seeing a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and is able to form stars. So, we're looking at star formation trailing the black hole," said Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. "What we're seeing is the aftermath. Like the wake behind a ship we're seeing the wake behind the black hole." The trail must have lots of new stars, given that it is almost half as bright as the host galaxy it is linked to.
The black hole lies at one end of the column, which stretches back to its parent galaxy. There is a remarkably bright knot of ionized oxygen at the outermost tip of the column. Researchers believe gas is probably being shocked and heated from the motion of the black hole hitting the gas, or it could be radiation from an accretion disk around the black hole. "Gas in front of it gets shocked because of this supersonic, very high-velocity impact of the black hole moving through the gas. How it works exactly is not really known," said van Dokkum.
"This is pure serendipity that we stumbled across it," van Dokkum added. He was looking for globular star clusters in a nearby dwarf galaxy. "I was just scanning through the Hubble image and then I noticed that we have a little streak. I immediately thought, 'oh, a cosmic ray hitting the camera detector and causing a linear imaging artifact.' When we eliminated cosmic rays we realized it was still there. It didn't look like anything we've seen before."
This Hubble Space Telescope archival photo captures a curious linear feature that is so unusual it was first dismissed as an imaging artifact from Hubble's cameras. But follow-up spectroscopic observations reveal it is a 200,000-light-year-long chain of young blue stars. A supermassive black hole lies at the tip of the bridge at lower left. The black hole was ejected from the galaxy at upper right. It compressed gas in its wake to leave a long trail of young blue stars. Nothing like this has ever been seen before in the universe. This unusual event happened when the universe was approximately half its current age.
Credits: NASA, ESA, Pieter van Dokkum (Yale); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Because it was so weird, van Dokkum and his team did follow-up spectroscopy with the W. M. Keck Observatories in Hawaii. He describes the star trail as "quite astonishing, very, very bright and very unusual." This led to the conclusion that he was looking at the aftermath of a black hole flying through a halo of gas surrounding the host galaxy.
This intergalactic skyrocket is likely the result of multiple collisions of supermassive black holes. Astronomers suspect the first two galaxies merged perhaps 50 million years ago. That brought together two supermassive black holes at their centers. They whirled around each other as a binary black hole.
Then another galaxy came along with its own supermassive black hole. This follows the old idiom: "two's company and three's a crowd." The three black holes mixing it up led to a chaotic and unstable configuration. One of the black holes robbed momentum from the other two black holes and got thrown out of the host galaxy. The original binary may have remained intact, or the new interloper black hole may have replaced one of the two that were in the original binary, and kicked out the previous companion.
When the single black hole took off in one direction, the binary black holes shot off in the opposite direction. There is a feature seen on the opposite side of the host galaxy that might be the runaway binary black hole. Circumstantial evidence for this is that there is no sign of an active black hole remaining at the galaxy’s core. The next step is to do follow-up observations with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory to confirm the black hole explanation.
There’s an invisible monster on the loose! It’s barreling through intergalactic space fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. But don’t worry, luckily this beast is very, very far away! This potential supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000 light-year-long trail of newborn stars. The streamer is twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It’s likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; Lead Producer: Paul Morris
NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a wide-angle view of the universe with Hubble's exquisite resolution. As a survey telescope, the Roman observations might find more of these rare and improbable "star streaks" elsewhere in the universe. This may require machine learning using algorithms that are very good at finding specific weird shapes in a sea of other astronomical data, according to van Dokkum.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.
A bizarre 'ultraluminous X-ray source' shines millions of times brighter than the sun, breaking a physical law called the Eddington limit, a new study finds.
An illustration of a neutron star -- an ultra-luminous X-ray source -- spinning around as tendrils of magnetic field whip through space.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Something in outer space is breaking the law — the laws of physics, that is.
Astronomers call these lawbreakers ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), and they exude about 10 million times more energy than the sun. This amount of energy breaks a physical law known as the Eddington limit, which determines how bright something of a given size can be. If something breaks the Eddington limit, scientists expect it to blow itself up into pieces. However, ULXs "regularly exceed this limit by 100 to 500 times, leaving scientists puzzled," according to a NASA statement(opens in new tab).
New observations published in The Astrophysical Journal(opens in new tab) from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees the universe in high-energy X-rays, confirmed that one particular ULX, called M82 X-2, is definitely too bright. Prior theories suggested that the extreme brightness could be some sort of optical illusion, but this new work shows that's not the case — this ULX is actually defying the Eddington limit somehow.
Astronomers used to believe ULXs could be black holes, but M82 X-2 is an object known as a neutron star. Neutron stars are the leftover, dead cores of stars like the sun. A neutron star is so dense that the gravity on its surface is about 100 trillion times stronger than that of Earth. This intense gravity means that any material pulled onto the dead star's surface will have an explosive effect.
"A marshmallow dropped on the surface of a neutron star would hit it with the energy of a thousand hydrogen bombs," according to NASA(opens in new tab).
The new study found that M82 X-2 consumes around 1.5 Earths' worth of material each year, siphoning it off of a neighboring star. When this amount of matter hits the neutron star's surface, it's enough to produce the off-the-charts brightness the astronomers observed.
The research team thinks this is evidence that something must be going on with M82 X-2 that lets it bend the rules and break the Eddington limit. Their current idea is that the intense magnetic field of the neutron star changes the shape of its atoms, allowing the star to stick together even as it gets brighter and brighter.
"These observations let us see the effects of these incredibly strong magnetic fields that we could never reproduce on Earth with current technology," lead study author Matteo Bachetti(opens in new tab), an astrophysicist at the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory in Italy, said in the statement. "This is the beauty of astronomy … we cannot really set up experiments to get quick answers; we have to wait for the universe to show us its secrets."
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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.
